SriLanka: Sept 2010

Photos on flickr

We initially planned to go to Madhya Pradesh: spend some time in the north-east part of this huge state, visit historical sites, and some of the national parks. But then, we found out that the national parks are closed during this time of the year because of the monsoons.

That was a bit of a disappointment. More so because I had recently purchased books on Pratihara temples, and Yogini temples, and was looking forward to seeing these historical places. Maybe a destination for the next vacation.

Indu came back from work, one evening, and said “Sri Lanka, lets go there”. There wasn’t too much of a debate at that point. Opened up the laptop, looked for tickets from Bangalore to Colombo, and Chennai to Colombo; noticed that the one from Bangalore was almost twice the cost of the one from Chennai; decided to opt for the Chennai one, and also to make use of this opportunity to meet up with some friends and relatives in Chennai.

Browsed TripAdvisor to check out reviews of Sri Lanka – places to visit, hotels – and booked our travel tickets. The plan was to leave on the 17th Sept to Chennai, take the 18th morning flight to Colombo, and then return from Sri Lanka on the 29th.  The week prior to our travel date was a busy time at work, and this made us look forward to the trip a lot more.

Another thing I sort of thought we could try to do was to drive in Sri Lanka – hire a car, and self-drive around the country. A quick search on google for self-drive experiences brought up a discussion on the lonely-planet site. Got in touch with Ana, the thread poster, and she shared a detailed experience of self-drive in Lanka, and recommended I try it too. I was all charged up about it, and decided to get myself an international driving license (IDL). But then, the busy work week didn’t help with these plans, and basically headed to the destination without the IDL.

The general plan was to land in Colombo, then head to Galle, visit nearby Unawatuna, spend some time in hill-station Kandy, and then back to Colombo.

Heading to Chennai

Decided to head to Chennai by the afternoon Shatabdi; stay in Indu’s colleague’s apartment for the night, and take the following day’s early morning flight to Colombo. Uneventful, but comfortable train ride. Once at the stay-for-the-night, we ended up having a conversation late into the night. After a couple of hours of sleep, woke up around 3am the next morning, and were at the airport by 4:30am. The flight was scheduled to leave at 7am. The wait was painful;  what with the lack of sleep, the rather dull Chennai airport waiting area with airport announcements substituting for muzak, and my body crying out for an idli-vada kind of breakfast at 5am in the morning. Found something to munch on, by which time Indu had somehow managed to contort her body to fit into a chair in the waiting room, and had dozed off. I wandered into a book shop, and practically read the title of every book there.

Finally, yeah, finally, passengers started lining up at the gate, boarded the flight, and we were excited that our holiday to Sri Lanka was getting kick-started.

Arrive in Colombo

The Air India express flight, to Colombo, was clean, and they served some hot breakfast. Rather decent experience, considering they were the most inexpensive option on this sector.

The flight path is parallel to the Palk straits, at some point in the journey, and the pilot announced that the “Rama sethu / bridge” was visible to the passengers sitting on the right-side of the aircraft. I was amazed by how close Sri Lanka is to the Indian subcontinent, when viewed from the air. Maybe its time to bring back that ferry service, which linked the two countries, and looks like that is the case.

As the flight lined up to land, and was still flying above the clouds, it was drizzling a bit, and we noticed a rainbow – it was below us – and it brought a smile to our faces.

Landed in Colombo, picked up our luggage, immigration was a breeze – visa on arrival for Indian tourists – and took a cab to Colombo House. Its atleast an hour-and-half drive to get into Colombo, from the airport, and among the things that struck me immediately was the relatively orderly traffic on the roads; relative to what am used to back home in India. For instance, vehicles come to a stop at yellow-striped-pedestrian-crossings, allowing pedestrians to cross the road, even when a cop is not around to ensure that they do. Most automobiles are those from Japanese manufacturers. The roads aren’t too crowded, though they are busy with vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and was reminded that this is a country of 20 million people. This is more from the context of my city of residence, Bengaluru, which is atleast 6 million residents at last count.

We had called ahead and booked a room at the Colombo house, and once we reached there and checked-in we noticed that it is one of those quaint bungalows in the city. It is a bungalow converted into a travel-lodge, or more of a bed-and-breakfast style accomodation. First impressions were that this place has seen better days.

