About that spider

Today has been an extremely relaxing day, after all our exertions walking to town and discovering hidden beaches, today was a reading day. Naturally on a reading day you still have to take a short stroll and a short stroll in india its never without some kind of adventure. Herewith is related the exact truth of todays adventure, no embellishment, I promise.

Emily and I went for a walk around the back of the huts today hoping that in walking away from the beach we may be lucky enough to find shade and keep our feet momentarily sand free. We looked in on an old hindu shrine where we'd been told they practiced human sacrifices at some point (this could quite likely be nonsense though) and then continued on over brooks through forests, under coconut groves until we came upon the fabled spider of yesterday's story! Yes, I did not tell a lie, I only got my days mixed up! This spider was huge! Hold out your hand look at it, now imagine that hand is a spider. That was what we saw! Thankfully it was quite high up in the trees watching protectively over its rather weather beaten web. That weather beaten web must've been about half a metre in length and although holey, still very capable of catching a multitude of insects, both large and small. After considerable observation and due thankfulness that we hadn't really run into a spiders web we continued our stroll. Besides a rather shy peacock the walk then ended without further drama and I am happily ensconced in my hammock once again.

Yesterday we all decided it was high time to head into town for the cheap food and some very necessary insect repellant! Mosquitos and necklace sellers definitely rate amongst the most irksome things in india! Be fore-warned, if you ever come to india you cannot bring enough different types of mosquito repellents with you! Sprays, creams, burners, bracelets, whatever you can find, bring!

So getting back to the point, we thought that in 32° heat, around 10 am, just as things really get hot, it would be a great time to walk across beaches and over rocky barren plateaus to get into town. Perhaps, now that I look back on it and can look at my mosquito free legs I'll feel like it was worth that effort, or perhaps not. I did manage to find a nice light cotton shirt that makes me look a bit like a homeless man or a bag lady but which has the merit of being exceeding cool. I can also assure you that gokarna town has not much to recommend it besides a few grumpy vendors, cheap food and the sin forgiving statue I mentioned previously. This all meant that after our horrendous trek in at 10, we were ready to leave at about 1. Naturally we were thinking that hiking at the hottest times of the day would be nothing but character building... I have rarely suffered as I did on that blistering walk back. Next time I'll pay that rickshaw driver his 200 ruppees!