Unawatuna

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For the final leg of our nine week trip we decided to spend a week on the beach having a holiday from our holiday and Unawatuna seemed like the perfect place.

We reached Unawatuna by catching two buses after our 7hr long morning safari in Yala National Park. We had decided to book a much nicer hotel for our time in Unawatuna than we would normally stay in; which meant that we looked quite out of place standing in the lobby with crumpled clothes, sweaty faces and dirty packs while the other guests walked around wearing ironed, matching, clean clothes with styled hair and makeup.

Despite grand plans of cycling to see the stilt fishermen one day and visiting nearby Galle another, our time in Unawatuna was spent relaxing on the beautiful beach, reading books on our balcony or eating. On our second day we had a visit from Emma (from Yala NP and the Gibbon Experience) who cycled to Unawatuna from Mirissa; the three of us had a fantastic lunch at a little local place - $1.40 each for unlimited rice and curry, pappadams and a soft drink...bargain.

Unawatuna was hit very badly by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which killed numerous locals and tourists, badly damaged the hotels and houses and swept away quite a bit of the beach. Unfortunately in the post-disaster rush to rebuild they just reconstructed on the original foundations which means that it is almost impossible to walk around the whole of the bay during high tide as the sea comes right up to the front of a lot of hotels.

Our accommodation turned out to be absolutely gorgeous and 100% worth the money. We had a lovely air-conditioned room which was beautifully decorated in ‘Asian antique’ style, a nice little balcony and a clean bathroom with fantastic hot water. The hotel was right on the waterfront, you were about as close to the beach as you could get without sleeping on a raft in the water which provided fantastic free entertainment when the larger waves occasionally splashed into the restaurant and soaked people sitting at the front.

We were both quite sad to say goodbye to Unawatuna but unfortunately holidays can’t last forever. Our final night in Sri Lanka was spent in the garbage dump also known as Negombo. We did manage to find a great restaurant to have a very expensive final meal in to celebrate the end of a fantastic and very eye opening trip.

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