Colombo House

After a shower, we slept for a while. I asked for some tea from the rather cheerful caretaker lady, enjoyed the wonderful Sri Lankan tea, and decided to take a nap. Woke up around 4pm, and stepped out to get some late lunch. Went looking for a place to eat, and instead wandered into a book-store – Vijitha Yapa –  much to Indu’s dismay. I was curious to see what books a bookshop in Sri Lanka has on its shelves, and also to find out from a local about a place to get some decent lunch. A shopper walked in, and I got Indu to ask her for some suggestions – she mentioned ”Cafe on the 5th“, which happened to be a restaurant right around the corner. We headed there, after I purchased a book, and had a rather decent vegetarian lunch.

From there, we walked towards Duplication Road, with the intent of getting to the Galle Face road and walk along the coast a bit. Came across a Zesta tea boutique at the intersection of Duplication and Bagatelle road. Decided to have some tea there. This boutique had only recently opened, and we had a rather long chat with the friendly folks running the place. Had wonderful cinnamon flavoured tea, and then resumed our walk towards the Galle Face road.

We wanted to pick up a local mobile connection, for the duration of our trip, and were on the look out for a mobile-shop. Found one – Torana, on Galle Face road. Struck up a conversation with the owner there – Ranjith, a very friendly and helpful man – and got talking about our experience in Sri Lanka so far and also about his trips to India. He offered to take us out for breakfast, and also suggested a couple of places that we could go to to sample good vegetarian Sri Lankan cuisine. When he stepped out of the shop to attend to something else, we had a chat with the girl who was attending to our mobile-SIM-card request. She was a Sri Lankan Tamil, and we got talking in Tamil – the Lankan Tamil dialect is rather distinct, and we fumbled with our words. In any case, the girl was thrilled to talk to us, and when it came to movies, she confessed that “Sooperstar-Vijay” is her heart-throb. We enjoyed these conversations, spent some time chatting up Ranjit and his daugther Isha, and also browsed through the collection of vinyl records on sale in their shop. It was sort of starting to get dark outside, so we promised to catch up with them later, and headed to the shore-line.

Colombo: Beach, railway tracks, and the road

The shore lack a sandy beach, and because of the rather overcast conditions, the ocean was rather rough. It was a nice evening though, and a strong breeze was blowing in from the ocean. It was a nice sight to see the railway and road lines, from Colomobo to Galle, running parallel to the coast. On the way back to our place of stay, we popped into the ubiquitous Cargills’ Food-City, and picked up some fruits and snacks. Stopped at Colombo House to freshen up, and then headed out to Raffles for dinner – we had noticed this place during our afternoon search for a lunch place. It is located in a nice sprawling bungalow, and the restaurant has a nice cozy feel to it. The food was average; maybe because our vegetarian requirements reduces our options to experiment.

Back at the “house”, we settled down with books, and slept. The idea was to have breakfast the next morning, and leave for Galle. We returned to the “Cafe on the 5th”, had some sandwiches and tea for breakfast, and then checked out of Colombo house, and headed to the central bus stand. The auto ride is along the coast, and with a beautiful view of the coast line. Once at the bus stand, we deposited ourselves in an air-conditioned bus headed to Galle. This bus was a 15 seater or so. Once the bus was 75% full, the journey to Galle started. The bus stopped every few minutes to pick up passengers, and for anyone who flagged down the bus.

Bus ride; Colombo to Galle

Indu and I had seats right in the front row, and the bus took all of an hour to leave Colombo and the other small towns near it, and finally we had an unhindered view of the ocean – the road runs parallel to the coast all the way upto Galle, and the crashing waves made it a wonderful sight. We were awestruck by the power of the waves, and the engaging sight of small cosy houses and greenery along the way.

The music being played in the bus was from a mixed tape that the driver owned – it was playing some Sinhalese movie music, with the occasional Hindi Kishore Kumar number.

The three hour ride to Galle breezed past, and occasionally on this journey, I couldn’t help but regret the fact that I didn’t get my international driving license along; would have been a thoroughly enjoyable experience to drive on these roads, and take a break where ever we wanted to. The next trip to Sri Lanka will have me driving around in that country.

Once at Galle, everyone got off the bus. Called up Singha Villa, and spoke to Dieter, the owner, for details on how to get there from the Galle bus stop. A short 20 minute auto-ride (autos are called tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka) brought us to Singha Villa, in Unawatuna. Unawatuna was once a small village, with a rather calm beach. The beach is rather calm when compared to the rest of the west coast beaches. Today Unawatuna is a tourist hotspot, and is a hit with tourists during the tourist season. It still resembles a small sleepy village, during the tourist-off-season – our travel to this place coincided with this season.

