galle – 2 J's World of Adventure

We stayed in quite a few hotels and guest houses on what is the usual tourist route around Sri Lanka.
1) On arriving in Sri Lanka we spent the first 3 nights At Ayubowan Guest House in Negombo.

This is within walking distance of the town centre, the beach and some good restaurants- we can recommend The White House and Sea View restaurants…great sea food and curries.

The Ayubowan Guest is owned by Brenda and Ron, who originate from Kent in the UK. The guest house is very well run. We originally had an upstairs room, which was big and airy it’s private bathroom was not en-suite just a couple of metres down the private corridor. However I wasn’t very comfortable with this arrangement and we had wanted a downstairs en-suit room. So the next day Brenda had her very obliging staff move us to a lovely downstairs room. This wasn’t as big but it had a nice en-suite, opened on to the veranda and more importantly, for comfort, the air conditioning didn’t blow directly on to the bed…so the room was cool without freezing you in bed.
Breakfast was either a Sri Lankan breakfast which Brenda told us was very spicy hot, or a British Breakfast…. We opted for the British. It was fresh fruit followed by bacon, sausage and egg and toast and jams. It was all very pleasant, we met some nice guests and enjoyed the swimming pool. You need to be aware that you can’t use a credit card here. Brenda was happy to call Patrick, her regular tuk-tuk driver, to take us to restaurants and return us…each trip was about 500 SLK rupees….which we later decided was far to much but we paid what he asked and at about £2.60 a round trip it wasn’t really worth the hassle of bartering.

2). Our second recommended hotel is Hotel 4U Salina Gardens in Anuradhapura, ( You will note that it’s not the 2nd hotel we stayed in as we really couldn’t recommend that one). We liked this from the moment we arrived. It wasn’t a very salubrious area and the entrance looked vaguely like a building site…but don’t be put off…the reception was lovely, we were greeted by two lovely ladies who really tried hard to meet our every need. We had requested ground floor on all accommodation but once again we were booked upstairs, but the ladies soon sorted it out and changed our booking to a large en-suite room which opened on to a veranda overlooking the pool.

They even offered to set a table down stairs as the restaurant was upstairs…we did however go up stairs and had a table overlooking the pool. The friendly German Shepherd dog escorted us around, usually with one of his toys to throw for him.

The menu was the most extensive we had anywhere we stayed…it wasn’t cordon bleu, it was however well cooked and very tasty at a very reasonable price.

From this hotel you can go to the main gate of Wilpattu ( wish we’d known this) and also explore Anuradhapura. It’s a great base…set around beautiful gardens. On the morning we checked out we met the owner….we’d actually met him the day before without realising as he was tending the garden and checking the pool…which was spotless. The owner was a delightful, elderly gentleman who had built the whole hotel himself, from the design to the construction. We loved this place…it was very reasonably priced and although not posh, it was very comfortable with everything you needed. You can use a credit card her.
3). Lavendish Wild Safari Hotel, was one place we hadn’t expected to stay…but due to a slight mix up with our travel arrangements our tour company booked us in here. It was like most chain hotels, very pleasant, nice big en-suite rooms, lovely views, nice restaurant….a word of warning if it’s a buffet evening meal get there early or most the food will be gone and you are left with little choice…..the hotel is a bit impersonal and you fit in around them rather than them meeting your needs…we wanted to be out for Safari at 6.00am so needed a packed breakfast but the kitchen didn’t start until 6.00am in fact a few staff dawdled in at 6.15am and even though our guide and the jeep driver did their best to chivvy them on we didn’t get off until 6.30am. The good thing about this hotel is that it’s only about 10/15 minutes from the Wasgamuwa National Park gate. They do take credit card here.

4). Our absolutely favourite hotel came next on our trip..The Elegant Hotel Kandy. It is fact about 15 minutes outside Kandy. Absolutely superb hotel. Immaculately trained staff, lovely welcome, beautiful room with amazing views. Great menu, wonderful food which was serenaded by two singers with a guitar.

The pool was very welcomed and beautiful views. The gardens were nice to wander around..it was a deluxe hotel which certainly lived up to its excellent reputation. It was the perfect place to relax.

They took credit card. It was well situated for the tooth temple, a Kandy Evening street food walk with guide, a cultural show, the botanical gardens and of course the train station.

