Gokarna to Goa (via Cowley)

It was dark, cold and i sensed it was starting to rain.
You won't find Gokarna in the Goa Rough Guide, because it's not in Goa.
I had disembarked the train with these crazy Australians before i had even entered the right state!
It is described in the book as a holy place full of temples and a beach where there are daily prayers. The book could have told me that there was a replica model of the Houses of Parliament built out of elephant dung that all the villagers threw oranges at, but i'd never know because it was dark and i didn't intend to stick around long enough to find out.

It was 6am and i still hadn't really slept.
We stumbled blindly around on the sand for a bit. The water was cool and refreshing, but what i really needed was to sit down. One of the Australians was saying that he could really feel the spirituality of the place and that he could tell he was meant to stay here a long time. I felt the exact opposite, and looking at the enthusiasm drain from Australian #2, i was relieved to find i was not alone.
It was just when i was about to give up hope - we would be stuck here forever, the sun would never rise, i would never get to sleep and would be stuck in this monochrome David-Lynchian episode of Home and Away for all eternity - that we saw some twinkling lights further up the beach. Approaching it, we discovered it to be a chai shack, and immediately ordered 3 cups of hot sweet tea. I thought.
Weird place to have a chai shack, this. I thought. We're in the middle of bloody nowhere.
I dumped my bag, pulled out my towel (the nearest thing i had to a blanket), and lay on the sand. A little Indian woman came out with 3 steaming cups of milky, spicy tea and although it would be a massive overstatement to say that drinking it, i felt rejuvinated, i certainly no longer felt quite so mightily pissed off and wasn't quite as cold anymore.
I decided to make the best of what was already a ridiculous situation and try and get some sleep; re-evaluate in the morning with a rested head.
I had been on the equivilent train journey of London to Madrid, but had spontaneously decided to get off in an incredibly remote area of the Pyrenees purely because, doped up, tired and susceptibe to suggestion, a random stranger had told me i should go and check out this really cool rock.
There was nothing here but surf and sand, a chai shack and a megaphone wafting prayers into the night. You couldn't even see the sea.
As soon as I'd drunk my tea, i lay down against my rucksack, pulled down my cap and slept. That third valium still had a little way to go, and as soon as i was horizontal, I was out.
So out, in fact, that when i awoke, a few hours later i realised i had somehow managed to sleep through the planning, assembly and execution stages of a mass exodus of the Gokarna townsfolk onto the beach for morning prayers. Without this sounding like a derogatory and slightly racist comparison, it was like the scene in Y Tu Mama Tambien, when they return to their deserted campsite in the morning to find it over-run with pigs.
The beach was heaving and people were litereally stepping over me in their queue to get chai.
All the women were wearing beautiful and brightly coloured saris, and the men seemed to be dressed like ninjas, all in black pyjamas and headbands. I turned and looked towards the shack, which now resembled a NYC bagel-bar at rush hour. People were shouting orders, more women had appeared to serve, from somewhere a load of tables and chairs had appeared, and a few men were sitting round on rugs smoking shisha.
The women down on the beach and in the water (fully clothed, of course), were holding up parasols and laughing and chatting as they ambled along. The men roamed in groups of 5 or more, jostling with each other playfully and flirting with the women. They all looked to be enjoying themselves immensely.
Everyone appeared to have a white chalk mark on their foreheads, and although the megaphone had started up again, this appeared to me to be much more a secular, carnival gathering than a religious ritual.

The Australians had gone.
If i had woken up in a train or perhaps on a platform in Goa somewhere, I could easily have believed the entire episode to be a dream. I was, however, for the time being at least, still here in Gokarna - The Holy Heart of Fuck Knows Where.
I wandered around, annoyed that my camera batteries had run out again (i had spent a lot of time filming out of the train window the night previously). It was a beautful, if slightly surreal sight.
Where did all these people come from, what were they doing here, and why didn't someone turn off that annoying megaphone?
I found the two Australians down by the water's edge looking spiritually at the horizon. One of them was trying to convince the other that they should stay a few days. He'd just met a guy on the beach who said that he knew of a more secluded, more secret, more holy beach that was inaccessible by land, but only a few kilometres up the coast. It was either called Moon Beach or Om beach, the man didn't seem sure. However, he'd be happy to take them in his boat, for a fee of course. Australian #2 seemed more keen on finding a bed that wasn't constructed of sand, and didn't sound too enthused.
I looked to my side. There was a man taking a piss not 3 metres from me and in full view of the beach. I felt like i'd had enough of this place and these guys with their ridiculous unfulfillable pursuit to find the one most remote corner of India, unseen by white travellers. This quest to find their perfect beach, their perfect spiritual home, their perfect Indian experience would perpetuate forever, and 12 hours was just about enough for me.
So long and thanks for all the fish. I'd just slept on a train and then a beach and now i wanted a shower.
Fuck enlightenment, there's sand in my crotch. Screw spiritual nirvana and give me back my nihilistic cynicism - at least that comes with hot and cold running water, and maybe even a ceiling fan!

I said my goodbyes and wished them well, although i would not be missing either them or the smell that seemed to cling to them, and headed back up to the chai shack to collect my belongings.
Reclaiming my pack, I set off towards the centre of Gokarna to see if i could find a way out. Perhaps the Australians were right and at Moon or Om Beach I would have experienced some kind of life changing epiphany. I severely doubted it, and anyway, if i was going to have any life changing epiphanies, i'd rather not be having them with two antipodean crusties one of whom alredy had experience smuggling narcotcs accross international borders in his hair, the other who appeared to have a some form of narcolepsy.

