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Asia » Sri Lanka » Southern Province » Hikkaduwa
February 3rd 2008
Published: February 6th 2008
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Hey...hello again! Just checking the last time I wrote so I knew where I left off. I was in Hapitale last time I wrote. It's a beautiful place up there....scenery like you wouldn't believe and tea as far as the eye can see! That is when it's not raining!! Luckily the day after I wrote, teh skies cleared and it was a different place! I think when I wrote the last entry, you couldn't see 10 ft infront of you, but when the sun came out and you could see where you were, it was amazing. I've put some photos on face book so you can see what I mean. I guess the only down side is you really noticed the tension with the LTTE there. There were police and army checkpoints everywhere - they even searched my bag which is unheard of...normally if you're a tourist they leave you completely alone. Anyhow, I heared right at the end of my stay that apparently they knew that the guy responsible for the last bomb was staying in Hapitale, hence the tight security. Also one night they had, what turned out to be an army exercise. only you didn't know it was an exercise at the time. Just middle of the night and all of a sudden there's all this gun fire and explosions starting what sounded like right outside the hotel and then moving slowly further away!
Not sure if I mentioned last time, but I stayed in a guest house in hapitale run by a muslim guy, Ali. To be honest, when I first met him, I didn't trust him at all.....he was too nice if you know what I mean. Trying to organise things for you and all that. I don't know, maybe I'm just a bit too untrusting... but then I don't think that's such a bad thing travelling on your own. Anyhow, I'm still not sure if he was just after a tip (which he did get as he did organise a hell of a lot for nothing) or whether he was simply a lovely guy. Looking back on it, I think he just wanted his guests to have a good time. First of all he was trying to organise a motorbike for me to go up to the tea plantations on, but then this french guy ( I forget his name now) turned up who was on a tour of Sri Lanka with a driver. The french guy was muslim as well (I think his family were from Turkey or something) so Ali gets friendly with him and basically hijacks him and his driver and gets them to take me, another lady who's staying in the guest house, and him all up to Lipton's seat and then onto the tea factory! Luckily he didn't seem to mind at all, and we all had a really good day! We set off early morning....well about 8ish when the french guy got out of bed (didn't feel we could moan seeing as it was his driver and car after all!! :O) ) and headed up the hill to see Lipton's seat. Wow, what a view. They say it rivals world's end ..and I'm sure it does. Not that I saw it, but from what other's said, I didn't miss too much. Basically, it's a really high look out point in the middle of the Lipton's tea plantations, with views to die for. I guess it was where Mr Lipton himself would kick back at the end of the day with a nice cold beer and admire his estate! Well, plenty of photo opportunities up there and then we headed back to the Dambattene tea factory to see where the good old cuppa comes from. On the way, we stopped in the tea fields. The good thing was that Ali knew the workers pretty well, so where as a lot of other people I've spoken too all said the tea pickers wanted money to have their photo taken, with us, they were all too willing to pose for us and show us how it was done! It was fab. We saw them picking, and then saw how they weighed it all in. Apparently each worker picks about 25kgs of tea every day. For that they get their house on the plantation, a bit of land to grow veggies and a basic wage. anything over that and they get a bonus on top. It seems like they're pretty well looked after with health care and that kind of thing too. Also, did you know that a tea plant lasts for 60 years?? It gets chopped right back every 5 years to new growth comes, but for 60 years its producing the stuff we all know and love! Then after the 60 years they pull it up and plant citronella for a couple of years and then they start again. Amazing eh! Anyhow, after that we made it down to the tea factory. Before we went in, we went to a little workers tea shop and had breakfast and chai... fantastic egg patisse....they're like breaded triangle shaped things (like samosas) but with egg and curry in them....mmmmm. its amazing what you eat for breakfast over here! Anyhow, all fuelled up and ready to go we hit the tea factory. They were really geared up for visitors and we were whisked off on a tour of the factory and shown how it was all done. Basically, it comes in, gets weighed and sorted and then put in a big bin with a mesh bottom and fans underneath where it dries out, then it's ground, then it gets cut 3 times until its really fine. Then it's raked out on the floor for a few hours to dry. After that it gets out in a big burner and fired or incinerated!! (apparently thats the difference between green and black tea...the green tea doesn't go through the burner) Then after that it gets sorted into different grades...your quality stuff, your tea bag stuff and then your dust! and bobs your uncle...that's where your tea comes from! After the tour, we got to do some tasting....well I have to say, I'm glad the stuff you buy tastes better than the stuff laid out for tasting!! I think it had been there a while and Ali said that the tasting samples are made really strong so you can really taste the flavour.....whatever it was, it was pretty disgusting!
