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We arrived in Sri Lanka late at night and got a ride to Holiday Inn in Colombo. It took us 2 hours to get to our hotel because of all the security check points. Our driver told us that security is a lot tighter in Colombo because of the Tamil Tigers, which is a good thing I guess, but still a little scary.
After a good nights sleep, we made our way to the Indian Embassy to apply for our Indian visa. We only found out a few weeks before that we did indeed need a visa and that we couldn't get it on arrival (unlike what our travel agent told us). So, that being said, we filled out the appropriate forms and were told that it would be ready the following Thursday! Well...we were supposed to fly out on Tuesday! So...we went to a travel agency and the very nice woman switched our flights to Friday morning with no extra cost! We were extremely happy!
We left Colombo and drove 3 hours to Galle, a town situated on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka. Galle was devastated by the 2004 Tsunami and we could still see damage along
Fort walls
The Fort walls kept the Tsunami from destroying the architecture inside the Fort. the way. It is a fortified city and when the Tsunami hit, mostly all of the houses and architecture inside the fort was protected. We stayed in Galle for 2 nights at a very nice hotel at the highest point of the town. The view was amazing, with the Indian Ocean, palm trees everywhere and wild monkeys in the trees. We walked inside the fort and took some great pictures and ate Sri Lankan food at a delicious cafe. We had vegetable curry and everything was so fresh, it was great! We went back to that cafe the next morning and had Hoppers, the most popular breakfast dish (They are wafer thin, cup-shaped pancakes). Yummy! While we were eating, Amy was putting pictures for the blog when they got erased from her memory card! That was bad news...we couldn't figure out what happened and we were sad because we had good memories from those pictures...But we were going to Mirissa in the afternoon so there was nothing we could do.
Mirissa is a tropical beach paradise! Its very small but beautiful! We had booked a few nights here but there was no one at our hotel so we found
Talking a walk
Two Sri Lankan men having a nice stroll on the Fort walls. another one right on the beach. For only 40$ a night for the 3 of us, we had a two-story bungalow, breakfast and dinner...a real bargain! The food was excellent, mainly fresh seafood. One night we even had Jumbo Prawns, they were the size of small dogs!!! The hotel is still being rebuilt as it was completely destroyed during the Tsunami and the owner is rebuilding it with help from others, its amazing! We met this incredibly nice woman who had Internet access and she was really helpful. Amy asked our friend if there was anything we could do to retrieve our pictures and he was a great help! Thanks Keith! With his help and with some software, we were able to get our pictures back! Yay! We were happy campers!
We spent 6 days in Mirissa and it was wonderful! It was nice to relax and do nothing since it had been a while (well, minus Lijiang) that we hadn't stopped. The beach was beautiful and the waves were so much fun! We celebrated Dave's Birthday on the 28th with drinks and games...Dave loves playing spoons so we agreed to play even though it always gets a bit
Snack attack
The army was hungry and in need of a snack! intense...we were lucky to have a sturdy table this time. He didn't end up winning but he was still happy! The waiters at the restaurant even reserved a special table for us with candles and made a special meal for the Birthday boy.
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Mirissa and we headed to Colombo for our last two days in Sri Lanka. We went to pick up our visas on Thursday and thought we would get it right away but we had to wait for an hour in a very sketchy room! We spent our last afternoon going to the hotel gym and swimming!
We are ready for India!
Take care!
Love, Sophie
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Nana Lings
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Incredible
You look to be having an incredible time, the Prawns look yum. Love Nana Lings