more about gokarna beaches...

having a doing nothing vacation, at a slow paced beach area, close to a rural and old town like Gokarna can be out of this world literally.

you wake up, go through a slow breakfast or whatever you want to eat with your eyes wandering over the seascape.  there are plenty of weirdly nicely dressed people around you, doing similar things all the time, and mostly they are chilled out... i.e. peaceful and open backpackers...  there is peace, happiness and relaxed atmosphere, because, everyone around (mostly) are on vacation.  there are restaurant and beach shack /room rent management, but all this work is done at a relaxed vacation pace.

there is a beach, long stretch of white sand, and its generally sparsely populated.  more foreigners are there, and they prefer to be calm and quiet.  not much alcohol is consumed (except by Indian beach visitors, who are for a day or 2 max, and start drinking the minute they sit down at beach, and become the noisiest half shy, half macho kids, with staring and commenting on their own language to overcome their complexes... a friend told me).

of course, i too thought, why do so many Indians, youth to middle age, drink alcohol so fast and basically want to get 'DRUNK'??  a German backpacker discussed, lack of alcohol drinking evolution, as a probable cause...  "we start with very low % beer, at an early age, and slowly go towards high level alcohol content drinks... and we also have an evolution of drinking beer/alcohol since last few hundreds of years..  but, in India, people found no alcohol to 40% alcohol drinks"...

of course, there was alcohol in different forms in India earlier, but a big portion of population had no access to it along with social restrictions.  women still dont drink or smoke like men in India.  but, is this the only reason?  there could be another addition.  Indians tend to live with a life script, written when they were children...  and have to deal with so many family & social responsibilities... that, they dont want to think, reach a level of numbness, and that's why they allocate free time with drunk state.  they want to be outta any responsibility, and that's how they behave after getting drunk..

and then, solo backpacker women travelers... usually with enthusiasm, aware of own strengths and willingness to take on new experiences, confident and wise beyond their years... liberal and at peace with themselves...  a good example of 'genderless' society.  of course, they see Indian women going to the beach, getting their feet wet, while struggling with their sarees, and so often remaining cautious in the background.  and, yeah, they can stare you down too, if they want it ;)

so, played beach volleyball, 2 a side, with a german on my team, and with a german on other team, and a brazilian young girl..  needless to say, she was really good player and i hit sand diving trying to get her smashes.  and swam for a hour, ran for similar time on white sands, barefeet, and i like it best, when i run at my fullest speed, and the wind hits me square back...  when was the last time you ran at your fullest speed, as long as you could??

well, life is either 'profound in a silly way, or silly in  a profound way'.  chew on that.