Tuktuks, hoppers, kottu, beaches, temples, tea and Sri Lanka

[onlyMark]

[onlyMark]

I circled back to the lake again –




And came across this man. I'd actually not seen one of these before –




He wasn't happy that I was taking his photo and not paying for it -








Walking further –














If you look at the map I was going anti-clockwise from a starting point on the north bank just above the L for Lake (written in the blue of the lake) and on the yellow road just as it kinks up and away from the water -

[onlyMark]

This is what I meant about the view being fine depending on which way you look. For most of the circumference, as shown on the yellow road of the map, there is plenty of traffic following you around –




Effort had been made to be informative and all the different trees were labelled. At one time, without the vehicles, it must have been quite a place –








Good to know, just in case like (Sunday lunch buffet with free use of the pool, about $10) –




These looked like they'd already had the buffet and were now waiting for the obligatory half an hour after eating before you can go for a swim. Or at least as generations of mothers have told their children –




Not quite sure if I would go there or not. Not if the owner is like the couple of the Kevins I knew at school –




I'd made my way all round the lake and it now started getting a little too hot and polluted, plus the traffic noise was getting tiresome. So I walked up and away a little to a restaurant with a decent view and had a spot of lunch -




Afterwards I meandered with the tuktuk through the hills a little before heading back to my room. This assaulted me as I opened the balcony doors –




It wasn't too long until the sun went down, the smoke in the air at least making for a fairly pretty one. Though I could have done without it had the air been cleaner –

[kerouac2]

This area seems very well maintained compared to many of the other places you have shown us. It looks like it might be considerably more affluent than a lot of the towns. The houses around the lake make one want to start looking for an Airbnb for about a month.

[onlyMark]

If it hadn't have been for the pollution it would have been a decent place to stay for some time without a doubt.

[onlyMark]

I was beginning to get my going home head on from here as I had not many days left. I'd decided to have a two day run further south and finish off at a tourist town on the south west coast. From there I could do an easy hop back to near Colombo to drop off the tuktuk and catch the flight home.
I journeyed the first day and had a night stop at a town called Ratnapura. What distinguished this were two things. Firstly it is the major gem stone town in the country with a number of gem mines around it. Many tourists come here to buy them, and invariably get ripped off.
Every accommodation owner will try and take you some place to buy some. With mine I told him that I was a widower, no family, retired on a pension with little money and thus no reason to buy any. When he persisted I told him that just because I was a westerner it didn't mean I was rich. Plus, and this eventually persuaded him to leave it be, was that I didn't want any. At all.

The second was I stayed in probably the best guest house amongst them all. Best because the size of the rooms and the facilities inside, the building was brand new and even though I enjoy staying in places with some character, at times I want to know that the toilet works, the shower is hot and drains properly and I can charge my phone.
I did the nipping to the supermarket thing for an evening meal here with again rye bread, cheese, Granny Smith's apple, packet of crisps (for the fibre as well as in the bread, just to be sure) and a big pot of yoghurt.
To drink was coffee and I bought some locally made/bottled lemon fanta type thing.
I think there was more sugar in it than in a tin of treacle. Nevertheless, it was lemony enough to nearly turn your face inside out.

I had an evening sitting in a garden, reading, listening to an unusual sound that I realised I missed somewhat, and that was the Call to Prayer (about 10% are Muslim but it was the first time I'd heard it) and one of the highlights, if you'll excuse the pun, and that was when it got dark (pitch black actually), watching the fireflies dotting around the bushes and trees. Blinking in and out in their form of a mating dance like an irregular mast light on a far away yacht as it bobs on the waves.
At the end I will slip in a list of the places I did stay during my time here and I will mention the worst one, which actually was the very last homestay/guesthouse I stayed in.

