The night on the state bus was better than expected. I had been told to book one of the 5 sideways-facing seats and that’s what I did. However, those 5 seats were the second bus driver’s bed and thus I got one in the first row.
Getting on the bus was quite funny as people were fighting to get in first and doing their standard reservation technique of throwing a tiny little towel inside on any seat to reserve it 😀
I let them all in – and when it was my turn, I showed my online reservation on the phone and was lead to the front of the bus 😉
I think that made someone lose their place. Well, bad luck for them. I unpacked my sleeping bag, earphones and sleeping mask, and was ready to sleep!
In the beginning the bus was full, but it got empty quite fast, probably within 2 hours or so I had two seats to myself.
Gokarna was beautiful! It was easy enough to find the hostel, and then I spent the day – and evening down at Kudle beach.
Om beach, at least on January 1st, was extremely “indian”. And those cows were rather scary 😉