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4/4/2011
Booked a bus for the night to Hampi to save on accommodation and couldn't haggle a price we wanted for scooters to drive around so ended up spending a long day walking from Gokarna to all the nearby beaches over a 16-kilometre radius. Bumped into French girl and spoke to some Germans before trekking over headlands, along sandstone at the top of hills, clambering over rocks, balancing on cliff-edges, rustling through palm trees and jungle and settling on some gorgeous beaches.
From the Town Beach where we saw a camel available to ride, we headed up the steep hill to find Kudlie Beach. Via some temples and homes we came across some barren land and a huge bee nest in the middle of some bushes. Over the hill and far away was Kudlie, a nice beach but again with India, a shame because of the state of pollution. Litter and stuff washed ashore all the way along.
The next beach, Om was kind of split into several and there were many locals enjoying the water and the weather there. Lots of pervy Indian men gorping and calling to any women white or local walking past them. We chilled under a wilting tree for a bit and some of these guys came up chatting to us and were telling us stuff we already knew, so we headed for the next beach!
Half moon was by far the favourite of mine. Stunning, small beach, with the sand steeply jagging down into the sea, making it very deep, very fast and most of all no pollution! We messed around just lying down where the waves came in and they were so powerful they would push and pull you along sure if you allowed them to. Got chatting to some large, Mongolian boys who showed us their national sport, wrestling. They were pushing and shoving, dump-tackling and pinning each other down which was hilarious to watch!
Sat down for a drink and ate some fresh coconut talking to a stunner from London who ended up walking back with us. Paradise beach we looked at but couldn't be bothered to walk along as we'd beached ourselves out. Jumping and squirming across rocks, we came to some guy's home who had a dog with lots of cute puppies. Saw a cricket match on the way back, a cracking setting on top of a hill next to the water (but not quite able to see the sea). The ground was so hard and fast, they were using a tennis ball and on a pitch similar to a proper ground the ball came off of the edge and raced to me on the ropes!
Ended up being very late but just about made it in time to get to the bus station. More problems with check-out but I just gave them my standard 50 rupees even though they wanted 100-200 every tie. Sick of them trying to squeeze every little rupee out of you! The way to combat it I find is to be an a****** back. They want to take the piss, you take the piss. Make your own rules. They want the money. It just depends how essential what you're about to pay for is to you.
At the station the mosquitoes were a real pain but the cows eating newspapers and everything they could see and resting underneath buses was pretty funny. Then we discovered that there was a straight bus to Hampi and that we had got ripped off which wasn't so funny! Never asking for help at a tourist place again in India. We even got on the bus to Hampi but only to a village so as we could get on another one! More jokes later, we had to pay 60 rupees between me, Chris and a Frenchy to get to a hotel where we were allegedly being picked up by the coach!
Had some cheap food and soft drinks, played s***head and got taught some card tricks by a local as our bus was 45 minutes late. We also had sleeper seats instead of sleeper berths which made for an uncomfortable overnight ride. I had my legs hanging over the seats and then spread over several seats but the driver made everything extremely bumpy by racing over potholes! The few times I fell asleep I was bolted out of my chair by bumps or sharp breaks!
There were a couple of stop-offs where I purchased a couple of mini-chocs for 10 rupees and after seven hours we were in Hampi. It was something else. The temples and giant boulders everywhere and the monkeys jumping over ruins, it felt like we had arrived in some crazy Jungle Book kindgom. 200rupees a night to stay at Akshath guest house, so we agreed and went straight for a kip.
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