From Ratnapura I dropped a little further down and west, travelling along some lovely quiet roads which were a big change from the Kandy area. They were a pleasure to drive along.
Both days I had my relatively normal breakfast on the road - a paratha folded around a couple of spoonfuls of potato curry. I've mentioned these before I know, but they hit the spot quite well -






As I reached my final destination, Hikkaduwa, just outside is a memorial of sorts to a tragedy that occurred during the 2004 tsunami. The worst rail disaster in history –





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Sri_Lanka_tsunami_train_wreck

[onlyMark]

Over the next day or so I had a wander round the area, stopping off here and there, walking along the beaches and re-folding my clothes so they'd fit back properly in my bag.

[onlyMark]

The breaking of the coconut, as explained before –




Plenty of boats knocking around –
























I had a couple of summers doing this in my early twenties down in Cornwall –

[onlyMark]

What I've got left is one long series of photos with no commentary needed and then a round up.
I've got them prepared and will post them tomorrow, if that's ok.
Then that's it.
You've done well sticking with me so far.

[amboseli]

I love the beach photos. I love beaches, that is. I think I would have preferred to stay there instead of flying to the Maldives like we did.

We really liked Kandy. Our hotel was at the Mahaweli Ganga and we have been inside the Temple of the Tooth. Not much to see for Westerners indeed (no tooth, anyway) but by far the most important temple for buddhist. What I do remember are the security gates (as in airports), then the body search.

[onlyMark]

I think there is even more security now. There looked like numerous checkpoints until you got in.

[fumobici]

There've been a lot of really well done reports recently here, but this one and K2/Bixa's Havana reports have been exceptional in their depth. Well done, I've really quite enjoyed this. Looking forward to whatever is left.

[questa]

Mar 18, 2018 16:19:24 GMT onlyMark said:

I had a couple of summers doing this in my early twenties down in Cornwall –

Cornwall? Lotsa pretty palm trees and mangoes? Do a nice line in sun-lounges do they?

Cornwall...hehehehe.

[kerouac2]

All of those nice coastal photos strike me all the more because I still remember all of the photos and videos of the tsunami. Coastlines are very forgiving.

[onlyMark]

fumobici, thanks. By the way, did you notice my very earlier comment about using an off-line map app? I notice on the thread about mobile telephones that you are saying using Google maps and data.

Questa, you do get palm trees and sun loungers in Cornwall and there will be mangoes in Sainsbury's. I did though get my age wrong for that time. It was late teens as it was the glorious summers of '75 and '76. There were also lots of pretty girls.

k2, I was glued to my screen watching the 2011 Japanese tsunami and the sheer power of the water. Horrifying but fascinating in a gruesome way.

[onlyMark]

You can skip this next bit if you want, but if you'd like to join me for half an hour or so sitting up on the balcony and do some people watching. Somewhat different to the view from K2's apartment window –

[onlyMark]

After a meal, I had to of course sit back on the balcony and watch the world go by still –

[onlyMark]

The last day I drove the couple of hours back north to where I picked up the tuktuk (in Mount Lavinia), which is also a guesthouse as mentioned before, and drove in their driveway. It was busy again with people going to and fro and again it was difficult to see who actually worked there. All I wanted to do was hand off the keys, get the tuktuk signed off and leave. An English lad of about twenty did approach me eventually and asked what I wanted. I told him and he asked if everything was ok with it. I began to tell him about the main fault being that when going uphill the gearbox constantly tried to slip down a gear causing the engine to over rev and there was a loud clunk from the box as it changed gear without the clutch being used. It would soon blow up.
I got halfway through this when I saw his eyes glaze over and he said at the end he had no idea what I was talking about. I said, "Point me in the direction of someone who does."

All I can say is that it was handed back ok with a cursory check and my deposit refunded without any hassle at all.
Unfortunately at the time the wifi wasn't working in the guesthouse and I had wanted it to book an Uber type lift to my final homestay back in Negombo, to the north of Colombo and near the airport.
I'd seen though just back out on the main drag a Burger King, which I nipped in to, had a rather too large ice cream and did the necessary. The lift turned up promptly and whisked me away.

