A lazy, uneventful day.

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Woke at 6, which was not my plan! Listened to music, watched the ocean and just generally lazed around until 8.30am. Last night, Aminda showed us the "best room" in the hotel - a suite called the Residence. It was huge, with a fibre optic lit private pool hanging over the gardens and sea. It had a giant jacuzzi and huge Smeg fridge. He didn't tell us the room rate! We like our room though. It has a huge bed, CD/DVD player, bose sound system, plasma screen tv and an ipod, loaded with 6000+ songs. We've got it on shuffle and were jigging around to Bhangra or something like that first thing. There is a library with dvds and books to borrow.

Breakfast was a buffet - first time we encountered this. But what a spread! Any manner of Sri Lankan or european food is there for the taking. Eggs, pancakes, waffles etc are cooked to order. We had curd and treacle (buffalo milk yogurt and kitul syrup), fruit compote, fresh fruit, brioche (the lightest ever!) and fabulous home made pineapple and mixed fruit jams. Oh and Roy had an almond muffin and croissant. Now we're stuffed full.

When you sit down to eat here, they bring cold flannels out to you. They also do this at about 11am, to those around the pool - in preparation for the fruit kebabs which follow shortly afterwards.

The day seemed to pass quickly, despite us doing nothing other than swimming, reading and returning to our room to cool down. It was quite funny at the pool - the (extremely comfortable) sun loungers are on a wooden decked area next to the beach, but raised up about 6 feet from the sand. On the beach, the "Beach Boys" and hawkers cluster around. I think the deal with the hotel is that they can be there, provided they don't pester guests while on hotel property. Of course, the second you step off hotel grounds and on to the beach, you're fair game. So, during the day, they stand at the edges of the sun deck, calling out a cheery hello to anybody who happens to glance in their direction. Occasionally, we see the odd guest wander over for a chat, or discussion about trips and prices, but nobody seems to go anywhere with them.

I was sitting reading, when out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed some movement above the beach wall. When I looked up, I saw a carved wooden boat and wooden elephant bobbing around on top of the wall! It looked so funny... then I saw the guy's hands and eventually his head pop up. He walked along that wall, waving his elephant and boat, for hours. Because I'd looked up, he clearly thought I was a prime target and stood in front of me for ages, showing me how the sail on the boat folded back down for packing. When I laughed and said "no thank you" he kept bringing up smaller and smaller boats and elephants to show me. Eventually he realised that I wasn't buying and wandered off. I saw one guest sit on the wall for an hour going through all his goods - but I don't think he bought anything, which seemed cruel.

We shared a Sri Lankan Wrap and greek salad for late lunch and then we decided to go for a stroll along the beach at about 5.30pm. If we were expecting this to be peaceful, or even romantic - not a chance! As soon as we se foot on the sand we were latched on to by Chandika, a tuk tuk driver who walked along with us telling us all about his tuk tuk and taxi services, his day trips and showing us his Ceylon Tourist Board Guide permit, Insurance Certificates and list of teas that we could buy. This went on and on and on and no amount of polite comments got rid of him. Eventually we gave up trying to have our walk and turned back to the hotel where we had a beer. They gave us home made crisps with chilli flavour, beef satay and bruschetta with our drinks. Then of course we got the same again with cocktails later on that evening when we went down for dinner.

Tonight I had a singapore sling - Roy stuck to Tom Collins, he's not a fan of sickly cocktails so this one is perfect for him. He's been a bit out of sorts today, thought nothing of it, sometimes the heat can get to us.

Dinner was curry - black pork curry, red rice, pineapple curry (yum!), salad with chilli, dhal curry. That was just Roy! I ordered Prawns with string hoppers (like rice noodles), coconut gravy and salad. It was all very good (we shared) but the pork was spicy - not chilli hot, but with black pepper. It is quite a dry curry and very unusual - really burnt your mouth. I liked it, Roy was not so keen. We drank beer. Then we had the banana wrap again, and creme brulee. Bed at 10.30pm.

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Photos

Breakfast
Curds, treacle, mango, pineapple and papaya compotes