Sri Lanka - Quarantine Part 4, Ahungalla

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The last place we stayed was another Heritance hotel, located south of Colombo in Ahungalla, after another beautiful drive through the mountains and jungle. This was intended to be more of a beach location and the least expensive hotel of our trip. It showed, but it was still nice! It seems mostly like it is probably a party place in normal times. They were trying to get us to join beach volleyball or water aerobics or water polo... But I think there were less than 20 people total staying the whole time we were there (4 nights). I felt a bit bad - the staff were super nice!

The first day we just went to the pool bar for some nice fruity drinks and watched a few interesting guests: a couple learning to swim apparently and a guy practicing for the water polo team with backward passes to no one. That was definitely our entertainment for the first day! The hotel itself is very large, but I think they were trying to keep the majority of the guests in one section, understandably. Our daily room cleaner made us animals out of our towels, such as an elephant or swans. I have absolutely zero complaints about the staff!

And it was interesting because Kevin at Jim's Farm Villas had noted a couple days before we had left that the winds had changed. It was very apparent when we arrived at Ahungalla. Compared to the daily gorgeous beach days at Negombo, the sea was rough and the sky was overcast almost the whole time, with some very intense rainfalls every day. I loved it.

The other change that happened was that it was coming to Eid al Fitr and the country had shut down the regional borders as well as the tourist sites (we apparently just made it through to Sigiriya and Polonnawura) to minimize gatherings. The country has a mix of Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, and Muslim people and with all the holiday celebrations, this is where they get into trouble for Covid - the cases had started to rise as we had arrived due to their New Year celebrations. Initially, we had planned to drive down to Galle and at least look, even if from the windows of a car, but even that was not allowed; only transferring between hotels through the checkpoints was allowed.

However, there was not much to do except unwind at the hotel for four nights. We played table tennis. Walked on the beach. Drank. Ate. Swam (I loved being able to actually dive into the deep pool!). There were two pools, the more private of which seemed to be the hangout for the few tourists each day. Every night was a decent dinner, though it did not hold a candle to the first two hotels food wise.

The time came to get our PCR test. We told the front desk when our flight was, got the test, and spend the next 36 hours trying to not think about the upcoming brutal work. Just before we had arrived at the hotel, UAE closed all flights from Sri Lanka, meaning at that point we were a bit trapped. If Saudi followed suit, we were in trouble. I was freaking out a bit, while Luke was almost hopeful it would happen. He's like, worse things than to be stuck in Sri Lanka, or we can go to Georgia for quarantine. I wished I could have that luxury because yeah, it would be fun, but we had soooooo much work to get done! Anyway, when our flight time was approaching, I went to ask the desk when our driver would pick us up and they were like, "ummmm, you're leaving? You need a ride to the airport? What?" So, the last few hours were a bit stressful, but we got our driver, and made it to the quiet airport.

The flight itself on Qatar Airways, was fairly nice, on a large plan (either a 757 or 787, can't remember), but the weird, super weird thing was, they put the few passengers (maybe a quarter of the available capacity) all sitting together in one section of the plane!!! So weird. I asked the flight attendant - isn't there supposed to be social distancing or something? And there are plenty of seats! She said it was just like this for takeoff then we could change seats. I have absolutely no idea why - it makes zero sense! I think that is the weirdest flight protocol I have witnessed since the pandemic began, and that includes dealing with full flights. Other than that, the flight was nice, and after a long layover in Doha at the very busy lounge (we got moved to first class because the usual lounge was full), our flight to Riyadh was fine and normal - no weird bunching of passengers. Then flight to Tabuk and we were picked up at 2am by John and Evert and taken to our 'favorite' hotel in Tabuk. More on Saudi in next blog.

For Sri Lanka - I had a message as to if I would travel during the pandemic to Sri Lanka. We were there for work and it was a much better option than Bahrain. While our tourist activities were extremely limited the whole time, and especially more so after the shut down for Eid al Fitr, it was definitely the right decision. The hotels were very nice and the people are so friendly! Until Eid, they did have a list of tourist activities you could do of the main attractions. However, I felt like it was very expensive, with the drivers, hotel only food and drinks (no street food or orders in). The hotels were still cheaper than Bahrain or Maldives would have been, but it was definitely more pricey than I expected, but that was the extras. I would love to come back when things are more settled - particularly to see the tea plantations, beaches, and wildlife. I loved the tropical lush green landscape, especially compared to the hot deserts of the Middle East. While you were secluded at the hotels, it was a bit relaxing - it was not crowded, the food was good, the pools were nice, the staff were friendly... it was almost like a bit of freedom in a weird way. Some places are more available, but that can change at the drop of a hat (believe me, daily changes for our projects at work have been stressful!). However, being at the top of Sigiriya Rock by ourselves? Amazing! You just have to kind of think about what works best for you traveling during the pandemic.

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