A Month in Sri Lanka; Tuk-Tuks, Narnia and the World’s Loudest Car Horns

August 2018: Arrived in Colombo (capital of Sri Lanka) at a ridiculously early hour of the morning. Met up with Dan after a month of doing totally different things (Dan went backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia while I spent a crazy, intense and mind boggling month of yoga in Bali with Samaste Yoga). To read about my experience in Bali…Bali & My Yoga Teacher Journey

Here’s a summary of our month in Sri Lanka….the good and the bad, enjoy!

Day 1: We went exploring the fruit and veg markets where we attempted our best haggling efforts for bananas, mangosteens and white passionfruit. Yum!!!

Day 2: A travelers arch nemesis strikes….food poisoning. My pumpkin and rice resurfaced…along with other ‘symptoms’ that are often related to food poisoning…and so for the next 48 hours we were stuck in the room taking turns to use the bathroom. The room was starting to feel very claustrophobic…and smelly.

Day 4: In the midst of all this, we actually had to change hotels…Apparently the hotel was fully booked and couldn’t help us out for one more night. But like in so many travel stories, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The small family-run hotel we moved to, Canes Boutique Hotel, was far superior in every possible way with ten bonus points for being cheaper and another ten points for bringing me a hot cup of black coffee with fresh lime juice in it after learning that I had an upset stomach!

Day 6: Feeling better now, we’re catching the train to Galle today! Oh no wait…all the trains have gone on strike!!!! WTF!? This trip hasn’t got off to a good start. OK, we’ll catch the bus instead. [Now picture if you will, an old school bus from the 70’s, absolutely flogging it down the highway for a few hours, while dodging numerous tuk-tuks and cars, and my facial expression is basically just a constant wince]. Made it to Galle, success!

Day 8: Let’s go to the beach! We decided to find some quiet place, away from the (probably illegally loud) bus horns, so we decided on a beach only 130kms away from Galle, Unawatuna. To get there we traveled by tuk-tuk! It took 2.5 hours, but the fact that there are no doors or aircon, means you can really take in the sights and smells of the villages you pass through. It also means you are constantly overtaken on the highway by the 1970’s flying buses, but tuk-tuk is officially now my preferred method of long distance travel in Sri Lanka.

Day 9: Unawatuna. Honestly, disappointing (I promise the tale of Sri Lanka has some good bits too). Crowded, polluted with plastic and nowhere to sit/lay on the beach without being hassled to buy something, despite saying ‘no thank you’ countless times. Not exactly the quiet, laid-back beach experience I was looking for. We did however find a place to stay that was only $10 for the night at a local home-stay where the room was clean, the mozzie net didn’t have holes and we had monkeys swinging around in the back yard!

Day 10: Next stop, Hiriketiya. We finally found a little quiet patch of paradise! The surf was good, the beach was clean and the sounds of the ocean and jungle prevailed. We stayed for only one night, and in hindsight I wish we stayed longer. We stayed in a beautiful place called White House, that had a bathroom with a big open window with no glass, looking straight out into the jungle. Early morning yoga at the beach, lazy book reading and coconut drinking all to the music of the waves…perfection!

Day 13: We’ve decided to stay put for a few days in Tissamaharama. We have a nice room overlooking some rice fields, with a beautiful breeze and not much traffic noise. I’ve been doing some reflection, meditation, reading and also some bird watching. We booked in for a safari to the Yala National Park that starts before dawn. The safari was an interesting experience…if you want to read more about it I’ve written a separate blog post Safari.

Day 14: Arugam Bay, what I’m calling the Byron Bay of Sri Lanka. A little surfing village that is becoming saturated with beach cafes, yoga classes and surfboard rentals. I must admit, this was one of my favourite spots in Sri Lanka. I stumbled across a great little place called The Galaxy Lounge, originally discovered because I was looking for a book exchange, but what I found was a wonderfully relaxing place to just hang out. Run by a lovely lady who has Sri Lankan origins, but was brought up in Britain along with her Australian husband. We had some great chats about what it’s like living in Sri Lanka, what it was to live through the tsunami of 2004 and her new children’s book writing adventure. The yoga classes run at Arugam Bay were varied in price and quality, but overall the vibe of this place was so nice! We stayed in a hilariously horrible room in a hostel/hotel that had extremely sturdy and thief-proof walls made of woven palm leaves, with a nice cold shower that managed to wet the entire toilet and toilet paper when operated..not to mention half the floor of the room (because there was no door to our lovely little en suite haha!). The palm leaf walls were also excellent for sound proofing….I’m kidding..

Day 17: We tuk-tuked our way to Ella, a small and busy little town about 1000m above sea level, so the weather is a little cooler. I saw an army of people collecting rubbish from the sides of the road on the way up to Ella which warmed my heart, as the plastic pollution problem in Sri Lanka is rife!

While we ere in town, we did some nice hikes up to Little Adam’s Peak and also Ella Rock. There were lush green tea plantations all around this region, which reminds me, Tea is something I haven’t mentioned yet. Sri Lanka do an absolute killer cup of tea no matter where you go. As a self diagnosed tea addict, I can certainly vouch for a wonderful cuppa to be found across the entire country!

We stayed in a great little home-stay that did one of the most amazing breakfasts we’ve seen so far. Fresh fruit, toast with jam and butter, coconut roti breads, eggs, egg hoppers and a pancake type bread rolled up and covered in a treacle-like syrup! We also had hot water at this place (a special treat) and we were right next door to a local guy who runs authentic Sri Lankan cooking classes.

