February 23
How true it’s a nearby place of any
significance is always neglected by like saying can be visited anytime later
and kept deferring absent-mindedly… But to exert a practical notion into
action, as I find this time, needs the same willing support and accompaniment
to be able to pack up the tooth paste and hit for the excursion. Thanks for the
Indian government rural transportation services cheap, learning and reliable
and here Karnataka state government. Thanks also for Phuntsok Lambu’s opening
up the idea almost a couple of weeks aback.
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| Our express bus parked by a stopover en route for Ankola |
Three of us, with K. Namgyal
nicknamed Jabra by Phuntsok, carry out as preplanned to catch the morning bus
from Camp # 6 to Hubli at 6.45am. We can do it despite Jabra arriving at the
rendezvous bit later, by Kalasang Lhakhang (the village shrine in the narrow
compound) which stands over the road like monopolizing the part of virgin field
estate or occupying the raised spot like being the head of the village standing
precisely off by the T-shaped intersection, like watching over the sleepy
hermit with the overlapping mud-tiles roofs. I don’t have the least idea now
when seeing him arriving at the spot with an expression of concealed guilt that
he’s going to let Phuntsok burst into his incorrigible lasting laughter at the
beach, when Phuntsok can’t hold the camera and take the shots of his postures,
especially the way he flexes his undeveloped muscles over his short but broad
nice structure with an air of innocence or pride and with those mimicking
postures of a builder at his show time. So both of us find it really funny. But
I can take the shots by taking the camera from Phuntsok, who by then is almost
impossible to raise up his plunging head down the sandy ground and laughs with
a low deep like chuckling sound. Now he looks serene with a black bigger
backpack.
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| Gorkarn beach |
We have to alight at Kalgatti bus
stand and have a time to have a brief breakfast at the narrow oblong restaurant
in the compound before catching a better bus to Ankola. The bus stand here, not
like ours at Mundgod, has seemingly recently got a facelift both the façade of
the core building and within the compound. And from here, as having a front
seat by the wide windshield, along the major smooth wide road and to enjoy the
thick rain forests but now rather pale on either side of the road. A small
idling group of small stunted monkeys can be seen by the road one after
another. Being an express bus, it doesn’t stop like a local one at every minor
stand or hand-waving sign. It guns forward confidently with the young sturdy
driver. But he spares his considerate thought at a point by letting in a group
of school students mostly girls in pale pinkish skirts and white half-sleeved
shirts and dropping at Yellapur, a village town. A taller girl sits by me. I
can have a swift angle view of her dark lanky hands with smooth furs resting on
her lap. Bit later an opened book in English on her lap; at second try I find
it an English grammar book: ‘Direct and Indirect Speech’ I can make out at one
shot scanning over the pages. But I find her not actively going over them but
keeping it open as to gratify her wish or to flaunt what she is.
It’s 3 hrs drive between Kalgatti and
Ankola in the express bus, distance at almost 250 kms, bus fare Rs.80.00 per
head. Fortunately, we can immediately catch a local bus to Gorkarn after
alighting from the express bus. Just off the station along the road the rancid
fish-like odor and thickets of coconut groves with lush green fronds are the
herald to the nearing coastal point. Nearing Gorkarn, the drive along the dark
wide smoothly flowing creek off below the low ridges. The musty smell is
stronger. The created creek must be for the approaching salt-fields maintained
with those mud-barricaded pools so wide and spacious; those piles of whitish
stuff must be crude salt.
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| Om beach |
But, unfortunately, at the certain
turn, when our bus is blaring languidly to take the turn by taking the
circuitous left side, an auto-rickshaw darts suddenly forward by taking the
wrong (right) side and hit the bus. Really just like an egg hitting a boulder.
I hear it hits ours but ours, both heavy and moving slowly, not making a slight
abnormal movement. But it halts right away. Then those curious passengers like
displaying a commoner’s instinct get up and rush out to be the added onlookers
around the ill-fated light three-wheeled vehicle turned upside down and its
frontal part smashed wedged under the part of the bus bonnet that doesn’t seem
to incur any damage conspicuously there. Phuntsok is actively engaged with the
crowd outside but has less to tell us. He points us to the injured driver back
to us being led by someone else; he is in a dark purple full-sleeved shirt and
dark cotton trousers and walking achingly; he is of normal height and must be
bearing a paunch from his being well-built.
The small cute Indian girl with dark
lovely eyes at my back cranes her dainty head curiously ahead to learn about
the mishap, but she can’t leave the place by following her young mom who is
standing by the door and looking ahead through windshield. I ask her name in
Hindi but she just stares on and remains silent. I don’t press on. Thanks,
we’re, only a handful inside when I look around, moved on to the other stopped
bus behind ours. It’s only 20 minutes drive in a local bus, fare at Rs.18.00
per head.