I'd chosen my last place with the knowledge I wouldn't be spending a full night there. I'd have to leave about midnight to catch my flight home. The guesthouse had very good reviews and offered a free drop off at the airport at any time of day or night. The price was within the range of what I'd normally been paying so I booked it and asked if my drop off time would be ok. No problem was the reply.
However, this was a case of the owner ticking all the boxes again and I had a small room with nothing in but a very noisy air conditioner, plenty of dirt, stained sheets, windows that didn't close and as the photos will show, poorly maintained electrics which were positively dangerous.
Also the room window had no curtains, just dirty nets, which wouldn't have been too bad had there not been a security floodlight shining directly in to it.

I grumbled a bit at him but left it further as nothing I said could change anything immediately, I was ready now for leaving the country and as it was he who would drop me off, I didn't want him to somehow 'forget' to take me.
I told him when he asked for me to leave a review on booking.com that it wouldn't be the best one he's had.
I did leave one by the way, detailing a number of things, at which his reply on the website was "Thanks?"

[onlyMark]

This was the light and fan switch (which didn't work) by the door –




Just inside the bathroom where you'd normally get a light switch but looks like what is left of a door bell -




This is where an electric boiler had been removed –




Just on the nearby wall –






This was the bathroom window, which followed the theme of the room windows, i.e. can't close it properly (which wasn't so much of an issue really apart from deadening some noise) and the mossie net looking like it was temporarily fitted with some thumb tacks –




You can see the breaker box, which was live, in the background. This was now the shower but only had cold water. I later found out there is a solar hot water system which I was supposed to switch on/open if I needed it. Well, I'm not going to am I, unless I know about it, which I didn't and was not told –




There you have it. The last but one photo.

[onlyMark]

A couple of further notes if you want to read them –

Cons – the food has variation but if you ignore the breakfasts, which are usually large and with a number of elements including eggs, a thing I had but didn't mention which were hoppers (fermented rice flour and coconut milk batter usually fried and made into a bowl shape in which is put mostly an egg, but can be many other things) plenty of fruit and toast/butter/jam and often a mild curry, possibly lentil, pancakes and so on. Whatever they'd got to hand really.
Apart from that there seemed to be not the variation you get in India and many SEA countries by a long way.
The food is good by all means, but it isn't a country you would go to with that as a main theme.

Accommodation – a big difference in standards depending on location for the same prices – plus, I heard many stories of additional taxes being added that you didn't know about when booking. It seems normal that with mid-range and above places there is often an added 30% tax. Often mentioned, sometimes not. Sometimes included, sometimes not. You have to be a bit careful as this can be a sizeable chunk of money. Those I booked tended to be cheaper than mid-range and this tax was never a factor anyway.
There are other taxes as well, 10% here and there. Plus if you are booking in USD or Euro or GBP, when you come to pay, if you pay in local currency, they are quite flexible with the exchange rates, to say the least.
Few places of my range allowed credit card payments and I wasn't too keen on handing mine over anyway. Apart from the Jetwing hotel in Jaffna, I always paid in local cash.

The only problems I had out of all of them were two, the one who didn't expect me but wasn't really much of an issue, and this last one, Gudsmith Home in Negombo who apart from everything else there, tried to charge me an extra 10%.
I asked in the evening to pay him and he came out with a printout from booking.com, the same one I had on my app.
But, no matter the price included this 10% tax, he'd handwritten on another 10% and upon asking him why, he offered no real reason other than he'd always done it as he didn't think it was included – never mind it being in front of his face. Nobody had ever queried it, maybe they didn't notice, but he'd been adding it on for years he said.
Last thing – check the hotel website itself, if they have one, as sometimes there is a cheaper deal than booking via a third party. You know this anyway.

Pros – everything about the country can be cheap enough for a tourist if you just look around. Food, transport, hotels etc for normal day to day living. It is often hardly worth arguing over a few cents unless, as with me and the tuktuk driver, it is on principal. Get out of the tourist areas, as normal, and the prices drop dramatically.
The costs of sites are fixed, so nothing that can be done there.
Hassles from touts are pretty minimal. Maybe it is just how I look, but I was never bothered.