Unawatuna, finally!

Once at Singha Villa, we were greeted by Dieter, the owner of the place. He is one enthusiastic, and warm person. Singha Villa is a sort of a homestay-bed-and-breakfast sort of place. He showed us to our room on the third floor, and the room and the view from there made us feel glad that we chose this place to stay. In any case, this place was suggested to Indu by her colleague, and based on her feedback we decided to head here. It turned out to be a good choice after all.

Settled down in Singha Villa. The room was clean, well-lit, and spacious

The initial plan was to spend a couple of days here, and then head to Kandy, but then that changed as all adhoc travel-plans do.

Dieter engaged us in a conversation about the place, his Thangka painting interests, and his travels within India and good part of South Asia. He is an engaging conversationalist.

We then settled down, relaxed a bit, and then headed out for a lunch of sorts. A leisurely walk towards the beach brought us to Sunil Garden restaurant. They served good sandwiches, smoothies, and coffee. We returned to this place a few times during our stay.

Walked for a bit on the beach; its a very nice strip of sand and peaceful waves. The coast-line is crescent shaped. At the western tip of the crescent the huge dome of a Buddhist temple is visible, over the top of coconut trees. There are quite a few places to stay and restaurants right on the beach; some are so close to the water that during high-tide waves lash their walls.

The village, if one were to call Unawatuna that, has very good green cover, and has its share of bird-life, and monkeys. We fell in love with the place, by sunset that evening.

Dieter prepared some wonderful pasta for dinner; a good dinner, hit the sack, and slept rather well. The sounds of the wildlife, and the lashing waves on the distant coast lulled us into sleep.

The next morning, we decided to visit Galle, and spend some time there. We walked a kilometer or so to the bus stand, and took the bus to Galle. It’s a 25 minute bus-ride. At Galle we headed to the Galle fort. The fort walls are well-preserved, and apparently they stood up well to the devastating tsunami that hit this region. The fort is a world heritage site, and quite a few the buildings within the fort still retain the period architecture. The fort houses quite a few people, and is a living space. We walked into the nearest Bank of Ceylon, to exchange USD to Lankan rupees. Once done, we walked around a bit, and then landed at Amangalla, for lunch.

Well maintained hotel - Amangalla

Amangalla is a beautifully maintained hotel, and has been restored from an earlier historic building. We had a good lunch, checked out the rooms and tariff; and made a mental note to come back here and stay sometime.

We then walked around the fort, skipped the museums – somehow didn’t feel like going in there – and walked to the rear of the fort. The lighthouse in one corner, and the beautiful coastline in front of us, was a scenic-postcard sight from the fort ramparts. We walked through the small and quaint streets within the fort, and noticed Ibrahim Jewellers – the designs displayed in the window looked interesting, and we decided to come back here another time, and check out their jewelery collection.

Wandering around in Galle Fort

We continued to wander through the streets, and chanced upon Pedlar’s Inn cafe; refreshing tea, snacks, and a few games of Brainvita / Peg-Solitaire later, we decided to head back to Unawatuna.

It was getting dark by the time we reached the bus stand, and got into a bus headed to Matara – buses headed to Matara stop at Unawatuna junction. We made the mistake of mentioning “Unawatuna” as our stop, instead of “Unawatuna junction”. The difference being atleast a kilometer, and that rather narrow highway is not conducive to pedestrian traffic, what with vehicles zipping on the roads with the occasional reckless driver on the road. Finally reached Singha Villa, and Dieter’s wife Bashini had prepared a delicious dinner – Sri Lankan curry and rice.

Unwatuna and rains

Our initial plan was to spend a couple of days in Unawatuna, and then to take a train ride to Kandy, or Nuwura Eliya. After a few days there, head back to Colombo. But, as things turned out, we decided to just stay put in Unawatuna.

Rain, reading a book, relaxing

It just so happened that over the next couple of days, clouds gathered over Unawatuna, and it started raining; rained for a couple of hours, interspersed with bright sunlight, and then back to another couple of hours of rain. We sort of liked to just stay put in our room. When it rained rather heavily, we could see the waves lashing the coast line, and the spray flying a few meters into the air, with the distinct boom of crashing waves. It was a mesmerizing sight. We pulled up a couple of chairs onto the balcony, and settled down to read the novels we had brought with us. It was a relaxing time.

