Eid in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

We had a ten day holiday in Sri Lanka back in Eid. We’d originally planned a week at a beach on Sri Lanka’s West Coast, but Eid was extended so we changed flights and had some time exploring Colombo and up through the high country first.

We arrived to muggy days in the 20’s in Colombo. It’s a bustling city full of three-wheelers (tuktuks), crazy traffic and little houses and shops amidst big old buildings. It’s also a mix of Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim, which was a nice change for us. We stayed at the Galle Face Hotel, which is the oldest hotel in the capital. Parts of it are fading, but it had a very cool terrace overlooking the sea where we could chill out drinking very cheap beer and cocktails. It also had a nice pool and a cool verandah restaurant. There was one security guard with a slingshot assigned to chasing off the crows when they came too close to the tables and a squirrel that Matija was determined to catch.

We were right beside the Galle Face Green, which was a grassy space overlooking the sea and was packed with locals on the weekend, relaxing, flying kites and buying cheap snacks from vendors stalls along the waterfront. There were very few Westerners here and Matija proved to be a bit of a tourist attraction, particularly when she got a pony ride along the promenade. We arrived after the monsoon, but it threatened rain a few times and there was a strong westerly wind which chopped up the sea and made swimming unsafe along the entire West Coast.

After a couple of days of exploring, chancing across some great vege and meat markets and getting three-wheeler tours to a selection of parks and temples, we caught an early train up to Kandy. It was an old diesel clickety-clack kind of train where the doors and windows are open and you get to hang out them and see local life. It was a fantastic trip past little shanty towns, through coconut plantations, rice fields and forest into the interior hills. Matija and I hung out in one of the doors and enjoyed the tunnels and waving to other passengers as we rounded curves. We arrived in Kandy to meet our driver, who would take us up to Sigirya. Kandy is up in the tea area of the highlands and is famous for its elephant festival. It’s cool and green and quite different to anywhere we’d been for a while – there are buddhas on the hills behind just about every village and a mix of Sri Lankans and Tamils from South India, who came to tend the tea.

We headed up the road, instead of the UAE’s max speed limit of 140km/h this was more like 60km/h with cars, trucks and three-wheelers chopping in and out of the windy, bumpy roads. We passed an area of spice gardens. We called into one, but it was so obviously a tourist trap, with gardens of trees and herbs and its own doctor to meet you and prescribe some potion for your ailments that we were glad Matija was grouchy and tired and we bailed out very quickly. We did stop on the road by a pepper plantation and the driver pulled sprouts of green peppercorns from the vine for us to taste. We stopped to see some reclining buddhas at Dambulla and also saw some thieving monkeys jump on a guys shoulder trying to pinch something he was eating.

As we travelled North we departed the lush forest and soon got into dry brush country. We arrived at a guesthouse in Sigirya, close to a huge rock that used to be the seat of power for the area. It was an ancient city and monastery and a real tourist magnet and as we arrived at Eid there were many local families travelling to check it out along with the tourists.

By this time we’d got into the local cuisine. Curry and rice is a staple with many tiny restaurants serving buffets where you have six or seven curries (some vegetable, some fish and some chicken) with rice as an accompaniment. They have wonderful tropical fruit and vegetables, spices and coconuts and they’re not shy of adding a bit of chilli. Luckily most places had one or two dishes that were kept cool for the visitors and Matija was able to eat too. Their little sweet bananas were delicious and there was always pineapple, mango and papaya to finish. It was also extremely cheap, which suited us down to the ground.

We visited the rock and Sigiriya and had a local tour with a three-wheeler driver who took us to temples, a local dam for a swim, and showed us the tree-huts the locals use to spot elephants and chase them away from their crops. One evening we went on an elephant safari at one of the tanks – ancient dams built around a thousand years ago. As the tank dries the elephants come out of the forest in the evening to graze on the grass and drink. We were on the back of a Mitsubishi Jeep and got to drive around groups of elephants. There must have been at least 250 of them and we got right up close to groups of cows and calves. It was an amazing experience at a reasonable price!

After that we had to get to our beach spot. We eventually booked a big local three-wheeler for the trip. It took a long time, was hot and dusty and was a lot of fun as we got to really taste and smell the sights on the way. The driver took us to Anaradhapura on the way, which was another ancient capital with several amazing Buddhist sites including the oldest recorded Bodhi tree in the world. He would take us nearly to the gate, look after Matija while we walked around then pick us up - a great way to go. Unfortunately we came across 40 kilometres of roadworks after Anaradhapura, which were very slow and bumpy on the three-wheeler and the local buses absolutely flew past us – we got out of the way or got run down. No kidding.

We eventually arrived at Khumba House, our guest house on the West Coast. It was on the coast beside the Puttalam Lagoon at Alankhuda beach, about 2 1/2 hours north of Colombo. It was a beautiful architecturally designed2 bedroom beach house with open verandahs. There were no windows or a/c, just shutters all round, fans and mosquito nets draped over the huge four poster beds. Bathrooms were open to the sky, which was fabulous, except for the frog which jumped into the toilet one night and gave Ande a fright. The house came complete with Andriani and Sisera who looked after the place. The web site mentioned Andriani would cook meals if asked. We found out that that meant she cooked all of the meals and cleaned up while we lay around and relaxed. We just paid for the shopping, beer and whatever else we wanted and it turned up. I think we paid around $200 for fabulous food and beer for the whole week. She was a fabulous cook and introduced us to everything from crepes with coconut and treacle to amazing spicy fried crab. There was fresh fruit with every meal, amazing lemon cordial and little shaped rice-flour pancakes called hoppers – the breakfast ones have an egg broken and cooked inside them - yum. We had a cooked breakfast, ate our curry and rice buffet at lunch then chilled with fresh fruit, treacle and toast for tea. What a life!

The beach was about 50m away, through a little grove of pines and there was a pond where Matija could feed the fish. We had a very relaxed time there, chilling out most of the time. There were three ‘resorts’ along that part of the beach, about all that was there other than fishing villagers and a power station about 5km away. The resorts were collections of 6 or so beach bungalows but they had swimming pools which we were welcome to use as the beach was unswimmable. We spend a lot of time lying around at the pool or at our house reading, although we did take a trip onto the lagoon, visiting a fishing village, drinking fresh coconut milk and watching locals netting prawns. They relied on fishing to survive and the fish were all busily drying on covered racks beside the beach. We also chugged up some of the island waterways and saw monkeys in the forest, birds and a small ammunition factory (it’s not very long since the Tamil Tigers were conducting a small civil war here).

On the last day we got an invite for lunch at the neighbouring ‘resort’. The owner, Glen Terry was a Jamaican Indian whose wife was Australian. He was a blues singer and musician and just loved entertaining. His cook prepared a feast which we ate as we sat around his awesome pool drinking wine and arak and listening to him singing the blues. It would be a great place for a three or four day party with the right people. Anyone interested?

After a very chilled out time we caught a van back to Colombo and hit the plane home. Sri Lanka was colourful, varied and very poor in places but the people were brilliant and far more smiley and outgoing than you tend to see in the Emirates. It was also very cheap – we loved it. Apparently the beaches to the South are a lot more commercial, more tourists, beggars etc.

A great place for a holiday and somewhere we would happily return to.