SRI LANKA (part 2)
BACK TO THE BEACH
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED
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After a 10 days up in the hills and mountains we drive back down to beaches and resorts of the south coast where we are slightly less than spoilt for choice as to places to stay and visit.
This final 7 days is our wind down. We have booked our last three hotels leading up to boarding our flight home so we know where we will be from now on. We made the bookings earlier than normal because Sri Lanka is experiencing a tourist boom, a real bounce-back from the terrible wounds Covid and the worldwide lock-down inflicted on the tourist industry here. So good for them, not so good for us. All the best mid range hotels had disappeared off the booking sites leaving just the backpacker stuff (so not us), and the really high end stuff (so not us too, sadly), but we persevere and find a couple of hotels that will do us just fine.
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Because we now know our last few destinations we can tally up the trip and it comes out like this:-
21 HOTELS IN 42 DAYS - 1500 MILES IN A CAR OR TRAIN - 3 INTERNAL FLIGHTS TO 3 COUNTRIES.
And bloody good fun all of it. And with luck the last week will be every bit as good, just a lot more relaxing as we have no more mountains to climb, trains to catch, bikes to ride, temples/museums/spice gardens to visit, just chilling on the beach (or not as we will see).
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Due to the early check out from Ella's most beautiful building site we were able to add in a night staying inside Yala National Park, and because the policy for our last week is apparently 'throw money at any problems', it was a bloody nice hotel. Cinnamon Wild Yala (£198/night). Elephant wandering around nearby, which meant nothing to our own Mahout (elephant wrangler Sara) who as you know has been up close and personal with a whole herd of the lumps. But still impressive. You were supposed to be escorted to your cabins in the bush by guards in case of wandering wildlife, but Mahout's don't scare easy, and our cabin was nearby, so we braved it.
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THE MASI MARA IT AIN'T.
We declined the option of a Jeep Safari, as we had been advised it was a bit tame if you had been on safari in Africa which we both had. The density of wildlife here is low, as in A elephant (not herd of), A crocodile (not a float of), A pelican (not a squadron of), A leopard (not a leap of), A water buffalo (not a clump of), and the park is very flat and scrubby, and apparently there aren't any majestic herds of Wildebeest wandering the plains, so we lay by the pool. Oh, and I made up 'clump' of water buffalo, to avoid repeating 'herd'.​​
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Then on for another couple of hours with Kavisahn, our jingly-truck driver, to Unawantuna, a trendy beach resort which was sadly populated with wall to wall Russians. Mostly disliked by the locals because, as I mentioned before, they don't smile at all. But on the plus side they are almost silent, they don't drink, they don't shout, they keep themselves very much to themselves - so unlike the Russians of pre-Ukraine days who were brash, loud, overbearing. These are like mice, heads down, no talking, not even to each other. Really weird.
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The fact that they are near invisible meant we could ignore them and enjoy our massive hotel room and its lovely sea view (struck lucky this time!). Then a wander round town, dinner on the beach with turtles hatching nearby, and a visit to nearby Galle. Dutch colonial fort town, totally unlike any other town in southern Sri Lanka, different look and feel altogether. Really smart and attractive. Very Dutch.
AND TO FINISH OFF - A DECENT SEASIDE BREAK.
We up sticks for almost the last time to travel along the coast for a four night stay in one place, the Halcyon Mawella beach hotel. Sadly the weather had changed a bit to appalling humidity, so high that both my hearing aids simply packed up due to moisture in the electronics! My head gasket blew and it was pouring off me. But that didn't stop my travel companion having a list of things to see on the way. Sara is like Prince Andrew, not meaning she's a nonce, meaning she doesn't sweat! So unconcerned about me leaking bodily fluids over everything and everyone like a wayward garden hose, Sara got stuck into a Turtle Hatchery, swimming with turtles, or rather wading in shallow water with a thousand other tourists banging tame turtles on their snouts with bits of chicken. Finally joining some stick fishermen in a game attempt to catch something nice and fresh for our tea.
THE LORD SNOWDEN AWARD FOR AMAZINGS PICS
I'm tempted to award myself 'pic of the trip' for that shot! We had to pay these guys a fiver to jump up on the sticks and they were quite surprised when Sara said she wanted up too. They were also concerned that I'd fallen in the sea until I explained it was just me sweating. Then loads of tourists turned up and grabbed free photos of OUR stick fishermen, without paying! Hope that when they get home they'll have trouble explaining what a pretty white bird was doing up there too.
