Beaches and Elephants in Sri Lanka's South West

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Sri Lanka, as the saying goes is a land like no other and for the past 5 weeks we've been appreciating what it has to offer.

We started in Hikkaduwa, about 4.5 hours South of Colombo and one of Sri Lanka's main beach destinations. We quickly got to grips with the relaxed pace of life here, fantastic curries and soaking up the sun. They have a good snorkelling reef but we were in the wrong season for that. A couple of days into beach mode and we had to make a trip to the local doctors with the hotel guy in tow as swollen and red eyes made us nervous. He sent us to a hospital in Galle to see a "specialist" so off we went in a tuktuk trying to admire the view and not scare too too many children. Eyelashes were torn out before being told it was conjunctivitis and were sent away with a list of drugs. Only problem was by that evening Keiths eyes were also beginning to play up, so for the next 4 days there was no beach, lots of aches and pain, the taking of many painkillers and the listening to the hotel owners way of getting rid of conjunctivitis "as many people get it here". Maybe time to check their water supply? So his solution was to get a King Coconut and 1 pine needle, insert it into the juice and dabble it over your eyes and then the following morning, pee on your fingers and swab away. He swears by it though we weren't quite up for trying that.

By the time the swelling had gone down we decided that, um, more beach rest was needed and headed to Mirissa via Galle, a colonial Dutch fort from the 17th century that survived the tsunami. There's not much to do in Mirissa but while away the days, eat good food and bodyboarding and also keep my tailor on business! I've turned into such a snob but am all set for winter!

We decided from there to head inland to Uda Walawe National Park where over 500 wild elephants roam. It's expensive to see with the usual games to play with the 4x4 safari drivers but well worth it in the end. We saw loads of elephants close up including baby ones less than 3 months old. We also saw crocs, hornbills, monitor lizards, green bee eaters, water buffaloes, monkeys and a mongoose! Brilliant!

From here we headed to Colombo again to extend our visas and to say hi to Keith's dad and Margreth. It was great to see them and catch up on the last 11 months with Merl! We had high tea, a treat in itself with a 3 tiered selection of cakes and sandwiches, including cucumber sandwiches, scones jam and cream and eclairs which we all promptly devoured!

We did the majority of the travelling by public bus or tuktuk. The buses are phenomenally cheap (i think we paid 50p for a 4hr journey) but were problematic with our relatively small rucksacks and luggage storage is non existant and there's always space for more - there was always 1 armpit, 1 knee, 1 elbow or 1 crotch on your shoulder.

We've been up to the Kandy festival as well and will put some pictures up from that in our final blog (sob sob!)

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[Hannah]

Cuuute!
CUUUUUUTE!