My Beach Bum Vacation

Waldeinsamkeit. Go on, try and pronounce it. It sounds like something scientific, but this strange word is a beautiful idea, it means “the feeling of being alone in the woods”. As I was reading about it, I knew that this is what I have experienced for those three days in Gokarna. It’s the feeling of temporary suspension from my life, where the only thing that is real is the distant rumble of the sea. 

I will remember those moments when I was travelling in the train cramped between friends, where I was moving from one city to another waiting for the next destination.  There was an utter sense of awe at 6 in the morning when we are on top of the hill overlooking the islands across the sea, watching the morning sun rise. The more I think about the trip, the more I tend to romanticize it. I seem to forget the problems and those fights in between.  It’s felt like a small piece of the world where we are utterly alone. 

The thing about vacations is that the better it is the worse the fall out after it gets over.  I did not expect this last one to be this good. I had not even planned it properly. One drunken night, P, S and I were talking about taking a break and then I went home and booked tickets in a frenzy. Next thing I know, I have all my bags packed and heading to the beach. I did have lot of information printed out just in case things go haywire. Gokarna, never did I imagine that this place would make me want to be a beach bum for life. It’s a small village 2 hours south of Goa for those who dint know where this is. 

We took a direct train from Mumbai which in itself was exciting thanks to all the junk train food we bought from every single station. And to top with all-you-can-eat-train-food-fest we had the most interesting conversation with an Italian tourist. He was on his way to Gokarna and every time he said the name of the town there was a glimmer in his eyes. He couldn’t stop gesturing about how good the place was. He kept talking giving us insights about his travels and went on to give some advice as to which European country men should we marry in case we decided to (Italians obviously, closely followed by the Spanish, Germans and French were a huge no-no :)). He was coming from a two month tour of Spain, which started off the long debate of which cities to cover on our next never-going-happen Eurotrip. We have almost finalized our pit stops in Spain and Italy :)

We landed in Gokarna at around 5 30 in the morning and for the first time in our lives all three of us were up without the poking and prodding from the others. We got down and got ourselves a shared cab with some Germans. It looked like we have been transported back to the 70s with hippy looking crowd everywhere you see, dog-eared books in their hands, hobbling big backpacks around slowly while smoking incessantly. It was perfect! It felt unreal, the peace and quiet, took me a while to get used to not hearing the traffic noises.

For 800 bucks we got ourselves a private cottage(!) which was a bit more insect friendly than we realized, so we ran across to get an upgrade. Sharing the bathroom with snails is a deal breaker. With the promise of a better room, we marched with our heavy cameras and beachwear to the restaurant/ shack. The food was just perfect, the banana pancakes, king fish, calamari, tiger prawns (Okay, me stopping now, I am hungry just thinking about the food). The waiter became our best friend there. He knew we were the high rollers(!) ordering everything on the menu. By the end of the vacation he even got the reserved sign just for us J

I have never felt so at peace during any vacation, it’s like being on an island where you cannot think about the mundane problems of your life. All I did during the three days was just go into the water and float away for as long as I felt like and then laze around on the beach and read. It’s the perfect way to spend a weekend, or a week or maybe a month. I have this crazy plan of going there again for Diwali for 10 days. Me and my Kindle on a journey to be the perfect beach bum.

In between all that I did do a lot of picture taking which was different from the last few vacations because I have P who in her new-relationshippy mode wants to immortalize all her outfits by sending them all the way across the Atlantic for some appreciation. At one point I had two DSLRs on me and shouting orders to pose properly. It was fun though, I realized I am not that bad at people photography :)

I have never had a vacation where I was totally relaxed, there was something or the other on the back of my mind niggling away the sense of peace, but here it was just calm. No thoughts, no over-analyzing things. It was refreshing. But with all the lazing around the beach I look like a black person with really bad tan lines. Totally worth it though :)

Few clicks: