Plane hopping from Taipei to HK to Singapore and then Colombo was tiring, but couldn’t compare with the ride from the airport to Hikkaduwa. Our driver was late by about an hour and then we drove 3 hours on what seemed like a dog track down south. I later found out that it was the Galle road, the main link to the south of the country. But a little pain was replaced with a whole lot of gain the next morning when we awoke to 30 degree dry heat, brilliant sunshine and crystal clear ocean waves crashing just metres from our hotel balcony. These conditions remained the same for the next 14 days as we ate (too much), drank (not so much!) swam and surfed (about the right amount) and read and shopped in appropriate measure. Sri Lanka is certainly a very different destination: at times heart wrenchingly poor, achingly beautiful at dawn and dusk and most times in between and populated by a people so upbeat and friendly despite the devastation inflicted upon them and the circumstances of their numbers which keep most of them poorer than we can possibly imagine.
We had such a wonderful time; we have already begun to figure out ways to go back soon. We met the most friendly local people possible, from our semi adopted hotel staffer, Senna, the boy at Buddee’s restaurant, Lassa, to Sarath the car driver, Nibame our tuk tuk man and Cassy’s dressmaking girl. While we walked around almost in a constant state of guilt for having any money at all, they all seemed eternally grateful that we had decided to come to their country and spend some of it! The Sri Lankan people are a kind hearted, happy, family orientated people who seem very content. We refused to haggle at all and paid whatever price was suggested first and usually more…it just didn’t seem like a game to us. I bought some board shorts and Cass got some beautiful silk clothing, some made for her by a dressmaker. I have two belts exactly the same for some reason (see picture) possibly because the stallholder seemed so excited to see us! We bought a few little trinkets and Cass also bought some earrings and a bracelet of moonstones from the mine that we visited.
The surf, (please see Pointyhat for pictures and details) was sublime. The “A-frame” at Hikkaduwa was just 100 metres up the beach from our hotel and provided consistent, mechanical and just about perfect waves for the 2 weeks we were there. Giant turtles and colourful fish swam below us as we waited and we could easily see the reef below. The wave itself had a relatively small take off area and then went both ways, the left being a little slower and breaking over just a touch more water. The crowd was at times quite large and I reluctantly had to hustle a bit for waves. I’ve got used to avoiding the crowds over here in Taiwan, but if you wanted to surf the good stuff there, you had to get in amongst it. The crowd was friendly, partly I suspect because few people knew what the others were saying to each other! There were German, English, Japanese, Australian, South African, Spanish, French and Sri Lankan surfers out there all talking different languages. The Pommies weren’t making much sense of the Aussies and the universal English was so heavily accented as to be ineffective anyway. Luckily, nearly everyone abided by the “international rules” and there was no great controversy. I was excited to be at a world class break again, as it has been many years since our last trip to Angourie, and it was the first time I’ve surfed at one of the fabled reef breaks. The coral was visible at a very shallow depth on some waves…I didn’t think I’d ever curse crystal clear water, but it looked just sooo close! Luckily I escaped unscathed despite taking my fair share of wipeouts in the zone.
Will write more next week after we’ve had a chance to synthesize some more of what we saw and did over there. Suffice to say, it was a learning time for us to see such abject poverty (if you’ve seen the shanties in Kenya near the train tracks as in the “Constant Gardener”, they look pristine compared to some sights we saw outside Colombo) coupled with incredible beauty and an amazing upbeat attitude to life. A great lesson……….