During the Lunar New Year, Vietnam celebrates the Chinese New Year...and it is called TET. We get 2 weeks off, and most foreigners use this chance to leave Vietnam and travel, and of course - I did the same! Where did I go?
Sri Lanka! Random, eh? Yes, I agree. Here's how it came about...
Hanging out with an old housemate, she told me her birthday was around TET and we should go somewhere. Of course, I was all for it. She thought of Sri Lanka, and while I had never had that country even enter my mind as a place to visit, I of course agreed. After a few weeks, talking to a few people, I decided Sri Lanka was going to be my next destination no matter what. Beaches, Seafood, Sun, everything I could want. So, I let my housemate know that I would be heading to Sri Lanka even if she decided not too. Well, she decided not too...and I continued to plan to go myself.
During my planning I got a message from my cousin, Jessie, who was planning her next holiday (she had joined my in my Bali Birthday celebration) and wanted to know where I'd be. Once I told her Sri Lanka in February, she started making plans to join.
So, after a few months pass, it's time to board the plane! I hopped on the flight ready for a VERY MUCH needed break from every Hanoi. I landed in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and stayed for 2 days, visiting my friend Moni. The first day, I slept 12 hours....and IT WAS NEEDED! It was impossible to get more than 4 hours of sleep at my house in Hanoi before I left due to construction. I already felt like a new person.
While I was in KL, I had delicious Indian food, saw the Petronas Towers, Batur Caves and caught up with Moni. He is opening a resturant, and I got the grand tour before it opened.
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| Apes at the Petronas Towers, KL |
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| Batur Caves, KL |
Come Sunday, it was time to leave KL and move onto the feature of my holiday...SRI LANKA! I jumped on the plane, and didn't even bother sleeping. Once we arrived on the gorgeous island, I found my driver and he led me through Colombo, chatting all the way.
Here's a rough recap of my time once I was in Sri Lanka.
Colombo - My first (and last) stop in Sri Lanka. I met some good people and had a GREAT dinner with them. I ended up seeing ALL of them again at some point in my trip:
Max - one of the 2 Germans who were cycling the island on their fixed gear bikes. Him and Dennis (the other German cyclist) ended up being my favorite travellers on this trip, and I saw them nearly everyday.
Alex - he pretty much lived at the Hostel I stayed at (BED HOSTEL) and I saw him at the end of my trip as well.
Liam - A Canadian teaching English in China, we ended up hitting a few other cities together, but then he got "beached out" and moved onto visiting the Hill Country.
Cousin Jessie met me in Colombo, and a few hours after she arrived, we were on our way to our first beach...HIKKADUWA!!
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| Cousins on the train from Colombo to Hikkaduwa |
Hikkaduwa - we spent 2 nights here, and it was gorgeous. As soon as we found a room (on the beach) we went for dinner and drinks, and a sunset. There didn't seem to be much happening that night, so we ended up just calling it an early one, catching up and just hanging out. The next day, we headed to the beach for the whole day, after a lovely breakfast at Tree Top Restaurant. It was a restaurant that was actually a tree-house, and we got a HUGE breakfast spread for just a few bucks. On the beach, we grabbed beds in front of The Drunkn Monkey, and we ran into Liam (the Canadian) and had some DELICIOUS cocktails and amazing seafood. It was soo good that we ate there the next day as well. In the evening, we met a few Aussies on the street and had some drinks before going down to the beach. Once down at the beach we met a birthday party and ended up hanging out with them at a Karaoke Beach Bar all night. Singing 80's and dancing a fool on the beach...CHECK!
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| Breakfast at Tree Top |
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| Beach Babes! |
Our last day in Hikkaduwa was spent doing some shopping, beaching, and eating before we hopped a tuk tuk to the next stop...GALLE.
Galle - We stayed in Galle Fort, which is exactly like it sounds. It's a little city inside the Fort in Galle. The first night (also Jessie's last night with me) we got Sari's and wore them to dinner with some people staying in our Hostel (Galle Fort Hostel). The next day, I took a cooking class and learned hour to make 9 Sri Lankan dishes! Curries - Pumpkin, Okra, Eggplant, Dahl, Jackfruit, Green Bean, Fish, Chicken, and also a really delicious Sri Lankan fruit salad. Afterwards, I walked off my "stuffed to the brim belly" by walking the fort walls and taking pictures. I was planning on heading out the following day to get back on a beach...UNAWATUNA!
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| Sari, not sorry |
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| "Mama" who taught me to cook. |
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| I MADE THIS! |
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| Galle Fort Walls |
Unawatuna - Before I left Galle, I luckily decided to book a hostel for my stay in Unawatuna. Good thing, too! A few hours after I arrived the place was full and the owner had to turn people away! I tuk tuk'd up to Unawatuna Hostel and arrived at a small hostel in the jungle, close to the railroad tracks. As I entered, I was given breakfast and told that there would be a BBQ later in the day. Everyone was lounging around, and I decided to tag along with a couple heading to the beach. Once on the beach, we grabbed coconuts and I worked on my tan. The beach was lovely, albeit small - it took about 15 minutes to walk the whole thing. You could definitily see the tourism taking over, as the area between the resturants and water was almost non-existent. At high tide, the water was lapping under our beach chairs.
