Sri Lanka - Unawatuna
(Click photo above to see album in new tab)
We had planned to spend about ten days traveling around Sri Lanka by car, focusing on the hill country, but Lonely Planet mentioned the possibility of sitting in hotel rooms, waiting all day for the rain to stop. Besides, we were enjoying our stay at Nor Lanka Hotel in Unawatuna too much to move on.
Ethan and I drove the moped an hour east to Mirisa Beach, where we were told to visit Paradise Beach Resort. Half way through the journey, we stopped at a café where a man sat outside glumly selling coconuts in the hot sun. He had two dogs tied on a leash to some trees and they were unable to seek shelter from the sun. Since they were panting rapidly in the heat, I indicated that perhaps they needed water, but he just looked at me blankly.
Although the café was quite run down it had a covered balcony with a spectacular view overlooking the beach and perfect surfing waves. Sitting with our cokes in hand, we saw a man sitting on a makeshift seat in the middle of a long pole. The pole itself was stuck in the sand about 20 meters offshore. To make conversation, I asked the café owner what the man was doing and she said: “fishing for tourists”. Apparently if you take a photograph, these fishermen will climb down from the pole and ask for 100 Rupees. His fishing bag seemed quite empty but his other pocket seemed to have a bulge, no doubt where the tourist money was kept. He seemed to be smoking a cigar and I wondered if perhaps it was a Cuban Cordoba. Luckily our camera was well concealed at the bottom of our bag, and I made no move to get it despite his gestures between puffs.
On arrival at Mirisa Beach, we rented a body board from the resort and Ethan had his first go at body-boarding. A couple of waves later he was completely hooked. Unfortunately, the waves were quite erratic: large one minute and completely quiet the next, so I had him ride the broken waves most of the time. The next day, he insisted we go again, so we all boarded the moped for the one hour journey, stopping at the café on the way. At Mirisa beach, we were all enjoying the body-boarding until an enormous wave appeared. I was holding Ethan on the board and was telling him to put his legs straight behind, not noticing the wave behind until too late. I thought I could pull him and the board through the wave backwards, but miscalculated as the four foot wave crested, ripping the board and him out of my hand, throwing us both directly over and onto the sand. Carmen and Toby were slightly ahead but they also got caught up. When I surfaced some moments later I couldn’t see Ethan, and when he surfaced momentarily, he disappeared almost immediately after. I managed to grab him and saw that one of his arm bands had come off and he looked shaken. This was unusual as there isn’t much out there that fazes Ethan – he takes a lot of things in stride. We retreated for the safety of the resort’s small swimming pool and filled him up with some soothing lunch, and it was a while before he was able to tell us that he didn’t want to ever go body-boarding again. Toby and Carmen were less fazed by the experience although they were also thrown around. New word added to vocabulary today: “Wipe out”.
This episode inadvertently reminds me of the fact that southern and eastern Sri Lanka suffered catastrophic losses of about 250,000 from the tsunami in 2004. Most locals have a tale to tell about relative(s) lost. It’s really very sad. Now there are tsunami early warning systems and signs in place everywhere, and no indication of the devastation that occurred. Increased tourism will help the locals move forward with their lives, but I heard from locals the winter tourist season has been dismal due to the economic crisis. Given that the civil war was ended officially in March 2009 last year, and the mention of Sri Lanka as one of the top destinations for 2010 by the New York Times, tourists should be flocking. We certainly hope to be back again soon, possibly this coming Christmas.
One day we took the moped to nearby Jungle Beach. The path starts from the Peace Pagoda at the top of the hill, overlooking Galle to the west. It takes about ten minutes to walk down the very jungely path to the beach during which time it's possible to see snakes, scorpions and leeches (although we didn't see any). We bumped into an German man in his sixties who spent a long time in the water floating on his back and making backward fanning motions with his hands. After about half an hour, a glass bottomed boat appeared with two tourists on board. The German man waved frantically to the Sri Lankan captain of the boat, but he gave no indication of seeing him and passed by about ten feet away. I was sure the captain had seen him, but just not acknowledged his presence, although he could have given him a bit more room. The German man swam slowly to the shore and by the time he got to the beach, he was in a complete rage at the captain, shouting: "The reason I come here is to get away from the pollution and danger from the boats on Unawatuna beach and now you are coming here and almost hit me! You didn't even see me!". The captain denied this but the German went on unrelenting until the captain asked him to just stop. The German just shouted "How are you going to stop me. It will take a knife to stop me. Do you have a knife?". Later, when the boat had gone and he had calmed down, I went over to speak to him. It turned out his wife had died the previous year. They were in Sri Lanka and gone to the Doctor who said they should return home as soon as possible. She died soon after of pancreatic cancer, despite being very fit and healthy in all other respects. They had traveled extensively together and he recounted a story where they had been trekking in Nepal and arrived late one rainy night at a tin roof shack in a remote village. The rain hammered down on the tin roof, but they managed to sleep somehow. Later, he woke up and it was silent. He looked out and saw snow falling. In the morning, there was a foot of snow and flowers sticking out from the snow. There was a gap in the clouds and a ray of light fell on the flowers in the snow. He said it was one of the most memorable experiences in all his travels and recommended we go there. We have put it in our calendars for five years time, when the boys are old enough for trekking.
We became accustomed to riding on the moped together, so the remaining days we spent visiting Galle, Mirisa beach and the nearby tea plantation called Handunugoda. We met the owner of the tea plantation called Herman and had a good discussion about tea drinking around the world. Apparently Ireland now drinks the most tea per capita in the world, although I thought it was Turkey (true for 2004). There was a good article in the NY Times recently about Sri Lankan teas battling the large tea companies like Lipton, by establishing a reputation for higher quality. Given our own experience of being presented warm water in a styrofoam cup and a Lipton tea bag, we hope they win this battle. Until then, we’ll drink coffee as circumstances dictate. Unfortunately, like the food, quality of tea served in Sri Lanka was quite erratic, and on too many occasions served very weak. Possibly it’s because the locals only drink the strong tea bags which contain ‘tea dust’ and don’t take a long time to brew. The good quality tea bags require hotter temperatures and longer steep times, so bringing a pot of hot water and a couple of tea bags isn’t going to end up with a happy result.
We hoped to learn more about tea on our trip to the hill country, where tea plantations are more numerous.