Frances

Annhig- I just referred back to your report of where you were meant to stay in Unawatuna. According to the map I thought I could see where it was but looking at the photos the lie of the land puts it elsewhere.
I am envious that you ended up in Galle although our decision to stay outside was carefully considered. We'll visit Galle in my next installment(and the one after)

annhig

According to the map I thought I could see where it was but looking at the photos the lie of the land puts it elsewhere.>>

that may have been our driver's problem. it was VERY difficult to find.

Frances

I suppose that mozzies divide people into tasty and not. Myself and my youngest daughter are not and my husband and eldest daughter are tasty. Generally then (with the exception I think of Cape Cod where I was savaged), they don't bother me.

Sri Lanka has dengue fever. Whilst spending her Gap Year in Cambodia my daughter donated blood to the Children's Hospital in Siem Reap whenever the dengue fever season came along.
It had never caused me to think much about it until when were booked to go to Guadeloupe last year I suddenly discovered that there was an epidemic there. When you read up on it it is very nasty.

Then in November just before we set off for Madeira- another epidemic there.

Having emerged unscathed into the Sri Lankan vegetation I found that these mozzies hadn't read the manual and thought that I was fair game. I had come prepared -6 different sprays and wipes. Two of them jungle strength.

The mozzies in Unawatuna were particularly annoying and congregated in the foyer downstairs of the annexe to our hotel where our super accomodation was. There was a large seated buddha welcoming you from behind a pond with waterlillies growing in it. It was lovely and serene apart from the damned mozzies!

The wi-fi in this building only worked in the downstairs foyer and so every night I would venture forth duly sprayed to catch up on the news in Wales.

They weren't a particular nuisance anywhere else but one night when we ate in a restaurant on the beach the sandflies were pretty awful.

We had said goodbye to our driver on Tuesday night and he was going on to visit his mother in Galle. We had a number of drivers in Kandy who were from Galle but had not been able to find enough work there after the tsunami and so had moved to Kandy. I was sorry to see him go as he was a lovely person and the safest driver we had throughout our stay.
On Wednesday we decided to visit Galle. We took a tuk-tuk from outside our hotel. The tuk-tuks just managed to take three of us although my daughter was generally squashed in the middle. We did take one or two which were slightly wider and she was able to sit down properly between us.
The tuk-tuk drivers can't do anything like the speed of cars and so in that respect are safer. However they appear to be expected to make room for all of the motorised vehicles which cut them up when overtaking and often you would see them being forced towards the verge to make way for the car which is overtaking the bus which is overtaking the tuk-tuk. Of course the degree of protection they afford in the event of a crash is negligible.
We found ourselves entering Galle alongside a raised water course. My husband asked where we were and the driver said we were taking a scenic route. The next moment he pulled on the forecourt of a jewellery shop. My husband told him we did not want to stop but by then the owner had come out and was trying to sweet talk my husband in to going in to look. Well that wasn't a good start to the day.
We drove through the garrison walls of Galle and the driver then almost doubled around and came to a stop on the ramparts. As soon as we got out we were targetted by several hawkers. One wanted 1800rupees( about £9 ) for a tiny cotton dress for a three year old. It was pretty but there was absolutely no way that I was paying that much. He kept telling me that it was hand made.I eventually agreed 800 and set off after my daughter who had walked off. I noticed a man with a cobra around his neck and I know that my daughter doesn't like snakes. As it happened she hadn't seen it!
Every hawker in Galle was selling these cotton goods and when I looked closely at it I could see that it wasn't hand made after all!

I really liked Galle a lot. I had at first wanted to stay here but it was eye-wateringly expensive at the beginning of January and I think that there was only one hotel with a pool within the walls and that was £400 per room per night.By staying in Unawatuna we hoped to be close enough to visit Galle (we were) but also somewhere we could swim -and we could do that too.
The old buildings in Galle gave a very good idea of what life must have been like for those who lived within the garrison . Many of the houses have now been converted into very plush villas.

We stopped for a bite to eat at the Heritage Cafe which was a welcome respite.