Later in the day, it was BBQ time! One of the workers was leaving, and since he was a chef, he was doing all the cooking....all we had to do was put in 1000IND (about $7) towards drinks for the event. There were some musicians staying at the hostel, so we had a bonfire and a jam session, and once we decided to stay inside, there was still plenty of live music (and food and drink) to last until the wee hours of the morning.
Party People of Unawtuna:
Anna and Jens - An Austrian/Swede couple that reunited the day before I arrived.
Roman and his GF (who was lovely but I cant remember her name!) - Austrians who went to school with Anna. Roman kept referring to me as April from Nightrider and kept asking me for "boosters"
Mel - One of the musicians, we ended up going to Mirissa together for 2 days after Unawatuna...maybe Croatia in September???
Alice/Shantelle - 2 lovely girls traveling with Mel, Alice will be visiting Hanoi soon!
Jack - And English bloke with Alice/Shantelle/Mel, I ended up running into him on my last day in Waligama. Hopefully his red backed sunburn has finally healed!
Sebastian and Ismael - The Chileans who we partied with again in Mirissa and I saw daily in Mirissa/Wilagama. Both are into music and Sebastian has a GREAT voice!
Bunche - the owner of the hostel. Let's deem him the "king of the party castle".
The morning after the party, I was up and out (and returned) before most people had even woken up. When I wandered through the hostel, it reminded me of a frat party - empty bottles, extra people on couches, all the remnants of a great night. But, I was off for a morning of diving! I headed to the beach and went Scuba Diving with a lovely English couple that are currently living in Kuwait. The diving itself wasn't that memorable. I liked it, of course, but the sites were full of dead coral. Not too many bright colors, as I'm used to seeing under water. There were some bright colored fish, and I got to see puffer fish (my first), but other than that, the coral was all brown and unappealing. Too much diving, I suppose. Probably because some people don't follow the saying "Take pictures, leave bubbles" and end up touching (killing) the coral and other life. Such as, MY DIVEMASTER! He was touching all the flatworms and at one point picked up a starfish and swam with it. NOT OK! That explained why the underwater looked like it did. I did however, see something interesting....
..as I swam along (NOT TOUCHING THINGS), I saw a man untangling a fish from a hook. "Ah, how nice to untangle the fish!" I thought. As I watched I realized that is NOT what he was doing. While he had his diving gear on, he also had a spear....he was spearfishing while diving, and was running his "line" through the fish, at which the fish joined the rest of the fish dangling on his line behind him.
After diving, I headed back to the hostel, to greet the zombies awakening from their slumber. Mel made Macaroni and Cheese for everyone, and then him and I grabbed a bike from Bunche and drove off to MIRISSA!
Mirissa - In Mirissa, we stayed at Poppies, right across from the beach. We headed down to the beach for happy hour cocktails, and a snack. Then, we went back to get showered, and ended up running into the Chileans! So, we decided to catch some live music with them, and then bar hopped down the beach. We left the Chileans at the "trance" beach bar, and went back to bar that was playing 90's music. We ended up meeting a Sri Lankan race car driver, and stayed until the early morning light...but then we needed to head back....we were going WHALE WATCHING the next day!
On the boat we ended up seeing whales pretty early, which was GREAT! There ended up being 3 whale sightings, and HEAPS of dolphins. Afterwards, we drove out to Waligama to meet the Chileans and the Germans for food and drinks....the following day it was time for a new location.
Wilagama - So, I was originally going to head up to the Hill Country today, but as my heart belongs to the beach, I decided to just backtrack and spend my last few days in Wilagame. Both the Chileans AND the Germans were there surfing, and I was happy to lay on the beach and watch them instead of trekking in the mountains somewhere. So the next few days consisted of sleeping in, reading on the beach, getting bronzed, and taking pictures of my surfing friends.
During the next few days, I ran into Jeff, who also lives in Hanoi (we shared a taxi to the airport in Hanoi) and then Jack (from Unawatuna). It was nice to just walk down the street and see familiar faces.
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| Adventure Feet in Wilagama |
Eventually though, it was time to hop on a train back to Colombo, for my last night in Sri Lanka before heading back to Hanoi.
So...I can now understand why EVERYONE I talked to RAVED about Sri Lanka, as I will continue to rave about it as well. The food was delicious, the lcoal people were the nicest and loveliest I have EVER met, the landscape (ok, the beaches - since that's all I saw) was beautiful. I am already looking to make Sri Lanka my September holiday (again), although this time I'm hoping to make it off the beach :)
Iss-too-tee,
Apes
