Unawatuna - where did the beach go?

Quick rain shower on Unawatuna Beach
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So after the luxury of the Galle Fort Hotel it was back to reality and back into a tuk tuk heading to the "backpackers paradise" that is Unawatuna. Voted best beach in the world by Lonely Planet a few years ago our sadness at leaving Galle was only helped by the excitement of spending a few days relaxing in such a cool and relaxing place...

Unfortunately the place that won awards had clearly disappeared a long time ago and what was left was" "backpacker hell" (my words). I am sure there used to be a beautiful swathe of lovely beach once upon a time but rampant and uncontrolled building  of hotels, hostels, bars, cafes and (bizarrely) jewellery shops - all on the beach itself - had left only a tiny ribbon of sand left to walk on and a scruffy and overdeveloped town to navigate. All in, Unawatuna is a mess and it was clear as soon as we arrived that this was not the place we were hoping to spend a week relaxing.  Also, the 'clientele' had also seen better days - washed up leathery-skinned old hippies and chavs galore!

Our hotel and pool
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There was however a very good dive centre here and after finishing her PADI Open Water well over a year ago it was time to get Tracey back under the water. So on our first morning we did a dive with the centre and whilst the dive went well, and Tracey had remembered everything...of couse :) the visibility was poor and we didn't really see much marine life. Oh well. it was definitely time to get out of Unawatuna...