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