We spent Christmas having a holiday from our holiday! After the travails of India we took the short hop from Trivandrum to Sri Lanka. We then took the long hop by road from Colombo airport to the South Coast – a journey of 120 kms, taking an agonising five hours. This included negotiating the Christmas Eve traffic chaos of Colombo and the roadside stalls selling large branches of evergreen trees and blow up Santa’s. Fortunately, such signs of Christmas disappeared gradually as we moved South.
We selected our hotel in Hikkaduwa from an article in the Hong Kong Times. We read this just before we left Hong Kong at the very end of last year’s travels. The article raved about the Asian Jewel - a “hidden gem” in Sri Lanka. It was cheap, No 1 on Tripadvisor, had a lovely pool and we were intrigued. We discovered it was certainly “hidden” – 3kms up an unlit dirt road, past a very smelly tip, through the rice paddies and in the back of beyond. It was run by a British couple, Tanya and Dale and all that that implies…. To be fair, they made us feel very welcome, breakfasts were great and they helped us with our onward travel. Ant’s string hopper and curry dahl breakfast will live in his memory for a long time. And the pristine bathroom will live in Gill’s memory for about the same length of time! It was the first clean bathroom for a month. Tanya’s boob job was as perfect as the rest of the house. It must be the first “boutique” hotel in Asia to be designed and kitted out from the British High Street – we could have been anywhere. Music by Elvis and Celine Dion, Shepherd’s Pie on the menu, and for those in need a full English it even included specially imported HP Sauce. Tanya – or “Madam” as she like to be known ran her staff of seven boys with a rod of iron, no detail went unnoticed and she was inordinately proud of her home made soaps. Whilst she ran her boys, “Mr” Dale, (ex army and full of tattoos) ran to the beach every evening to get pissed with his ex pat mates while she drowned her loneliness with bottles of beer, and mugging her guests with tales of their domestic differences. This is so far removed from what we expected it was funny – but we have decided to move on for New Year.
Our stay at Hikkaduwa was dominated by the daily trip to the beach, where we would happily ensconce ourselves on a rustic four poster beds each line the beach, each beach bar competing with the next. We lounged there for up to ten hours for the price of drinks and lunch – heaven! The beach is glorious, a long stretch of sand shared by the fishermen and beach bars, big rolling waves attracting a cool surfer and post backpacker crowd. Each day blurred into the next punctuated only by banana pancakes, Sri Lankan prawn curry and rice and jaffles – the ubiquitous Sri Lankan toasted sandwich delivered to our beds (see Xmas lunch pics). We did however avoid the burgers from the “Burger Shag” – see pic.
Our hotel was about 3kms inland so whilst being peaceful, it meant that transport was obligatory (we walked it on Christmas Day, but the heat made it impossible to repeat). As a result we seem to have adopted a personal tuk tuk driver, Vimal. We summoned him when needed by asking whichever bar we were in to give him a call on his mobile. He always turned up almost immediately – which is some indication of the very quiet credit crunch season they are having. We managed to avoid all offers to meet his family, keeping the relationship on a purely business level, despite his gifts of fresh aloe vera and a bottle opener which he thought was a corkscrew. Our need for a corkscrew was due to our many alcohol emergencies in India. As a result of these and just to be sure, we shipped in a litre of Gordon’s and four bottles of wine – no way were we spending Christmas in a treasure hunt for the local “beverage corporation”. But as is our wont, with alcohol it is never straightforward. We discover Sri Lanka is awash with booze – indeed we are meeting them on home turf – Sri Lanka has the highest alcohol consumption per capita in the world – we may lose to them in cricket, but this barmy army wasn’t going to let the side down! So here we were in a land awash with alcohol, dragging bottles around – but now with no corkscrew! It was an inquiry to Vimal that produced the “antique” beer bottle opener – one of you may well be receiving this for next Xmas… One thing we are kicking ourselves about was that we forget to take up Vimal’s offer of a tuk tuk driving lesson, first offered late one evening after a couple of glasses of wine (us not him!) on a pitch black road with more potholes than the A1 in Baghdad.
We allowed long sunny days, curling our toes into the white sandy beach to be disrupted only rarely. Once to visit a turtle sanctuary and once to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site of Galle. Galle is a 17th century Dutch walled city which protected it from the Tsunami. Architecturally it is pretty complete, but a bit like the Glyngarth Villa, hasn’t seen a paintbrush since Day One. With the Foreign Office advice for Sri Lanka to “avoid large gatherings and any military installations” ringing in our ears (all due to the Tamil Tiger issue and their bombing campaign, reminiscent of IRA London), we arrived regally into Galle after the hour’s journey in our tuk tuk with Vimal sitting proudly at the helm only to find we were in the middle of a military/agricultural show! The place was heaving with people and military, with more weapons per square metre than either of us have ever seen before. We ignored Foreign Office advice and ploughed on to the rather gorgeous terrace of the Galle Fort hotel and chi chi boutiques, concluding with a dusk walk of the Fort ramparts greeting locals as we promenaded in the fading light.