Having made our way back to Unawatuna(the tuk-tuk driver having made yet another stop-this time at a spice stall),us two girls went to the beach. The beach here is lovely and at times depending on which book you read you learn that it has been rated as one of the top ten in the world.It is a crescent shaped stretch of sand just in front of a single row of shops along the road.The beach is not very wide and so there was little room until we made our way further down towards the headland. Lots of cafes and restaurants have beds and umbrellas out. My daughter doesn't like sun and so we sat in the shade of an advertising hoarding to keep her from burning. I swam amd the sea was lovely.
Then we joined my husband for a coffee and cake in Sunil's.
That night we ate in Kingfisher. We had tried to get in here the previous night but it was full. This rates very highly in some guide books but by now I can't remember what I had!
It can't have been too bad or I would have remembered . On the other hand, the menus I can remember for some time were outstanding!

annhig

sorry you got got by the mozzies - we hardly saw one for our entire trip, and began to wonder what those mosquito nets were for!

we too fell foul of the tuktuk driver with a friend who sells...but only bought some cinnamon, which I wanted anyway. there was one point in Galle thought when i was convinced that the "hand-made lace" man was stalking me!

Frances

The best meal of the trip!

When we got up this morning we decided to walk all the way down through the village and over the headland with the hope we could find our way out on the beach where the stilt fishermen were.
Its surprising how long you can linger over breakfast when you don't need to hurry so it was mid- morning by the time we set off.We just followed the road all the way along the beach until it petered out just before a stream enteredthe beach and flowed into the sea. The other side there were one or two cafes and a buddhist temple. Beyond here was the breakwater where the construction lorries were headed.We were walking in the lorry tracks which were a mixture of mud and sand. We walked out as far as we could and then tried to clamber over the rocks but could not see the beach the other side and couldn't see either whether we could get down off the rocks other than in to the sea.
We retraced our steps and kept the headland side of the river. Very soon we were in a leafy undeveloped road with very few houses. We saw a path turning left and as this was leading in the direction of the stilt fishermen beach we went up there. We saw on our right what looked like a hotel redevelopment and ahead saw the vegetation opening towards the beach. Suddenly five or six snarling dogs ran towards us and the word "rabies" flashed through my mind-again. Just before they reached us a man shouted from out of sight ahead of us and they stopped and turned and went back.
In the time I'd had to think about this I could not imagine anything was going to stop them before they launched themselves at us so I think that was a lucky escape.
All thought sof the stilt fishermen forgotten we now cut around the back end of the village. This was totally quiet. Very few houses. The sort of place you feel will be totally built on in 10 years time. We were out of sight of the sea now but the land was flat and wet. Just at the side of the road was a memorial to a Swiss woman who had died in the tsunami and I take it that they had found her body at that point.
Back on the beach we stopped for a lemonade and suddenly the heavens opened. It happened so quickly people were still packing up on the beach whilst getting soaked. It stopped as quickly as it started and we headed back to our hotel.
We had noticed that a restaurant had a Welsh flag on the wall and so we stopped there for lunch. This was the South Ceylon vegetarian restaurant. The owner was Welsh and married to a Sri Lankan woman. We ordered some beer and food and sat down to wait on the upstairs balcony. Then it rained! If I thought the earlier rain was heavy well this knocked spots off it . It absolutely chucked it down very very heavily. Soon people were just trudging back to their hoteld as it clearly wasn't going to stop anytime soon. A back area to a shop across the road quickly became a lake which swelled out into the road. The traffic was making walking very difficult as everyone wanted to get out of there at the same time. The road became a mire and I started to wonder if it would ever stop. One bee became two adn I told myself that we seemed to be very welcome.
After an hour!the food arrived. I had a Sri Lankan pittu which was a mound of steamed rice flour favoured with coconut served with pumpkin curry and fresh pineapple chutney. It was WOW! I was so impressed by this meal that I put an immediate post on Trip advisor. As it happened nothing bettered that plate of food throughout our holiday.
As the rain eased we went back to our hotel where we relaxed for the afternoon.
My memory of the weather is that it was hot but not often sunny and so you weren't often trying to dodge the direct sunshine.
That night we took another tuk-tuk into Galle where their speciality was an individual barbecue which they brought top your table. These were very popular. The restaurant as a whole seemed to be much liked by English families with large numbers of children.