Being crazy about all things food, especially when there is chilli involved, we obviously signed up for the cooking class. The class was wonderful and we cooked in big clay pots on open fires, before sitting down to the best feast I had in Sri Lanka.

Day 20: We decided to take the train to our next destination. Holy moly, what an experience that train ride was. Absolutely jam packed with people, and Dan and I were standing right in the doorway (there was no actual doors on the train) watching the tea plantations rush by and hoping we wouldn’t fall out of said doorway….for 3 hours. I don’t think one more person would have fit in that carriage if you’d paid us all a million dollars!

This is one of my favorite places in Sri Lanka. Because it’s located high up, the weather is amazing and we got lucky and had a few days of sunshine after two straight weeks of rain. The mark left by the English who ruled here in the 1800’s is a nice one, with some regal looking buildings and gardens and the oldest golf course in the country.

Dan and I decided to play a round….we are terrible at golf, but thought we’d have a crack. Turns out golf is a sport that doesn’t get cheaper in other countries, with standard Aussie prices needed to be paid up just to tee off. Oh, and I didn’t have a collared shirt so the golf club kindly  lent me one…god only knows how many women wore that sweat stained pink shirt before I was one of the lucky ones to be added to the list. I should note that when we finished playing, I gave the shirt back, where the guy at the counter proceeded to hang it back on the rack it came from…..yummy! Dan had the nice happy caddie, and I had grumpy. Every time I took a swing at the ball, Grumpy would just shake his head and say “no, no, no”. Lucky for me, Grumpy didn’t get me down, and we had an awesome time!

Day 23: We took our most precarious tuk-tuk ride to date. A few hours on a steep, downhill, windey road, with loads of blind corners, serious exhaust pollution and so so many buses.  Luckily we had an ace tuk-tuk driver who got us to our next stop, Kandy, safely.

One of the most famous places in Sri Lanka, home to the Festival of the Tooth, in which thousands of people and many elephants parade day and night to celebrate the sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha. In my honest opinion, I didn’t want to go to the festival because of the way the elephants are treated, however, we were there during the festival time and it was impossible to avoid. The whole town closes down because everyone goes to the festival. We came across some of the elephants in between the morning and evening parade, where they were chained up and swaying backwards and forwards. I literally cried and it broke my heart to see these majestic and beautiful animals in such a state. If you visit Kandy (or Sri Lanka for that matter), I urge you not to support any form of animal enslavement; not the festivals, not the elephant rides and not the photo opps with these poor creatures. Seeing the Elephants here was a real low point for me on this part of our adventure.

Day 25: The surprising gem of Sri Lanka was the Ancient cities we visited in the last week of our time in Sri Lanka. Sigiriya was the first and it blew me away! Such amazing history that is as old and as interesting as the Egyptian Pyramids but for some reason hasn’t quite captured our imaginations like ancient Egypt has. With a little bit of imagination you can see the huge palaces built for the Kings with much of the ruins reminding me of a long lost land of Narnia. We also splurged and stayed in a quite remote home-stay that had a swimming pool. A dunk in the pool after a hot and dusty day being inspired by archaeology was just perfect! We also ate a LOT of fresh pineapple and mango in these parts of the country, so delicious!

Day 27: We saved the best tuk-tuk driving experience until last. Our driver was an absolute legend! He stopped part way through a multi-hour drive to Anuradhapura to surprise us with fresh King coconuts to drink and a yummy side-of-the-road BBQ’d corn cob each. We tried to pay him for them, but he refused our money. When we arrived in Anuradhapura, he also tried to refuse our tip…but we insisted he take it. He was the most honest and lovely driver we had for the whole month. After being ripped-off for tuk-tuk rides so many times this month, it was such a heart warming experience to meet someone so genuinely happy to meet tourists and chat with them and give them the best experience he can.

Anuradhapura was also an awesome place to explore on bicycle, with loads of ancient temples and forgotten worlds. This place was one of the power houses of ancient Asia in the early A.D centuries.

We were staying at a brilliant home stay, where the owner was super cheery, and one night he asked us (while drunkenly giggling) if we wanted to try his home-made pineapple liqueur. Only Dan was brave enough to try it and described it tasting like “pure ethanol”. Then, our tipsy host took us to the very high-tech brewing system he had set up…it was a giant pot over an open flame, fueled by coconut husks and the ‘ethanol’ was draining into a glass bottle, inside another pot of water. We asked “have you ever done this before?” and he said “No, but they have”….we looked over and two other Sri Lankan men were topping up the make-shift heat exchanger pot with water while giggling at us…clearly a few taste tests have been carried out. It was a hilariously unforgettable experience, coming from a line of work that takes safety and control measures to a whole new level of strict.

Day 30: Another toe curlingly speedy bus trip along the highway to our final destination, Negombo. A beach city with a relatively chilled vibe (for Sri Lankan standards). We spent our time here wandering around and eating. We had an awesome seafood spread of curries for dinner on our final night which made up for the hotel power flicking on and off all night…burning out the aircon and leaving us to sleep in a warm pool of sweat 🙂

Side Note: Sri Lanka was definitley a trip of ups and downs. One of the things that I found the most difficult were the stray dogs everywhere…..I mean everywhere! And some of them were in such a poor state of health it broke my heart. In Ella, I saw a dog get hit by a car on my way home from a yoga class…I literally ran home crying because nobody even stopped or cared, the car just sped off and the locals were not bothered by it. There are organisations that help these dogs in some areas, but I found out about them after we’d left. I wish I’d known about them, I would have loved to visit.