Sands of Sri Lanka

We boarded our flight to Sri Lanka at 4pm Sydney time and had an 11.5 hour flight ahead of us. The flight was great except a few moments of turbulence. The food was delicious having had a curry dish and a noodle dish, I was not disappointed. As we descended, we both looked at each other and began to feel the giddy excitement we get when we are landing in a new country. We’ve never been to anywhere like Sri Lanka. It’s culture was totally different than anywhere we’ve been so far and the food, we knew, was going to knock our socks off. We landed around midnight and quickly through immigration and customs with no problems. However, when we got to the area where we had arranged a driver to pick us up, we did not see a little white sign with our names on it. I even searched for any number of misspelled versions of Smestad, to see if it was just an error. Thinking they might be late or somewhere else because our flight had been delayed a little, we went to an ATM for some rupees, then walked around other places they might be, before feeling the need to call our hotel who arranged the whole thing. After some return phone calls and texting back and forth, we worked out a deal with a cab company which actually saved us 10,000 rupees! We jumped in the cab and took turns trying to nap for the 1.5 hour journey down the west coast. With no luck, we arrived around 2:30 am at our hotel and the hotel owner came driving up in a tuktuk to open the gate and show us to our room. We wandered through a mangrove jungle, ducking under tree branches, stepping over crabs scurrying back into their dens, and were shown into our bungalow. It was a wooden roof with army tent style canvas walls and a bed draped with a giant mosquito net. The bathroom was semi-open air which would later prove to be interesting. We were elated to be there but exhausted and after a few minutes of setting in, we were both fast asleep, with the sound of massive crashing waves replacing our sound machine all night long.

We awoke to those same waves and were immediately reminded we were in paradise. After a shower and a thick application of sunscreen and deet, we dawned our swimsuits and headed to breakfast. The breakfast started with a plate of fresh papaya, pineapple, watermelon and tiny bananas and a mixed fruit juice. I elected for coffee, being still slightly tired and forgetting I was in the land of tea farms. I would have been content with these three items, but as with most good hotels, the food just keeps on coming. We had the option of eggs or omelets and as they brought out my over easy eggs, they included rice and lamb curry. This was one of my favorite parts of travel; seeing what other people have for breakfast. Too often, we know a cultures cuisine by its evening meal options or street foods, but not by its breakfast foods. The curry was amazingly flavorful, rich, spicy and surprisingly chilled (not cold but not hot either). While we ate, we chatted with the couple sitting next to us for a while.

Having no plans but to lounge all day, we finished breakfast and headed to the lounge chairs to, well, lounge. Almost immediately we were greeted by a king fisher with beautiful blue feathers and a large protruding beak. We spent all day on those chairs, getting up to dip our toes in the water, or get another juice from the beach bar. We chatted about life, read and listened to audiobooks (mine was Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling), but mostly we watched the waves crashing for hours. They were breaking very close to shore so we could see these beautiful patterns of sand and water mixing in the wave just before it broke and it was mesmerizing. We went back to the room for a nap before making our way to the restaurant for a sunset dinner and arrived just in time.

As we sat down, the sun was just setting over the horizon and we expected that to be the end of the show, but we were wrong. In Sri Lanka, on the south west coast, the sun sets and it’s beautiful, but what follows is magical on a partly cloudy evening. The sun is below the horizon, but the light shines in the clouds and lights up the sky to the west and also to the east. The entire sky was a flood of oranges and yellows and blues and reds. We gazed at it for what seemed like forever. The only thing taking our eyes off the sunset was the food, and for good reason. We ordered a curry platter which between the two of us, we shared 4 different curries, a salad and two bowls of rice. The flavors were distinct to each curry, with varying amounts of sweetness and spiciness to each and all containing local veggies like eggplant, cabbage and green beans.

The mosquitos began to descend on us, so we finished dinner, grabbed a bottle of water for the room and headed to bed, spying crabs ducking into their little holes in the sand as our shadows passed over them.

The next morning I awoke to a scream. It was Leeah, who had gone to use the bathroom and while picking up the role of toilet paper, to her surprise, was greeted by a sleepy frog. They were both surprised and the frog began hopping away. This was the first of several encounters with wildlife in that bathroom. That is one thing I had expected, being as our bungalow is more or less a tent, but it still startling to find critters when you’re sleepily stumbling to the loo. Again, no plans were made for the day except relaxing. We showered and got ready as we had the day before and headed to breakfast. This time, instead of rice and curry, we had egg hoppers. I hadn’t heard of these before, let alone tasted them, but you can guarantee it’s going to be a new menu item at Chez Smestad when we return. It’s a sort of crispy, savory crepe in the shape of a basket with a fried egg at the bottom. You slather it with curry and chow down. Leeah’s egg wasn’t quite cooked enough for her liking, therefore I gladly had two egg hoppers that morning. Oh, and I didn’t forget I was in Sri Lanka where they grow a lot of tea, so I skipped the coffee and opted for Ceylon tea.