Frances

Last day in Unawatuna
Woke up to rain which carried on through breakfast. Our hopes of some time on the beach were dashed so we turned to the attractions.
Off we went east to Martin Wickramsinghes house. Another tuk-tuk-three of us squashed in to it once more.It took us about a quarter of an hour to get there and it was in Kogalle.The rain made the side road muddy and potholed and this was quite a bumpy ride.
Martin Wickramsinghe was a famous Sri Lankan writer and his home was preserved as a museum. His home was the only one remaining after the fall of Singapore meant that a staging post was required for planes travelling to the far East. The whole village was cleared and flattened to make an air base apart from this one house where one of the officers was billeted. She liked it so much she persuaded those with the power to do so to leave it standing.
It is a small house in several acres of garden and over time a really interesting museum of village life has been built up in a purpose built extension.
There were two very large groups of visitors there, a group of Sri Lankan service personnel and a group of University students on a day visit from Colombo. They were all wearing immaculate white polo shirts with " Leader of Tomorrow " written on them.
Having left there we went to a spice plantation nearby where we were met by a herbalist who took us around explaning the different trees and plants. At one point he showed us a paste made of wild garlic and something else which he said was used by Buddhist monks on their heads as a hair remover. He said that after 6 applications the hair does not grow any more. He put some on my husbands leg and when it was wiped off ten minutes later it took the hair with it.
However when I asked him if stem ginger really came from the stem he didn't know. There were two masseuses there in an open air pavilion in a nice location overlooking a lake and we were encouraged to have a massage and pay if we felt it had been worthwhile.
When we arrived at the shop all of these things were for sale but at fairly enormous prices. They wanted about £3.50 for cinnamon sticks and about £4 for a vanilla pod. They were not at all impressed when I said I could get them cheaper at home. The whole place was funded by this shop. The tuk-tuk drivers no doubt had a kickback from whatever was bought. The guide relied on tips and the masseuse kept a proportion of what people paid. It made good business sense for the owners btu I didn't like the attitude when I wasn't willing to pay the prices they wanted.

From here we went to a turtle breeding place alongside the road. This was only tiny but very interesting. Local fishermen are paid for eggs that they bring in and then they are hatched and reared and eventually released back into the wild. There is no state aid for this and the entrance fee (about £4) went towards the cost.

This was a good morning's outing and we saw three very different things. For a wet day it couldn't have been bettered.
We went back to Unawatuna and went to the Roti shop for lunch. This is featured in the guidebook as a bit of an experience but the roti itself was nothing special although I ate it all.
That night we wandered down along the (one and only )road through Unawatuna but in the end decided that we would eat in our hotel. We had read the menu before going out and it looked good. It was good but now I can't remember what we had!

Tomorrow-Negombo here we come!

annhig

When we arrived at the shop all of these things were for sale but at fairly enormous prices. They wanted about £3.50 for cinnamon sticks and about £4 for a vanilla pod. >>

lol, Frances, we had a similar experience when our tuk tuk driver in Galle dropped us off by his friend's shop which just happened to be a spice dealers. rather than buy spice mixes [which actually might have been a good idea, apart from the fact that I'd have had no idea what was in them] i decided to buy some cinnamon sticks and like you, was quoted an outrageous price, much more than at home.

in the end I said I'd pay no more than [I think] €15 for 20 sticks, and walked away, I'd got about 50 yards before the shopkeeper caught up with me and said he'd take it, but he did so with very bad grace. puzzling isn't it? - if I wasn't offering enough, he didn't have to take it.