Unawatuna sunset colours

Staying put in Unawatuna
We dropped all plans to explore the rest of Sri Lanka, and that sort of brought in a sense of relief; we didn’t have to plan anything more, and we just took it easy and strolled around Unawatuna, its beach, its various small shops selling touristy stuff, snacking at the various eateries, and watching the beautiful colours during sunset. The current banner image for this blog is one of those sunset snaps.

Black-hooded Oriole, http://flic.kr/p/7pRuop

Purple-Rumped Sunbird, http://flic.kr/p/7pRuop

The other fantastic aspect of our stay here were the fantastically coloured birds, which we could spot on the trees within the Singha Villa property. The colours were eye-popping.

"Kondai-kuruvilla", http://flic.kr/p/7CgULY

Asian Koel, http://flic.kr/p/7CgULY

Crimson-flame-backed woodpecker, http://flic.kr/p/7CgULY

Rose-ringed parakeet, http://flic.kr/p/7CgULY

A troupe of monkeys used to visit the area on a regular basis; they even raided the Singha Villa papaya tree, and snatched away some ripe papayas.

Southern-purple faced leaf monkey, http://flic.kr/p/7CgULY

We returned to Galle for another day-trip, visited the fort, and purchased some nice semi-precious jewelery from Ibrahim Jewelers. Also picked up some lace-work fabric. Stopped by at Laksala – government run handicraft shop – and picked up a couple of Sri Lankan masks, and various other knick-knacks.

The other aspects of our stay in Unawatuna, and specifically Singha Villa, that we cherish are:

• the simple but delicious breakfast, and wonderfully brewed tea; mostly prepared by Dieter
• the hearty dinners – usually Sri Lankan rice-and-curry, thanks to Bashini
• the greenery, and abundant and varied bird-life
• the crescent shaped Unawatuna beach, and its rather peaceful waves; except when it rained, and the waves lashed the coast
• the bus-rides to Galle and back, with a view of the Galle harbour and fort, as we neared Galle
• the fantastic stories that Dieter related, and the wonderful warm conversation with Bashini, Kumara, and Dieter right through our stay, made this trip entirely memorable

Finally, rather reluctantly, we decided to return to Colombo, and spend a day there before returning to India. We took the train ride back to Colombo.

Back to Colombo
The train ride is a rather bumpy one – the coaches are rather ancient, and hopefully the end to the horrible civil war will help the country focus on getting back on its feet, and maybe improve its railway infrastructure. The train tracks run parallel to the coast-line, and we had a good view of the ocean right through the journey. On the final stretch into Colombo, it was sunset time, and the fantastic colourful view of the sky and ocean was breath-taking.

We headed to the Ottrey Inn. It’s a rather old mansion in Colombo (in area 4 of Colombo city), run by an affable owner-caretaker. Except, the beds were hopeless – clean sheets and all that – but the bed springs had given up their ghost. We didn’t sleep properly the two nights we stayed there. The flooring is red-oxide based, and because of the humidity, it just stuck to our feet. It made us feel that the place was not very well maintained. Instead of staying here, we should have pampered ourselves at the Galle Face hotel, or the plush Hotel Cinnamon. Maybe the next time around.

In Colombo, we spent most of our time shopping for stuff. We spent a good amount of time at Odel’s, purchased a whole lot of clothing, tea, and general stuff, and finally a huge duffel-bag to cart away all our purchases. Stopped for a relaxing and much needed foot-massage at the Foot-rub place, within the Odel complex. Also, shopped at the Stone ‘N’ String shop, and picked up a whole lot of very nice semi-precious stones jewelery; highly recommended place to pick up jewelery.

That just about completed our stop over in Colombo.

The day we were to fly out of Colombo, we spent another hour at the Foot-Rub lounge at the Colombo airport, and got another relief-inducing-de-stressing foot massage. Made some last minute tea purchases from the Mlesna, and Zesta tea kiosks. We were all set to get onto our flight back home.

Chennai, and back home
The trip back to Chennai, and then from there to Bangalore was a relatively uneventful one. It was good to be back home, but then the memories of our trip remained fresh in our minds for a few weeks thereafter.

The next time around, I should plan to drive around in Sri Lanka, and travel the entire country. Beautiful country, and friendly people, and one worth visiting a few times.

Photos on flickr

These fantastic photos collections, of Sri Lanka, generously shared on Flickr, are worth a look:

• photos of Sri Lanka by Dhammika Heenpala
• photos of Sri Lanka by Madhawa