Christmas at the seaside

Hampi was our first religious place within India. Gokarna followed next. To get there we took our first sleeping bus but this is India and smoothness is not an Indian particularity. Our bus broke in the middle of the night, we had to change to another bus where we had a dusty and bumpy bed at the back of the bus. Others weren't that lucky and had to sleep on the floor.

Through Gokarna's streets you are likely to find men dressed in orange skirts singing some Hindu mantras going from one temple to the other, people bathing nearby the lake doing their rituals and some pilgrims praying to their Gods.

Our days in Kudle Beach were very warm, sunny and relaxed. We hiked from beach to beach and worked on our tan. We experienced yoga, the real esence of yoga, that search of inner peace and self acceptance within us through smooth and controlled movements connected to our breathing.

The dark side of this place? It used to be a hippie spot where people did yoga, meditation and enjoyed their time learning about Indian Ayurvedic medicine at the beach. Now it's a mix of middle class Indians ready to leave their cash on a three-day-vacation paying 3 times more than foreigners for a room and partying hard leaving all their rubbish on the sand. So Kudle beach's charm is slowly disappearing.

Besides that we met many inspiring people who made their travels as their way of living, selling their art or their skills doing workshops.Read more