About the weather... (Aluthgama to Unawatuna)

We almost braved the local bus from Althugama to Hikkaduwa but bottled out at the last moment and got a tuk tuk, it still only cost us around £12. After seeing the way the bus drivers here drive, were trying to avoid using them unless absolutely necessary. Maniacs isn’t the word. If we’d been on our own, fine, but with the boy, no chance. They barely even reach stationary when stopping at the roadside to pick you up before you have to leap on. And the overtaking….jeez, worse than India!  We would have been on the train on this portion had it not been for the repairs to the track after Althugama.

We stopped at the Tsunami memorial on the way, which is very close to where the ‘Queen of the Sea’ train was swept away killing 1700 people and making it the worlds worst train disaster. It’s a  beautiful monument and a very sobering experience, especially as they’ve left the houses around the statue exactly as they were after the event.

The Tsunami Memorial near Hikkaduwa and one of the houses left as they were after the event. Sobering.

After 2 days in Hikkaduwa I can’t see why it gets all the negative press, true it’s more touristy, but in small, backpackery way, small cafes on the beach playing the ubiquitous reggae music and small hotels and guesthouses strewn along the beach front. The beach here is beautiful tho, curving round in a lovely 2k long cove. It’s still pretty quiet at the moment, and by all accounts gets very busy in Dec/Jan when I can imagine it gets engulfed by the stench of the young, looking for fun & frolics to a soundtrack of clanking beer bottles & the  twanging of knicker elastic. Hang on, sounds familiar ‘(but in the way distant past admittedly, and without much of the latter)…

The beach at Hikkaduwa. Well, Sea, strip of sand and guest houses. Curtis rockin' his French Foreign Legion look.

Our hotel (Ocean View) hosted a nice wedding here last night, Swedish couple I think, but they had traditional Sri Lankan drummers and dancers (all of whom probably work in IT or Banking when not reviving historic dance routines for fee paying tourists). but the costumes were lovely and we got some great film of them playing with the Curtster…. Mind you the wedding disco later was dreadful, 15 year old soft rap and ‘holiday’ techno, mind you they did play Wigfield's ‘Saturday Night’ so it seems  that some themes of spiritual redemption thru song are universal.

Curtis is always a hit with the ladies, even the ones in fancy dress. Not sure about the camp centurion look tho....

Spent the next day wandering along the beach, hopping from café to café, finding another excuse to stop and have a coffee/lunch/beer/feed ‘babba’ (as the locals call him). Curtis also did some more swimming (well, floating) in the pool. Beats the weekly trip to Morrisons I gotta say….

Another guy we met back in Kandy (Stuart) was in town on Fri night so we arranged to meet up with him. We went for a wicked pizza in an Italian run joint (look, there is only SO much curry and rice a guy can eat ok!) and he suggested several guest houses to us. His family are coming out at the beginning of Dec and were planning to hook up with them then too.

Curtis was way happy with his new cushion.       No Buglers in Galle.         Classic Austin (I think) in great nick

After 2 days in Hikkadawu we headed by tuk tuk again to the historic town of Galle, a little further along the South coast. It’s a really nice place unlike any other town we’ve been to so far, set inside and old Dutch fort with quaint little shops and cafes, but after 2 days you really feel you’ve seen all there is to see? There are a couple of nice churches and an evening stroll along the ramparts with the locals (and mosquitoes) is a must. nothing much is open after 9pm, and there are no bars to speak of, so it suits us for a few days. Nice guest house tho, run by a very friendly  Sri Lankan family.

Galle. Lovely place, some really nice architecture. A mix of the old and new.

Weather is a funny thing, we were expecting glorious sunshine on the West Coast of Sri Lanka as that’s out of monsoon season now, with the East having it’s monsoon.  However we’ve experienced rain most days in the East/South. It only rains in the afternoon after at least 3pm sometimes 6 or 7pm so it’s no great hassle. It can rain for anything from 15 mins to several hours, and anything from heavy to a tropical downpour! We’ve seen some magical electrical/lightning storms since we’ve been here. All the locals turn of their computers due to the increased risk of a strike! And the 5 days we spent on the East coast were completely rain free. Go figure.

The restored Church in Galle. The lighthouse and the good old British Post Box.

From Galle we moved on to another beach resort, this time the famous Unawatuna beach only 5k from Galle. Now, this is more like the places we’ve been to before, lots of little shopes selling tourist crap (wooden elephants, I love Sri Lanka t-shirts, flip flops, you know the kinda thing.But it does have lots of very good restaurants, including several veggie/vegan ones, and very nice they are too, the best food we’ve had so far on our trip. Make a change from the veggie rice/noodles or curry that’s usually the only thing I can have on the menu.

Unawatuna beach is beautiful, a 1k curved bay, but it’s kinda ruined by the fact that it’s wall to wall restaurants and guest houses, and they all come right up to the beach front, leaving only a few yards of sand in front before you hit the ocean in a lot of places. Shame, must have been stunning when the hippies first started coming here in the 70s. Now I reckon they all own the aforementioned guest houses! The place also gets rammed in Dec and every place is full of partying White faces as one guy put it. Best get out before then then! Again our guest house (French Villa) is really lovely, away from the beach and the bar music, but only a min or so walk to the beach. The owner gave us a family sized room when he saw we had Curtis, and has been helpful. We were recommended the place by 2 US nurses we met at the guest house in Galle, so we chatted to them a lot. Unfortunately the second night the owner decided to get drunk with some of the guests and blasted out music till way after midnight keeping everyone else awake! We checked out the next day....

Unawatuna beach, lovely, but again they've built right up to the font leaving a small strip of sand. The proud dad!

On the downside, and I guess this happens to all parents at some point, Curtis had his first fall out of bed, and onto a hard concrete floor too. He was in the centre of our huge double bed happily playing with his toys as he’s done every day, I was on another beds, I looked up and he just rolled over a couple of times, and before I could get over there fell out of the bed and hit the floor. He was screaming, I was beside myself with panic, so I picked him up tried to calm him down. I wanted to come home immeadiately, but we all calmed him down, and 20 mins later he was back to his old self. We checked online about baby concussion etc and kept a very close eye on him overnight. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well, and still feel guilty about not being next to him to stop it from happening. We won’t be making that mistake again. Next day he was on top form tho, and the nurse gave him the once over and said he looked fine to her. I guess it was a bit of a shock to all concerned, not least Curtis.

By the way, now I've learnt how to use this blog properly I've added maps to the earlier posts so you can see where we've been, and made the pics bigger. Check them out....

The many faces of Curtis. The Swiss Nappy Head.....the Sleepy, butter wouldn't melt Beauty and the Blofeld (minus cat)