Sri Lanka day 33 – Goyambokka to Mirissa

Posted on Sunday, 15 May 2011 by Hattie

Easy bus journey along the coast road to Mirissa involving a change at the bus station at Matara, the main transport hub on the south coast. Fares are under a pound for the two of us. Buses are the only form of public transport available in the southeast of the island and the roads are dominated by them, so great are their numbers. Cavalier bus drivers rule the roads here, and it is wise not to pay too much attention to their reckless driving techniques as they hurtle along, horns honking, whilst other road users make way. But then you never seem to have to wait more than a few minutes for a bus. And whilst the buses may be ancient and decrepit, they are all kitted out with several speakers delivering popular Sri Lanka music, which fortunately is not unpleasant, if rather loud. All have a buddhist ‘shrine’ above the windscreen which usually comprises flashing lights, pictures of Buddha and garlands of artificial flowers.

Apart from the buses there is generally little traffic on the roads here; comprising mainly tuk tuks, motor bikes, cycles and lorries, and not many cars.

Marissa is a small village straddling the Galle Road, although most of the action, what there is of it, is on the beach. Here are a few thatched beach bars-cum-restaurants and guest houses offering cabanas and rooms, not all of them open at this time of year, and one rather more up-market hotel with a swimming pool. Almost all the buildings are set back behind the tree line. The only encroachment onto this lovely, unspoilt crescent of sand and sea is the occasional thatched beach bar. This is has to be the prettiest beach so far.

We are staying at Palm Villas which lies on a bay of it’s own, and turns out to be a very good choice. The guest house gardens are right on the sea, although at this time of year the tide is too high for there to be any beach and if it wasn’t for a retaining wall, the garden would be fast disappearing into the sea. As it is, there is only a narrow path still remaining to link us with the main beach a few yards away. We have a room with a sea view, well just; at least there is a glimpse of the sea from the bed, which is more than we have got anywhere else. And, it is the cleanest room so far, by a long way. Of course, the obligatory building work is going on here, although thankfully, it’s not too intrusive. It’s just a bit off putting to be confronted with a building site when you walk in off the street!

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Sri Lanka day 32 – Goyambokka, Tangalle

Posted on Saturday, 14 May 2011 by Hattie

A day for walking along the coast road into Tangalle stopping off at one picturesque and deserted beach after another. Just the usual palm-fringed, golden curves of tropical beach – idyllic apart from the roaring surf. Hard to believe that these bays are completely calm in the high season from December through to February and possibly beyond when you can swap the thrill of the surf for the tourist crowds and higher prices.

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Sri Lanka day 31 – Goyambokka, Tangalle

Posted on Friday, 13 May 2011 by Hattie

This is a lovely spot for hanging around doing absolutely nothing. It’s out of season and there are only two other people staying at Green Gardens, so apart from the inevitable building work that is going on behind us, all is peaceful and quiet. The two other guests are a Swiss couple who have been travelling with a four-wheel drive for an incredible 26 years! There biggest headache seems to be arranging transport for the car, which they are trying to send to Mauritius and then on to Madagascar – not an easy task as we learn from their blow-by-blow account of the administrative bureaucracy involved. The only other people staying in Goyambokka are a French couple who came to the restaurant for dinner last night from the cabana resort across the way. In the afternoon we take the bus into Tangalle and walk along the beach to the busy fishing harbour. There are some sizeable trawlers making their way out to sea, as well as a few traditional outrigger canoes pulled onto the beach. A couple of water monitors are swimming up the river which meets the sea just before the harbour. Banana pancakes on the beach at the Franjipani guest house. Back to Goyambokka for a swim, or more accurately a fight with the waves. The French couple are way out, beyond the breakers, doing what looks aqua aerobics, which certainly seems to keep them in trim. The old boy that hangs around the beach and is highly recommended by the French as an excellent cook (praise indeed from our cousins across La Manche), is waiting with a fresh coconut for us all to share . Another long chat with the Swiss and a delicious and enormous rice and curry dinner at Green Gardens.

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Sri Lanka day 30 – Tissa to Goyambokka, Tangalle

Posted on Thursday, 12 May 2011 by Hattie

Travellers Home, in Tissa has been a great disappointment. We have grown use to the lack of maintainance and low-level grubbiness of budget guest houses in Sri Lanka; dirty walls in the bedrooms, grimy bathroom tiles and sinks that could benefit from a good scrub with Ajax. This lack of attention to cleanliness fortunately doesn’t extend to bed linen and towels which can’t be faulted. Travellers Home, despite its recommendation in Lonely Planet, is no different in this regard, but whereas most guest houses are helpful and friendly, here the attitude is very off-hand. We complained several times that the loo didn’t flush and the tap on the basin was broken, but despite empty promises nothing was done, whilst preparing a rice and curry dinner for for one was just too much trouble. On the upside we had a lovely view over the rice paddies from our ground floor terrace.

