The reason for going to Tissa was Yala National Park for which Tissa is a good base. We arrived at about 12.30 and arranged an afternoon safari for 2pm that day. The late afternoon is supposed to be a good time to see the animals and we always had the option of another safari early in the morning if we didn't see anything. Luckily we had a pretty successful trip and saw lots of animals. No leopards unfortunately, but plenty of elephants and other things. Caitlin says she can now die happy having seen elephants!
I have to say we didn't see anything else in Tissa apart from driving through it. The next morning we headed for the coast at Tangalle with a little detour on the way to see the rock temples at Melkirigala. This time there were rooms carved into the rock/enlarged from caves. There were 7 in total at different levels on the way up to the top of a large monolithic rock with a lot of steps all the way to the top. Pretty hot work! Inside all the rooms had a large reclining Buddha of varying sizes and lots of other carving and particularly impressive painted ceilings.
At Tangalle we spent a lovely afternoon on the beach and finished off with a swim in the hotel pool. We then had a wander along the coast road (trying not to get run over!) to a local restaurant before Caitlin, Ben and I set off for an evening of turtle watching a Rewaka at the other end of the bay. It was a slightly strange experience. As I understand it, Rewaka is different from the other places along the coast you can see turtles. Other places hatch the eggs and you can then release the babies into the sea, while at Rewaka you go and see the turtles laying their eggs and I guess at hatching time you can go and watch the babies heading for the sea. The idea is that you just watch and there is no human interference. That is all very well in theory, but I wouldn't exact say we didn't disturb them!
We arrived at about 8.30pm and had a look around the really interesting little display about turtles. More and more people kept turning up until there were about 50 of us! And then we just waited. There were a group of spotters out on the beach looking for turtles on their way up the beach to lay their eggs. Once they saw one they radioed back to base and then we all queued up and paid (it was free if you didn't see anything). Then we set off up the beach (no lights allowed, understandably) at quite a pace as of course everyone wanted to get there first. The stretch of beach is about 2km long in total, and of course, this particular turtle chose the far end. When we finally got there we had to wait wait for her to get settled and start laying eggs before we could go and have a look. They called us forward in groups of 10, although of course as they didn't pick people to go everyone went at once. As much as they tried and told people no flash there were of course people who didn't listen. They had a red torch to show you, which is why the photo looks a bit strange. I'm glad we saw her, she was huge, at least half a meter across! But I felt very sorry for the poor turtle there was no way 50 people marching down the beach, talking loudly and flashing cameras at her didn't disturb her! After that is got even more disorganised, they told us that we could stay on the beach and watch any other turtles that arrived, or we could head back whenever we wanted. It was getting quite late, so we decided to head back. The only trouble being we missed the turning off the beach to the centre, we did eventually find it and made it back to our hotel at about 11.30. Rosamund was quite relieved to see us by that point, and we were quite glad to see our beds, ~2.5km march along the beach is quite exhausting!
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| Believe it or not, a green turtle laying her eggs! |
After Tangalle we pottered along the coast stopping at a couple of sites on route to Galle, a lighthouse (not quite sure which one it was) and a blow hole. The blow hole was something of a disappointment really, the sea was too calm to push any water out of the hole, so you'll just have to imagine the right hand picture with a jet of water coming up out of the middle of it!
The attractions between Tangalle and Galle.
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| A stilt fisherman, nearly! He was just getting down to come and ask us for money |
We then spent a lovely afternoon on the beach near Galle, with an excellent seafood lunch and some good snorkeling. Unfortunately so good that Ben managed to burn his back a bit, but he recovered! We checked into our hotel in Galle Fort. I can definitely recommend staying in the Fort itself, it has a lovely atmosphere. We had time for a little wander around the fort before sunset and a little shopping, drinking and eating after sunset. All in all a lovely evening and a lovely spot. It was pretty fancy, and had clearly gone in for up market tourism.
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| Old warehouse on the main square in Galle |
Looking out over one of the bastions of the Fort
Galle Fort Lighthouse
Our final full day in Sri Lanka we started reasonably early as we wanted to make the most of our time in Colombo. There are basically 2 routes you can from Galle to Colombo, the expressway only takes about 1 1/2 hours, while the coastal route takes ~3 hours. We stopped off at a few places on the way, so took the coast road. While what we saw was interesting, I think maybe the quicker option would have been better. But our driver was from one of the places between Galle and Colombo and really wanted to show us the places on the way, so we went with it.
First we stopped in at the Tsunami museum, which was a really moving collection of photos from the Tsunami. I guess until then we hadn't really appreciated just how much it affected Sri Lanka. I knew it had, but the news what much more focused on Indonesia I guess. In fact Sri Lanka had the second highest death toll after Indonesia, some 35,000 died.
Then we moved on to moonstone mine, it was interesting, but a little bit odd. It was pretty much just a big hole in the garden of a kind of manor house, in which was of course a large shop! Still, the jewellery was beautiful and we made some purchases.
Next up; a mask factory with a little museum. The museum was quite interesting, although the guided tour a little odd! Finally we stopped in a spice garden. I have to say, not as good as one we have been to previously, but still interesting to see the plants. They went a little bit overboard on the selling aspect.
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| Posing half way down the mine |
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| Stones from this mine and from all over Sri Lanka |
So we finally made it to Colombo. We stayed in the Galle Face hotel which is one of the famous posh hotels in Colombo. I have also just discovered it is the oldest hotel east of Suez, founded in 1864! The main reason, in fact, one of the reasons for coming to Sri Lanka at all, is that Rosamund stayed in Colombo on business a long time ago. She particularly remembers coming into the lobby of hotel and see through to the Indian Ocean and has always said it was somewhere she would like to come back to. We don't know if it is the hotel (particularly since half the hotel is currently being refurbished), but it was certainly very nice anyway! We spent a few hours by the pool and then got showered and dressed up (as far as our limited wardrobes would allow!) and headed out for some cocktails on the terrace followed by a very nice meal in the restaurant.
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| Sunset from the Galle Face hotel |
The following day we headed out for a speedy tour of Colombo. We managed to have a quick look around the Fort area, taking in the Galle Face lawn Dutch hospital, the lighthouse, the parliament building and the Sambodhi Chaithya temple before we decided it was far to hot for sightseeing caught a bus back to the hotel. We had time for a quick dip back in the hotel pool and some lunch before heading off for our flight back to Bangalore.
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| Old Parliament Building, Colombo |
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| Colombo lighthouse |
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| Sambodhi chaithya |
Sri Lanka was an amazing trip. Some aspects are a bit like India, but for the most part it is pretty different. The craziness is much less, less people, less noise and most of all, no rubbish (that was lovely!). We of course stuck to really touristy places, but I would most certainly recommend a trip to anyone.
Rosamund and Caitlin headed home the following morning and we settled down for a couple of weeks of normality before our final set of visitors. I got a little bored in those 2 1/2 weeks, but we still managed to fit in some good parties. It was just starting to heat up a bit here, but you will be please to hear most of our air conditioning works!
xKathryn
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