Sri Lanka Part 2 – South Coast

Day 5 (June 10) – Galle – We stayed at the Finlanka Hotel in Hikkaduwa, about 20 km north of Galle. It is a pretty place with lovely gardens and nice pool, a thing that seems to be the norm even in cheaper hotels in Sri Lanka. Once again, there were few, if any, other guests.

The night was interesting. The close presence of the Colombo-Galle rail line was not a real issue, just the Earth shaking every hour or so. Far worse was the lovely lights wrapped around a tree in the garden outside and set to blink on and off every 7 seconds. The curtains did not cover the top portion of the windows so it was bloody annoying. Fortunately, we both had sleep masks.

We also awoke to rain, the first so far. Today was a special holiday for the full moon. A holiday is celebrated every full moon but this was special because it celebrated the coming of Buddhism to Sri Lanka. It also meant that most restaurants were closed and those that opened would not serve alcohol. We pretended that it didn’t matter.

At breakfast, the owner apologized for the lack of the usual full Sri Lankan breakfast due to the holiday and proceeded to bring us separate plates of more food than we normally eat in a week, fruit platters, eggs on toast, hot dogs in buns, cakes, muffins, fruit smoothies, a pot of tea. It just kept coming and we hardly made a dent in it.

We headed off to Galle, with the holiday meaning that the roads were even more crowded than usual. Along the way we saw numerous long queues of people. These were places serving free food as part of the holiday. It seemed to be a lucky dip as to what you got. Some dished out bread and bananas, while the next had curry and rice, or even icecreams in cones. The lines showed just how well free food pulls a crowd.

First stop was the Japanese Peace Monument, an enormous Buddhist stupa donated by the Japanese after the tsunami. The Japanese gave a lot of support to Sri Lanka following the event and the gratitude is obvious. The location gave wonderful views over Galle Harbour. Inside the temple, people were asked to pray for peace between the Ukraine and Russia. Hard to argue that one.

Next, we headed down to the Dutch Fort. This is the amazing fortress that overlooks the Galle Cricket Ground, the scene of two test matches with Australia earlier in the year. We got used to the sight of people sitting on the walls of the fort watching, and little wonder, given the small size of the ground and the expense of the tickets. We had imagined we were seeing the remnants of the fort. Far from it. The fort is a large walled town, still complete and still working within, much as with places like Dubrovnik in Croatia. The walls are constructed of limestone, coral and earth ramparts, so thick that no cannon could ever have hoped to do any damage. The fort served to protect the Dutch interests up until the British take-over in the early 19^th Century, which was largely done without a shot as the Dutch had been conquered by Napoleon at the time. As a fortress it is very impressive. As a focal point for the local population and social gathering place, it is equally so. This was the place to be, even in stormy weather.

The crowds were out and about on the walls of the fort. We enjoyed a walk of three sides, Nilanka meeting us with the car at the three quarter way, a good idea because the heavens opened shortly after. Driving through the town, we stopped at the Dutch church, a building showing all the austerity of the Dutch Reformation compared to the Catholic churches of Europe.

With few eating options, we did manage a couple of rolls with interesting fillings from a bakery before getting home. The afternoon was spent with a well earned rest and a swim. In the evening we wandered down to the main road to find the one establishment open for food service, a hotel, and had a wonderful Sri Lankan Pork Curry. Of course, we couldn’t wash it down with the usual beer and had to make do with watermelon juice (true).

Day 6 (June 11) – Being the only ones in the hotel, a full buffet breakfast was not served. Instead, plates were brought out every few minutes. A big plate of diced paw-paw, watermelon and two bananas came first and we just started into the shared plate when mine arrived. The first one was Christine’s. Before we had made a hole in that when two types of pancakes, banana and egg, arrived, along with coconut roti and curry dipping sauce. There was also a plate of string hoppers, little saucer sized things made of fine noodles. We were working hard, trying to show our appreciation by consuming stuff when four spiced sausages arrived and distracted us from anything else remotely healthy. This was washed down by a pot of tea, along with a paw-paw and banana smoothie. I was bursting at the seams, but Christine still managed a piece of vegemite toast. I felt guilty so I had two pieces of tea cake. All this and we actually refused the eggs and omelet offering.

Most of the day was spent driving. We only covered around 160km in total but progress is slow. Speed limits away from actual motorways are low, 40kph for tuk-tuks and motorbikes, 60kph for cars and trucks, 250kph for local buses. The buses are terrifying. They come at you, lights flashing, horns blaring and suspensions collapsing. They rule the roads. The police were very much in evidence, with pull-overs seen every few kilometres. Our driver is very conservative and we like it like that.

Along the way, we stopped at a lovely lighthouse, the southern-most point in Sri Lanka. There were a couple of young boys flying a kite in what was close to gale force winds. They appeared to be struggling with the spool of heavy fishing line. I held the line to feel the strength and it was similar to a 4 or 5 metre tiger shark grabbing a fish and taking off. They were slowly making ground with their hand spool so we left them to it. We climbed a slippery slope to the beautiful Coconut Hill lookout, a wonderful view of the coast from a precipice totally lacking in guard rails or walkways. Welcome to the real world.