After having a brief refreshment at
the rather shabby restaurant within the terminal compound we, as Phuntsok knows
the place well so far from his earlier visit a couple of years aback, walk to
the nearby Om Hotel with the attached Om Restaurant and Bar on the first floor
with the open waist-high walls, those rolled up green painted stalk-veils. We
settle on a three bedded one on the second floor for Rs.600.00 per day on 24
hrs check out basis. Or it can be for the time now with those a few foreign
guests and Hindu festival for worshipping Shiva. We’re going to learn later
Gorkarn, with those major Hindu temples, is a sort of Mecca.The room and the
bathroom are okay for not that clean white bed sheets and pillow covers. The
single corridor and narrow verandah with marble floorings and tiled walls seem
to be the sign of luxuries vindicating what is written on the painted metal
sign-board standing on two vertical stands just by the hotel and at the turn
off the hotel.
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| Kudle beach |
We leave for the beach around 3.30pm.
The sun is still high. Coming on to the main broad way, the main street, after
the narrow packed littered road it’s to face the main things of the worshipping
festivities ahead rather than giving eyes to those gaudy cheap wares on either
side. The two stationed wooden chariots with the round holy fretworks grimy
with a dark sticky lacquer may be of offering oils are far ahead like in the
middle of the broad road and by the entrance way, from where winding along by a
number of temples till coming on to the causeway over the gulley with dark
rancid water stagnant and sandy floor of the beach. For the festival the above
openings of the winding ways are covered with colorful awnings that make the
walking pleasing and cool. Of the two fully decorated chariots the one is
smaller. Both are adorned with plywood framed holy images of Hindu gods up
around the dark oil soaked fretworks and above them the inflated red-white wide patterned striped cloth-domes so high and the spires topped with pieces of triangle red cloth (ceremonial flags) coming up
from the top miniscule cloth-domes. Approaching close, I find the structures
seemingly so heavy from the hard wooden fretworks rested on the strong closely
set rafters and the large wheels. Those Indian devotees touching their hands on
the oil darkened greasy fretworks and doing their worship. I spot three or more
Western Hindu devotees standing at a turn in their ceremonial saffron garbs,
may be monks. But I can’t look at their hair and find time to study if their
foreheads bear the ritual pastel signs.
We enjoy our time till the late
evening. Those makeshift shanty stores and eateries just adding to further
litters, or can be for the festivities now. The large tent-hall with the raised
dais for presenting classical dances or plays relating to Hindu holy myths.
There are many foreigners engrossed in their beach rites and those with
children as well. Yeah, this time I have a concrete impression of why people
like holidaying at beach. Apart from other merits whatsoever it can be that the
vastness of the ocean view has its mesmerizing effect on driving away all those
flurries of discriminating thoughts and letting rest on its grandeur alone at
ease—so we find relaxed, calm and concentrated on it alone. Or, in other words,
it just stupefies the way one yields to off it. It is, however, relaxing and
pleasant.
February 24
With the tired but trained limbs for
yesterday’s long swimming, playing and jogging at the beach we begin to walk to
Kudle beach beyond the rocky ridge. After taking the flight of steps up to the
top it’s to walk on the parched rocky but with dried grass, those fragments of
charred stones with tiny holes tell what the ridges are formed of like lava-hills.
From the point, where there is a building with bright hoardings of yoga-posture
and massage alongside the crude road running by it, it’s to walk down to the
beach. Those parked vehicles in the crude lot next to the building. Some young
Indian tourists, more girls in jeans, are coming up from the beach; their
Indian English accents and merry faces.
We have a brief refreshment at the
deserted café raised up from ground level. Those printed police-notices are
rife and seems to be threatening like a junkie can’t bear being here or there
after spotting them. Yes, I have heard about the isolated beaches here as hubs
for junkies. This crescent narrow beach is rather suffocating after the long
Gorkarn, but it’s cleaner for being more remote. The gentle tide of low waves
breaking along the crescent line; I find here rather at ill-ease for finding it
like a narrow creek. The view of low ridges and the planted forest. I don’t
have a mind to dip, wait for them on the beach and read on Anna Karenina on my
Kindle instead. There are foreigners here, those lounging in the thatched
cafes, basking and reading…
Then around 1.00pm or being here for
not more than hour, as Phuntsok and Jabra hold the same notion as walking to a
secluded beach and not having a bath is a pity, we again set off for Om beach,
the last one beyond the same looking rocky ridge along the same parched
terrain. But the somber view of the overrunning dark water below, as can be
come to a glimpse now and then while walking along the slopes, is both exciting
and petrifying. Here at the vantage the construction of a sort of pavilions and
small garden with concrete pavements on the slopes are in progress. We lounge
for a while in the round-roofed pavilion with varnished wooden-paneled ceiling
and round columns, on the red painted concrete seats. An Indian boy holding a
steel plate in his hand is walking to the temporary shack of corrugated irons
next by the almost finished small compact house with ridge-roof of corrugated
irons. I raise my right hand to greet him; he does the same aback and
gesticulates with his hands asking me to come for something to eat. I thank him
for his good Indian way despite his being a labor here at the site.
