After a less than ideal night (a bit too warm, dogs a bit to loud) Juni chose to wake up earlier than usual. After a bit of iPad she was bored and wanted to get out. Well said and done, I headed out and left Mona to catch some beauty sleep – only to meet Gunnel halfway up the stairs to our room. She was heading to the beach which sounded like a win-win for all parties involved so I duck back and fetched sunscreen, toys and the stroller and sent Juni off while going through photos and did some long overdue blogging.

Eventually Mona also got bored so we walked down to the beach instead of getting a breakfast. It was quite hot so when Kalle & Gunnel went to Dolphin we decided to head over to Nordic House for breakfast and high quality coffee. The sandwiches were really really nice, and Mona praised her coffee which isn’t a common sight either – so success for the first breakfast that wasn’t included in the hotel price.

After that we decided to have a look at Hikka Tranz / Turtle beach to see if there were any giant turtles there that were healthy for Juni to have a look at. Lo and behold, there were five of them (and a lot of tourists, I’m sure you can guess their nationality by now). Juni were a bit cautious and did not want to pet the turtles – she also explained that she had had some bad dreams of the evil sharks who ate the legs and arms from turtles yesterday.

Rain clouds started to gather so we went back to the resort for some rest. While Juni slept the rain started, and when she woke and it was still drizzling she argued that one could still swim by the pool, right? Hard to argue against that so we practiced “swimming” in the rain and played around for some time while Mona did research for next steps of our trip.

Mona and I switched being Pool guard as I did some blogging, photo backups and other essential holiday tasks. For dinner we decided to try something new so after doing some quick research we took a Tuk-tuk to Book Worm. On a side note, what ever happened to Tripadvisor? It used to be the best, then good, then decent but now is a UX mess – it’s bad when you use Google Maps over a dedicated service.

Kalle called while we were on the way and would join us there. As we made our way it was a very quiet atmosphere, and turns our they only served one set menu of Sri Lanka traditional vegetarian curry. I was very pleased and luckily Juni enjoyed rice and papadam at least so we dug in. It could have been a few degrees warmer to be honest but otherwise really nice. The lemon and honey tea was excellent as well. Kalle and Gunnel were not hungry so only wanted a beer – my suspicion that they didn’t serve beer turned out correct so after settling the bill (it was perhaps the cheapest dinner so far in addition) we strolled along Galle road to find some beers.

After beers, ice-cream and a mango lassi for yours truly at Cool Spot we took the last tuk-tuk for today back to the hotel and went to bed, only to recall we should have asked for the AC to be switched on today. Well, it can’t be that bad with the fan on decent speed, can it?

The day had come, it was our last day at Jippe The Villa. We enjoyed an early breakfast, then Kalle came and picked up Juni and we packed everything (yes – it’s something new that we’re trying out) and took a Tuk-Tuk to our new place of residence – Star Holiday Resort. Well there we quickly dumped our stuff and met up the others at the beach.

It was stronger sun today, but not unbearable so we played a lot in the water with Juni – she met new friends who wanted photo-ops (reminds me of Japan). Kalle had a lust for that Schnitzel at Harbour Mona tried the other day so we took a late lunch there. Yours truly went for Deviled Prawns which was OK – however I will never understand why you need to peel of the shell yourself while it’s also covered in spicy sauce.

After that it was Tuk-Tuk back to the resort, where we unpacked a few things and met up with Deepti who had arranged for a car so we would go visit a turtle hatchery some 30-40 minutes north up. The hatchery was apparently something more organized and focused on the health of the turtles than others – but from our perspective there is a long long way to go. It could be the philosophical divide from “Life is Suffering” Buddist stance but I don’t see anything noble or kind about keeping a turtle alive in a tank not many more times than it’s own size without company or scenery for decades – to me that sounds like extended torture. In general the attitude against hurt animals that suffer in pain until they die (unless pain can be mitigated, then they do so of course – they are not cruel on purpose) are something I have a hard time agreeing with.

We saw some turtles that were unable to dive since they had swallowed plastic bags with air, making the turtles unable to hunt for food themselves. Juni when given the explanation on what was wrong with the turtles suggested that “but can’t we remove the plastic from inside the turtles?” – which was considered impossible unless they threw it up themselves according to the guide.

Juni was very also quite interested in the sharks that had some infection that was treated and then would be released. Around the time we were about to leave Mona told me there was a snake in a tree, I managed to see the small yellow snake disappear in the green and went to pick up my camera for a proper photo. Another family wanted a picture from their phone and I obliged. This meant that I missed to have the camera ready when some guide pushed down the snake from the tree with a broom and it fell down a few meters from Juni. What I had seen was the very end of the tail, the snake was likely two meters and black and caused more than a few of the guests to curse and hastily move away as the guide shooed it away.

After these adventures we headed back to Star Holiday Resort and Juni acquainted herself with the other kids in the pool – and concluded that this was a very good place to stay at.

Kalle had bought some nice cold cut meat earlier and invited us to dinner, so we went by the fruit and vegetable market as a detour and bought ingredients for a nice salad to match. Next to the market in a store we even found some feta cheese – likely the first item that is on par if not over Norwegian prices, but it tasted really nice. Everyone was a bit tired after a long day so we headed home quite early after finishing the dinner.

The morning was a slow and wonderfully lazy one with reading and slacking, sometimes cloudy weather is the best excuse one can have. Juni asked if she could also take a photo with the camera – and with a little help from a chair to rest the rather heavy camera Juni managed to create a master piece all by herself. Too bad I was the main in the middle of the photo but practice makes perfect. Eventually we took a tuk-tuk to the beach and met Kalle & Gunnel at their usual spot.

I practiced 540°s and backside 360° in the waves with Juni, something she did enjoy a lot even though the success rate was somewhat limited initially. After a few hours we headed back towards Kalle & Gunnel and scouted some options for next stay since our booking at Jippie The Villa was coming to an end. On the way there we finally got caught in the rain, without Pina Coladas unfortunately though – so took shelter at Kalle & Gunnel.

Armed with an umbrella and leaving Juni behind we ventured back to check out another option called Villa Tara. It as very nice apartment, but in the end a bit of overkill for what we needed and not that much closer to Kalle & Gunnel. We stopped by Dinesh (?) for a quick lunch before picking up Juni again. Prices were cheap and the place had almost no empty tables and everybody spoke Russian – what could possibly go wrong?

We had been lulled into complacency by getting fast to medium service so far so was this time completely blindsided by over an hour wait for Kottu and a small pizza. On our way back we checked the last option on our list, Thai Lanka, and this time felt that the more than a little out of date interior combined with a deep pool and beer-drinking Russians as neighbors were perhaps not the safest bet so went with Star Holiday Resort, a short walk from Kalle and Gunnel with a few rooms and a nicer pool.

After finally resolving the stay we picked up Juni and returned to Jippie the Villa for some slacking, Juni also decided to take the dog’s dog for a walk in the stroller. She has played quite a lot with the dog Pippi, but perhaps more with Pippi’s dog.

For dinner we treated ourselves with another pizza at Spaghetti & Co – not as great as the first one but still really nice Italian made pizzas, more expensive than the local food but again compared to Oslo prices everything seems like a bargain.