Word was that this beach was isolated. Word was wrong. They built a road to near here last year, no doubt because there is a new posh resort up the hill. I sort of thought this was going to be the case. On the one hand, one year old Lonely Planets and the backpacker grapevine reported you had to take a bad dirt road or, better, take a boat to here. On the other, what top end tourist wants to get to their top end resort that way? Their legs would get wet getting into the boat, which would smell of the morning catch anyway. Or all their stuff would bounce around and get dusty on a bad road. Neither of those things would do at all. I THOUGHT there would be a paved road, and there is, a shiny new one lane blacktop. The boat guys look desperate, canvassing everyone who walks by if they want a ride. And the price is down to $3. They still get a few, some for the fun, some who don’t want to walk to the top of the hill where the road is, and some who want to go to the two beaches south of here where the road doesn’t extend.
Om Beach, two beaches south of Gokarna, Karnataka, is still not exactly Cancun. It’s the more popular of the two beaches you can get to by road, but has only about five places where you can rent one of many bamboo huts for a buck and a half or one of a few rooms with a bathroom and fan. There are probably about 100 people here along this mile stretch of beach. It feels just about right to me, though about half of them are long term stoners. I don’t see any real trouble. They switch to Indie mood music when it gets late, and the reggae doesn’t bother me during the day. Besides, there is one place that plays only new age stuff. I can read to that.
Here was the sunset out my front “door” tonight.
I know, I know. If you’ve seen one tropical sunset, you’ve seen ’em all. I just thought this space needed a photo. Om Beach is called that because from the rocky heights to the south it looks like Hindi for Om, with two big loops of beach to the right and the squiggles of the islands in the picture to the left.
Hmm, come to think of it, where are the top end tourists? They aren’t around here, at the far end of the beach. I walked back to the Namaste Cafe and Guesthouse near the end of the road today. A few of them looked like they had money. Maybe business is slow up on the hill. Or maybe they’re busy playing tennis or lounging around the pool. You’d think they’d come down, wouldn’t you? Oh well, doesn’t matter. I prefer the crowd with dreads more than the crowd with poodles anyway.
I’m not that busy, as you can imagine. I’m evening out my tan, swimming amd reading. there’s an Austrian gal her that doesn’t smoke, and we’ve been kind of talking, but she’s only 18 so there’s only so much we have to say to each other. There’s an Isreali here who is working on her doctorate in ancient Sanskrit poetry. She’s kind of fun, chirps like a chipmunk when she’s high. There are a fair number of Indians here. I’m told they only come on the weekends. They are the loud ones.
I don’t know how long I’ll stay, but it looks like I’ll have plenty of time and plenty of computer access. I should be able to write.
So, till then….