The food, if not so varied as in many countries is filling and plentiful. If you're vegetarian or vegan you may find it even more restricted especially inland, but there is more variation on the coast or in the inland tourist towns.
The climate is quite benign with no great variations. It can get chilly up in the hills but not to any extreme. The rains can be avoided to a certain extent depending on which coast you go to.

Transport is not difficult, many use a car and driver for part if not all of their time there. Buses are everywhere, big and small but the standard of driving can take a little time to get used to. Trains are mainly in the west and centre though there are a couple of spurs heading out to the east.
English is widely spoken to some degree, even in the backwaters and communication is not difficult.
There is good phone coverage and I didn't notice any gaps at all. Mind you, I didn't look at it very often except when I was at my destination.
All accommodation I tried had wifi.

If you want to show respect when you are handing over something, like with money at a shop, I was a little surprised to find the action they make is exactly the same as here in Zambia – hand over with the right hand, palm up as much as you can do it, but also put your left hand over to around your right elbow and gently rest your fingers on your other arm.
PDA's are frowned upon, no nudity, don't turn your back on Buddha – the usual respectful things.

For info, the tuktuk company I used was - tuktukrental.com/
However, they were constantly contacting me on Whatsapp as I was added to their group of those out on the road. This meant I was hassled every day by thirty or forty messages from everyone else. I exited the group as soon as I got back to their place. It was a relief to do so but I had lived with it just in case there was something interesting to take note of.
They also sent me emails every few days asking if all was good, if I'd greased it etc etc. The mail usually started as such – "We're just checking in to make sure you're still travelling ok, we're sorry that we sound like needy parents! Reply with a smiley or sad face to let us know how you're doing."
The sign off was usually, "With unconditional universal love, The Tuktuk Rental Team"

Their very last mail after I got back started, "You made it! You bloody ripper! You are now officially a tuktuk "veteran". You owned the road with your sleek moves, semantic slogans, and of course glorified three wheels! This QUALIFIES you to join our veterans facebook page. This is a place to share knowledge, tell tales of foreign lands, reminisce about your experience and for the young apprentices to seek advice about manoeuvring their chariots from the hardened elites like you ;-)"
I didn’t join. I am getting old. I know it. This proves it.

There are a few rental companies and I think they are pretty much the same, or so I understood when I compared notes with a couple of others who had rented them from different companies that I crossed paths with. One might be a bit cheaper, one a bit more expensive, but seeing as I had mine for an extended period of time, mine also worked out the same as the cheapest priced company. I did choose the one I did purely because of their reputed policy of using vehicles owned by the locals who get a share of the rental fee.

Addendum – list of places stayed –

8Plus Motels, Negombo
Grand Oriental Hotel, Colombo
Island Hostel, Mount Lavinia
Aayu’s Guesthouse, Bentota
Talalla Bay Inn Beach Bungalow, Talalla Bay
Samwill Holiday Resort, Kataragama
Coco Bay, Arugum Bay
Amanda Beach Resort, Kalkudah
Blue Wings Beach Hotel, Trincomalee
Sun and Sand, Mullaittivu
Jetwing Jaffna, Jaffna
Hotel Oviya, Vavuniya
Sigiri Regal Residence, Sigiriya
High View Homestay, Kandy
Gem Field Rest, Rathnapura
Hikka Regent Hotel, Hikkaduwa
Gudsmith Home, Negombo

[onlyMark]

Last one to end on and remember these prophetic words (which I won't take too much issue with but light is soundless and the future is not "soon", but now, now, now, every nanosecond is the future) –

Rocks don't last forever, listen to the light.
The future will be soon my love.
And the future must be bright –




Bye for now.

[kerouac2]

Mar 19, 2018 7:51:40 GMT onlyMark said:

I spent hours looking at those, too.

[onlyMark]

Apparently, in your quote, I was speechless.

That doesn't often happen.

[onlyMark]

I've just looked back. I see what you mean now.