I headed into what could loosely be described as the centre of town.
People were streaming past me on the way to the beach. Cows, who being holy, and quite into the whole thing, roamed the streets freely. There was a queue of coaches that had evidently brought most of these pilgrims here from far and wide. Men lit josticks and draped flowers over them, praying and blessing the vehicles for getting them there alive (actually, considering the roads and the way these people drivehere , this was a minor miracle in itself and definitely worthy of praise).
A cow munched absent-mindedly on some of the flowers adorning a coach.
What did he care? He was a holy cow, and an Indian coach driver would rather swerve off the road, risking the lives of all his passengers than hit the likes of him.
I couldn't work out whether it was a particularly festive holyday or whether it was just your average Monday morning. Either way, as the locals made their way down to the beach, i wandered into the slowly emptying town.
It was incredibly pretty, full of little temples. The people that remained were all daubed in facepaint and wore elaborate and colourful costumes. They all looked a little surprised to see a sand-covered, bleary eyed European staggering up through their town from their holy site at 8am.

I found the bus stop, a miracle perhaps, and thankfully there was a bus leaving to Goa within the hour. My random detour from the originally planned trainride to Margao, had flukily worked out for the best. Instead of heading North to Margao and then having to transfer onto a bus going South - essentially retracing my steps - to Palolem, I had disembarked further South at Gokarna, and could now get on a bus direct to Palolem which should only take a couple of hours. If there was a schedule I had been keeping to, i would currently by pure accident, be about 3 hours ahead of schedule, and had not had to spend the rest of my night on that train. Bingo!
I may have slept on a beach with some Australians and a herd of similarly smelling cows, but I had experienced dawn break over Gokarna (Honestly, it's amazing. You just have to go. So still, so quiet and spiritual. The most beautiful thing i've ever seen - life affirming even - "snore") and was now much closer to where i wanted to be.
One thing i hate when travelling is retreading the same ground, and here, inadvertantly, i had managed to avoid doing just that. I trawled my vast knowledge of the Hindu religion and considered that perhaps Vishnu or Krishna or someone with loads of arms and an elephant head was looking down favourably on me. It was certainly not any of the monkey-gods, who'd still be pretty pissed off after i cunningly evaded them in Kumily.

I bought a load of pastries from a stand at the bus stop - different varients on the samosa theme, the Indian equivilent of the croissant, with egg, cheese and other mysterious fillings - and went to find a toilet.
The cumbersome thing about travelling a country the size of India and only really seeing a small section of it, is that you have to carry this huge, heavy guidebook everywhere, despite the fact that you are unlikely to use more than, in my case, about 20% of it. It is an annoying thing to weigh you down, and some people i have met, tear massive sections out of their copies, leaving only the chapters they intend to visit and lightening their load. But here i was, in a backwater Indian bus-station toilet, attempting to lighten my load, and suddenly there was no toilet paper! Now, this is not uncommon. A lot of the time, there is simply a jug and a tap and you are expected to do as the locals do and wash yourself with your hand - your left hand, your right is for eating. This always amused me in restaurants and street kitchens, where i would watch people eating, using only their right hand. I would copy, adopting to the local custom, but secretly sniggering to myself, as unbeknownst to them, i eat and wipe with my right. My left is sacred and i don't do anything with that hand.
I scanned the book for a likely section. Delhi. I would definitely never make it to Delhi, certainly not on this trip, and it was a big, hearty chapter. It wasn't soft, but it was definitely strong and long, so I deemed it capable of soaking up and retaining whatever filth i would be imminently expelling. Finishing up, and feeling considerably lighter, I washed my hands and headed for the bus.
If only Glastonbury came with a 200page 2-ply guide, festival-going would be so much more civilised. I thought.
(I think i should clarify that i tore the pages out first. I am not still carrying them round with me in the book like some foetid Garibaldi biscuit - although, thinking about it, it would have given forensic experts an interesting, chronological and geographically accurate insight into my dietry habits throughout my stay.)

I boarded the bus early to ensure i didn't get a seat directly above one of the wheel axels.
A young Indian guy was sitting on the back seat and i sat nearby, turning to ask if this was the correct bus to Goa. In an astonishingly familiar accent, he replied that it was and that i could talk to him normally as he was English.
It was only then that i realised i'd said something like "This bus, Goa, yes?" while gesticulating wildly in all directions.
He was from Cowley in Oxford and was backpacking round by himself. His parents had sent him to stay with relatives but he'd absconded and severed the familial umbilical cord to travel the country alone and away from the watchful eyes of his many uncles and aunts. He seemed pretty cool, and although he spoke none of the local language, he said he could understand a fair bit. Most of the Indians he came accross here treated him with a mixture of awe and distrust and could not understand why he would have left the UK for a holiday here. He was, they considered, no longer Indian. He'd been to India before, but never really out of the big cities and never off his parents' leash. He'd just come from Delhi, and I was happy to tell him that i had only just recently become intimately acquainted with it.
We chatted for an hour or so and I gave him my, as yet, unsoiled copy of The Rough Guide to Kerala, as i was heading North into Goa and he said he quite wanted to check it out.
As i was getting off the bus (he was staying on to Margao), i suddenly realised we hadn't exchanged names.
"I'll maybe see you in the queue for a kebab outside the Zodiac sometime, Cowley." I said.
"I hope so." He replied "Have a good trip, Botley."

I immediately jumped into a rickshaw and told the dude to take me to Palolem.
I figured i'd had several nights of pretty dismal accomodation and fairly scant sleep, so i should find myself somewhere nice to chill and recuperate for a few days. A nice beach perhaps.
I had no idea at this stage, that i would chill and recuperate to such a point that i would have so much difficulty leaving 5 days later.