5). Our 5th recommended hotel is Beach & Bliss in Mirissa…yes we have missed Ella and Yala out- my mother used to say if you can’t say end thing good about something don’t say anything at all …although the hotel in Ella did have a fabulous view…I really can’t think of anything good to say about the hotel in Yala, where we stopped 4 nights and had to put up with unpleasant food, a room which wasn’t cleaned or made up even though we asked for it to be and we even had to provide our own loo roll because we asked for some more and it was not forthcoming…..so we jump ahead to Mirissa….we were supposed to be booked into the same hotel for 4 nights but once again the Sri Lankan booking agent had made a mistake and we were only booked in for 3 nights. Our guide and driver sorted it out and we spent a night at Beah & Bliss. The beach is actually a short walk along as it was pretty rocky in front of the hotel… The manager was really kind and switched all his bookings around so that I could be on a first floor room…we laid around the pool looking out to sea… we had a fabulous evening meal and a good breakfast the next morning.

6). Sea World Botique hotel …finally we book in for our 3 nights…rather disappointed that we didn’t have a sea view room …if you book here you must book a sea view room ..the other rooms are on a noisy road and very, very small. The sea View room we were moved into after our first night was divine …the crashing waves, fantastic view, lovely balcony, huge room, big bed…loads of power points, massive bathroom and a spa shower…

We enjoyed the sun deck and the breakfast and the one evening meal we had there. They take credit card but prefer cash. The staff are very helpful and kind. It is ideally situated for using the restaurants on the beach in Mirissa and for a whale watching trip.

7). Sapphire Seas Hotel in Hikkaduwa is our final recommended hotel. It is right on a superb stretch of golden sand. We had a wonderful room on the second floor….there is a lift ( it didn’t always work when the electricity was of low wattage in the evening !!!) we had a wrap-around balcony so we could see the beach and sea from two different aspects. It was a massive room with a nice big bed and a fairly small en-suite bathroom with a shower. The electricity was strange in this hotel…sometimes the sockets and lights worked sometimes they didn’t…but if you tried them all you usually found a few to work…..but that aside ..nothing dull the awe and wonder of the beautiful seascapes from this room.

During the day there are loungers on a deck overlooking the sea and the pool. The food and beverage manager is really nice and friendly and organises his team to move the shades as the sun moves.

The restaurant is excellent ..the chief a talented man with a good sense of humour and a talented cook, he’ll even ask what fish you want to eat before he heads off to buy it.

This hotel is great for relaxing and a good base to visit Galle, a turtle sanctuary and a tsunami remembrance museum.

We were some what sad to leave the Sea World Botique in Mirissa…we loved our sea view room, the pool, terrace, sea and sand watching. The service was great and we’d found a really wonderful seafood restaurant just up the road. We would definitely stay there again…not just because they had the most comfortable pillows we’d had all trip…but leave we must.. and Suminda collected us at 8.30 am and we proceeded on our day of sightseeing, whilst transitioning to our next and final hotel.

Our first stop was at Wagamama just along the coast. The coast was literally packed with surf schools and in the water were hundreds of Caucasians trying to learn the art of surfing. It’s evidently very popular there due to the waves being medium size and the waters being shallow.

We went a little further along the coast and stopped for some photos of the infamous ‘Stilt Fishermen’. Unfortunately it’s all a bit touristy and false now…you pay them to sit on the stilts while they pretend to fish in this out dated rarely used today method.

Further along the coast we watched people pulling in the fishing nets, a much more realistic sight of more up to date fishing methods.

