Sri Lanka: Beaches, buses, hills and lots of tea

Leaving at the ridiculous hour of 3:40am, our flight from Mumbai to Colombo, Sri Lanka, meant that we could spend a lot of time milling about the airport - luckily there was the cracking Liverpool v Chelsea champions league quarter final to watch (well, for me at least.  Sarah put on a brave face).  It also meant that by the time we arrived at the international airport, actually quite a distance from Colombo, we were absolutely shattered and it wasn't long after getting in the taxi to Colombo train station that we fell asleep.

We had arrived on the day after the Sri Lankan new year so the station was very crazy and it was only with the help of a deaf bystander (who later asked us to donate money to a non-existent charity, unfortunately) that we managed to scramble our bags and bodies onto a second class carriage from Colombo to Galle.  There is supposed to be a difference between second class and the much cheaper third class but this wasn't apparent as every carriage was full to bursting point, resulting in me spending most of the 4 hour journey hanging out of the door.  Luckily the view was incredible as the train wound its way along the coastline and we also befriended two men, squashed into each one of my armpits, who told us lots about the country and also some quite harrowing stories of the tsunami that hit here in 2004.  It was on this same part of track that the tsunami toppled a train and drowned its 5,000 passengers.

Buses in Sri Lanka are crazy....

Late in the afternoon we arrived in Galle, right on the southwest tip of the country and caught one of the local buses to Unawatuna.  Unfortunately I was a bit too keen to get off the bus and we ended up about a kilometre short of our destination but a tuk-tuk driver took us the rest of the way and dropped us off at the Peacock Hotel, right on the beach.  We ended up staying here purely because we didn't have the energy to search elsewhere but it turned out to be one of the best, and cheapest, options on the beach and we stayed here for the rest of our time in Unawatuna.

The beach itself is stunningly idyllic, curving in a crescent with points at either end and palm trees shading the sand all the way along.  We were arriving right at the end of the high season which meant cheaper prices and less people, although it was by no means empty.  The hostel was also brilliant, with a great view of the beach and really friendly staff - we quickly made friends with three of them: Gamini, who looks a bit like a Sri Lankan mario, Maapa and Amar.  With good food and plenty of Lion Lager we really enjoyed ourselves.

We were keen to kick back and relax after the craziness of India and all the travelling we had been doing previously, and so ended up staying in Unawatuna for 7 days.  We weren't completely idle though, as there were plenty of bars along the beach where we could party hard (Riddim and Happy Banana were the principal culprits) and we also popped into Galle to walk around the fort area, built yonks ago by, I believe, the Portuguese.  It was almost eerily quiet and calm here - the whole time we saw only one car within the fort itself - but made for really nice couple of hours walking along the fort's perimeter before coming back through the centre.  The wall was obviously also a favourite hangout for young lovers and we saw lots of couples walking hand-in-hand or huddled behind parapets under the privacy of large umbrellas.

I also visited Weligama with a Sri Lanka/German national who was also staying at the Peacock to purchase the manliest of all apparel - the sarong.  With his knowledge of the country and Sinhalese I was able to get a few for local prices (Sri Lanka is notorious for charging a separate price for tourists - in some cases nearly ten times as much and with no room at all for haggling).

We returned by bus and let me tell you something about Sri Lankan buses.  They are insane.  Firstly they cram in as many people as possible and then hurtle, bounce and weave their way along the winding coastal roads, overtaking on blind corners with little regard for pedestrians, traffic or indeed any other obstacles.  All the while manic Sinhalese pop songs play, spurring the driver to greater and greater speeds.  We soon learnt that watching out the windscreen would achieve nothing but an premature heart attack and instead spent the journey's clinging on to our bags and each other.  Despite all this, the locals are completely unperturbed and it wasn't uncommon to spot an elderly gentleman snoozing away while his head lolled about like a drunken Churchill dog.