Frances

Saturday morning we set off by taxi arranged by our hotel for Negombo. The pre-booked taxis such as this were what I would call mini-buses, with three rows of seats and luggage storage behind. The vehicles were new and we didn't have any mechanical problems.
We told the driver that we wanted to go up the motorway and expected him to charge extra but he didn't.
The motorway was empty, apart for the odd monitor lizard which obviously didn't expect vehicles to interrupt the morning constitutional.
We were at the other end of the road in less than two hours. Then we hit the traffic of Colombo. I'm not sure where Colombo started and finished because it now took us two hours to get to our hotel. The driver had been quite safe up to this point but that is probably quite easy when you can only go in one direction and there is an overtaking lane. Immediately we hit Colombo there was solid nose to tail traffic with it seemed about 5 lanes of vehicles all trying to merge and undertake. We were moving so slowly that this was no more of a problem than normal. However somewhere closer to Negombo we hit a dual carriageway and the driver seemed to become manic. I was in the very back seat and my husband and daughter in the seat in front. I didn't have a seat belt. After the third episode of severe breaking slid me forward so that I pushed up against the seat in front which moved the other two forward, I asked in my "young man" voice if he could please slow down. Well that lasted all of 10 seconds following which he came very close to hitting a motorcyclist who decided to use the central reaervation to cut across our path. At this point my daughter (who I thought had been embarrased at my earlier intervention) asked him if he could drive slower. I jumped in as well and told him that I didn't feel safe.

We proceeded out towards Negombo which seemed to have direction signs to various parts of it for miles. It turns out that it is the third largest city in Sri Lanka.
We had had no wish to go to Negombo but it sounded like a good option for the airport. Our flight out was at 5am and having heard about the traffic in Colombo it seemed like too much of a risk to stay any further away.Also we thought that we would like to see Colombo but didn't want to move twice in two days.

We were booked at the Ice-Bear Hotel. When we had sent a booking enquiry they had responded by saying that they did have two rooms but as they were the last two they were holding them for us whilst we decided whether we wanted to confirm. This was a good move on their part and as they were cheap we decided to take one of the rooms for the second night also even though we would be leaving for the airport in the small hours. I think we were paying about £40 per room per night.
We had read up on the hoteland it seemed a bit like a return to our student days. Negombo has all sorts of accomodation but we are not 5 star people unless there is no option as we enjoy character even though it may not have the same comfort.
Well the hotel had character in spades but very strangely I completely changed my mind about this place from the first morning to the second.

The hotel is on the main road but appears to back a building which is ON the road. Therefore you don't notice the traffic noise. You go into a garden of beach side plants and decoration with some local buildings scattered around. There are hens and ducks and a little tortoise enclosure which had a tiny baby tortoise. How do you give birth to a shell?
The staff were charming and the main building which was single storey housed a few of the rooms.Another building which has the restaurant on the ground floor had more rooms upstairs overlooking the sea. The rest of the rooms were in little cottages -including ours which were next to each other.
Initially they thought we had booked one room for one night but it all sorted.

The room had a double bed and bedside cabinets and was quite small.The bathroom was outside but that was not a problem. There was no air conditioning but there was a fan.

There was direct access to the beach.
We went out for a wander and headed down the coast road. We passed a large funeral which seemed to have hundreds of mourners.Having walked about half a mile or so we came across some small shops selling herbs and spices. I bought a bundle of cinnamon sticks for a song and thought of the spice plantation we had visited which had been charging about four times as much for fewer. They also had some lemons which looked like the preserved lemons you have in Morroco. I made gestures to show we were going on a plane in the faint hope that they could package them insomething liquid proof and they brought out an electric heat sealer! I was astounded as I didn't even think that this tiny place had electricity! They are now sitting happily in my fridge not having leaked at all!

From here we turned inland and walked into the commercial centre.We found the Icebear cafe which we had been provided a voucher for. It was actually closing as it was now about 5pm but we had coffee which was good.
Then we walked back to the shops where my husbad tried to cash travellers cheques but failed. He then tried two ATM's but those didn't like him either. Then we went back to the hotel.
We decided to eat there that night but in checking our finances my husband realised that we were now short of money. Next day was Sunday, The Atm's here didn't seem to work and the hotel didn't take credit cards. Our meal was curtailed by our cashless state - no alcohol and no puds.
One of the staff said that there were a number of other banks in an areawe hadn't reached and so my husband and daughter went off in a tuk-tuk and managed to get cash. In the meantime the staff had said that we would find banks open in Colombo which was where we were planning on going the next day.

