Gokarna Jess Cook, December 18, 2024May 22, 2025 Our next stop was Gokarna meaning we would now be leaving the state of Goa. Gokarna was a place James had found. I was a little gutted I didn’t take up the opportunity to go surfing in Agonda, but apparently Gokarna also has beginner waves which I was looking forwards to. We booked a train from Agonda to Gokarna. We had figured out how to book trains whilst in Mumbai, so it took us a fraction of the time to book one this time round – you have to register for a small fee as a foreign tourist on their website. I was very excited to be getting on our first Indian train of the trip. We had been advised by my family to ALWAYS travel in first class on trains. However, there were no first class seats available, so we settled for second class non-air conditioned – it was only a short journey, so we thought it would be okay. We got to the station about an hour early based on what we had seen in Jaipur’s train station and advice from family/friends, but at this station, there were only about three people. Our train was at 14:10. 14:10 came and went with no train making an appearance. There were no train status boards, so I approached the man in the station office for an update – after looking at the wall behind him, he turned around and said it would be here at 15:10. We had a bit of time to kill, but we were anticipating this because James had looked up the average train delay time for this exact train, which was about 30 minutes. It was another scorching day, and of course, there were no fans or air conditioning at the station, so we just tried to find a spot with some shade. The train arrived at its new proposed time – people hanging out of doors and windows on the lower-class carriages. We had seats on this train, though they weren’t next to each other. When we got on the train, we soon found out that no-one actually adheres to seat reservations, as someone was sat in James’ seat, but we managed to sit together where my seat was. When people got off it freed up some space, allowing us to sit by the window and enjoy both the views and the breeze from the open window. Whilst we were on the train, I got a message from our homestay saying that our room was no longer available, but the more expensive room was still available. We were very confused, as we had reserved the room on booking.com. I had read this happens quite a lot in India if you don’t pay in advance – which we can’t do as they don’t accept foreign cards. There wasn’t a whole load of accommodation available in Gokarna to start with, so it put us in a difficult position. We thought, well, there’s no point reserving this more expensive room as there’s still no guarantee they won’t give this room away to someone else. I was also a little sceptical, wondering if they knew we were international tourists and were trying to pull a fast one to get us to pay for a more expensive room. We ended up agreeing to just find accommodation when we arrived. So we got a tuk tuk from the station down to the beach and started walking along the beach, stopping at each guest house asking if they had space for a few nights. Most places were completely booked. A few had availability, but they reminded me of prison cells – so I refused to stay in them, even though James would’ve been quite happy there. We finally got to a hostel that showed us a clean room with air conditioning, but the bathroom was a bit sketchy. Reluctantly, I agreed to stay there for two nights – it was the best of a bad bunch. We finally made use of our mosquito net for the first time – which did involve unscrewing the light bulb from the wall and using the fixture to hang the net from. After finding accommodation, we decided to go and get a drink. James fancied a beer; I just wanted to sit down and relax after the stress of finding accommodation – it had started to get dark, which started to make me worried that we didn’t have anywhere to sleep that night. We saw a guy having a beer, albeit wrapped in newspaper, at a beach shack, so we decided to go here too. We ordered our drinks. Ten minutes later the waiter came back with my diet Coke and apologised to James that the police were outside, so he couldn’t serve a beer at the moment as they didn’t have a license – needless to say, we were completely shocked when he said this to us. Gokarna was the quietest beach town we had visited so far. I had hoped to do some surfing, but all the beach shacks had signs up stating no swimming as there were vortex currents, which completely scared me – so I didn’t even want to get in the water, let alone surf. I also couldn’t find a surf shop or see any surf boards… During the day, it wasn’t really practical to be outside due to the intense heat, so we just chilled out at some of the beach bars. We thought a massage would be nice, so explored a few options, but none of them really satisfied my need for cleanliness. They were also quite expensive at £20 for an hour’s massage, which I thought was crazy compared to how much I paid when backpacking SE Asia. Our two days in Gokarna were spent lounging in beach shacks, going for sunset runs, and tossing around a frisbee. I found a yoga school and did two yoga classes, which is something I’ve been wanting to do in India. It was nice to give yoga a go, and it’s something I’d potentially consider doing again – the only thing is I usually have to choose between going for a run or doing yoga, and up until now the running has always won. But in Gokarna, I figured out I can yoga in the morning and go for a sunset run in the evening. Sunset runs When I was sitting down on the beach, I was approached by a local selling some bracelets. I actually jumped when I saw him as I was reading a book, so he startled me a bit, which made us both laugh. This got us talking. We just had a very simple conversation about where I was from and what it’s like in Gokarna. As he was saying goodbye, I got asked if I wanted a bracelet, after some hesitation he said it would be to remember meeting him and my time in Gokarna. He was so lovely so I agreed to look at some of the bracelets. I tried two on and said, “I need to ask my husband”. James picked out his preferred one of the two and I exchanged it for 100 rupees. It was definitely overpriced, but I had a genuinely lovely conversation with this chap. I was really interested to learn a bit more about the expat community. Apparently, the retirees tend to spend 6 months of the year in India (maximum time for a visa) as the cost of living is so much cheaper. I think they stay in the accommodation that reminded me of prison cells. The retired expats living here seem to have their own community – meeting up, playing board games throughout the day and just taking it easy. Some cute little pups who came to play just underneath the table we were sitting at We had strayed a little from our itinerary, so we took some time to replan our next destinations. James found this small French colonial town called Mahe we were keen to visit, but to get there we needed to make a stop off in Mangalore. India