When we finally decided to leave Unawatuna, in the company of Jamie, a geordie at the beginning of his world trip, we took one of these buses to Matara and from here took another bus inland to the tongue-challengingly-named town of Embilipitiya.  Our goal?  A safari in Udawallawa national park, which is about half an hour from the town.  Embilipitiya itself was pretty uneventful and we spent a rather boring evening in a drab bar and slept in sparse rooms where the biggest decoration was the huge swarm of mosquitos.

The safari itself, however, was much better.  Hiring a 4x4 driver and a guide at the entrance (coincidentally we had met the guide the day before on the bus up to Embilipitiya) we headed into the park and were immediately met by a large male elephant wearing a load of grass on his head as a hat.  Very dapper.

We saw lots of elephants in the park throughout the day, from lone bulls to herds of mothers and babies.  On top of these we also saw some vervet monkeys, spotted deer (which are apparently really rare to see as they are so shy, but we came across a whole group that didn't seem to mind our close proximity) and a multitude of birds.  The elephants though were the highlight and let us get really close and didn't mind at all, with the exception of a large bull elephant who charged us as we left the park.

From Embilipitiya we headed up into the Hill Country to Haputale, a small town set right into the side of the mountains with beautiful views (when not obscured by clouds) of the surrounding tea plantations.  Here we stayed with a really lovely old Muslim couple who prepared us food every day and were always good for a chat.  The man didn't even seem to mind that his first impression of us was me flinging a huge rhinocerous beetle at him after trying to right the little bugger.

Being surrounded by so much tea it was only right that we went to visit one of the nearby plantations and so took a half hour bus ride from Haputale to Dambetenna tea plantation and took a tour to learn about the tea processing ummm....process.  Not a huge building but it was interesting to learn about how it's made, even if health and standards were a bit lacking.  We were encourage to pick up and feel the tea at all the different stages and I'm pretty sure I put some un-finished tea grounds into the top quality basket on accident, so if anyone gets a poor cup of Lipton's, you know who to blame.

From here we went for a two hour hike up through the tea fields to Lipton's seat which is supposed to have amazing views but unfortunately, as we ascended, the clouds rolled in meaning that we couldn't see further than twenty metres or so from the look out point.  Still, there was something quite mystical about it and we all enjoyed it (we are still with Jamie at this point by the way).

Less enjoyable, however, was the heavy (I mean, heavy!) rain that set in just as we began our descent, resulting in us returning the plantation completely soaked through, much to the amusement of the Tamil tea-pickers.  Despite this I did manage to amuse myself by scaring (unintentionally at first, with glee later on) some schoolchildren on their way home who would follow us before I jumped around and roared at them, causing them to scream and run off with looks of pure terror on their faces, only to return minutes later for another round.

From Haputale we also took a day trip by bus (which actually seem to be a bit calmer than down by the coast) to Ella which apparently also has beautiful views.  We certainly went for some nice walks in the area but if you ask me it wasn't a patch on Haputale.  Jamie and I also managed to play a game of Karom (sp?) which is like checkers crossed with billiards.  I won.

From Haputale we headed by train to Hatton and from here we took a bus to Delhousie, right at the foot of Adam's Peak where Buddha is said to have transcended to another level.  Throughout the pilgrimage season thousands and thousands of buddhists walk to the summit and we were planning on leaving at 2am in order to make the peak for sunrise.  However, as we were pretty tired we decided to leave it for the first night and make the ascent the morning after.  Probably a bit of a mistake as there is absolutely nothing to do in Delhousie as the place exists solely for pilgrims heading up the mountain.

Eventually though we did make the five hour climb accompanied by a few hundred Buddhist pilgrims (this was towards the end of the season so not so many people were about) chanting and praying throughout the night.  Our ascent was perfectly timed and when we reached the top we had just enough time to perch on a ledge facing east (which we soon found out was right beneath a gents toilet - brilliant!) and watch a really incredible sunrise.  Once the sun had risen we headed to the west-facing side of the summit to see a natural phenomenon where the peak casts a perfectly triangular shadow on the low-lying clouds that surround the mountain.