The reason for naming it Om can be
made out from its partial formation of the Hindu mantra Om letter: dual curves
and the mid rocky patches spare so. Casting afar at the similar blurring lines
along the bases of green-layered ridges, I wonder how many more beaches can be
there.
The café next by the step on the
sandy floor of the beach is the only well-equipped one here. We have a good
lunch here before going out to explore the curves. I spot three Asians, a guy
and two ladies, dining on a raised part. The guy has that countenance towards
me when one is in such companions, but I can retreat by not looking at them as
not to trouble him further. A so chubby white guy in his late fifties or
sixties walks in the café naked for his dark underpants revealing his bulging
red patches; he looks like a giant here. It bears a holidaying vibe of gaiety
so far.
Jabra in his outfit like a
Vietnamese, as he has such bearing in that loose T-shirt, knee-level ripped old
jeans and the white round-brimmed cloth hat like worn by a cricket umpire,
especially for his short broad physical features. He is again anxious here to
go out sooner. But Phuntsok looks more relaxed in his synthetic NBA shorts and
red T-shirt that accentuate his lanky furry legs and towering height. For
Jabra’s appearing like stubble by Phuntsok he is ready to ask Phuntsok to be at
the lower level when posing for a shot with him.
We have a nice time till the late
afternoon. Yeah, the water is cleaner here. We bath and lounge and meet Thomas,
a Science teacher of Science Meets Dharma from Swiss, basking on the hot sand.
He, seemingly in his late thirties or early forties, seems adaptable and
congenial from his long association with us teaching Science at the monastic
schools at Mundgod. He says his term of teaching assignment at Mundgod is over
and he is going back to obtain further visa to return back to Gyumed tantric
university at Hungsur, a Tibetan settlement in South, to carry on his teaching
Science. He expresses his wish to get enrolled at Snow Land School, recently
inaugurated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and learn Tibetan Buddhism besides
his teaching, as the school is solely aimed for Westerners willing to explore
or learn about Tibetan Buddhism. Even if he offers us free ride in his hired
taxi up to Goa airport, as Jabra has a relation there and has a sort of
capricious mind, leaving tonight at 10.00pm, we have to thank him after some
discussion that we can’t take it for fearing to trouble his relation at such
hour late past midnight like around 3.00am, when we will be there. So we bid
him farewell before departing from the beach.
As to venture on a petty luxury or
fun-cruise we decide to pay Rs.450.00 for a boat ride back to Gorkarn; thanks
Phuntsok pays for it. Those dark frowning precipices of the rocky walls can be
studied well in this bouncing bobbing simple boat with the sputtering machine
propeller at the stern, the single steering handle with accelerator like of a
bike. It’s almost only 15 minutes ride passing by the two protruding edges of the
rocky ridges into the water, which form the furrows of the two crescent
beaches. For me, Gorkarn beach is long and freeing, letting gain the real air
of what a beach should present for having the relaxing quality. So I have a
bath here again, the last one as we’re leaving the next day.
Before returning back to our hotel
we, as Phuntsok’s wish, have a long walk along the hardened sandy bed till the
point, from where we find a crude shortcut path to our hotel. Only a nimble gait
can carry on to the full length of this long beach, but our limbs are tired. It’s
pleasing to walk bare footed along the path coated with smooth red dusts
winding by the households of overlapping mud tiles roofs and with such rich
vegetable plots. Those foreigners staying at such nooks and crannies; a group
of them are active in the spacious yard putting up a tent or preparing around the
seemingly smooth-polished dust patch capacious enough for some Yoga
practitioners. Yes, I find one practicing himself alone in the open pavilion at
the beach. Hinduism Yoga is as famous as Tibetan Buddhism these days, my impression.
February 25
We pack up our compact belongings and
get ready to check out to catch the bus to Ankola, the end of an excursion with
the aim of learning some about our neighboring parts.