After the tea factory, we popped into this children's nursery. I've put some photos of this on facebook. They had these cot type things made out of big sheets which hung from the ceiling and basically cocooned the babies with just their heads sticking out. I guess they work quite well, but one kiddie in one obviously was not enjoying it one bit and was letting us all know about it. It was quite cute though, this older one toddled over to him to see what was up ...made a really cute photo!
Anyhow, after that we were pretty knackered so we headed home..or back to the guest house. Originally, I was going to leave Hapitale and head for the beach that day but it was pretty late by the time we got back so I decided to leave it until the next day. Later that afternoon I went out with them again up to an Ayurvedic centre up the road where the french guy and i had a massage, steam bath and sauna. When we got there, it turned out it was all pretty expensive, so I said I'd give it a miss, but again, Ali had a 'word' with his mate that owned the place and managed to get me a half price treatment. It was pretty way out actually. The steam bath looked like something out of the arc ages.....a coffin like thing with a wooden thick mesh grid that you lay on and the steam came out and then they pulled the lid down on top of you with your head sticking out one end. It was pretty surreal. It certainly did the trick though....I reckon I must have lost a good few pounds worth of water in that thing! The only bad thing is that you couldn't have a shower for a few hours which meant we were walking around with hair full of oil from the head massage and smelling rather lovely until that evening! mmmmm. I needed to get some laundry done beforehand.....after that it was pretty desperate! Anyhow. All good. The only downside to that guest house I gues was the food. The waiter and the cook were so nice though that you didn't really want to tell them their food was shit! The french guy had spag bol one night and the spag was one solid lump! The only thing they did pretty well actually was egg and bacon in the morning!
Anyhow, the next day, Ali took me up to the bus stop to make sure I got on the right bus. They'd been some trouble up there and the direct route from Hapitale to Wellawaya was shut as the LTTE had shot a couple of policemen on it a day or so earlier. Instead I had to go in a roundabout route via Ella, which wasn't a bad thing as the scenery in Ella was amazing as well. Anyhow, the journey went without incident despite what a few people had said......a couple of people had suggested I go via Columbo instead which would've been twice the distance. When you got to the coast, the thing that hit me was the devastation still apparent from the tsunami. A lot of things have been rebuilt, but there's also a lot of buildings in various states of disrepair from the disaster ... from having the roof missing, to having just one or half a wall left standing. It's really sad to think this is what it's like a few years on. you can only imagine what it must have been like at the time. Also, there are boats which have obviously been left where they landed when the waves came...ie right inland, hundreds of metres from the sea. You also hear various stories from people about what happened that day. Its all really sad. You look around and think that almost every one of the people living on the coast lived through that and have a strory to tell. Makes you feel lucky to be you. They're still smiling though! Sri Lanken people smile an awful lot!
