Paradise Beach

Pretty tacky name for a post eh? Well, it is a tacky name for a beach, but that is the name of the beach that I have found for mystelf, just south of Gokarna in Karnataka state. The beach is the fourth in a series south of Gokarna, and takes about one and a half hours of walking to reach. It is small and perfect. Clear water, clean sand and hardly anybody on the beach. These are all vast improvements over Goa, which was overcrowded, dirty and full of hassle.

I have myself a little beach hut. There are some simple places to eat, and a village 10 minutes walk away where fruit and veg can be purchased. So now is a time to relax; swimming, yoga and simple life are the orders of the day. And yeah, it has overpriced internet!

I am no longer travelling with my German travel budy Marco. He got an application for an Australian working visa accepted, and is on his way to Mumbai to get a flight. Some of you back home might be meeting him sometime soon...

Arambol was nice enough. I lived a lazy life, read a lot of books and started my skin started from its usual white to a yellow/pink combo (my days of getting red trying to get a tan are behind me, now I just hide in the shade). But the beach was nothing special, and one could not walk around without getting the usual hassle from the locals. The party scene was also beginning to heat up for Christmas and New Years. All of this is of little interest to me, so I have headed south for something a bit quieter.

The Natives

I often mention the local people in these posts, and the comments probably come over largely negative. Readers might think that I am being unfair, but Indians are really something else. I shall write a post on the subject another day, when my opinions are better formed.

But I shall say one thing. It is beleived that Indians are a spiritual people. This is horseshit.

At first sight, one sees only spirituality -- temples everywhere; shrines, statues and holy sites dot the streets; and people of all walks of life can be seen performing puja (prayers, offerings and other rituals) everywhere. Each door has a statue of picture of Ganesh (the elephant headed god of luck, among other things) above each door, and there is some kind of religious way of doing everything (only make love with your left hand, for example).

But after a while one realises that Indians are masters of blind faith. They perform their religious rituals by rote, and do not stop to consider the reasons why these rituals might be performed. As an example, They think that they are clean because they use the correct hand for unclean practices such as going to the toilet; if they thought about what they were doing they would not go to the toilet on the street in front of their house. It is for this reason that they believe westerners to be dirtier than they, because we do not follow the ritual (though we are very concious of hygene and sanitation).

But toilet practices are not a good reason to get upset about the local population. Indians are cheaters, scammers and liars of the highest order. It seems that for the vast majority, one's religious responsibilities end once one has finished performing puja. They will make a prayer for peace, understanding, honesty and make an offering. But they do not make the connection between their religious responsibilities and their day to day life. This ability to divorce spirituality (which I define as living properly) from day to day actions bu using ritual makes Indians a very tricky mob to deal with on good days, and when they get you on a bad day...

So, I have found that they greatest spiritual lesson that one can learn in India is not taught by the locals. It is learning to live happily and harmomoniously in the face of the sometimes very offensive, annoying and sculdugerous treatment that one gets from them.