Our next stop was in Galle. We had asked Suminda to find us a book shop because we wanted to buy a book on Sri Lankan Birds to help us identify the birds in our photos. I’d try to write most the names down as we went along but my efforts failed miserably when we looked at our photos against my list of names. We had also decided to buy Suminda the same book as he had admitted to learning much more about the different birds on this trip and we thought it would help him identify the birds when he was with other customers. We went to the first bookshop but the book they had was ‘Common Sri Lankan Birds’ which had hardly any eagles in and the colour and pictures were not a very true likeness. So Suminda phoned around some other stores and found one which had two copies, in English, of the book we had in mind…they were both duly purchased along with a tube of superglue……John and his sandals are becoming a regular focal point of our recent holidays. Last year he packed one dark brown one and one camel coloured one for our African trip….this year he brought the dark brown ones with him, even though I asked if they were the good or not so good pair….they were the not so good pair and the side fastening has freed itself from the sole along with the inner sole flapping away from the sole…oh dear a super glue job is required to see us through the next 3 days….but be assured they are not coming home with us !!!!
Our next stop was Galle Cricket Ground. It is where the test matches are played. Suminda told the security that John had played in England, but instead of saying ‘in’ he said ‘for’ and we were allowed into the ground to take photos…John was extremely happy as he has bygone memories of David Gower commentating on a Test Match and proving that the old tale of a Sri Lankan cricketer hitting the ball into the sea, was exactly that ‘a tale’ as it was literally impossible.

From here we visited the Fortress. This is in fact what we would call a walled city within the city of Galle. The Portuguese had originally built it, the Dutch then took it over and finally the British added to it. From the walls are some magnificent views. For those of you who watched Xander Armstrongs series on Sri Lanka, you may remember a man diving off the walls into very shallow water near the base of a massive rock…..that was here….in fact the same man offered to jump for us for US $20 just like he had for Xander…we declined and he asked why..to which my reply was “ I don’t wish to pay you to risk your life for my entertainment”. He seemed ok with that.

We continued our journey past our next hotel and up the coast to the turtle sanctuary at Ahungalla. On the way we passed the place where the tsunami had hit a train full of people. All 1500 had been killed. There is a memorial to those who lost their lives. This memorial is a Buddha who has been built to the height of the wave. There is also a museum with one of the carriages involved in this tragedy.

On arriving in Ahungalie there was a giant turtle with its mouth open. You enter the sanctuary by walking through its mouth.

The eggs are brought up from the beach and put in sand in the sanctuary, where they are left to hatch naturally. The sand has sticks all over it saying the type of turtle, the date they were laid and the number which are buried. It takes between 45 and 60 days for the eggs to hatch.

The baby turtles are then placed in a tank until their eyes open prior to being released back into the sea. It was very interesting. There are also a lot of other tanks with turtles in. These are rescued by fishermen and brought to the sanctuary. Most have had fishing lines/ nets caught tightly around their necks..the blood makes them easy pray for sharks. These are treated by the sanctuaries vet and released back into the sea when they are completely healed. Other turtles have eaten plastic bags and the vet removes these and again after a period of rehabilitation they are released back to the sea. There are also some life long resident turtles at the sanctuary. These have either had limbs amputated by boats propellors, or they’ve been so damaged by plastic that their shells have domed meaning that they can no longer dive or they are albino. The sanctuary has 2 albino turtles, they occur approx 1 in a million and our guide had only seen these two in the past 14 years. One was a youngster and the other fully grown. They can’t be released back into the sea because they have no protection from the sun.

We then went through a Sharks mouth into an area with aquariums containing, Black finned Sharks, puffer fish, moray eels, starfish, rainbow fish etc. It was all very interesting and we found that their conservation of these endangered species was both ethical and professional.

We returned back down the coast to our new hotel Sapphire Seas Hotel. We were met by the manager who informed us he had given us the best room in the hotel with a wrap around balcony and two walls of glass doors which looked at the sea from two different aspects…it was on the second floor…..’oh no’ I thought…but this friendly gentleman said I need not worry as they have a lift….great news… we were shown to our room, which was so large John said he’d probably double his daily step count !!!! It didn’t take us long to don our costumes and head for the Sun loungers and pool. We spent a couple of very pleasant hours watching some pretty big waves chase along the beach with the surf producing a ‘ follow my leader’ type of image. We also had a nice refreshing King Coconut to drink. Before retiring to our room for a late afternoon siesta.

We ate in the restaurant that evening. The chef came and talked us through what we wanted….he said he would make the seafood Tom yum ( Thai soup) not so spicy. Well! thank goodness for that because his not so spicy made our eyes and noses run. We followed it by having sweet and sour king prawns …very nice indeed. The manager, a nice friendly man, came to chat with us before he finished his days work. It was a lovely meal. Unfortunately the lift was out of order, due to fluctuating electricity strength, so I had to walk up to the second d floor….I am getting better at stairs…let’s face it I’ve had enough practice this holiday.