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Published: March 4th 2024
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This is the final week and is one that always brings mixed emotions. A sadness that the trip is coming to an end but joy about returning home. Sri Lanka is certainly a beautiful country and across two trips, eight years apart we have seen a reasonable amount of what it has to offer.
Saturday and we had booked a safari through our accommodation in Wilpatthu national park. It was another early start, 6am and in keeping with the place we collected our picnic basket with our breakfast. The park entrance was only 15 minutes away and we paid our 22,500 LKR entrance fee, that's 34€ each. We had a jeep to ourselves and our driver was Namaal and he was great at spotting things. Most people go expecting to see leopards and are usually disappointed, so we went without that expectation. The park is absolutely stunning with hugely varied terrain, beautiful forests , large flooded areas and amazing smells. An early start meant the bird life was at it's peak viewing time and we weren't disappointed. Our driver spotted loads of medium and large birds but bypassed many of the smaller varieties. I noted 32 different encounters from beautifully
coloured chestnut-headed bee eaters to Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl to huge numbers of the four types of egrets to painted storks. Our best encounter was a serpent eagle quietly perched in a tree while two tiny velvet- fronted nuthatch kept flying towards it a having a little peck. Talk about David and Goliath, eventually the eagle flew off for a bit of peace and quiet.
Animals were few and far between and probably explains why many people don't enjoy the “safari". We were just content to enjoy the different areas, the flowers and butterflies were stunning. Most of the time we were practically on our own until 9am and breakfast at the only rest area where there were maybe 20 vehicles. Our packed breakfast was tasty, especially after waiting 3 hours. As the weather got warmer the bird life diminished but right near the end we had the joy of a group of elephants including mother and baby.
It had been a long morning but our tuktuk driver took us back and we were given cold fresh juice on our return, another sign of the type of service delivered by our resort. We chilled in our cabin from
the afternoon heat and then set off in search of beer. The local beer, Lion, doesn't have a loft of taste ( think Harp, Carling Carlsberg) but they make a strong 8.8% which has far more flavour. There is also a tasty stout. We sat down on the riverside drinking our beer and eating spicy cheesy puffs as the sunset and the light changed. We then had dinner and an early night. Note to Chris 3x625 ml 8.8% strength beer is a lot.
Sunday arrived and there was no need to be up early, I went out for a short walk while it was cool, I stopped off at the tea shop near the bus station. A cup of sweet Nestea, why would you in a country that grows tea? I sat watching the world go by and the guy making roti using an oil drum fire with a piece of curved metal as his “griddle “, no utensils just his hands. On the way back met several young girls all spruced up going to church. Breakfast was fresh juice, fresh fruit, local coffee, Sri Lankan omelette, dahl, coconut sambal and great chunks of bread.
We had a
swim in the river which was amazingly refreshing, Steve and Sue were on the river bank too and a gust of wind caught his glasses and cap. Chris retrieved the cap and Steve managed to retrieve his glasses from the mud of the riverbed. Our evening activity was a sunset trip on the river, in a small boat with our captain, Mubarak using a bamboo pole to punt us along. It was stunning and peaceful and the colours of the kingfishers were amazing as they sped past. As it was our last night, we had dinner with Steve and Sue , for me it was the least interesting food, lentil soup, kottu, stuffed chilli and vegetables, dessert was a lime cheesecake type dessert.
The setting at Backwater lodge was beautiful and the eco concept worked well and they tried hard to reduce plastic etc. The service was very attentive but by the last day it was feeling a bit over bearing. The food was all freshly prepared but too westernised for me, string hoppers are common but for some reason we had them chopped up like rice. Also, there were no other options for food in the village and
this wasn't clear when we booked. The price of the evening meals were excessive for what they were. The container was bijou ( aka small) with only a double bed and the smallest space we had stayed in. We were woken on our last morning by a troop of monkeys on the roof at 6am, luckily everything was inside.
We set off in our tuktuk with Steve videoing the departure, including two stalls! It was a hot and busy journey to Negombo .First stop a laundry with 4kg dirty washing, 1000LKR , less than 3 €. Then we arrived at Goldi Sands hotel , our final stop and only 14km to the airport. We chose this because, it is right on the beach, there are two pools and we booked a sea view room. I had read some reviews about people not being given what they had paid for so wanted to check the room. Our room was great and certainly had stunning views . We went for a dip in the pool and chatted to some backpackers on a 6 month Asian trip. Service at the pool bar was dreadful, 15 minutes to get a beer and the correct receipt, if you use booking.com there is a 10% discount- much needed when all published prices have 18% vat and 10% service charge added.
We were tired so opted to have the hotel buffet, big mistake! It was expensive and pretty poor quality a case of not getting what you paid for. Service for drinks was another slow painful process. We both slept well in the comfiest bed of the trip but I will be glad to sleep with no aircon and windows open. Breakfast buffet was a big improvement, especially if you chose carefully. We didn't really do much other than chill, swim and eat more varied food. We had a final meal with Steve and Sue and set off for our return journey.
Colombo airport was far more organised than anything I'd read about it; the two flights were pretty uneventful. We only had an hour to transit in Doha but this time were in the posh side of the airport. We had a night in the Senator Barajas hotel, Madrid and enjoyed delicious Spanish wine. Saturday, we got the train to Murcia, taxi to Mula and a lift from our friend Mel back to Casas Nuevas.
So, Sri Lanka, a bit of reflection. The rising costs to tourists to alleviate the country's economic problems felt to us at times excessive, high prices for hotels that then don't provide an equivalent level of service. Entrance fees for the park at Wilpatthu and Anuradhapura sacred city were eye watering. The worrying developments in Colombo where Indian and Chinese money have changed the landscape, the Chinese funded port will lead to more problems further down the line. The south of the island has become a place for Russians escaping the war to stay, they were given free visas. Mirissa on our trip was one place they hung out but some have started running bars etc. causing difficulty for local people.
We met some lovely friendly smiley people, especially in the more northerly parts of Eluwankulama and Anuradhapura were there were fewer tourists. Chris driving the tuktuk got some fascinating looks and comments. The bird life in Wilpatthu was fabulous, the trips out of Mirissa on a boat, the early morning canoe trip and the stunning old monasteries in Anuradhapura were some of the highlights.
Till next year
Norma
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