Sri Lanka - beach days are here!

The second half of our trip revolved around the beaches of the south coast.  Sri Lanka seems to have a never-ending line of beaches, and we visited 2 of the top ones:  Mirissa and Hikkaduwa.

Mirissa was pretty laid back and one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen.  It was peaceful and lined with palm trees like every good beach should be!  I liked how Sri Lankan beaches are not overcrowded with people.  I could have stayed there a long time, but we decided to move on to Hikkaduwa after a few days in search of some good surf!

Mirissa

Hikkaduwa was another great beach town, but it had a significantly bigger beach than Mirissa.  Mirissa almost felt cozy, while Hikkaduwa's Long Beach seemed to stretch on endlessly.  I expected Hikkaduwa to be more of a party place, but it was actually quite calm.  We got a recommendation to stay near a restaurant called Top Secret, so we headed there in search of a guesthouse.  When we got out of the tuk-tuk, a man asked if we needed a room.  He basically was renting out rooms in his own home.  He was so nice and friendly, and the price was pretty cheap.

It was sad hearing the guesthouse owner's story of the tsunami.  He told us that he was a retired teacher, and that he also used to have a restaurant but it was ruined after the tsunami, and part of his home was also damaged.  He said that luckily he wasn't in town when it hit, but his daughters were.  They ended up climbing a tree across the road to avoid getting swept away by waves.  I was a bit scared to think about a tsunami hitting Sri Lanka again, but you really can't live your life in fear like that or else you won't go anywhere or enjoy anything.  Fortunately, the man's family survived the tsunami and his house has been repaired.

I'm happy that we ended up staying at this man's place.  His house was steps away from the beach and Top Secret - which ended up being my favourite place to hang out.  I had the "European breakfast" there in the mornings and hung out at their cabanas reading books on my Kindle.  I also tried the "slack line" ... pretty tough but fun to try!

Slack line

Fruit plate that came with the European breakfast

John, Greg, and Alex went scuba diving one day to do a "wreck dive" (they saw a sunken oil ship).  They also tried surfing but John wasn't as into it as Alex who was really looking forward to it the whole trip.  One day, we all went snorkelling at the next beach and saw giant sea turtles swimming near the shore.  We even saw a lady hand feeding one seaweed!  The turtles were probably so used to people and getting fed seaweed that they didn't seem to flinch when we touched them.  It was a cool experience but I didn't have my camera with me, oh well!

Hikkaduwa was hard to leave... it was the perfect way to end our trip, feeling relaxed and happy!

Sunset over Indian Ocean, Hikkaduwa

Sri Lanka - Yala National Park

After Ella, we took a taxi van to Tissamaharama (aka Tissa) which was our base for visiting Yala National Park.  We thought a full day jeep safari would be cool.  Little did we know that it would be a pretty bumpy ride on dusty roads, spending hours looking for elusive wildlife.  A half-day tour would have been plenty!  We did get to see a lot of cool animals though, so I do not regret visiting Yala.

Among the animals we saw were:  elephants, water buffalo, jackals, antelope, deer, mongooses, monkeys, crocodiles, peacocks, and a variety of colourful birds.  We also saw 2 leopards (1 sort of up close, and the other in the distance obscured by bushes).  The leopards are very elusive and sometimes it can be difficult to see one on a safari.  If a jeep spotted a leopard, the driver would call other jeeps and the race would be on to reach the location of the leopard.  By the time the other jeeps arrived, the leopard was gone and we would be wondering what all the jeeps were looking at!  Despite this, our driver was pretty good and pointed out a lot of animals that we didn't even notice.

Can you spot the leopard?

 Yala was a peaceful place which was our first stop on the southern coast.  In 2004 the tsunami killed approximately 35,000 people.  There was a tsunami memorial at the beach at Yala.  It was a bit eerie being at a place affected by the tsunami.  It didn't help that I watched the movie "The Impossible" before coming on this trip (it's based on a true story of a family who experiences the tsunami in Thailand).

Anyway, seeing wild animals in their natural habitat was pretty cool.  My favourite was seeing the elephants!

We also ended up staying overnight near the park in a treehouse and had a BBQ dinner there.  It was ok, but for anyone visiting Sri Lanka in the future, I don't think it was worth the money for the overnight experience.

After Yala I felt sore from being jostled around in a bumpy jeep all day.  It was actually like a work out trying to stay sitting properly in the seats!  The first part of our Sri Lanka trip we spent 5 nights in 5 different places (Colombo, Kandy, Ella, Tissa, Yala).  The rest of our trip was some much needed relaxation!

Sri Lanka - Colombo, Kandy, and Ella

Finally back to blogging after our 2 week holiday in Sri Lanka!  It was a lovely country with beautiful beaches, cheap food, and some of the friendliest people I've encountered among my travels.

Before heading to Sri Lanka we stopped in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2 hours away by plane) because we couldn't book a direct flight from HCMC to Sri Lanka on Air Asia.  KL is a cool city which John and I have visited before on our travels years ago.  We arrived in the evening so we only had time for a quick visit to the Petronas Towers and ate a super cheap meal (Indian + Malaysian food) in Chinatown, where we were staying.  Malaysia is so multicultural!  It's like a fusion of China + India all rolled into one.

 The flight from KL to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, was around 3.5 hours.  When we arrived in Colombo it was sunny and hot (just like HCMC)!  We just ended up walking along the main road towards the city centre, and had dinner at the Dutch Hospital.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us to a place with good restaurants and he said "here is the Dutch Hospital" and we were like "no, we want restaurants" and he seemed to be agitated and kept saying "yes, the Dutch Hospital" ... turns out, the Dutch Hospital is a restored hospital which is now basically a courtyard full of trendy restaurants.  Cool!

From Colombo we took a train to Kandy the next day.  The train cost less than $2 and was 3.5 hours.  Kandy was a peaceful town centred around a large lake.  We saw a cultural show there (music, dancing, fire-breathing and walking on hot coals!) which was ok, but not as exciting as I thought it would be.  A good way to pass the time, and for $5 for an hour, why not?  There was a famous "Temple of the Tooth" there, said to contain a tooth of Buddha.  We didn't feel like paying the entry fee and we've seen lots of temples before, so we decided to skip it.  We heard later from some nice Dutch travellers we met that it wasn't that great.  I guess when you've seen so many temples, they all start to get boring and look the same.  I hate feeling like that, but I can't help it!

The following day was spent taking a glorious (for real) train ride to Ella, over 6 hours away.  The train twisted up into the hill country, with beautiful views of tea plantations and palm trees.  Not bad at all!  Ella was a small but touristy town with stunning scenery.  I would recommend anyone travelling to Sri Lanka to check it out!

In Ella we did a hike to "Little Adam's Peak" which was around 45 minutes each way.  We tried to hike up the larger Ella Rock but got lost and took the wrong road which led down to a waterfall instead.  It's probably good that we didn't hike Ella Rock because I actually hate hiking.  I hate climbing uphill, but of course I enjoy it when I'm at the top to see the view.  Little Adam's Peak gave us a great view of the area, and even though we didn't hike up Ella Rock we had a sweet view of it!  Sidenote:  the original, big Adam's Peak is located in central Sri Lanka and is believed by many to be the place where Adam first set food on earth after being cast out of heaven.  It is also known to Buddhists as Sri Pada (Sacred Footprint, left by Buddha as he walked toward paradise).  Ella was one of the best places we visited in Sri Lanka.  With scenery like this, who wouldn't like it?