Half Of My Heart Is In Gokarna!

Hi guys! Hope you’re all doing well!
I’m currently sat in bed writing this post while having a major holiday hangover!
Last week, at this time, I was swimming in the Arabian Sea with one of my best friends while we were on a vacation in Gokarna.
While I have vlogged all of our adventures on our two night, three days trip, I decided to write this blog to share with you some information (reviews and suggestions) that’ll hopefully help you have as great a trip to gokarna as I did!

Travel:
From Bangalore you can either take a train, a bus or drive down gokarna. 
We opted for the bus. We booked a sleeper non/ac VRL while going and a sleeper non/ac SRS while coming back. Both of them started at 7PM from their respective pick up points and dropped us at our destination at around 8am the next morning. Personally, I found SRS a lot more comfortable and much cleaner but VRL stopped at a much better dinner stop. 
Gokarna is a fairly small town so depending on your willingness to walk, the weather and/or the amount of luggage you have, and you could either walk/trek to all the important places or take an auto. Either way, the view is magnificent!
We trekked to kudle beach, to kudle hilltop and through the town on our way to the temple, took an auto to Om beach and were treated to a beautiful view throughout our ride, and sailed in a ferry to Half Moon Beach with bonus stops at paradise beach and the lighthouse! (All our auto and ferry rides cost us around 100-200rs.) If you are adventurous and extremely fit, you could also sign up for a day trek and cover all the five beaches in gokarna in just a couple of hours!

Accommodation:
 We stayed at Zostel, which is a hipster hostel for backpackers! Zostel provides you with an option of either sharing a dorm with an attached bathroom with five other people where you get your own bunk bed, or staying at a private cottage. We chose the latter because diamonds are a girl’s best friends; UTI’s on the other hand are not!
I found the air-conditioned cottages to be quite spacious, clean and safe.
It’s also centrally located and offers the most beautiful view of Gokarna Main Beach! 

Food:
Finding good food at most places in Gokarna is a little difficult which was also one of the reasons we chose to stay at Zostel as they have their very own, in house restaurant called Mantra café. The menu at Manta offers one a great variety of cuisines and items to choose from for all three meals of the day and does taste quite delicious!
The fact that we had to take no more than 20 steps to enjoy a delicious nutella pancake for breakfast and a yummy roast chicken pizza for dinner with the ambient sound of ocean waves breaking was a bonus!
At Om beach, I would highly recommend going to Namaste café purely to enjoy the view of the ocean while you sip on refreshing sweet limejuices and enjoy lip-smacking pastas topped with melted cheese. 
If you’ve got time to spare, stop by at Christophe café located right on Middle beach to be served some authentic French food and definitely try their home made chocolate mousse!

Must Visit:
1. If your trip is too short to cover all the beaches, I’d highly suggest going to Kudle Beach to watch the sunset, Om beach for water activities like kayaking (which definitely is one of the highlight of my life), and go swimming in the pristine waters of the much less crowded Half moon Beach.
2. Watch the most glorious sunset you’d ever seen from Kudle Hilltop.
3. Gokarna is a town with great religious significance; click here to read more about it, so I would recommend visiting the main temple even for just five minutes. 

If you’re still here, congratulations and thank you!
Your reward is a few pictures that I’m leaving you with from my memorable first trip to gokarna! (I’m definitely going back again!)
XOXO
Niyati Mathur


(Minutes after the sunset at Kudle Beach)

(Christophe Cafe)

(View of Gokarna Main Beach from Zostel)

(Entrance of Om Beach)

 (Kayaking At Om Beach)


(Sunset from Kudle Hilltop) 

Horn Ok Please!

Hello everybody! Happy New Year!

I’ve come to the realization that I tend to treat my blog as my personal, inexpensive, very public therapist ever since I’ve started my YouTube channel. (Please Subscribe if you haven’t already. Thank you!)

It’s the 4the week of January and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with my new lifestyle thanks to my many new years resolutions. 
While I’m doing well with some, the others are being ignored like vegetables on the plate of a toddler. 

It’s also been exceptionally hard to find the motivation to get out of my comfy fort of blankets and pillows and get some work done because of the “memories of this day” feature on Facebook, mockingly showing me pictures from 6 years ago when I attended my first concert and made new friends. A stark contrast to my present day when I found myself typing this blog only after I caught a glimpse of myself on my screen, resembling a meme of a cow sitting on a bed that I came across a couple of days ago.

This week I’ve pretty much just been living in my PJ’s either watching Netflix or reading a book. In terms of physical activity, I’ve never been good at physics but I’m pretty sure going to the kitchen to get myself a snack to have in bed counts as movement. 

