Category: Sri Lanka

Taxi to Galle, to our AirBnB, a traditional home within the Fort. This was one of the few Airbnb’s that has not quite lived up to the pictures. Still, the couple was cute and we enjoyed it. Certainly “legit” and very quiet at night. These pix from the website are nice, but it IRL it was a lot more shabby than chic.

A recommendation from the owner of a restaurant we’d been to twice led to his op-art hairdresser (including shampoo, multiple stylists, and tip: $6.16):

Later, Seong haggled buying a shirt for me because it had one broken button. Then the very common trashy area right on the waterfront, and nearby, the sunset.

Egg hoppers the next morning!

Spent most of the time reading, relaxing, planning our Ethiopia, South Africa and Namibia trip. Then some kayaking just down the road. Saw some new birds (darter cormorant, with long, yellow neck), grey herons, night herons, green bee eater, possibly parakeets, and two water monitor lizards.

That evening we had s lot of trouble getting across how much lobster we wanted and how much it would cost. They price it per kilogram, but we wanted less, maybe 400 grams, and the conversation went a bit like the “Who’s on first?” routine with an added language barrier. Once we ordered the son zipped away on the scooter to buy it at the waterfront. Overall very disappointing at this highly rated place (we get faked out by this regularly) except the lobster. Lesson learned. Get the grilled fresh seafood!

Next morning, 5:40am alarm for birding in the nearby lagoon. Inexpensive, very quiet (no motors, they pole the catamaran around), peaceful, fun.

We saw:

• Stork billed kingfisher
• Crimson backed goldenback
• Rose ringed parakeet
• Common kingfisher
• Pheasant tailed jacana
• Indian pond heron
• Spoonbill
• Purple swamp hen
• Little egret
• Cattle egret
• Grey headed fish eagle
• Blue tailed bee eater
• Purple sunbird
• Black hooded oriole
• Asian quail
• Oriental magpie robin
• Common mynah
• Wattled lapwing
• Sunbird
• Paddy field pippet
• Read vented bulbul
• Jungle fowl
• Yellow bittern
• Jungle prinia
• Black winged stilt
• Great egret
• Lesser whistling duck

Here is where we stayed:

Great night of sleep, leisurely breakfast, good coffee, tuk-tuk to the trailhead for Little Adam’s Peak (a lot better than the real Adam’s Peak!) then nine arches bridge, where the tourists wait for the colorful train to pass by, and a walk to town.

The next day, a hike up Ella rock, where we could see Little Adam’s Peak. There are people selling food and drink along the way; we had a passion fruit drink at the top.

Next, on to Tangalle!

After breakfast we traveled on to our first cultural site in Sri Lanka; Mihintale, with 1800 steps, huge Buddha and stupa. Taking into account our self professed fear of being “templed out”, Upul wisely advised us to skip Anuradhapura (“it’s stupas after stupas”). Instead, we visited the much less visited Ritigala, a forest monastery complex with amazing stonework from 2-3 BC. On the way up the steps, we were treated to a clear sighting of the purple faced leaf monkey.

The next day, we voluntarily opted to wake up at 5:30 am for early morning birding safari at Minneriya National Park. The first bird we saw was a male Indian Paradise Flycatcher, with impossibly long and beautiful tail feathers. Apparently, this is a rather rare bird sighting, and Upul proclaimed that it augurs well for the rest of the safari. Indeed, we saw countless birds, including pretty much every species of eagle that are known to live in the park.

Then a lunch buffet, all cooked traditionally over open fire to lend a smoky overtone to the dishes.

Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya

Then, the hokey village tour. We later called it the tipping tour as every few hundred yards there was someone else helping us that required tipping. We did get to make homemade coconut sambal, and there were a lot of birds.

Plus this Upul glamour shot:

Adam’s peak is a Buddhist pilgrimage to the top of the country’s fourth highest peak. There were many elderly men and women, some in bare feet, propped up by sturdier looking younger relatives, painfully making their way up and down the thousands of concrete steps “before they die; to gain merit in the next life”, according to Upul. We wouldn’t recommend it; the concrete steps are knee wrenching, the area is littered with trash and smelling of sour rotten food. Despite getting up at 1am to “beat the crowd”, we ran into a long queue at the last 200 yard line, which took 90 minutes or more to clear. Nice view as dawn breaks from near the top though.