It’s a straightforward and relatively short journey to get from Tissa to Goyambokka just 3km outside Tangalle. We don’t have to wait long to pick up a bus just outside the guest house which takes us along the coast road to Tangalle and then a short tuk tuk ride to Green Garden Cabanas at Goyambokka. No need to worry about finding the bus stop either, all buses here can be hailed from anywhere on the roadside, making travelling ultra convenient, providing the busis not already crowded to overflowing. Fortunately on this occasion there is plenty of room, but we have to pay for an extra seat for our luggage!

Green Garden Cabanas has four wooden floored cabanas on stilts and a stone cottage that wouldn’t look out of place in the Yorkshire Dales, all set in lush gardens with a a variety of palms and trees. Two pretty chestnut ponies wander the grounds and seem to come and go down the little lane outside as they please. There is also a very good dog howing choir in the early evening!

The completely deserted beach is just a couple of minutes walk away. At this time of year all the beaches have huge crashing breakers churning up a mixture of white foam and sand. Hart to believe that in the high season the water is perfectly calm. A walk along this small cove takes us across the point to another small beach beyond. Even here we are stalked by tuk tuk driver – the word has gone out that tourists are about – touting for business.

There are some seriously vicious ants here and I get a nasty nip from from one of these agressive not-so-little mini beasties as I’m hanging out our washing. Much more painful than a bee, or even a hornet’s, sting and much more long-lasting.

Food here is excellent but the portions are enormous!

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Sri Lanka day 29 – Tissamaharama

Posted on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 by Hattie

We have come to Tissa specifically to visit Yala National Park. The town itself is quite pleasant, surrounded by paddy fields and dominated by a huge white dagoba, but for tourists it is primarily a base for picking up tours to Yala 21km east. We have arranged a 6-hour jeep safari through our guest house, Travellers Home, at a cost of 55 pounds. We set out at 5am along with a young French couple who have been travelling for 17 months, including 12 months spent working their way around Australia, and a Swiss guy who has been travelling in India.

Yala National Park and strict nature reserve together cover an area of 126,786 hectares accessed along bone jangling unsurfaced roads.  A glorious landscape of scrub, light forest, grassland and brackish lagoons with blue seas sparkling in the distance.   Most people seem to come here with a driver, tracker and guide which seems quite excessive since we manage more than adequately with a driver who does the job of all three.

With only 25 or so in the whole park, Leopards are particularly difficult to track down and not everyone who visits Yala is lucky enough to see one.   So spotting one is  our driver’s number one priority.  Quite incredibly he eventually manages to find one  sleeping high up in a tree, the only one anyone has seen this morning, and there are quite a few jeeps circling the park looking for one. We come alongside a group of elephants and a jackal wandering nochalantly down the road quite unperturbed by us as he saunters round our stationary jeep and continues on his way. Mongoose, buffalo, wild boar, sambar, spotted deer, crocodiles and many, many birds including, ibis, egrets, eagles, darters, kingfishers, bee eaters, painted storks and many more which we can’t identify are all within a few yards of the jeep. The only animal we didn’t see was the shaggy coated sloth bear. A stop at the river for some respite from the discomforts of the jeep is a welcome relief. Frogs skittering across the surface of the water and some entertaining monkeys provide an added diversion.

We round off our trip with a quick stop at the beach and then back to town for some lunch and to nurse our battered bodies. It’s an experience well worth the effort involved in getting here.

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Sri Lanka day 28 – Arugam Bay to Tissamaharama

Posted on Tuesday, 10 May 2011 by Hattie

What a mare of a journey! The most direct route from Arugam Bay to Tissa would be down the coast south but for the fact that the road stops at Yala East Natonal Park. The whole Yala National Park complex which includes the Yala Strict Nature Reserve and Yala National Park incorporates a chunk of the south east coastline and preventing travel by public transport. The only way to reach Tissa and the south coast from Arugum Bay is to go west to Monaragala and pick up a connecting buses going south to Tissa. If your timing is right it’s possible to get a direct bus otherwise the journey involves a further change at Butala and/or Kataragama. All is running smoothly until we reach Monaragala where we get conflicting information on how to get Tissa and instead of changing at Badula as intended, end up in Welawaye much further west. Something definitely got lost in translation because we thought the conductor had told us the bus was going direct to Kataragama. People at Wellawaya are very sympathetic and helpful and one old boy in particular ensures that we get on a bus that will take us almost all the way to Tissa and ensures that the conductor knows where we want to get off. He even rings ahead to our guest house to let them know when and where the bus will be dropping us. Apparently he used to work there as a jeep driver. All he would like in return is two English pound coins. We finally arrive just outside Tissa after a hair-raising drive hurtling along narrow roads at breakneck speed. A journey which should have been around four hours has taken seven-and-a-half despite the efforts of the maniac bus driver. As we clamber into a tuk tuk for the last 8 kilometres a jeep from the guest house arrives to pick us up. At least one bit of the journey was perfectly coordinated thanks to our friend in Wellawaya.