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Suffice it to say that after an hour of fruitless fishing Sara called it a day and so we bought some fresh turtle for our dinner, just kidding, it was frozen turtle. So onward to what we fervently hoped would be our beachside haven, and amazingly it was. Once again proving the 'thrown enough money at it' rule. This place was a steal at a mere £225 a night, but slap bang on the beach, big 'boogie-board' style rollers coming in onto a picture postcard deserted curve of a mangrove and palm tree fringed beach. The owner of the hotel, Zandor, was from Buckinghamshire, lovely guy, superb food, excellent service, lots of space, nice hotel bar, locals beach bar out front (at half the price), full English breakfast, what's not to like as a finale??
Absolute heaven, my plan was to do nothing, just read the daily papers, read my book, drink copious quantities of beer, and relax.
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In some ways I wished there were more people joining me at the beach bar, and the service was a bit slow, but hey, you can't have everything.
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Sara's plan was also to relax, until about midday on the first day when her 'restless leg' syndrome kicked in. Then it was popping in to see me every hour or so just in case I was 'up for a walk'. or 'feeling like swimming', or going 'whale watching', to which the answers were no, no, and no, thank you.
What actually happened to me was weird. By the end of the second day I had dropped my trousers, donned my swimmers, taken off my watch, removed my shoes and socks, and actually walked barefoot on the sand.
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Now this may not seem a lot to you, but to anyone that knows me this is me going totally native, and most out of character. I mean I even left my iPhone behind, and that's a first. But the reason was simple.
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In beach terms Sara and I like a cove or a bay, this is a bay. We like that bay to be palm fringed, this is palm fringed with added mangroves. We like fine sand than is easy to walk on, this sand is so fine yet pleasantly firm underfoot at the foreshore. We (especially me with my Sketchers softened little pink soles of my feet) like there to be no rocks, above or below the water, here there are NONE, not one rock, not even a pebble. I like the sea to provide Goldilocks rollers for bodyboarding, this sea obliged, big but not too big. We like the beach to be clean, this beach is bloody pristine! Not one piece of rubbish or litter in about 3/4 of a mile of beachfront, not one. We like the beach to be quiet but not deserted, this is Goldilocks quiet, a few nice people dotted around but never too many. We like a beach bar or two, here there are two, both excellent, both run by locals who speak almost no English but cook up a storm. Hence I have gone local, not loco, just relaxed into it. for anyone interested this is MAWELLA BEACH just east of Tangalle. Bloody lovely!!
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One small issue was the black scorpions that come out at night though!
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That put wandering around barefoot in the dark into the 'slightly dodgy' category and caused Sara to literally levitate as soon as she spotted one.
So my day falls into a lovely routine, get up and scoff massive (free) breakfast, read the news until midday, repair to my beach bar, which is literally outside my beachfront room, and drink myself into a 'beer buzz in the afternnoon', then as the sun wanes a bit I pick up my boogie board and head into the breakers for an hour or so sobering up, before a lovely dinner with my wife who miraculously reappears from her perambulations to join me.
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OK, I know, this is a travel blog, not a 'make you feel bad about being in a cold, grey, wet English winter' blog. But COME ON? Is that not a great beach?????????????????????????. And I'm bored with travelling, so suck it up!
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TALK ABOUT BAGGING A BARGAIN
That amazingly relaxing programme worked perfectly for several days. But all good things come to an end, and so it was back in another truck to wend our merry way back to Colombo airport for an Air India flight back to Chennai. When I was making the booking for what is just a 1.5 hour flight I noticed that there was a ludicrously small differential between Business Class and Cattle Class. £17 each on a £140 fare, so I took it. Wow! What a bonus. It makes no sense at all as we had VIP routing all the way through the airport, business lounge where we snarfed down at least £50 worth of food and drinks, then onto the plane in the big seats, and a glass of flipping Laurent Perrier champagne, That is worth £17 a glass of anyone's money. Then Air India add insult to injury by bussing Business and Premium Economy to Immigration in their own bus, so we get there first, AND their luggage totally comes off first. On our trip UK to India, same airport, but Qatar, our Business Class luggage came off literally last. We are SO flying Air India from now on, even on my favourite short hauls like Luton to Benidorm, Stanstead to Glasgow.
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BACK INTO LIVE FAIRGROUND DODGEMS
Chennai was a revelation, straight back into crazy, crazy driving for no good reason, for no actual distance gained, just a melee of an orchestra of hooting, mad manoeuvres, harsh braking, going for the tiniest of non existent gaps. How the road isn't strewn with bodies is a miracle, but it isn't. And zero road rage, none, they take even the closest, maddest near prang in their stride. Try these ludicrous moves in London would at least require single didgets waved from the window with added expletives. here they just dash into the next undersized gap to gain another yard of advantage. But in 1,500 miles of trucking we haven't seen a single prang, not one. My money is on the 70 mile run home from Heathrow we will be massively inconvenienced by at least one pile up on the M25.