No Room at the Inn...The true meaning of Christmas

Celias View ....

Dec 25th Gokarna , South India

We had finally made it out of the state of Kerala and arrived into Karnataka.
We were heading for the holy town of Gokarna, one of the most sacred places in Hinduism that we had also heard had some fantastic beaches.

We had a bit of a rough plan that we would settle down here for a little while before heading into Goa for New Years.
It was a long journey north

Sunset on Om Beach, Gokarna India, Christmas Day 2006

(600 Km or so by train) and when we arrived it was very early morning into a completely deserted tiny country train station. Up until this point we had been in fairly busy small little towns, reasonably well established on the backpacker trail and as its high season reasonably busy for India. Gokarna was a little different. It was definitely on the backpacker route but it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and not built up whatsoever. Added to this there were always at least thirty stray holy cows on the beach , far more than in Kerala.

We met a great couple, Bianca and Ben, full of helpful advice about central America and great travel stories, on the bus into Gokarna and quickly formed one of those great little traveling groups that sometime happen on long trips.

We arrived onto Om beach, the second of four beaches that surrounded Gokarna town itself and went on the hunt for accommodation. Now it was nearly Christmas and this was a fairly little place but still it was incredibly difficult to find somewhere to stay. Bianca, Netty and I attempted first and failed miserably after wandering around for awhile we had only found two tiny little huts, next to chickens and pigs, for 50 rupee each (about 58p) a night that smelt and really were exactly the same as the chicken coop next door. The boys predictably went on the hunt and faired much better coming back with one lovely little hut for Bianca and Ben and one for us for one night only….

The next night we wandered again, searching for a place to stay. Finally in a scene straight out of the Christmas story, we were offered a tiny little shack for the three of us that looked exactly like a manger and we took it. Bianca and Netty outside our Manager/Hut ( sometimes known by less nice names)

It was nothing but sand on the ground and one wooden platform with a thin mattress on the sand and one light bulb that sometimes worked and sometimes did not and nothing else. Curt slept on three yoga mats on the floor and Netty and I slept up on the double platform. We grew to perfect our little hut in the week we were there, making it very homey and best of all managed to save stacks by getting out accommodation budget down to 33ruppees each (or 38p each) a night.

Which mean one thing…we could splurge on Christmas Day!
Ben and Bianca had a truly inspired idea of walking one beach over to where a 5 star resort had just opened up and asking if we could have Christmas Dinner at their resort. The resort itself charged $375 US a night which is completely crazy money but they let us come in and have a five course meal plus use of their pool on Christmas day for a measly $15US each.

The night before Christmas the five of us filled each other's stockings with toilet rolls, chess sets, jewelry, ganesh and other Hindi god stickers, huge firecrackers and harem pants and then let of firecrackers and played with firesticks on the beach.

Next morning after a lazy exchange of presents we made our way up to the resort where we feasted on prawns , fish curry, yummy salads, a great Christmas cakes and far far too much champagne and wine . It ended up being a group of nine and we had a blast.
Spent the afternoon swimming in a lovely pool and enjoying showers for the first time in awhile before heading back. A christmas with no hoopla, no advertising, no stress, hardly any money and a manger under some coconut trees....