Once we arrived in the Tissamaharama area, we traversed a long earth causeway with a large lake on one side. This is part of an elaborate irrigation system constructed around the 3^rd Century BC by the Tamil Kingdom of Ruhana. There are five such lakes dotted around the area with an intricate system of canals to create a large irrigated area. It still being a festival holiday, the canals were filled with people of all ages, bathing, cooling off or simply finding a good place to socialize.

We visited the Tissamaharama Raja Maha Vihara, an ancient Buddhist temple from the 3^rd Century BC, a colossal structure built from tiny bricks.

The road sides held a lot of small stalls, with one or two tables and piles of shallow earthern ware pots piled up. We stopped at one and sampled their product, little tubs of a curd made from buffalo milk covered with palm honey, the sap gathered from the flowering of a local palm. It was a complete 10/10 taste sensation. The honey is becoming less common as bees honey displaces it, probably making more money. The curd has a slight tang but is a very fine yoghurt by any standards.

Then it was the afternoon at the hotel, a very nice resort called the Pahalage Boutique Villas, which would have been fine except that it was very much in off-season rebuild mode. Many rooms were gutted and there were workers around, the only staff seeming to be the one manager. We were not impressed, despite their every effort to accommodate us. We had to ask for such simple things as a second towel and a kettle. Yes there was on-line TV where we could have watched the cricket. No, they hadn’t paid the subscription so no TV. We chose a meal each from the menu, no doubt so they could use Uber Eats to order in (yes, they have Uber Eats in Sri Lanka). It was not a big issue because we were only staying the one night but it was annoying, and messaged the tour company to tell them, saying we wanted to be assured that all future bookings were in hotels that were fully functioning. They came back within twenty minutes saying they had changed our next hotel in Ella. According to our driver, the off-season has the advantage of not having to fight crowds at all the attractions but the hotels are in go-slow mode.

Day 7 (12 June) – Tissamaharama to Ella – It was a very early start at 5:45 to head out to Yala National Park for a safari. Having located a friendly ATM to stock up on huge piles of cash to pay for the experience, we rendezvoused with our guide and his slightly beaten up Toyota Hilux with a six pack of high seats mounted in the ute well. It all looked like overkill until we saw the state of the tracks. A 4WD is definitely needed with a driver sufficiently experienced to negotiate the huge holes and ruts in the track. We hadn’t even reached the park entrance before we saw a tree full of monkeys, gray langurs, and a large (even by Australian standards) crocodile in a roadside pool. Once in the park, the utes spread out across the tracks, each jockeying for position to find the best animals. There was no shortage. Every water hole held buffalo, the excitement of a mongoose snuffling along by the side of the track soon became commonplace, herds of deer graced the grasslands and many pools harboured more large crocodiles. Both the Estuarine Crocodile (like ours) and the Marsh Crocodile are in the park. It looked like the Marsh Crocodile had a slightly shorter mouth. The highlight, of course, was a family of elephants coming to a waterhole to bathe and feed on the lilies. No bulls were in sight, all mothers and calves, but a couple of the mothers were huge beasts. The bird life too, was amazing, with some enormous hornbills, hundreds of beautiful bee eaters, bright iridescent blue kingfishers and a fantastic display of water birds.

We spent four hours being thrown around in the back of the ute, but it was worth every minute. We couldn’t help but compare it to the wildlife safari in Borneo where actual wildlife was very scarce, even birdlife. We saw more each hour than we saw in 2 weeks in Borneo. The nature of the park helped. Yala is dry land bush, with low thorn scrub and a few large trees. There are wide open grass areas so spotting the animals was easy. None of the animals had any fear of humans at all. We did not manage to find either a leopard or a bear. The lack of leopards was puzzling because Yala has the highest concentration of leopards anywhere on the planet. Oh well, we can always Youtube it.

After a quick shower and change back at the hotel, we hit the road again heading north into the mountains to Ella. The dry land country changed back to the rain forest as we climbed. Along the way, we stopped at another archeological buddhist site, theBud uruwagala Rock Temple, with an enormous 7m high carving of Buddha, along with some smaller carvings of Hindu Gods. These dated to around 700AD.

Near Ella, we stopped at a roadside lookout to take in the beautiful Ravanna Waterfall, a drop of around 25m and quite spectacular. There were lots of tourists here, and we watched in amazement as people left a handbag unattended right next to a red-faced Langur monkey who looked ready to steal everything it could. Don’t people watch Youtube? Why would you have anything to do with a monkey?

 

Our hotel proved good enough, at least it was populated with people and a few guests. Best of all, it was only a short walk to the main street of Ella. Ella is the first full on tourist place we have seen, the magnificent views and walks bringing people here. The climate is wonderful, with mid 20s and cool nights. We are over 2000m in elevation and it helps. The main street is all bars, restaurants, health spas and curio shops.  We don’t find the same hard sell you get in other Asian places. Even the many tuk-tuk drivers are quiet and take a polite “no thankyou” as final.