We selected our hotel in Hikkaduwa from an article in the Hong Kong Times. We read this just before we left Hong Kong at the very end of last year’s travels. The article raved about the Asian Jewel - a “hidden gem” in Sri Lanka. It was cheap, No 1 on Tripadvisor, had a lovely pool and we were intrigued. We discovered it was certainly “hidden” – 3kms up an unlit dirt road, past a very smelly tip, through the rice paddies and in the back of beyond. It was run by a British couple, Tanya and Dale and all that that implies…. To be fair, they made us feel very welcome, breakfasts were great and they helped us with our onward travel. Ant’s string hopper and curry dahl breakfast will live in his memory for a long time. And the pristine bathroom will live in Gill’s memory for about the same length of time! It was the first clean bathroom for a month. Tanya’s boob job was as perfect as the rest of the house. It must be the first “boutique” hotel in Asia to be designed and kitted out from the British High Street – we could have been anywhere. Music by Elvis and Celine Dion, Shepherd’s Pie on the menu, and for those in need a full English it even included specially imported HP Sauce. Tanya – or “Madam” as she like to be known ran her staff of seven boys with a rod of iron, no detail went unnoticed and she was inordinately proud of her home made soaps. Whilst she ran her boys, “Mr” Dale, (ex army and full of tattoos) ran to the beach every evening to get pissed with his ex pat mates while she drowned her loneliness with bottles of beer, and mugging her guests with tales of their domestic differences. This is so far removed from what we expected it was funny – but we have decided to move on for New Year.
Our stay at Hikkaduwa was dominated by the daily trip to the beach, where we would happily ensconce ourselves on a rustic four poster beds each line the beach, each beach bar competing with the next. We lounged there for up to ten hours for the price of drinks and lunch – heaven! The beach is glorious, a long stretch of sand shared by the fishermen and beach bars, big rolling waves attracting a cool surfer and post backpacker crowd. Each day blurred into the next punctuated only by banana pancakes, Sri Lankan prawn curry and rice and jaffles – the ubiquitous Sri Lankan toasted sandwich delivered to our beds (see Xmas lunch pics). We did however avoid the burgers from the “Burger Shag” – see pic.
Our hotel was about 3kms inland so whilst being peaceful, it meant that transport was obligatory (we walked it on Christmas Day, but the heat made it impossible to repeat). As a result we seem to have adopted a personal tuk tuk driver, Vimal. We summoned him when needed by asking whichever bar we were in to give him a call on his mobile. He always turned up almost immediately – which is some indication of the very quiet credit crunch season they are having. We managed to avoid all offers to meet his family, keeping the relationship on a purely business level, despite his gifts of fresh aloe vera and a bottle opener which he thought was a corkscrew. Our need for a corkscrew was due to our many alcohol emergencies in India. As a result of these and just to be sure, we shipped in a litre of Gordon’s and four bottles of wine – no way were we spending Christmas in a treasure hunt for the local “beverage corporation”. But as is our wont, with alcohol it is never straightforward. We discover Sri Lanka is awash with booze – indeed we are meeting them on home turf – Sri Lanka has the highest alcohol consumption per capita in the world – we may lose to them in cricket, but this barmy army wasn’t going to let the side down! So here we were in a land awash with alcohol, dragging bottles around – but now with no corkscrew! It was an inquiry to Vimal that produced the “antique” beer bottle opener – one of you may well be receiving this for next Xmas… One thing we are kicking ourselves about was that we forget to take up Vimal’s offer of a tuk tuk driving lesson, first offered late one evening after a couple of glasses of wine (us not him!) on a pitch black road with more potholes than the A1 in Baghdad.
We allowed long sunny days, curling our toes into the white sandy beach to be disrupted only rarely. Once to visit a turtle sanctuary and once to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site of Galle. Galle is a 17th century Dutch walled city which protected it from the Tsunami. Architecturally it is pretty complete, but a bit like the Glyngarth Villa, hasn’t seen a paintbrush since Day One. With the Foreign Office advice for Sri Lanka to “avoid large gatherings and any military installations” ringing in our ears (all due to the Tamil Tiger issue and their bombing campaign, reminiscent of IRA London), we arrived regally into Galle after the hour’s journey in our tuk tuk with Vimal sitting proudly at the helm only to find we were in the middle of a military/agricultural show! The place was heaving with people and military, with more weapons per square metre than either of us have ever seen before. We ignored Foreign Office advice and ploughed on to the rather gorgeous terrace of the Galle Fort hotel and chi chi boutiques, concluding with a dusk walk of the Fort ramparts greeting locals as we promenaded in the fading light.
