It started off as the famed beach trek. The 'beach trek' is a couple of days’ hike along the beaches and hills that line part of the western coast of India. You start off from Gokarna (or sometimes further north) and go on south to Kumta (about 25kms down) or Honavar, or further south. Essentially, you climb up a hill or two, stop and admire the sea down below at spots, walk down the hill wherever you see a beach, walk across the beach to the cliffs at its end, climb them, traverse another hill or two, go down to the next beach and so on... you cover quite a few beaches that way:)

It didn't go quite as planned, but it was still a good weekend!


A couple of friends and I shamelessly invited ourselves into an already planned weekend trek, taking their count up to 15 (and I’m sorry to say I can remember the names of barely 6 or 7 of them now) and causing much discussion on extra tents, sleeping bags, and provisions. For once, we weren’t trekking with an organized thingy, like the youth hostel guys. So we actually spent time buying provisions and stuff:) And carrying all that along with us, to cook on the beach:o

Anyway, the plan was to trek from Gokarna to Kumta, with a stopover at a beach called Sangama, where we’d camp for the night and cook dinner and stuff.

We started off at Gokarna, trekked up a hillock or two and hit the first beach – Kudle. We crossed that and hit Om beach.





And then the monsoon which had been playing hide and seek decided to join our party.





We abandoned the trek after that – the cliff paths that lead on from Om to the next two beaches – Half moon and Paradise, apparently get fairly slippery and it turned out to be quite a rainy day.

Om being the most touristy beach on the path had enough by way of accommodation for us. And enough space considering the weather! It wasn’t too crowded and we had almost the entire beach to ourselves for large parts of time. So we had lunch, pitched tents, made tea, made dinner, started a campfire, got rained down on, scrambled into the tents and had dinner by torchlight.

We did have an awesome time that day at the beach though and even the next morning. Om is as pretty as everyone will tell you it is. And at off-season, i.e. monsoon time, it is emptier than usual, so you can have a really great time. Swimming is tough, but just being watching the sea in itself is amazing.





As it turned out, the next day was clear, but we couldn’t have completed the trek, so we spent the morning there too.





Then we bus-ed it down to Kumta, and spent an hour at the beach there, and then bus-ed our way back.

Oh, and I built 3 sand castles – 1 more of a multi-tiered city fortress with moat and the other 2 were well, forts!






It was all really a lot more exciting than the description, but the pics should say that well enough!:)