Today’s plan was simple and sorted: hike to Paradise Beach, pitch my tent there and spend Christmas Eve camping solo!
Anyone who has been to Gokarna cannot stop going gaga over Paradise Beach. They say it is so secluded that at night glowing phytoplankton make the shore look exactly like the starry sky. Covered with forested hills on all three sides, Paradise Beach is cut off from the nearby villages, Gokarna and Belekan, by dense shrubs. This makes the beach inaccessible by vehicles, and the only way to get there is to either hike all the way through the woods over the hills or take a boat from any of the adjoining beaches.
Hiring a boat was out of question as it would eat up a good chunk of my given budget, so the only option left was to hike. Buckling up my backpack with high enthusiasm, I filled my water bottle and stocked up on four bananas for dinner. I first hitchhiked my way to Om Beach and then started hiking at around 5 pm. My aim was to reach there before it got dark. Acting all cool, I would occasionally track my route on Google Maps as the trail appeared to have faded in some parts. Slowly, the trail started to fade for a few metres and eventually vanished completely. I realised that it was taking a bit longer than I had calculated to reach my destination. Dubiously, I pulled out my phone to check the GPS and realised that I had been hiking in the wrong direction the whole time! The bloody GPS had lost its signal 500 metres back! “NOT AGAIN!” an instant bout of panic rushed through my body. I could see the sun going down, which made me even more anxious. I had no time to process any of this. I was in no mood to die in a forest without ever having sex or tasting baklava or even seeing a whale, just because I had lost the damned GPS signal!
My brain was whizzing away, trying to find a way out: “What options do I have? I could cry for help, but it was probably going to be futile because there was absolutely nobody around. Maybe I could camp in the forest? No way! Or…could I go back to the point where I lost the signal and start from there? Yes!”
I started running back as fast as I could, but the GPS still couldn’t latch onto a signal. By this point, I had totally forgotten about filming the vlog. I needed to find a way out of this mess urgently. Compelling my brain to not assume extreme scenarios, I started to think of a way out of the forest. Mindlessly, I started following the sound of the waves and began descending from the woods onto the rocks, hoping to find a path that parallelly ran to the rocky shore. It was a tough walk, especially with the heavy backpack on. There were times when the rocks were so steep that I had to ascend, fixing my toes and fingers in the cracks, while the gigantic waves crashed just a few feet apart. I didn’t know if that was the right way or the wrong one, but at that moment, I was operating solely on instinct. The red wash of the sky melting down into the ocean at the horizon strangely helped calm my racing heart.
There it finally was! Not more than 100 metres away, in the dark, this fine patch of sand nestled in a nook between the mountains. A grove of coconut trees swayed between the beach and the cliff. It would have made the perfect spot for hanging up a hammock and listening to some light Hindustani melodies. There were no shops or cafes here, but just one man, setting up some fruit on a tiny table. Paradise Beach was just like its name – nirvana, totally cut off from the rest of the world. How could anything be so perfect?
My wonderment was instantly ruined when I heard someone yell, “Abey chutiye, apna tent yahaan hain!” (Our tent is over here, you asshole!) a few metres away, to which another voice replied, “Susu karne ja raha hu! Aaega?” (I am going to take a leak; want to join?) It was a group of IT engineers from Bengaluru, occupying the coconut grove with twenty to thirty tents! My idea of solace broke into pieces. This was the last place I wished to see an engineer, and there they were in abundance, calling each other in slang, flashing torches, playing Bollywood music and peeing in corners.
There is no recreational activity left unexploited by the IT people as compensation to their presumably miserable jobs. I had seen the worst of them when I used to volunteer as a trek leader in 2016. You suppress a kid for years and leave them in a new city with a decent package. What else are they going to do? I really wanted to empathise with them, but when you trek for three hours carrying a heavy tent on your back, cross forests and climb rocks and see this, it becomes really hard to do that.
I walked to the other end of the beach, as far from the crowd as possible, at an elevated part of the cliff. As I started to unpack, the lamplight attracted many moths. To make matters worse, the bananas I had carried all this way had turned soggy. Sweaty and irritated, I managed to set up my campsite in whatever minimal light my head torch provided.
“Are you with them?” a guy asked as he collected dry wood a few feet apart, near his tent.
“Nope, camping solo,” I replied, as I pitched mine.
“Amazing, I am travelling solo too. I am from Kerala,” he said, and we shook hands. “Where are you from?”
“Mumbai,” I replied.
“Cool, let me know if you need anything, bro,” he said, as he continued collecting dry wood. We had the same tents – Quechua Arpenaz 100.
As I sat by the bonfire with the Kerala guy, we bonded over our shared disdain for the IT crowd who earned twice our salaries – myself with none. I recalled being taught that “man is a social animal” but the more I observed, the more I was puzzled by what happens when people gather. Individually, people are sharp and full of independent thought, but together, their collective intelligence seems to dilute into a less insightful version of itself. Their actions become something none of them would choose alone. It makes me wonder about the nature of group dynamics that blurs individual clarity—be it society meetings, religious gatherings, commuters, politicians, college reunions, kitty parties, corporate conventions or the neighbouring IT squad.
The Kerala guy pulled out his pouch and rolled a joint. We sat in silence, each on our own journey. It was 25 December. Merry Christmas to us.
Excerpted with permission from Solo: My Year of Backpacking and Unpacking, Indrajeet More, Penguin Random House India.
