Beautiful Sri Lanka

Hello peeps!

I arrived in Sri Lanka on the 20th November tired but excited. My flight left from Bangkok on the 19th November, arriving in Mumbai at midnight and then taking the connecting flight to Colombo at 2am, arriving at 4.30am. The plan was to sleep on the later flight, but a lovely Sri Lankan man sat next to me, and told me about the country and offered me a place to stay with him and his wife, if I was to stay near Kandy.

On arrival, I went to find a shuttle bus to take me to Negombo bus station and it was exactly as it was described in the most helpful blog (www.mirissa.com). I was approached by several tuktuk drivers claiming that I could not  get to Colombo other than by tuktuk. The shuttle bus did not run on Sundays and I was not able to get there any other way. Ups, about 5 meters up the road was the bus. :)

From Negombo bus station I took 187-bus to Colombo. I paid for two seats; one for me and one for my bag. From Colombo I took a train. The plan was to take it all the way to Mirissa, but there was railworks, so I could only take it to Aluthgama. On the train I got talking to another lovely man, who invited me to the lowlands. As I started to look confused as the train stops didnt have any names and I had no idea where I was, someone came for rescue. When we started approaching the station he asked me to follow and started pretty much running across the train to the other end (which was near the platform). I could just about stay behind him, running with 20kg bag in my bag in the moving train. At Aluthgama I took a bus to Galle. That must have been the scariest busride ever with the bus driver overtaking cars with big buses approaching on the other lane and nearly getting into a few accidents. Now, I read about this in the guidebook and that is why I took a train. :)

At Galle I had 2.5 hours to wait for the next train so I took a toktok to Galle Fort hotel for some lunch and admired the amazing views. Then took a train from Galle to Welligama and there, met a lovely family, who invited me for lunch the next day. From Welligama I took a tuktuk to Mirissa and was happy to see the picturesque beach after 8-hour travel.

On Monday I visited the house of lovely Wasana and her husband. A lot of their friends and family came to see the weird-looking white girl. Wasana had made some lovely curry, which I attempted eating with my right hand, as they do here. It is surprisingly difficult to do in a tidy way. We then looked at some family photoes, had a little disco and I had to do some singing and dancing. :D Such a lovely, lovely people and I was honoured to be the first foreigner to set foot in their house.

The next day I went whalewatching, arranged by my guesthouse, Surf Sea Breeze. We saw some dolphins and a few whales too. Really, really amazing experience.

The next day is starting raining and it has been raining ever since. Still, the weather was warm and I spend most of the time reading and sleeping. I have gotten into a rhythm of going to bed around 10 and waking up around 6-7am. It really feels like a holiday, despite the lack of sun.

Yesterday was rather scary. In the morning, a cyclone swept by Mirissa and the south of Sri Lanka. First it started as a particularly strong wind, and then developed into a huge storm. Trees were falling (some on the telephone lines, which cut the electricity of the whole city). We all were asked to stay in the restaurant bit to stay safe. I accidentally left my window open, which meant that the room was rained in. Unfortunately I had my mobile phone on the table, so that is completely ruined now. But overall, it was very very scary. As the forecast was also showing heavy rains for the next 2 weeks, we decided to head more north. I travelled with an Australian girl and a few British people and we got to Negombo in the evening. And here I am now.

There is a problem uploading photoes from my camera at the moment and I am a little bit scared that my camera got damaged by the cyclone yesterday as everything got wet.

So I will try to get it fixed and upload some lovely pictures from Sri Lanka.

My plans are very open at the moment. I was meant to do some surfing now, but the weather is so bad at the coast, that I am probably going to visit the Cultural Triangle or climb the Adam's peak.

TBC.