DDR: Sri Lanka is up there as one of the most beautifully lush and green countries with incredibly friendly and chilled out people, great food and perfect surfing conditions. We had a sensational time with Isha, before getting a bit ill for our last week.
While Sri Lanka would be the final stop of this chapter of our trip, it promised to be a good one. Not least because another of our best friends, Isha, would be joining us for the first week. Even more to Nik's delight, Isha and I planned to take a girls trip to the mountains and visit Kandy and Ella before joining him at the coast later in the week. (Nik has already been to Sri Lanka before and visited these places, he therefore prioritised getting to the beach early - the opportunity to get in practice and surpass my surfing skills more enticing than the mountains). We arrived without much trouble, however Ish faced a delay due to events in the Middle East impacting flight paths, and ended up arriving later than us instead of early in the day as planned. As such Nik and I spent our first night in Colombo a deux, and had a delicious dinner at Ceylon Curry Club of string hoppers and roti. After months in countries where spice doesn't really feature in the cuisine, it was a welcome shock back to chillies, even if our tolerance was woeful.
Our glorious reunion happened the next morning. We all made our way to the station, and after a quick snack stop, Ish and I had purchased our fancy observatory class tickets to Kandy. We all said goodbye at the station, and after a quick exchange with a very entrepreneurial deaf man who rapidly extracted donations from Ish & I in return for bag help, we were on our way. Trains in Sri Lanka are said to be some of the best train experiences in the world. This is true, in a very different way to the bullet trains of Japan. The trains are not punctual or particularly fast, however they are very cheap and have incredible views. Observatory class is the final car on the train where the back of the train has panoramic windows looking out over the tracks and windows open for a nice breeze. Before the train gets going it is HOT, it's lucky we are such good friends that a bit/ bucket of sweat doesn't matter, however that was quickly forgotten as we pulled out the station. First impressions of Sri Lanka was just how incredibly green and lush it is, and amazingly beautiful. Nik hadn't been so lucky for his trip south and had opted for 3rd class. He described his hours long, standing room only, no AC trip as one of the most physically enduring things he'd even done, and from the photos I didn't doubt it.
Ish and I both had enormous bags, but we quickly learnt from our chirpy driver to not underestimate tuk-tuks. Somehow we managed to get us and our bags squeezed in and were quickly winding up the hill to our amazing airbnb. It was Sri Lankan New Year, and as such lots of restaurants were closed in Kandy so our first meal was an Indian place where we had a delicious curry and continued catching up. To make the most of our 1 night in Kandy, we walked around the lake in the center of town. Similarly to our experience with the deaf man, we were somehow charmed into attending a local dance performance by a local. Sri Lankans are so friendly that it can be quite hard to resist recommendations! The dance performance was fun, and after we visited the Sri Dalada Maligawa, a famous Buddhist temple containing a sacred tooth relic. The temple was very beautiful but insanely busy. We followed the crowds and were squeezed through before being ejected back onto the streets of Kandy about half an hour later. Again we dined on some South Indian food, this time dosas and called it a night. The next morning we were due to take the famous 8 hour train to Ella and wanted to be fresh for our journey.
The day started brilliantly with an incredible breakfast on the roof of our hotel looking out over Kandy. The bird song was beautiful and the fruit, Sri Lankan hoppers and king coconuts were delicious. The day only got better once we made it on the train. The views are breath taking wherever you sit on the train, and this time we had first class tickets which translated to a carriage with AC and windows fixed shut. Being cool was lovely, but the best way to enjoy the train and and stay cool, is to head to the section between carriages and hang out the open doors. The Sri Lankan approach to health and safety is wildly different to that in Japan, and we loved it. After a slightly complicated instagram photoshoot that involved getting 2 different doors for that shot, we got settled and spent hours sitting side by side with our feet dangling out the doors, chatting away and taking in the stunning views. The train heads up the mountains, passing incredible waterfalls, tea plantations, and endless greenery. You'd think after 8 hours on a train that we would be ready to get off, but both of us were devastated to be leaving. As with many of the experiences we've had on our trip, while touristy, it was 100% worth the hype. There must be something in the human condition that enjoys sitting in the breeze taking in beautiful surroundings for hours.
Ella is a magical spot in the mountains, again incredible greenery everywhere and an lovely climate that balances being cool but warm, with very little humidity. As well as taking in the famous view of the 9 Arch Bridge, Isha's Chloe trainers paid the price for yet another insta shot, we also hiked Little Adam's peak and did a sunrise hike for Ella rock. At both we were rewarded with incredibly stunning views at the top. Sri Lanka really reminds me of Costa Rica. In Costa Rica the country proudly shows off it's incredible record on biodiversity and carbon neutral status frequently. From what we saw of Sri Lanka, surely it must have similar statistics, it's so beautiful, green and clean, I hope the country can keep it up and be suitably rewarded. We were quite emotional by the time we reached Ella Rock, and made some new friends at the top. 2 of our companions were from Bangladesh, and were very confused to see that Isha's socks had "joy" in their language written on them. Isha is the walking Joy Crookes fan club and was proudly repping Joy’s merch. It was very cool to be with a music lover after so long of Nik and I focusing on the podcasts/ audiobooks. I don't imagine you'd get quite the same streetcred from "Rest is Politics" merch.