[kerouac2]

Your fashion show is delightful. Actually, the people aren't all that different from the ones I have downstairs; you just turned up the thermostat a bit. Some of those people were very pale, though. I hope they did not have to take them to the burn ward a couple of days later.

The hidden hotel charges sound about the same as staying in NYC. Actually, they don't "hide" the charges there, but they list a price and then say that it will actually be about 25% more or thereabouts due to taxes.

Many thanks for this fantastic report and all of the additional information. You have really outdone yourself, Mark. I certainly hope that it wasn't because of boredom.

[onlyMark]

I find that for some reason my bouts of boredom seem to last no more than five minutes or so. I think I am just easily distracted.
Or curious. Or something anyway.

My intent with this report was that I realised with many others I'd not really included many things that had happened or encountered or experienced, mainly because there wasn't a photo to show it. So I thought I'd just get everything down on a chronological order no matter if it was just an opinion, an experience or a thought at the time.
I am unable to get bored when walking, driving, eating, watching, researching, shopping, and all the other things I was doing.
That is also the same now I've returned. I have a number of things to be doing that are a little unusual to most and when I need to break off and have a think, I tend to meander through the photos and write something.
Not any more though. It is finished.

Shit. I'm bored now. What can I do?

[fumobici]

Mar 19, 2018 7:51:40 GMT onlyMark said:

fumobici, thanks. By the way, did you notice my very earlier comment about using an off-line map app? I notice on the thread about mobile telephones that you are saying using Google maps and data.

I use off-line mapping on Google Maps in my area. The phone stores a map of the area so with the GPS I can use it even in airplane mode but the maps are large files and my phone wouldn't hold enough for all the traveling i have planned.  It might actually be a good idea though to have the thing download local maps on the hotel wi-fi while I'm sleeping so I'm not dependent on the strength of the signal to GPS navigate. Then I can discard the ones I no longer needed to make space.

[questa]

Dear Mark, First let me apologise for my Cornwall comment. On TV all we see is grey sky, high winds and smugglers.
I stayed at Negombo and walked to the fishing boats and fish market near the new bridge. There were still several broken boats piled up near the end of the estuary...owners deceased. This area copped the wave bigtime.
Did you have any "give way to Jumbo" times. There were lots I saw and the driver told me if the animal comes out of the bushes on the road side, all vehicles must stop, No photos or getting out of car, radios off. Then just wait for him to cross over or move away from the road.Then slowly and quietly move on. We know about trained ellies, used to people...easy to forget this is a wild animal.

I'm afraid I found Sri Lanka a bit bland. It was like a school excursion. Lots to look at but nothing to DO. Couldn't even have a smoke...Trinco 2 tuktuk drivers walked the length of the football field to tell me I wasn't allowed to smoke anywhere in public, and at Sigriya a bunch of teenage boys lectured me for merely asking where I could smoke.

I enjoyed your adventure though, you made the journey real.

[onlyMark]

Cornwall, to be fair it is 90% like that.
No photos of the Jumbos sign unfortunately. I did see them though and never thought about it.

For people who fly in for a holiday from Europe I am certain they will see it as exotic if they've not been in that culture before. I know I was fascinated the first time I ever went abroad when I went to Germany and what was then Yugoslavia. But now I accept these places as quite normal. Sri Lanka is usually compared to India I think, it being the closest culturally, but it is a lite version of it.
There doesn't appear to be the extremes of everything, but it would pass as an easy introduction before heading there.

After what can seem to be a constant battle for everything in India, Sri Lanka was a bit of a breath of fresh air (well, apart from Kandy). I'd certainly go there again, maybe next time with Mrs M who even though is also a hardened traveller, it would be a nice break for her from work and it would be a relaxing time. Plus, for anyone who isn't so conversant with foreign cultures, being dropped in to the country wouldn't provoke too many heart attacks.

[questa]

It would be a good introduction to Asia for people used to touring in developed countries. There are food stalls, cold water showers, squat toilets and creative electrical wiring like most of Asia but not as many and generally things go to plan. One difficulty for travelers is getting your mouth and memory around the long place names.