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Sri Lanka day 27 – Arugam Bay

Posted on Monday, 09 May 2011 by Hattie

We had intended to leave Arugam Bay today and head for Tissa in the south, but after my complete wipe out yesterday we are staying another day to chill and recuperate. Today I brave the waves for my first swim, which is fine once passed the first breaker, but is a struggle against the strong undertow to get out again. Lunch at the southern end of the bay by the fishing boats and, creatures of habit that we are, it’s dinner at Lucky’s, again!

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Sri Lanka day 26 – Arugam Bay

Posted on Sunday, 08 May 2011 by Hattie

We take a tuk tuk and spend half a day exploring the coast as far as Okanda, taking a detour at Panama into Lahugala National Park. Okanda is about as far south as you can go before coming to Yala East National Park and from here there appears to be no public coastal road. The only way to get to the south coast is to do a huge loop circumnavigating Yala East and the adjacent Yala Strict Natural Reserve by going back to Arugam Bay and then east and south via Monaragala. A ridiculously long-winded journey that we are going to have to undertake in a couple of days time.

Once we get to Panama directly south of Arugam Bay and turn west away from the coast we are soon onto ununsurfaced road, through rice paddies and lily ponds until after about an hour we reach Crocodile Rock, the largest granite outcrop amongst a group of similar rocks in this otherwise completely flat coastal plain. Crocodile Rock not surprisingly, takes it’s name from it’s remarkable resemblance to the crocodiles that populate the waters around these parts. From a certain angle and with the help of a bit more imagination, like a reclining buddha. For those with a less spiritual inclination, a pair of breasts spring to mind.

The climb to the top of Crocodile Rock defeats me which is unusual, I think I must have a touch of heat exhaustion. Or perhaps it is a combination of the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, the steep scramble over the rock and all our previous activities catching up with me, but today I am completely depleted of energy. I manage to get half way up, and even from here the views of the paddies and lagoons are enthralling.

Also among these gigantic rocks is a simple Buddhist cave temple and a stupa or is it a dagoba, I can never tell the two apart. There is also a large rock pool here which is reputed to be home to a croc, but all that is visible today are hundreds of fish. The Stupa is attracting many buddhist monks clad in saffron robes who are making their way up from buses in the car park as we head back to our tuk tuk.

Okanda slightly further south is a home to Murugan Devale, an Hindu complex with a colourful gateway tower which survived to 2004 tsunami and was in recent times th scene of fighting between the LTTE and the army. Now it is once more a stopping point for thousands of pilgrims who undertake the Pada Yatra pilgrimage walking from Jaffna in the north to Kataragama in the south. Today it is almost deserted save for a handful of worshippers and the man who runs the little palm-thatched store. A stroll away is a completely empty crescent beach with thunderous surf.

Lunch at the guest house and complete R&R in an attempt to overcome complete exhaustion. Dinner at Lucky’s.

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Sri Lanka day 25 – Arugam Bay

Posted on Saturday, 07 May 2011 by Hattie

Arugam Bay is definitely work-in-progress. Hit hard by the tsunami in 2004, much has been rebuilt, with tight restrictions which prevent development within 10 metres of the beach. There is still evidence of the devastation wrought by the tsunami; the odd derelict building, redundant foundations and several buildings awaiting restoration. In fact despite the time that has elapsed, renovations are still going on in most of the guest houses, including the Tsumani, and it’s not unsual to be serenaded by a buzz saw or some other piece of building equipment as we sit on our porch looking down to the sea. What has been rebuilt is mostly cabana-style low rise huts in keeping, one suspects, with what was here before and most of which don’t break the tree-line. Fortunately Arugam Bay it has been spared the worse excesses of tourist commercialism and at this time of year we have the place almost to ourselves.

Not much to do but chill today, although we take a stroll north along the beach towards Pottuvil and the sandbar that separates the see from a small inland lagoon. Lunch at Lucky’s and a rather underwhelming beach bbq at Rocco’s in the evening.

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Sri Lanka day 24 – Arugam Bay

Posted on Friday, 06 May 2011 by Hattie

A stroll along this golden beach flecked with black sand, lunch at Lucky’s on their raised,palm thatched dining terrace overlooking the sea. This is definitely the best food we have found in Arugam Bay, by a long way. The prawn curry is to die for.

Late afternoon we take a tuk tuk through the back streets Pottuvil to the Pottuvil lagoon for an ‘eco’ tour. We are punted around this wonderful wetland on a raft made from planks laid across two narrow canoe hulls. The lagoon is a mix of mangroves and reeds and is bursting with wildlife including crocodiles, water monitors and birds galore – are real twitcher’s paradise. Apparently the crocodiles don’t attack men only steal the fish from their nets, which I guess must be true given the number of fishermen that stand in the water casting their nets. I wouldn’t want to put it the test though. Only the sound of the water gently lapping the hulls interupts the calls of the birds in this unspoilt sanctuary.

More curious children at the landing stage to greet our return, some overcoming evident shyness to come and take a closer look at these strange foreigners and all eager to have their photos taken and to peer at the result.

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