Gokarna - The Beach Paradise

I had been to Gokarna in last weekend (17th - 18th September). It’s a wonderful place to be. Especially for those who love the coast and the beach. It’s not as crowded as the beaches of Goa are, which are only a few miles away as this is place very close to the Goa border. It’s also much cheaper than a Goa trip. The experience is unforgettable. This post might be late, but I thought I will put up the details / travel tips so that it might me useful for others who want to do this trip.

It’s better I say nothing more. I will let these pictures do the talking.

Gokarna - Travel Tips:

To Gokarna (from Bangalore):
- KSRTC (actually it is NWKRTC (North West Karnataka Road Transport Corp)) Rajahamsa Class Bus. (I heard there is also a sleeper bus by Sugama Travels, Bangalore. Do check it out, but might be costlier.)
- Leaves Bangalore at 2100 hrs (daily)
- This is the only direct bus to gokarna, and it reaches Gokarna the next morning at around 0700 hrs (app 9-10 hrs journey). (if you miss the bus then u have to catch a bus to Mangalore and then go from there to gokarna. This extends the journey by another 3-4 hrs).

Fro:
- same KSRTC/NWKRTC bus.
- leaves Gokarna for Bangalore at 1900 hrs.

So you can plan you trip with this detail for 2/3 days.

Things to carry:
- a sleeping bag (available for rent at "GET OFF YOUR ASS", Indiranagar or "Wildcraft", koramangala)
- lots of change of clothes
- a bottle to carry water
- sun-tan / sun-screen lotion
- a small umbrella
- liquid soap / your own soap bar
- good powerful torch lights.
- Caps

Places to stay in gokarna:
I suggest you either take up Huts in "Sunset Cafe, Kudle Beach" or Rooms in"Namaste Cafe, Om Beach". Everything else is at least a 5 minute walk from the beach. In these 2 places, you can actually live on the beach.

From the bus stand, you can walk to Gokarna beach. That is the topmost and closest.
From there the path will be something like this:

Gokarna Beach
Hill
Kudle Beach
Hill
Om Beach
Hill
Half-Moon Beach
Hill
Paradise Beach

Have breakfast there and start your trek to Kudle. If you choose to put your stuff in Sunset cafe there, do so and play in water the rest of the day and have lunch there.
In the evening walk to the Om beach, have dinner and walk back in the moon-lit night (with torches) , or else you can play in Kudle beach and then goto Om beach and stay in the rooms in Namaste cafe.

The next day, get up early and trek to half moon and paradise beaches, and return to Om beach so that you can have lunch at Namaste cafe.
Take water and caps with you.

Laze around the rest of the day in the beach of your choice and then head back to the bus stop. Make sure you start your trek back to the bus stand by at least 1700 hrs, as the bus is at 1900 hrs.

That's about it. To read more about our trip, you can check out these links:
Anita’s Post
Anita’s Album
Anshul’s Pics
Tony’s Pics
Kavitha’s Post