Can’t believe it’s been so long since the last blog! We’ve been enjoying our time overall and are now halfway from Mumbai to the southern most tip of India!
I will try to summarize the highlights and lowlights of the past few days.
Beach huts
OMG, we love the beach huts! There are lots of them in Goa and a few in Gokarna (northern Karnataka coast). Every season, they build and then take down these (usually) simple huts on the beach, with palm landscaping, restaurants attached, plumbing, electricity, and internet. Often they are quite affordable, and some without plumbing or electricity go for just a few dollars a night. We stuck to the ones that were a little more posh and still only paid under $15 a night. We ended up doing two rest days, one in the hidden little beach, Benaulim Beach, and one in the more well-known Patnem beach. Palolem is one of the more popular places for beach huts, but we preferred the less busy ones. Benaulim Beach is a hidden gem.
Our first beach hut in Benaulim.
Our next one in Patnem.
Cows chilling on Patnem Beach.
Some kids come out and entertain with tight rope walking in exchange for tips.
If you’re not into bugs, you should probably stick to the more deluxe accommodations.
Goodbye Goa, hello Karnataka
Entering our third state, we left the nice quiet roads and tourists behind in Goa and ventured forth into the unknowns of Karnataka. It seems to be more religious than other regions, as we see many temples, mosques, and churches, and we hear the call to prayer and see people worshipping more often than elsewhere. It’s also much cheaper, and we’ve been able to find some inexpensive accommodations and excellent food.
Catholic Church in Goa.
The bed covering at one of our cheapest hotels. Maybe it was on sale?
Temple towns of Karnataka
There are lots of temples and temple towns along the coast of Karnataka. Gokarna and Murdeshwar are the two we stopped in. It’s interesting to see the devotees going to temple and wearing traditional dress. We asked around to see if there was a guide who could explain what’s happening to us, but we couldn’t find one. We’ve done a little Googling and lots of observing, but it would be awesome to try to learn first hand.
Om Beach in Gokarna.
Gokarna
Murdeshwar town entrance. They’ve spent a lot of money on this gateway and the first 1/2km of road, where there are no shops or anything, but past that, where the real city, shops, and hotels are, it’s quite filthy with trash everywhere. It’s too bad for such a popular pilgrimage place that they don’t take more care.
The largest statue of Lord Shiva in the world. The building next to it houses an elevator so you can get a good look at the statue. We arrived late so weren’t able to go up.
Pilgrims bathing in the ocean. This is the first time we’ve seen the men strip down to their skivvies. Everywhere else, they just walk in, fully clothed, as the women are doing in this photo. Western beach wear is not considered respectful, or at least that’s what we understand.
A hotel is not what you think
If you ask for a hotel in India, you’ll be given excellent recommendations for places to eat. In fact, they will all have signs saying “Hotel So and So”. But if you ask for a room there, they will look at you funny, and say, no, just food, no rooms. Say what?!
So apparently, a hotel is where you get food. Every once in a while, they will also have a room or two, and sometimes it’ll be a proper hotel. But usually just food.
So this brings up a delimma. If a hotel is really a restaurant, then what do you call a hotel? The best we’ve come up with is to ask for “rooms” and that sometimes is understood…
Food
The food has been good, but since we were in places where international food was available, we’ve been eating Indian food from different regions including many tandoori dishes, Indo-Chinese food, as well as Continental food like pasta and pizza. We know it will be hard to find this as we get away from the touristy hotspots, so it’s nice to indulge.
Lunch on our cycling days is usual where we get the more local stuff. We almost always get vegetarian stuff for lunch, so we look for “hotels” with signs that say “pure veg” or “veg/non-veg”. We stopped one day and had an excellent paneer fried rice, and today we stopped at a place with no menu and just ordered a “mix plate”, and we ended up with a bunch of vegetable fritters with some sambar (spicy soup / dipping sauce) and coconut chutney. There was a sweet bread and a potato cake that we really liked.
One of the tandoori vegetable dishes we really liked.
Highway 66
Since entering Karnataka, we’ve been almost exclusively riding on Highway 66, since there are almost no other roads to take towards Kerala. It’s in the process of being upgraded to a really nice 4 lane divided highway, but at the present time, it is a complete disaster. Seriously, a horrible place to drive, never mind ride bicycles. After over 12,000km in 16 countries, this road is the worst we’ve been on. The road surface is usually okay, but the traffic is insane.
If you are thinking of cycle touring this section, don’t. Wait until it’s complete or take the train. Other blogs have said the train allows bikes aboard at some stations, and it seems many tourists skip this area.
On the sections of road that are completed, one side of the highway is not open but it’s freshly paved. Bicycles and motor bikes can sneak past the “diversion” signs and ride traffic free on these perfect roads, and we take every opportunity we get.
But in between these sections, the road is too narrow for two cars to pass, paved over multiple times with temporary asphalt, and twists through hills and over decaying bridges. The road is full of heavy truck traffic, motorbikes, and some cars. The trucks don’t hesitate to overtake on blind corners or too-narrow bridges, and believe that their horn will magically remove all obstacles. We even observed a school bus full of kids over take on a narrow bridge and stare us down until we had to veer into the gravel shoulder and stop.
Rest assured, family and friends, I am re-routing the rest of our ride to avoid this highway and stick to quieter coastal and inland roads, even though it will mean bumpier roads and more hills. I’ve heard the completed national highways are actually quite nice (though boring) to ride on with wide shoulders, but this road is just impossible right now. If we continue to encounter these conditions, I promise that we will not be cycling anymore in India and will figure out a way to use trains and busses to get to where we want to go.
A good example of what we encountered on Highway 66.
If only you were Mary Poppins you could fly over the rough patches