Jog Falls – Murudeshwar – Gokarna

• With Ravi Sidula

Day 2

 

I woke up at 6.00 am, took my bath and got ready. Ravi was in good sleep, so didn’t wanted to disturb him by turning on TV. I went to “Your Quote” app and “WordPress” blog, started posting some of my writings. Ravi woke after some time, got ready. We went and spoke to the person at reception. He agreed to give us one hour extra for check out. We went to the place where a mini local bus was waiting with passengers, it was going towards Murudeshwar. We got into the bus and got the last two seats. The bus left to Murudeshwar which was 16 kms from Batkal, halting every place picking up and dropping the passengers. We reached our destination by 10.50 am.

The view of the sacred temple tower from a distance was wonderful, so was the Lord Shiv’s huge statue which became visible from some distance. We clicked some snaps from mobile and Ravi’s DSLR Canon camera.

The first thing we saw when we neared was the beach.

However, we didn’t have the time to visit the beach.Also we thought we could go to the beach at Gokarna instead. We went to the temple and then walked towards the huge Lord Shiv statue, clicked some snaps over there. Also Ravi and myself did video calling from our mobiles to show the place to our spouses.

We walked back to the bus stop after sometime and got into a crowded mini bus. Ravi found one seat at the corner, myself a seat near the driver. The bus left to Batkal, halting at places like before. We finally reached Batkal at around 12.30pm. We both relaxed for a few minutes and then checked out of the hotel by 1pm.

We walked to Batkal KSRTC bus stand which was at a walkable distance from the hotel. Well, we had skipped the breakfast. We both just had some Britania Good Day biscuits which were left from the previous day, and some sips of Sprite. We enquired and came to know that there was no direct bus to Gokarna, we had to travel to a place called Kumta and from there catch Gokarna bus. Kumta bus was ready, we went to nearby shop within the bus stand and purchased some biscuits and a water bottle for our trip. We didn’t have time to have proper lunch. The bus left the Batkal bus stand, it passed by the same route of Murudeshwar. We reached Kumta  KSRTC Bus stand. The Gokarna bus was ready but all the seats were occupied. We decided to go by the same bus to save time. Also we thought some passengers would get down on the way, and we would get our seats.

We reached Gokarna in the afternoon around 2.40pm. Gokarna is a small, but clean town in UK. UK stands for Uthara Karnataka.

 

We asked the locals for direction to Kudle beach. We walked for sometime and reached the beach. We spent sometime at the beach.

Then decided to go to Om beach which was on the other side of the mountain. Some local person told us that it is at walkable distance, we had to climb some steps to reach the Om Beach. However, we had taken the vehicle route to reach the Om Beach. The path wasn’t even as it went through mountain. However, the trek was breath taking beautiful with greenery on both side of the road. Birds chirping was like they were singing some song, which nice melodious to ones ears. The best way to reach the Om beach from Kudle beach was by auto, who would charge any where between Rs.130 to 150/-. Also one could hire a bike and go on this wonderful nature route.

We didn’t know that this route is about 6 kms long. We came across some foreigners trekking to and from Om beach. We spotted paragliding at this place as well.

We halted at a small café on the way to have our lunch, as we were almost starving without proper food since morning. All we could get was some fried rice and veg noodles, but the price was on the higher side. It was almost 4pm by then, so we decided to book bus back to Bangalore from Gokarna itself. Initially, we were thinking to book a bus from Shimoga. But now realised that we wouldn’t have enough time to reach Shimoga and catch a bus to Bangalore from there.

We continued our trek post lunch and halted at some places, which seemed like view point of the beach from the top of the mountain.

We clicked some snaps from there. We finally reached Om beach around 5pm. Though the trek was tiring, but the destination was mesmerizingly beautiful. We felt thirsty as we had already exhausted our water supply during the trek. We went to a café nearby the beach, bought some soft drink and water bottle. It felt heaven drink cool drink and water at the beach. We explored the beach, clicking some pics as the sun started to set slowly. We had enough time to spend at the beach and relax a bit.

Around 6.30pm, we walked back and got into an auto. We had booked Durga travels bus to Bangalore and we had to get to the check post from where private bus left to Bangalore. We got at the check post, decided to have our dinner. But it seemed too early for dinner as it was only 7.30 pm. Finally, we reached a hotel called Hotel Shiva Prasada. I ordered meals and Ravi ordered idlis. The food wasn’t good. We walked back to the check post, had kulfis on the way. We waited for our bus to arrive, which came in some time. We boarded the bus. The bus left in few minutes.

The ghat section route from Gokarna is a bad one. Also the bus we had booked didn’t have good suspensions to avoid the terrible jerks due to bad roads in the ghat section. We were tossed in the sleeper bus like we were put in some grinder. Some fellow passengers picked up a fight with the driver as the bus reached some town. The reason being that the driver didn’t stop the bus when some female wanted to attend nature call very badly in the ghat section.  The driver tried to justify for not halting saying that the ghat sections has snakes and it could attack in the dark. But the furious men weren’t willing to listen to him. At one point, I even felt that the bus might not reach Bangalore. But somehow the tension subsided, passengers got in and the bus continued its journey. They halted at some local hotel for dinner around 1.30 am, which we both felt was odd time to have dinner.

The travel was little better after that place with less jerks as the ghat section was almost over. It would have been best to travel by train. However, train journeys should be planned much in advance and then ours was an unplanned journey.

We finally reached outskirts of Bangalore city by 6.30 am. We both got down near Lalbagh. Then got into BTS bus to reach Madiwala. We both booked Uber cabs to our homes. Thus a wonderful journey had come to an end leaving behind wonderful memories to cherish for a lifetime…