We stayed long enough to take in all the views and then started the long trek down, by the end of which we all had aching legs and wobbly knees.  Having no desire whatsoever to stay any longer in Delhousie we hopped on a bus straight to Kandy, Sri Lanka's second city.

In Kandy we eventually found our way to our guesthouse situated up in the hillside over looking the lake that sits in the middle of the city, after dealing with some tuk-tuk drivers who wanted to take us to some place different.  Despite being a fairly large city (by Sri Lankan standards anyway) all places shut promptly at 11pm, severely reducing the chances of any heavy drinking.  However, for my birthday we did manage to get a reasonable amount of drinks in, accompanied by good food and Man Utd on tv, so despite having to bring it to a close well before midnight it was still a good night.  As a present Sarah booked us into the Queen's Hotel, a really cool, old colonial building right on the aforementioned lake.  It was brilliant to actually stay in some comfortable surroundings and the old-school lift was a winner for me.  Also, a shower that wasn't just attached above the toilet was an almost forgotten luxury and much appreciated.

Next to the lake we saw the Temple of the Buddha Tooth which is focal point for the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka and supposedly houses a tooth from the great man himself, taken out for viewing every ten years.  Cars are prevented from coming to close to the temple itself by a huge army checkpoint but you can walk alongside the lake no problem at all.  Next to the temple is a place called, I believe, Kandian Arts and Crafts Centre - or something similar - where you can buy all sorts of funky Sri Lanka souveniers and also see a show of traditional Kandian dancing.  Really good show with all the traditional costumes etc and it finished with some firewalking which was cool to see.

Eager to kick back and relax for the remainder of our time in Sri Lanka, we left Kandy and spent a long day travelling to Colombo and then back down the coast to Unawatuna.  It was an eventful journey involving us getting off our bus in the middle of nowhere as a definitely unstable character started acting a bit strange and then dropped a huge knife as the bus went over a bump.  Luckily though we didn't have to wait long until another, private bus came along - and this one had airconditioning which was a blessing.

From here on our time in Sri Lanka was basically just spent chilling at Unawatuna beach which was still bathed in sunshine but was now even emptier as we were getting closer and closer to the monsoon season.  We were lucky enough to be there when the monsoon started and, let me tell you, it was amazing.  We're talking walls of rain and the most incredible thunderstorms I have ever seen.  One evening we were sitting down for dinner in a restaurant overlooking the beach and lightning struck something out at sea, no more than 300 metres from us, accompanied by a huge boom that literally shook the balcony which we were sat on.  Not all the lightning was striking the ground either - one evening was spent watching huge arcs of electricity snake their way all through the night sky in a very impressive fashion.

As another present for my birthday (wasn't I the lucky one!) Sarah also paid for me to do a Sri Lankan cooking course in a small house just behind the beach where I learnt to cook all different sorts of Sri Lankan curries.  The course took the whole day and included going to the local market and shopping for all the ingredients and was well worth it - even if by the end I was sweating like nothing else.  Even Sarah, who is a much better cook than me, agreed that it all tasted pretty good and we ate well that evening!

We were also lucky enough to be in Sri Lanka for the poya on 8th May - Buddha's birthday.  I - believe - this is one of the biggest Sri Lankan national holidays with alcohol banned for a few days before the big day out of respect for the big man.  It's a really good time, with locals putting up street-side cafe's that dish out free food for two days for anyone who wants some (and the queue's are long - the UK needs some sort of similar communal activity).  As well as all this, everyone makes lanterns to hang up and in the town centre different groups construct huge, intricate lanterns as a show of respect to Buddha.  It's a brilliant carnival atmosphere - even without the beer.

All in all - Sri Lanka is beautiful.