We made our way to our lounge chairs in the shade, which was both welcomed and necessary, as this was an exceptionally sunny day compared to the last. We passed the time in the same way we had the day before, but with more frequent trips across the scorching sands down to the water to cool off. I asked Leeah to join me on a beach walk since I can only lounge so long before I need to get some energy out. We walked down the beach as far as we could, passing resorts, turtle sanctuaries and a gentleman trying to sell us any experience we may want. It was a very relaxing day. So much so, that we may have been too relaxed about sun protection and Leeah (the woman I have never seen turn any shade of red) was nearly as red as my Scandinavian skin gets after 15 minutes of uninterrupted sunlight. It was bad. I had been cautious in the frequency of SPF application for myself, but not consistent in where it went, so I ended up looking a bit like a tiger. Sunburned and exhausted from doing almost nothing all day, we dressed for dinner and headed to the beach for another beautiful sunset. It was no doubt beautiful, but I prefer slightly cloudy sunsets now. I had rice with deviled prawns at the recommendation of the waiter and Leeah had a single curry with a coconut soup starter. At dinner, the wait staff suggested a few tours that they could arrange for us. I was itching to get out and explore the area so we arranged a tour in the morning at 6:30 before the temperatures got too hot. We were off to bed, essentially sleeping and waking to the rise and fall of the sun, which was a nice change from my night owl lifestyle to which I gravitate normally.

We awoke the next morning with time to shower, apply deet and sunscreen again and head out without breakfast. Don’t worry, we would be back in time for breakfast by 8:30 am. We were greeted at the gate by Suraj, our TukTuk driver. He was delightful and all smiles. We stopped by the ATM since we hadn’t had a chance yet and then headed off for a river safari. Not more than 10 minutes from leaving and we were already at the boat dock on the river.

We paid for our boat trip and we were off, just the two of us and our boat driver. We immediately saw birds all over, though I couldn’t tell you names of most of them. We were told to duck low as narrowly floated below the bridges and into more open waters. We cruised through mangrove passageways and landed at the dock of a Buddhist temple. There was a monk there who was picking flowers off a tree to place before the statues of Buddha. He waved us over and in the corner of the temple walls, there was a monitor lizard about two feet long with beefy body and a slender purple tongue. I have loved lizards since I was a kid as my mother can attest, but Leeah is not a huge fan. She stayed back as I crept forward to take the reptilian’s portrait.

After, we wandered about the grounds to see different statues and then were shown a Buddhist text that was hundreds of years old, written on coconut leaves with scratches before being filled in with ash. After the monk recited a good luck prayer for us and tied a white string to our right wrists, we were asked if we could make a donation, which we did. I was secretly hoping it would go to feeding that lizard.

We got back in the boat and headed to our next location, which was a demonstration of how cinnamon is harvested and how to make rope from coconut husk. It was very informative and cool to watch as we sipped on some cinnamon tea. The next few stops were to see a baby monkey and a baby crocodile. I’ll tell you that I am not a fan of zoos or wild animals in captivity so when we arrived and a man walked over with a baby monkey in his arms, I was conflicted. On the one hand, nature makes babies cute so instinctually we want to take care of them, but it’s not natural to have a human taking care of a monkey. I asked how they acquired this adorable fuzzball and they said that it had fallen out of the tree and was abandoned. I’d like to believe it and I try to trust people until they give me a reason not to, so I gave in. He passed me this tiny, gangly, monkey with big eyes and without thinking my hands reached out to receive it. The monkey immediately clung to my shirt and held it’s body against mine, with it’s tiny paws grasping my fingers. Leeah and I pet their head and it’s eyes rolled back like he was about to fall asleep. I’m not sure I can convey how precious this thing was, but my heart was mush. My brain was telling me “those are sharp looking teeth and you told the travel doctor you wouldn’t be near wild animals”, but there are some experiences that take you out of your rational mind, and this was definitely one. After prying the monkey’s fingers off my shirt and handing it back over, we tipped the gentleman, again hoping that would go to caring for that little rascal. We were off, next stop, baby crocodile.