Having made my self sound like an ultra lazy millennial in the past few lines, I’m pretty sure that my typical Capricorn trait of being a workaholic will kick me into the full swing of things as soon as I see my social media engagement going down, or worse, my Adsense revenue not being generated for the month. 
(Two very superficial, albeit effective factors that motivate me.)

Palace Dreams

Hi guys! I hope you’re all doing well!
I’ve been having very busy but productive days for the past two weeks and its slowly turning me into one of those people who are happiest and most creative while at work.
However, I’ve always believed in the saying “all work and no play make’s jack a dull boy.”
Although I’m perpetually lusting for a vacation, thanks to the travel bug in me planted there by my dad who loves traveling himself and always plans elaborate but super fun vacation, I’m in desperate need to make some travel plans coz its been a hot minute since I’ve made a meticulous list and packed a suitcase for a vaccay!
Since I have no travel plans on the cards at the moment, I pacify my wanderlust by scrolling through the memories living in the photo gallery of my phone and reliving old vacations!
So a couple of weeks ago we had family come visit us and the “kids” of the family decided to go on a one day road trip to Mysore to visit the zoo and the palace!
I’ve never really liked the idea of confining animals in a cage, so I won’t be endorsing it on my blog (or on any other social media platform), but I do love a good old palace!
In school, while all the other kids yawned during history class, I was one of the few kids who listened to the teacher talk about the French revolution almost with the same excitement as I watched a Disney movie with!

A four hour long drive from my place in Bangalore (including a breakfast break),
Brought me to the official residence of the Wadiyar dynasty.  The palace was constructed between 1897 and 1912, after the old palace was burnt ablaze. It is built with blends of Hindu, Mughal, Rajput and gothic styled architecture, and is a treat for pastel lovers such as myself out there!
I’ve lost track of many times I’ve visited the palace but every time I do, I find myself mesmerized by the beauty and grandeur of it all!
Its beautiful, not just during the day but also at night when the palace lights up and looks like its been wrapped around in a thousand stars!
What made my last trip so memorable was the fact that we were now allowed to take pictures inside the palace!
So, I’m leaving you now to take a mental vacation with the pictures that I took!




















Until next time!
Niyati Mathur
XOXO

Pink Dreams

Hello everybody!
How is everyone doing this fine Friday evening?
It’s been such a beautiful day here in Bangalore today!
It hasn’t rained but Mr. Golden Sun hasn’t paid us a visit today either! I swear days like these just make me want to stay in bed all day in my cozy pj’s, watch rom-coms and be super unproductive!
Which makes today the perfect day for me to introduce you to the latest addition to my night suit collection!

It is my first ever purchase from the website shein.com and I’ve had a really good experience shopping from them. I was able to easily track my order and the package arrived at my doorstep in exactly a week. (I placed my order on a Friday afternoon and received it the next Friday afternoon.) It also came really nicely packed and sealed. The quality is also quite up to mark and is worth the price, I usually wear a size small but I took peoples advice from the reviews and ordered a size up and it fits like a dream!

I bought it at the beginning of last month and have been obsessively wearing it ever since! It’s a beautiful baby pink satin night suit with black piping on the pockets and the collar for detailing and has white buttons down the center of the blouse. #PrincessVibes

Adding items from the website into my wish list has become my ultimate guilty pleasure and I definitely will be shopping from them more often.
I shall now leave you with pictures of this gorgeous night suit I went on about in this post!

Thank You!
Until next time,
XOXO

SAREE NOT SORRY

Hi guys!
One of my new years resolution for this year was to be more active on my blog, so here I am, 5 months later, with my first post of this year. (Better late than never right?)
On mothers day this year, I uploaded a video featuring some of my favourite sarees from my mothers ever-growing collection on my channel. Click here to watch it!
In todays post I’ll be sharing with you a few details and stories behind the same.

This first one I instantly fell in love with the minute I saw it! Pink is my favourite colour and the colouful embroidery details and the tassels on it stole my heart!






I was probably in the second or third grade, when this saree came into my life.
I loved the silver details on it and I used to drape it on myself and pretend to be a teacher. I’ve completed many a school assignments and had multiple imaginary PTA meetings while wearing it!





A black net saree has been on my wish list ever since I saw Katrina Kaif in one in the song teri ore from Singh is King. Here’s a picture of it for reference!
This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to owning one. (My family is superstitious and black is apparently an unauspicious colour.)





This last one is a very special saree. Every time I saw TV as a child, I saw a framed picture of my mom in this saree next to it!
This is the saree she wore to her wedding reception and is probably the most beautiful and classy saree in her collection.





Please excuse me while I convince all my cousins and friends to get married so I can wear these to their wedding functions!
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