Defrosting in Sri Lanka

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After living in Ireland for only half of a planned twelve months, I’d had enough of Dublin’s grim winter and decided to head for the warmer climates of Asia. So after a week in London visiting some born again poms,and celebrating Australia day, I flew to Sri Lanka to start a trip through Asia. The plan is to travel over land and sea to as close as I can get to Australia, via India, Pakistan, china and various countries in south east Asia.



Arriving in Colombo, with the temperature somewhere in the mid thirties, was a bit of a shock to the system, after the near freezing temperatures of London. So after only one day in the capital, I traveled south to the beaches of Hikkaduwa, Unawatuna and Mirissa. The first two were nice, but a bit noisy and crowded. Mirissa was pretty quiet and had a perfect beach with white sand, palm trees and clean clear water. The last two beaches had both been hit by the tsunami of 2004, but looked to have recovered quite well. But stories of the disaster are all to common. Whether it be people clinging to trees for their lives, fishermen and shop owners watching their livelyhoods being swept out to sea, or of the whole family next door disappearing without a trace. Fortunately for the local fishermen, all of their boats have been replaced by foreign aid, mainly from Japan and Switzerland. I did a couple of dives (scuba) in Unawatuna off a boat which had also been donated by japan.



After I’d had my ocean fix I headed for the central highlands. I visited a few towns surrounded by tea plantations and had some short mountain hikes.



I then moved onto the second city of Kandy and hung around there a while waiting for a visa for India. After my first taste of Indian beurocracy I ventured into what the Sri Lankan Board of Tourism calls “the cultural triangle”. This “triangle” consists of the ancient cities of Pollonaruwa and Anuradhapura, and loads of sites of Buddhist temples, statues and dagobas. Kandy even has the Temple of the Tooth, which apparently has one of Buddha’s molars kept safely in a golden box, but is only allowed to be seen by a selected few. All these sights were pretty interesting, and touring around the ancient cities on a local style bicycle was pretty relaxing.



I had planned to travel further north to the city of Jaffna and east to some more beaches which have the reputation of being the finest in the country. But the conflict between government forces and the LTTE (tamil tigers) had flared up and I was advised not to go.



I had also planned on revisiting Colombo to have a good look around, but my visa was soon expiring so I made my way to the beach resort town of Negombo. This place was full of expensive tourist resorts spread over a filthy beach. Why this place is popular with european package deal tourists is a mistery to me, with Sri Lanka having so many beaches of a much higher quality than this one. I only ended up here because of it’s location, close to the airport, where I boarded a flight to southern India.

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Photos

my untrustworthy stead
i had two flat tyres in one day on this heap