Our next stop was Hiriketiya, a sleepy surf town on the south coast. Reunited with Nik, we settled into a very relaxing, surfing way of life. Nik had spent the last few days in Weligama where he adopted what sounds like a surf monk lifestyle, wake, sunrise surf, lunch, surf, bed by 8pm. We discovered that Hiriketiya is very hot during the day, so Nik might be onto something and the best times to surf are first thing, around 6am, or just before sunset, 4pm-6pm. We adopted a similar new routine was surf, breakfast at Duni's, massage/ nap, lunch, optional second surf, shower, drinks and dinner. Dino's is very relaxed spot with great playlists that offers yummy smoothie bowls and hoppers for breakfast. We visited most days, and was a great place to debrief the morning's surf performance. Recommended lunch spots included Malu Poke and the Hiriketiya Beach Bus where you can get everything from samosas to fresh fish from a shady spot on the beach. All of our surfing improved, even if our week's highlight was on day one when Ish and I caught our final wave together and cruised to the beach like a choregraphed movie scene. By day 2, but definitely by the end of the week, we all had the surfing bug. I would say we were feeling healthier for it, but I managed to develop a cold despite the heat and Nik's gruelling surf schedule meant his back was now hurting. Ish at least was glowing by the time she left, her obligatory surfer sunburn already golden brown.
In our final few days, we taught Ish Scopa. She was a natural, and irritatingly was destroying Nik & I from the first game. It made saying goodbye that bit easier if I'm honest. Sore losing aside, the week went way too quickly, likely due to our many DMCs on everything from the nature of memory, value of this and blog, fitness to family and romance. We have one more week in Sri Lanka before returning home. This final visit has definitely made us more excited to spend time with friends and family, and finally meet some of the new arrivals who've been born while we've been away. Hopefully we will both recover quickly and become surfing pros in the next 7 days, but if not we can at least give hard boards a go.
Sadly our recovery was not as speedy as we’d hoped. Once Isha left we spent a few more days in Hiriketiya. As a highlight, I progressed to a few surf lessons on a hard board which was great. Sadly Nik gave surfing another go too quickly and properly hurt his back. Another highlight would be the incredible breakfast provided by the amazingly friendly hosts at our next hotel. They were delighted at how much Nik enjoyed the coconut roti and would just keep it coming, along with dhal and coconut sambol until we couldn’t eat anymore. Incredible hospitality from a hotel that cost us £30 each a night!
Next stop we arrived at another surf town Ahangama. While still lovely, this town is more established than Hiriketiya, a bit more spaced out and built up with more expensive hotels and restaurants. Quite a few of the signs are written in Russian and we learnt that in Covid a number of Russians moved here and have stayed. We even read that one of the bars that initially looked good from its Instagram, was now unfriendly to brown people. Given these reviews we didn’t check it out so won’t provide the name here. The main beach was lovely, with each beach cafe offering little sunbed huts for people to hide from the sun in. The beach must also be a hotspot for Brazilians, as the volley ball nets were surrounded by incredibly bronzed, laughing men and women all playing together. Brazilians do beach better. We enjoyed some more great food, and on our last day experienced a proper tropical rainstorm. The thunder and lightening was incredibly atmospheric, and at least one of us enjoyed the lock in feel of the afternoon.
Galle was our final stop before heading back to Colombo. We were staying in the beautiful old fort town. It was stunning and after checking into another very friendly hotel, we set off to explore. We had an amazing but deceptively filling lunch at a tiny, all you can eat curry buffet called Coconut Sambol. After cooling off with an iced coffee we also explored the fort walls and I managed to spend my remaining rupees on some beach garms ready for Ibiza. Still recovering from lunch we skipped dinner and instead opted for cocktails at a lovely hotel bar, followed by a stroll around town with an ice cream. It was a dreamy end to our trip.
All feelings of relaxation were scuppered by our terrifying cab ride back to Colombo the next day. The tiny car had no AC, and Nik repeatedly had to ask the driver to stop texting or notify him he was about to drive into the car in front. One of mums parking angels must have been watching over us as somehow we didn’t crash. We managed to squeeze in a final, very good Thai massage to undo the journey. Another rainstorm descended, a clear sign it was time to go home. I will definitely be returning to Sri Lanka, such a beautiful country with wonderful people and amazing food. A great final stop for this leg of the trip!
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