Anyhow, I said to myself that I'd see what Tangalle and Marissa were like from the bus when I drove though them and if I liked the look of it, I'd get off, and if I didn't, then I 'd stay on the bus til Hikkaduwa which a few people had said was the nicest beach they'd come across in Sri Lanka. Tangalle, when I got there, seemed to have more tsunami damage than a lot of places and an imense amount of building work, and the bit of the beach I saw was really really quiet! Having spent a quiet wk on the beach in Benaulim when I first got to Goa, I didn't want to go for that. Marissa I didn't actually get to as the bus stopped at Matare and I had the choice of Marissa or Unawattuna. It was about 4ish and I wanted to get somewhere I could put my feet down for a while (and get some laundry done!) so I headed for Unawatuna. Perfect timing ...the bus for there was just leaving. For the last bit of the journey I was racing the sun going down....I hate getting places in the dark and having to find somewhere to stay! I got to Unawatuna pretty much at sunset though and managed to find somewhere which was ok, cheap and had a balcony you could just see the beach from, so it was pretty good. I checked my email to see where Oli was staying and then headed out to get something to eat. Found a place that did fab Spag Bol, just like at home.....always a good thing.....even if you did have to wait a while for it (service was amazingly slow all over Sri Lanka, but this place was definitely the slowest I came across!!) Anyhow, after a couple of beers chatting to this Austrian 'iron man' guy, I headed off to see if I could find Oli's guest house. Funnily enough I didn't have to go too far. Walking up the path infront of me was Oli! It was nice to see eachother again! We spent a wk together in Unawatuna before Oli was heading home, playing pool, sunbathing, drinking, getting on eachother's nerves! Plenty of antics going on, including a disaster with a mosquito coil that couldve burnt the guest house down! Did I mention, we decided to treat ourselves to this fab room right on the beach which had luxury written all over it! Oli had gone on about my budget so much I decided to forget it and treat myself for a bit and we'd got this amazing place for 5 days! Anyhow, it was lovely for about 1 day and then it smelt of burnt curtains and air freshener!! :O/ All in all though, we had a ball. We did some snorkelling, but it was a bit hairy as the coral was only just beneath the surface and where the waves were so big it felt like they were going to smash you into the coral. Eventually, having seen other people in rubber rings all week I managed to find where they hired them out (yeay!!) so we had a giggle there too! We went down the coast to welligama to see the stilt fishermen.....These guys stand on these poles in the sea for four hours at a time, twice a day. You'd think their legs would have been killing them but they seem quite happy out there. they have this rod with a really small hook and they catch these small fish...up to a thousand of them a day! Pretty amazing really. What else.....we played pool (plenty of doubles matches with the locals.....not sure if they were really bad or if we were really flukey, but we seemed to do ok!), drank some awful local vodka which gave you the hangover from hell.... That's about it really.
Soon enough the wk was over and Oli headed back home and I headed to Hikkaduwa for a couple of days before my flight back to India. Hikkaduwa is completely different to Unawatuna. Its a long straight beach, compared to the bay that Unawatuna is set in. It has big waves and hence is full of 'surf dudes' and feels more of a traveller resort than a package holiday resort. Its not as pretty as Unawatuna is though. The dance culture that hit England kicked off there a few years ago and they're really into it over there. There's a bit outdoor club playing hard house and bongos which goes on all night called vibrations and then people chill out on the beach all day, surfing and sunbathing in these big fourposter double sunbed type things with mattresses and little roofs ready for the next night. Needless to say my two days there dissappeared in a flash and it was time to head up to Columbo for my flight. I must just mention the people there tho......really nice guys. This turtle egg poacher came up the beach one night trying to sell the eggs he'd dug up to the restaurants (apparently they make a nice tasty treat :O( ) and these local surfer guys I met bought all 50 eggs of him and went and buried them again up the beach. Bearing in mind these guys aren't rich, it shows where their hearts lie.
That reminds me, must just mention the guys releasing the turtles on Unawatuna beach. It was a hatchery farm which came down with a whole load so the tourists coule carry them to the sea and watch them swimming off! Well, have to say it was really cute watching them all bobbing about out into the big wide sea! Apparently though, I did hear it was all a big tourist thing that they did, and the chances of the turtles actually surviving after being kept in a tank for a couple of weeks was pretty slim. After hearing that, I liked the Hikaduwa story better!
Anyhow, off I headed to Negombo which is right near Columbo airport. Its the place everyone goes to before they fly out. When I was climbing Adams Peak with Anna and Hilda from Holland they'd mentioned a really nice place there with a swimming pool...quite expensive, (about 15 pountds a night) but really nice. I decided to head there. The bus was hot, I'd walked around Negombo for an hour looking for an ATM which worked and took my card, and then got off the bus on Negombo beach way too early and had to walk a couple of kms with my backpack to find the place! Eventually got there just after dark so i only got to use the pool for around 20 minutes before dinner. Funnily enough though, who was there but Anna and Hilda! I had no idea they'd be there, and they wouldn't have been if it wasn't for the fact that their flight had been delayed 7 hours. Anyhow, it was great to catch up with them again over dinner (fantastic tiger prawns and the tastiest rice I had in Sri Lanka.... mmmmm!) before they left for the airport and I retired to my amazing little suite and a lovely comfy bed. Slept like a baby. Unfortunately my flight was dead early the next day so was rudely awakened by the alarm at some ungodly hour the next morning as the taxi was coming at 7 to pick me up. Tip for next time....when you treat yourself, make sure you have enough time to make the most of it!

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