Gokarna – Trip to the land of beaches and tranquility

After visting two hill stations back to back it was time to hit the beach. So planned to go for Gokarna which is located in North Karnataka some 450 Kms away from Bangalore. As trip to munnar was quite fucked up by the Packaged tour operator. Thus this time we decided to go via bus with no specific booking at Gokarna. As it was an all boys gang thus we were flexible with our accommodation plan.

Onward Journey was comfortable apart from our bus starting late by 2 hours from Bangalore, A flat tyre and then a broken axle after which we were pushed to a new bus at Sagar. Thanks to all this we reached Gokarna around 1 in the noon instead of 9 in the morning. From the drop point we took an auto to reach Om beach.

Om Beach from Top

Beach was pretty Ok by Indian standards, crowd was a healthy mix of Indian and foreign nationals. We had our lunch from one shack, which was reasonably priced and was Ok in quality. We enquired about Half moon and paradise beach and decided to trek towards these beaches by crossing the mountain instead of going via boat. Trek to Half Moon Beach was around 20-30 minutes a simple one, but this path should be avoided during rain.

Way to Half Moon Beach
Half moon beach was almost deserted with only few foreigners having sun bath and few preferring to swim long in the sea. As water was very clean (one of the cleanest I have ever seen in India) and calm we also decided to take a plunge in the water. A couple of beer added to the fun and then we went ahead with our trek to Paradise beach, it took us 30-40 minutes to reach there. Trek was a bit tiresome but still manageable, it was almost evening when we reached there.
Paradise Beach
Atmosphere at Paradise beach was different from Half moon as it was buzzing with people, trance was in the air all around thus we decided to spend our night there. Sunset was quite picturesque and mesmerizing. People were enjoying among themselves with Drinks, Music and food adding up as a good supplement. We tried enquiring about some beach hut but everything was booked but we were able to get some shelter as one of the hotel owner agreed to give us beddings in the open hotel area which was just 10 feet away from sea shore. I was able to see the sea, the moon, and the stars from the place I was sleeping; the feeling was just indescribable and gratifying.
Sunset at Paradise Beach

An Early Morning Shot
In the morning we wake up and had breakfast, spent some time at the beach then we trekked back to the half moon beach, where we again dived into the sea to cool ourselves as it was quite hot in the afternoon had lunch there rested for some time in the shack only and then again trekked back to Om beach and after spending some time there we went to the bus station to catch out bus. And believe it or not we again got the flat tyre :) on our way back.