Travel Journals V: Gokarna
My personal fantasy about India has always been that you'd turn a street corner and all of the sudden a large Bollywood style production number would burst out, complete with hundreds of immaculately clad, perfectly choreographed dancers.
Needless to say, this does not actually happen. A real Indian town is far more chaotic and fascinating.the whole town looks like it was purchased secondhand and repaired a piece at a time whenever anyone could find the time. Everywhere you look, something is happening and it's usually really colorful and loud, almost as if someone had tried to recreate Times Square without any electricity. Gokarna is apparently one of the important centers of Hinduism, and is thus littered with temples. foreign tourists are usually not welcome in the holy sites but it is easy enough to get swept up in a procession of brightly clad pilgrims, chattering and singing and calling out to one another. The Hindus have apparently heard of quiet contemplative religious celebration and decided against them. scattered liberally among the constantly honking cars and mopeds, merchants (more on them later) and milling citizens is a large population of animals roaming unconcernedly through the streets. of course there is the inevitable placid Indian cow meandering unhurriedly through traffic and occasionally pausing to eat a melon rind or cardboard box. even more common however is the spavined looking stray dogs that apparently are required to be within at least 120 yards of one another by obscure Indian law. cats , monkeys, and all nature of birds are to be seen everywhere. but there is no more common animal than the House Crow, a delightfully obnoxious bird with a grey neck and breast. these are simply everywhere rifling through garbage and squabbling from the tops of palms. the borders between tame and wild are a lot less defined here.
more on bartering next time....
Needless to say, this does not actually happen. A real Indian town is far more chaotic and fascinating.the whole town looks like it was purchased secondhand and repaired a piece at a time whenever anyone could find the time. Everywhere you look, something is happening and it's usually really colorful and loud, almost as if someone had tried to recreate Times Square without any electricity. Gokarna is apparently one of the important centers of Hinduism, and is thus littered with temples. foreign tourists are usually not welcome in the holy sites but it is easy enough to get swept up in a procession of brightly clad pilgrims, chattering and singing and calling out to one another. The Hindus have apparently heard of quiet contemplative religious celebration and decided against them. scattered liberally among the constantly honking cars and mopeds, merchants (more on them later) and milling citizens is a large population of animals roaming unconcernedly through the streets. of course there is the inevitable placid Indian cow meandering unhurriedly through traffic and occasionally pausing to eat a melon rind or cardboard box. even more common however is the spavined looking stray dogs that apparently are required to be within at least 120 yards of one another by obscure Indian law. cats , monkeys, and all nature of birds are to be seen everywhere. but there is no more common animal than the House Crow, a delightfully obnoxious bird with a grey neck and breast. these are simply everywhere rifling through garbage and squabbling from the tops of palms. the borders between tame and wild are a lot less defined here.
more on bartering next time....
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