My heart doesn’t go out to a crocodile of any age quite like our primate relatives, but it was still very cool to see. I had hoped that they release that croc in time for it to still be wild and free. This stop was brief and after another obligatory tip, we made our way to the last stop which was fish therapy. No, fish were not reclined on a chaise lounge, telling other fish with note pads where they think their trauma came from. Instead, they were in pools of river water, based on size and we were to put our bare feet into the pools so they could scrape the dead skin off and eat it. Yum. I’m not sure if I were a fish I’d sign up for this job, but somehow I don’t think they got a choice. Nevertheless, as soon as our heals hit the water, they swam right up and snacked away. I was amazed, and continue to be amazed, with Leeah and her drive to step way out of her comfort zone. Prior to this trip, I think this experience would have been a hard pass, but she barely hesitated. I’m proud of her. As we sat there, we pondered what happen to these fish in their future. Would they retire from this job and be released to the wild? Would they be farmed to grow large enough to become dinner? Can you imagine eating a fish that fed on human foot skin? These questions were enough to end the experience. We pulled our feet out and got back in the boat. We headed back to the dock, where Suraj handed us both a freshly machete’d king coconut and straw and we sipped it all the way back to our hotel. The rest of the day was spent beachside after another delicious breakfast. This time it was all shade to avoid further burns. We sipped mocktails made from fresh fruit and had more curry for dinner as the Sri Lankan sunset dazzled our eyes. Early to bed again, as we had more adventures lined up the next morning.

We had breakfast the next day at 7:30 to ensure we were at the front gate to meet Suraj by 8am. He was prompt again and this time it was a city tour and our last day in Sri Lanka. We jumped in his tuktuk and headed to a spice garden, but the doctor wasn’t in yet so we drove to our next destination, the turtle sanctuary. Again, no one was there yet, so we wandered around and looked at the turtles as Suraj suggested while he made some phone calls. Eventually someone from the sanctuary arrived and gave us a tour and taught us about the 5 types of sea turtles who call Sri Lanka home.  Then he showed where the eggs are laid by their resident turtle mamas. There was a raised sand pit, a bit like a raised bed garden, with stakes and labels of when they were laid and encouraging notes from doners who witnessed the egg laying. The guide walked to the middle where there was a cylindrical hole, he reached down and pulled out a handful of newborn turtles!!! They were no bigger than half my palm but there were dozens. 30-40 tiny turtles were pulled out of the tube and placed in a bucket. We followed him and his bucket of turtles to a seawater tank where they would swim for the first time. It was a frenzy of flippers and bobbing heads as he released them into the water. It always amazes me how relatively helpless human newborns seem compared to most other animals. These little dudes and dudettes knew just how to swim (clumsily) right from birth. This was another heartwarming moment with wildlife. That night they would be released on the nearby beach to have a chance at life, though about 1 in 1000 will make it to adulthood.

After appreciating all the turtles at the sanctuary, we headed off to the city to see a fruit market, spice and tea store, stopped in a souvenir shop all before heading to another Buddhist temple. This one was where Suraj goes and had a huge sleeping Buddha statue. It was not the fanciest of places, but knowing he felt a spiritual connection to this place, made the experience meaningful for us. We clambered down the many stairs to get back into the tuktuk which had now been filled with local boys who were playing make believe drivers and clientele. We all chuckled a bit.  Finally, we swung by the spice garden and after a complimentary tea, a guy told me to take my shirt off so he could rub avocado balm on my sunburns. I obliged and Leeah giggled at my willingness to do just about anything for a unique experience. The balm was just the start as I received what only can be described as an extremely vigorous head massage that left me wondering if my neck would be sore the next day. The doctor came over and explained all the cool plants they were growing and what ailments they would cure or relieve. He was extremely nice and gave us some insight into his personal political beliefs about Sri Lankan government and where there was room for improvement. Essentially, he described the opening scene of Idiocracy. We left for the hotel to get packed, showered (again), and get one more mocktail before we left. We asked Suraj to help us arrange transport to the airport and I made sure to request a car with Air Conditioning. I didn’t shower three times that day only to arrive at the airport sweaty. We said farewell to our delightful hotel staff, lugged our bags to the car and had nearly unbroken conversation with our driver, Indica, all the way to the airport. He told us his experience with the 2004 tsunami and all about where we need to go when we come back. We had seen some cool things, but only scratched the surface of this beautiful, culture rich, and wild country. I found myself planning the next trip to Sri Lanka in my head as we sit at the Colombo airport. However, those experiences will have to wait, because this next one will be a doozie!