Smalltown Karnataka
I backtracked to the western coast with Magdalena, dropped off by the bus in Gokarna town at about 5am. Slurping chai through sleepy eyes, eight of us sat on the beach under the stars watching a surreal, uncoordinated display of drunken Indian Volleyball. At light the tuktuks approached us for a ride to the remote beaches of the North Karnataka coast.
Om beach (‘Om’ the sacred sound of the universe vibrating) has a happy amount of sand, little waves and grass huts to close your eyes under. The crowd here were pretty cool. Chess, Hacky, Carrom, swimming, lazing, drums and bonfires, whatever. We caught a boat back to the main beach after 2 days, leaving Gokarna on a bus for Jog Falls.
The day’s attempted travels did not go well. A cowboy Indian (I like how that sounds) driver careered down the line to Kumta where we were to take a connecting bus to Jog. But I got bamboozled by a bum time tip and kicked myself that I did not cross check the information as usual. That was the first bus/train/boat I’ve missed in 4 months. We returned to Gokarna town (much more palatable than Kumpta) with the same, now suspect drunk, bus driver.
Next morning we left on another bum tip bound for Jog Falls the longer way around. Jog Falls, the highest falls in India, dribbled like a sad showerhead. We looked at each other to see who would laugh first. Neither of us cracked. We stretched our legs, slunk down the 1200+ rough rock cut stairs and refreshed by the pool at the bottom. Then we moped back up. Down the road we stayed the night with some sweet kids and their mum. Like a faulty siren the mum droned tirelessly at the kids, driving us to spend as little time there as possible. Magda and I had time only for a too brief goodbye as my bus bowled up the next morning. Back solo I headed south, Magda north.
By evening I reached Hassan having passed through small Karnataka towns that aren’t worth naming. Hassan is one of those towns. Its only grace is its equidistance to Belur, Halibid and Sravanabelagola so I used it as my base. Belur and Halibid are the home of 12th century Hoysala temples. The condition and artistic detail in the Hoysaleswara temple’s black granite walls at Halibid arrested my attention. Two fine carved bulls of Shiva stood in the outer bastis. Black robed men, followers of Sai Baba, loved introducing themselves. It was a nice day trip and my extremely cheap bus connections were working like clockwork again.
The Picture Palace opened its gates at 7:30pm in Hassan for a Sunday screening of the latest Karnatakan blockbuster. I walked up, was spotted, given the VIP treatment and shown to my row where some friendly locals jostled for seats next to me. The plot: Chauvanistic, arrogant Fashion designer (but hero of this story) seeks model. Random womens group protest, police bust up protest, designer spots talent in the crowd. In hospital the girl refuses designers demands to be model. But then agrees when he near burns down his studio. And wins contest. Meanwhile other girl that hangs out with rich bad dude trys to get even for not being his chosen model and attacks designer hero and hot girl model. Bad henchmen throw acid viles at model girl but Designer turns ninja and kicks ass… ok that was the first half hour. I left sometime after the intermission when the movie (no idea of the title) left the weird charts completely. Did I mention the dancing? I love the dancing.
I took another day trip today to Sravanabelagola via Channarayapatna which were a little more difficult to pronounce. I read my book ‘The God of Small things’ in a half shaded temple corner under the serene smile of the 17 metre Jain statue of Bahumali, a Buddha like figure, atop Vindhyagiri Hill. I met some other travellers and ate the biggest and best Thali of my trip, ambled around some other ruins and returned.
I’m well through with temples for a while. Tomorrow I’m planning to leave for Madakeri to do some trekking in the Kogadu region. Im getting quite good at eating everything with my hands. The method for rice and curry is to roll it into a small ball and with thumb push it into your mouth. Right hand only remember, the left one is for cleaning your butt. And I quite like the clumps of green pea like pod things that everyone eats on the bus (and spits the husks of on the floor).
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