A Slice Of Life - Part 4

We woke up the next day morning to bright sunshine filtering into our rooms through the dirty curtains. Beyond the curtains was the most amazing view of the sea that I had ever seen. The sea was a shade of turquoise and it stretched far into the horizon. The guesthouse was just about 100 meters from the cliff edge that looked out on to the sea. I, after a lil bit of fantasizing and some freshening up, got to work on my bike. I had to sort it out for gods sake! This time i taped all wires together more carefuly and taped the wires to the fuse carrier securely and taped the fuse carrier box itself. And then started my bike with a prayer inside. It roared to life on the first kick, the lights worked, the horn worked and it seemed to be perfectly normal. I went for a small ride and took it some bumps on the road just to confirm that no wire was gonna fall off. After the first mission of success that morning, we headed into the main Gokarna village which was a charming little hamlet teeming with foreigners. We had breakfast at this little eatery and were introduced to the local specialty - 'banns' it is something like puri but as thick as bread and it tasted like heaven. it was also quite filling and after breakfast we got some directions from the owner of the cafe about the local attractions and headed out towards the first one -'Om Beach'.

Om beach as in its name is a beach in the shape of the Hindu religious symbol in the devanagari script - OM. It was practically deserted and we spent some time there jumping from rock to rock and trying to get as far out as possible into the sea. We took a boat ride into the ocean to another secluded beach with some fishermen and the rest of guys had beer (I think danny gave me company this time too and abstained - not sure though- i ll leave it to danny to confirm in his comments). Well after a few hours of going around and having a good time looking at crabs and catching some of them, we decided to head into Gokarna town for lunch. We went to this restaurant by the seaside and had a good meal. We came back to our rooms and decided then that we would camp out on the guesthouse grounds that night. We also took a decision that Goa was going to be much of the same and the heat of the region was driving us crazy and we decided to head to the cooler climes of chikmaglur the next day.

But First the camping! Varun had brought along a tent and a sleeping bag which we help put up and collected some firewood and got a decent campfire going. I was sceptical about sleeping out in the tent and after a good night of pulling everyones leg and watching the camfire die down to its last embers, I decided to go sleep in the room and the rest slept in the tent. We woke up the next day to a pleasant morning and decided to head out towards chikmaglur and stop at Jog Falls on the way to see one of the highest waterfalls in the world. The others asked me to ride out before as I was riding slowly and they would catch up with me anyways. So I started out with a 15 minute lead feeling a little odd riding all on my own. It was ok to ride behind the others but it was very odd to ride into the inknown with such a lead. I reached Honawar for the turn off and waited there for the others to catch up and that we could ride together to Jog Falls. I enquired about the way to Jog falls by the time everyone else arrived (which was a few minutes later). We rode out together till the Jog Falls viewpoint and here all our enthusiasm came flooding back and we found that KSRTC had guesthouses built on the upper rim of the Falls and we could hike down to the very bottom of the falls.

We reached the mini settlement at the upper rim of the falls and stayed in beautiful rooms at a very low cost (it was the off season discount) and after a little freshening up decided to hike down to the base of the falls which was about a hike down of roughly 250 metres in altitude and through rough steps built in the woods. The locals told us that we could go down and come back up in about 2 hours and warned us to be back by 5.30 p.m after which it got really dark in the base of the falls. We started trekking down at about 4 p.m and we believed that we could really make it back by latest 6.30p.m. We bough some snacks for the way and took our torch lights and whistling a song merrily started climbing down.

We made it to the base of the falls in about 45 minutes and there was a a viewing point sort of place beyond which there was no particular trail. We could the see the falls trickling down(the dam had been closed as it was not the tourist season) in the near distance. We decided to be adventurous and go over the rocks to the real base of the falls. The ground here was either rocky or soggy or covered with dense foliage. We made a few marks to help us come back and reached the base of the falls and sat next to the river that flowed out from the falls. We finished all our snacks and after a few snaps, we decided to make our way back. Anand wanted to feel the force of the waterfall and went closer to the fall, nearly close enough to be almost under the falling water. The result of his trekking over the jagged rocks was that he sprained his foot pretty badly and we had to wait for him to feel better before heading out. It had become pitch dark within the valley by now. We could see the light at the top of the waterfall rim but down here we could not see our own hands. With the help of our torch lights, we headed back to the viewing deck. After what seemed like a longer walk than expected and unfamiliar surroundings around us, we came to a realisation - We were lost! In the middle of a valley, just the four of us. Not a soul in the near vicinity with our water supply out. And as we came to this realisation, Varuns Torchlight began to flicker.

To be Continued..