I slept really badly that night. I expected to find the lack of air-conditioning a prblem but the fan was very effective. Unfortunately for it to be so effective we had it on a high settingwhich made quite a lot of noise. I got up in the morning thinking that this was alittle too basic for me and that my backpacker(sleep on the beach) days were far behind me.
Sorry about the lack of spacing but when I try to amend my keyboard deletesthe next letter

annhig

frances - we took the old road up to Colombo, and though it took a lot longer, we were glad we did as we saw so much more, including a boat trip though the mangroves [which our driver sprung on us rather, but what the heck] and the turtle hatchery, which I liked less as it seemed like a racket to me.

then we like you we hit the Colombo traffic, but i suppose it took us an hour to get to our hotel which was on the south side of the city. to my mind it was no worse [and a little better] than much of the traffic and driving we'd encountered before, and at least the roads were better.

we were led to believe that they are building a ring road to link the new road up with the airport. When it'll be finished wasn't clear.

Frances

On reading back over this there are two things I want to mention.
The first is that in Ella we were told that someone was building five star accomodation further up the mountainside. When we were speaking to the owner of our hotel the Flower garden in Unawatuna he told us that he was building in Ella. This 5 star is his!
The second is that in Galle I bought a book called "Around the Fort in 80 lives" and it is only now that I am reading it. I'm sorry that I hadn't read it before going because it paints a lovely picture of what is a small community albeit in a World heritage site.

Colombo.

The coffers suitably refilled we set off for the train station in Negombo to catch the train to Colombo.My ipad was new and I'd never taken it on holiday before but I was swept away by its usefulness. We were able, using the wifi in the Icebear to find out the train times to and from Negombo to Colombo. Before now that would have entailed a visit to the station the day before. The tuk-tuk driver who took us to the station was trying to persuade us to hire him to take us all the way to Colombo!
When we arrived at the station the train we had planned to catch was not mentioned and the ticket office was closed. There were other trains due to do the route. About ten minutes before the train which we had intended to catch was due the ticket office opened and a man also set up a desk on the platform and sat there with two lackeys. I never found out what he was doing.
The train arrived and we got on. It was one class with seats along each side of the carriage and all the rest of the floor space for standing. We managed to get seats but quite soon it was standing room only. There was no air conditioning as all the windows and all the doors were open. Many of the passengers were students.
The journey was interesting and after about 1.25 hours we pulled in to Colombo Fort station.

My daughter had already decided that she wanted to go to Pettyah which was an old multicultural district and so we headed there. This was the garment district but almost completely closed on Sunday. We wandered west through an area of lovely colonial buildings such as banks and reached the Old Dutch Hospital. We stopped there for lunch and then headed out to the coast and walked down Galle Face. This was very pleasant - a long seaside prom with many people doing the same. Outside the Galle Face Hotel we inadvertently came across a snake charmer and so made a fast diversion.
It was very hot now. We walked to a row of old Chinese tea houses and then to a nearby lake the name of which escapes me. At this point the heat was too much and I decided I needed some shade. My daughter found a coffee shop in the guide book and we hailed a tuk-tuk. Why on earth did we choose the newest tuk-tuk driver in Colombo?
We told him we wanted to go to Cinnamon Park(or something similar) which was the ex-pat area of Colombo. He nodded and set off in what we could see was the opposite direction! He was heading for the Cinnamon Club Hotel. With the use of our map we got him back on the right road and then at traffic lights the engine died on us! On a normal working day this would have been almost suicidal but on a Sunday the traffic was quiet. Eventually he decided that he had run out of petrol and took out a plastic bottle from under his seat and refilled the tank. He still had no idea where he was so as soon as we could see that we were within walking distance we got out and walked.
Whilst the airconditioning was very lovely and cooling my husband managed to find out that we were closer to another station that the Fort and tht we could get the train we wanted from there. We got another tuk-tuk and went to Maradana.

The ticket office in Maradana was in a semi circular room in the main entrance hall. It had five windows each with a man serving who wore an immaculately pressed white shirt. We couldn't decide which of the windows we should go to so my daughter told my husband to fade in to the background and we went to the "Women only" window. We asked for three tickets to Negombo " Negombo?" he said . "No 5". So we went to window no 5 and asked for three tickets to Negombo. "What class?"
" 2nd"
" 2nd class tickets to Negombo window No 1!"
We were creased up by now but did get our tickets at window no 1.

The destinations from this station were each written on a separate wooden board which otherwise hung in the entrance hall. There was a lovely feeling here of times gone past.
We arrived back in Negombo without mishap, the train having almost circumnavigated the airport.

