While we certainly enjoyed out guesthouse in Calangute, the rest of the town really isn't our scene. The tourist scene here reminds us too much of Phuket, so we decided to head south to Gokarna. In my quick check over the bikes, I found everything to be good except my front tire, which was low again. One of these days I'm going to need to fix that. The first part of our route this morning retraced our ride back to Panaji, except today we continued south on the Nh17. The first part of the ride was busy with lots of traffic, so we didn't get to do much sightseeing along the way. The roads in India so far have been one of the major letdowns. Between the road surface and the traffic, it has been very difficult to look around for more than a quick glance. Eventually we crossed the border into Karnataka, the state south of Goa, and the temperature seemed to rise by ten degrees. The condition of the roads also changed for the worse at the border, but not too bad. The nicest change in Karnataka was that the amount of traffic dropped dramatically, and we finally had a chance to watch the scenery. The Nh17 wound its way through palm groves, small towns, and gave us glimpses of the ocean every once in a while.

We made it to Gokarna by 2:00 pm and found a hotel that was recommended to us by our friends, Alan and Maggie. We opted to skip the AC and got a room for the low, low price of 9 USD.



After unloading the bikes (once again) and packing the stuff into our room, we walked through town to find some lunch. Gokarna is a temple town and draws many devotees to its temples every day. It also attracts hippies. Filthy, filthy hippies. But the hippies of today ain't what they used to be. There is just something that seems inauthentic about twenty-somethings with freshly scrubbed faces and dreadlocks, carrying yoga mats and pushing strollers with toddlers in them. You say you want a revolution? I'm pretty sure that didn't involve doing the downward facing dog in designer clothes while little Om plays in the corner... But we pressed on and found a great place for lunch, where we ate too much and paid too little. Re and I are both finding that the problem with the very low food prices here is that it is way too easy to order way too much food. After a quick stroll on the town beach (not the nice one) we went back to the hotel to catch up on some writing and to try and digest. Since we were still full at 9:00 pm, we decided to make a dinner of and potato chips, Magic Masala flavored.

120 miles in about 4.5 hours.