We were booked at “Slightly Chilled” for two nights but it wasn’t a very nice place, so we legged it for Nuwara Eliya one day early, after a few hour nap. Good move. Nuwara Eliya is really nice. It was a British hill station, a place for people to escape the heat back in the day, so it has a lot of old colonial buildings, parks, and so forth.

We decided to eat in at our place, La Grande Villa. Staff are super nice and accommodating. We gave them our order (whole roast chicken for me, prawns for Seong) and some avocados we had bought (which they made into a salad at our request) and retired to the room to finish off our Glenfiddich. A bit over an hour later they knocked on our door and we sat down to a really nice dinner.

Next day, we had another pre-dawn departure for Horton’s Plain and the popular “World’s End” hike.

Seong had a crazy rash that had started at Adam’s Peak; in retrospect maybe she is allergic to dawn? We bought OTC prednisone and it cleared up pretty well.

Another early morning, this time for birding with a local guide. Pretty good, despite being right near the local dump. Later, we continued to Victoria Park, right in the center of town. We saw:

• Dull or dusky blue flycatcher
• Scarlet or orange minivet
• Horn lizard
• Ceylon white eye
• Black capped bulbul
• Square tailed black bulbul
• Red vented bulbul
• Gray headed canary flycatcher
• Yellow eared bulbul
• Velvet fronted nuthatch
• Dusky striped squirrel
• Bar winged Flycatcher
• Grey wagtail
• Flowerpecker
• Tailorbird
• Magpie robin
• Kashmir Flycatcher
• Asian brown Flycatcher
• Indian blue Robin

The Hill Club is the most British of the Britishisms in Nuwara Eliya. It’s a private club that allows a one day membership (200 rupees). They supply men with a tie and jacket to comply with their strict dress code. There was one other couple at an outside table for a bit, but aside from them we were the *only* members in the entire club as far as we could tell. The food was very average but the service was great, and they had a decent bottle of Italian wine, and a fire in the fireplace. We finally shut the place down at 10:30.

The next day, we said goodbye to our excellent companion Upul, and board the standing room only train for a three hour (very scenic for some!) ride to Ella.

After an uneventful direct flight from Delhi, Upul met us at the airport and we headed out on a three hour drive to the Kalipitiya area for a three night stay at Bar Reef Resort. It’s kind of amazing really that you can be deep in India in the morning and on a rather remote beach in Sri Lanka by dinnertime the same day, and not really feel too wrung out

We spent some time with Richard and his family – he’s is a pilot for the Bahrain royal family in one of their planes (Gulfstream). He gets so few flights that he has to take the plane out periodically just to keep his hours up. He described a lot of excess. His wife was reluctant to go – temps hit 50 deg (122F) sometimes – but she loves the expat community. Lagoon tour, scuba dive, whole fish dinner at the resort just north of ours.

The next morning there was an over-the-top breakfast with fresh juice, toast, coffee, crepes, syrup, dal, fish curry, coconut sambal, string hopper.

After checking out, we drove two hours to Big Game Camp for a one night stay in their tent cabins. At an afternoon Jeep safari at Wilpattu National Park we saw:

• Little green bee eater

• Peacock peahen

• Land monitor lizard

• Red wattled lap-wing

• Water buffaloes

• Spotted deer

• Crested serpent-Eagle

• Elephant

• Black headed ibis

• Great thick-knee

• Grey heron

• Indian pond heron

• Little ringed plover

• Ash heron

• Malabar pied hornbill

• Red vented bulbul

• Ceylon junglefowl (national bird)

• Toque Macaque monkey

• Crocodile

• Fox

• Frog

• Turtle

• Kumbuck tree

And… red faced, silver crested Jamie from having been blasted with red dust during the safari.

After dinner, the resident naturalist and two spotters took the two of us on a night nature walk. No idea how they are able to spot these camouflaged critters, but we saw three snakes, a huge millipede, two lizards, several butterflies, and several birds bedded down for the night. One of them was a beautiful Asian Paradise Flycatcher, which was not amused at having to peer into our flashlight.