Surfing safari

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After a night of tormenting by some unholy sadist inspired by Clockwork Orange we woke up for the last time at 0930 and the beers from yesterday didn’t help the lack of rejuvenation either. The lovely shower helped getting rid of the grumpiness quickly though. We later learned that it’s the bread-man on his tuk-tuk who had invested in a weapon of mass sleep-disruption, an impressive loudspeaker playing only 8 seconds of Für Elise before looping back to replay it over and over and over again. Since his vehicle of torture was constantly moving it at times so far away one could only just hear it but at times you could swear someone left their Nokia cellphone from -98 in your room with an alarm set. Anywho, the breakfast buffet was nice and once again I could get omelets, fresh fruit, yoghurt to start the day.

After some blogging and slacking we saw Avi who was having lunch with his children in our restaurant. He had also been ravaged by the Für Elise tune and his wife’s first reaction had indeed been to hit the wall to the neighbor so they would turn off their damn alarm some time. I had a surf lesson scheduled for 1330 and wasn’t hungry yet so figured we would instead try the dinner later tonight and settled for mango lassies.

We were surfing at SK Town and I was the only one receiving a lesson so I got the instructor by myself which was really nice. It was much easier here than what I recall for Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa so more or less every white water wave allowed me to surf standing until I reached the beach again. Lots of fun, but no photos this time to prove my skill 😉

Back at Talalla Resort and just in time for a Yoga class. I should be honest and state that I have some prejudices related to this area but tried to enter the class with an open mind. Let’s just say that there were people there who’s bodies bent in ways I’m pretty sure the body isn’t designed for, and Mona or yours truly was not the most flexible ones present. There were quite a few exercised that required strength as well as stamina though so I at least wasn’t the worst in class in all aspects and left sweaty, tired and now really hungry.

The dinner was awesome, a guy grilling tuna the way you wanted, a nice salsa to that, nice salads and lovely curries as well. The nice buffet was topped up with a beer to share before returning to our room. I’m usually not one who cares for e.g. flowers placed on the bed when you arrive but I have to say it was quite nice to see this time, and this was part of their daily cleaning routine. I was exhausted after the exercising and fell asleep like a baby at 20:00 but this time with earplugs inserted.
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An offer we couldn’t refuse

20131228-120739.jpgWe woke up for the last time at Villa Naomi and after breakfast, we packed up and prepared checking out. We were a bit confused about the EUR-SLR conversion rate Google presented and realized that the rate we had mentally used up until now for SEK-SLR were off by 33%, so everything have been significantly cheaper that we thought. Nice surprise!

We took the bus to Matara, which were larger than the other cities we’d visited before but managed to have fewer points of interest. After some brief sightseeing and enjoying a steady lunch at Galle Oriental Bakery we felt we’ve had enough of Matar and took a tuk-tuk to Talalla Retreat.
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This was definitely an improvement from Villa Naomi. Organically grown food, Yoga-classes and surf lessons and a really nice room with a porch. We “only” got ground floor meaning we missed the slightly voyeuristic option of no walls to the bedroom. The bathroom was partly outside roof though, really nice setup. As we were getting settled a friend, Avi, texted me that we apparently were on the same beach as him and his family and he offered beers in exchange for our company. Who was I to refuse such an offer?

One beer quickly became several ones and we ended up having dinner at their place, aptly named hotel Panorama with amazingly nice view. After many laughs, beers and solving a few of the world’s major problems we went with one of the hotel staff in his private tuk-tuk back home since it had turned pitch black outside. I just had to try the shower before falling asleep though – very nice to shower under a starry sky.
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Strolling along the beach

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After breakfast we took a stroll along the beach and I took a few photos of our immediate surroundings as well as some action shots of the, from what I could tell, rather talented surfers. It looked like great fun but also quite tricky with the sharp rocks so I bided my time for surfing. After a while we reached Midigama and the notorious Ram’s Guest house where there were plenty of surfers or surfers in training – Midigama offered however little outside surfing so we turned back.
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We took the bus to Mirissa for another lunch at Dewmini Roti Shop, and it was as nice this time as the previous one, but it was not as crowded so we got our food really fast. We stayed there reading for an hour before taking the bus to Weligama. I really can’t explain how convenient the bus system is without sounding like an ad. Walk to the road, wait 1-3 minutes, get on the bus, pay less than half a euro for two people, get off at your destination. Why paying more to go in a tuk-tuk (which seem to be worse off in a collision than a bus) I fail to understand.
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We withdraw cash in Weligama so we could settle our bills when checking out and stocked up on some chips from a supermarket before heading back to Villa Naomi, with bus of course. We took a swim in the sunset and then spent the rest of the day reading on the balcony or in bed. I finished “The Thousand Emperors” by Gary Gibson, quite good that one as well but perhaps time to move from a Scottish SF-writer to a British one?
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