That night after a walk on Negombo beach(don't bother) where we saw another snake charmer, we decided to eat at Lord's Restaurant which turned out the second best meal of our trip.

Before going to bed I checked that they had called a taxi for us from reception for 2am only to find it was called for 3!
My daughter decided that she wasn't going to go to bed but read until it was time for the taxi and she sat outside our room. She was bitten to death by the mozzies which were particularly bad at night.

Although we didn't have long in bed I slept particularly well. The massive mosquito net certainly did its job and we set off for the airport feeling relatively refreshed although I hate that feeling when you get up and go out in the dark knowing tht the next pillow you hit will be yours AND its on the other side of the world!

Looking back I quite liked the Icebear. Its quirky beyond but there is quite a lot of thought which has gone into its comforts. As well as the very powerful fan and huge mosquito net, there are individual mozzie plugs in the rooms and a knock down spray(which I have had trouble buying in the Uk).The door had a battery operated light for when the power goes down. There was a night watchman so when I was asking what would have happened had I not checked and found that our taxi was booked an hour later than we needed, they just told me simply that the watchman would have phoned the taxi company.

Breakfast at the Icebear was served in the garden which was quite lovely. Negombo is not great but if you want somewhere close to the airport you could do worse.

The journey to the airport was uneventful although our flight was delayed. My daughter slept all the way to Abu Dhabi where we said our farewells as we flew on to Manchester and she to Heathrow

A good holiday. I would go again to see the parts we didn't visit.

annhig

thanks for your TR, Frances [and for finishing it!]

I'd love to go there again; I think that it's a place that would become a lot easier on a 2nd [or 3rd] visit!

Kathie

Yes, thanks for finishing your report. We will return to Sri Lanka, perhaps next year.

Frances

Thank you for your interest all the way through my intermittent posting! There were times when I thought I wouldn't get to the end but for the thought that there was someone out there who wanted to read this.
This afternoon I've said goodbye to my grandaughter who at 8 months and two weeks sets off for a month in Sri lanka on Saturday.! (She is taking her parents with her!)

Kathie

What a great reason to return to that beautiful country!

annhig

This afternoon I've said goodbye to my grandaughter who at 8 months and two weeks sets off for a month in Sri lanka on Saturday.! (She is taking her parents with her!)>>

what a wise girl. i hope that she [and her mummy and daddy] have a lovely time.

jcblancha

I just got back from Sri Lanka. I only had 6 nights. I ended up doing the cultural triangle (Sigiriya) for 2 nights, camping with Leopard safaris in Wilpatu for a night and then Kalpitiya for 2 nights. It was a fantastic tour. Since I did not have that much time I did not do the southern beaches. Kalpitiya was great as I saw tons of dolphins and it was very quiet. I used a great driver since I had limited time. He was very trustworthy and reliable. I was traveling alone and he was completely reliable and I give him the highest recommendation. My driver was Kapila--00940777676447 or [email protected]. I also had a fantastic guide at anuradhapura--one of the smartest guides I met in all of Sri Lanka. Chandana 071595077-email: [email protected]

annhig

jcblanca - how nice of you to join fodors just to tell us that!

since you only had 6 nights, i wonder how you can tell us that your guide at Anuradhapura is one of the smartest you met in all of Sri Lanka? how did you find this wonderful guide or your driver? how did you come to chose this fantastic tour?

you do know that advertising is not allowed on fodors don't you?

jcblancha

Geez, I am not advertising. I had a great driver and was really impressed by my tour guide. I am from the US and was just trying to pass on the suggestion. I found my driver through list serves such as fodors and frommers and was just returning the favor.
I was in Sri Lanka for 6 days after working in India for 9 days. I am not part of a tour service but am a physician who was traveling alone. While I think it is good that you want to make sure people don't advertise please be careful not to be so negative and cynical that you discourage traveller from sharing their opinions with other fellow travelers as well.

annhig

jcblancha - thanks for putting me straight. we have had a succession of posters just posting once to tell us how wonderful this or that person/hotel/restaurant is, so i hope that you will forgive my cynicism.

anyway - now you've come back to us, when you've got time perhaps you could tell us a bit more about your trip, which sounds most interesting.