East; scooters, sunshine, snorkelling and sharks in Sri Lanka

We rode our bikes back to Manel guesthouse to hitch a ride up to Nilaveli with Lian’s brother, after we had earlier unsuccessfully walked around the bus station hunting for a bus to Trincomalee, only to be told there wasn’t one. (Which we later discovered that we were actually sabotaged by Lian’s brother just to get our business!) We swiftly loaded up the van with our bags, & set off. The rain chased us for most of the three & a half hour trip!
Just before the sun has set, we eventually arrived at ‘The Residence Nilaveli,’ where we were greeted by the young, sassy & extremely likeable host, Liza. She ran the accommodation with her fiancé, who helped out on set for Nat Geo documentaries. The house itself was cosy, & had a real homely feel. The double rooms were well overpriced so the four of us settled on a 6 bed mixed dorm room. After ordering dinner with Liza earlier, we all gathered around the table for a lovely dinner of seafood curry & an array of accompaniments. After dinner, we shifted outside & shared stories over beers until midnight when it was time to hit the sack.
The next morning, Thom & Teeny had decided to check out as they had discovered a new hotel which offered a double room for cheaper than the two beds in the dorm combined. We decided to stay another night as we liked the communal feel of the Residence, & we were invited by the hosts to hit a nearby beachside hotel, & play with few other guests, which involved swimming, body surfing & throwing a ball around. The lush, murky blue water juxtaposed against the scattered litter that lined the golden sands.
After an active, fun day, we had agreed to meet Thom & Teeny that evening at their new digs to scope it out & head out for dinner & drinks. We agreed on a restaurant that was reviewed fondly on TripAdvisor, ‘Siva.’ The food itself was so cheap & full of taste, however, the beer they had was only ‘Barron’s Strong,’ an 8.6% ABV monster, which tasted like VB mixed with three vodka shots! After our meal, & in search of ‘any other beer,’ we went back to the hotel we were at earlier, & after a few Lion’s, we jumped into their ocean front pool & swam the evening away.

We arose slowly the next morning, treating ourselves to a well deserved lie-in. Our plan for the sun soaked day was to hire scooters & explore the South & North of Nilaveli. Running a little late, we hitched a Tuk Tuk to Thom & Teeny’s hotel, ‘Shahira,’ & were greeted by the two scooters waiting for us out the front. After checking out the rooms, & deciding it was a much more economical option, (with the added bonus of being a private room, with a double bed & our own bathroom,) we booked in for the rest of our stay in Nila. Back to the scooters, we jumped on & sped off South; Trinco bound on a tampon search.. Extremely unsuccessful (they were awfully embarrassed when we even asked the several chemists and super markets)! Giving up we set off in search of the other beach North of Trinco, Uppaveli. After a little guidance from Thom’s map, we pulled off the main road, down a dirt track & eventually pulled up at Uppaveli beach. 

The beach itself was much calmer than Nila, & a safer little cove to swim in. After splashing around for awhile, & taking in the full brunt of the burning Eastern sun, we decided to jump back on the scooters & keep exploring, this time setting our compass to North.  
Not even 15 minutes past nelaveli, following the coast we crossed a large bridge, turning our heads towards the sea our eyes feasted on a beautiful blue lagoon that connected to the ocean. Taking the next right we followed the dirt road down untill the end, parking up and ready to explore. Just over the bank we reached a bunch of local kids splashing about in this beautiful secret kept from tourists. We headed a little further up the mouth of the fast flowing lagoon and rode its rapid’s like a ride. The water was fresh, the sun was shining and we were all smiling! We only decided to move on when some older local boys harassed us with their stares as they stalked us in the water. 

Still north bound we were eager to seek out more pristine places yet to be destroyed by tourism. Unlucky we stopped at a very polluted beach for one last splash of the day. Whilst Teeny, Sean and I swam Thom was approached by two intimidating men; not because of their size but the size of their guns. We made a move even though they were just some friendly guards from the navel base intrigued by foreigners. 
It wasn’t until we were back on the bike bound for home I felt my hot skin hissing at me.. Already the colour was red and sassy to touch, even with several applications of sunscreen! The four us equally all attacked by the UV, decided for a pretty lazy evening of cards, beers and really bad service at a restaurant just down from our guest house.
The next morning, after a decent night’s sleep at our new hotel, we decided to trek down the rising sun-soaked beach towards the Coral Bay Hotel for breakfast, with our real intentions being to secure a shaded beach hut & swim in their gorgeous blue pool. Breakfast was basic, we shared one continental brekky & a fruit plate, & ‘upgraded’ to a pot of Nescafé. Upon finishing our meal, we leapt at the free beach hut to seek some shade. Handily enough, the pool was a hop, skip & a jump away, & we exerted no hesitation to dive on in, after being told two night’s ago that restaurant customers had free reign of the pool. After splashing for awhile, we headed over to pay for breakfast. We were stopped in our tracks by the manager. ‘You can’t use the pool for free, you pay 2000 rupees.’ Alarmed, we stated our defence of being told we could a couple night’s previously. ‘No, they don’t know. Next time it is 2000 rupees to swim!’ He then hobbled away, disgruntled. Paying the bill, we noticed that they missed the fruit plate & upgrade to Nescafé. Justice was served, & we walked away full, refreshed & a wee bit victorious.

As Franco, (Dani’s not quite boyfriend/tinder date/maybe my future bro in law, who knows?!) was due to arrive around 1:30pm, we headed back to Shahira to wait for him. After hanging out for awhile, 4pm came along & suddenly a van pulled in. Out of the mammoth vehicle, one man jumped out & gave us a huge wave. ‘Couldn’t fit you into a car, eh?!’ I laughed as we hugged & hello’d. Ordering him to get his swimmers on, we set off to our secret lagoon paradise before the sun set on us. We dived in & caught up before bundling back into the van to head to Trinco to gather beers that Franco, & his friendly driver, Madu, had been holding out for hours for. Chucking the beers into Madu’s ‘ayesky,’ (esky) we headed back to Nilaveli. Hanging about chatting over a few cold ones, we were ready to embark in search of dinner. Unfortunately Seva was closed to we opted for a near by opened restaurant for an average meal, cards and more beers. 

The next morning we had organised for a man; Mohammad to collect the 5 of us and take us via boat to Pigeon Island (one of the main attractions for the east). You could see it from the shore line so it took no more than 15 minutes to reach the tiny nature reserve. Joining the many other tourists we put on our fins and spent the next 4 hours nose deep in water, snorkelling. 

Diving in the water was fresh, the sun was shining and the coloured fish were plentiful. Striped, spotted and techno coloured ranging from thumb size to arm length they swam undisturbed by floating tourists. The most impressive fish of the day for me was the reef shark; measuring just over a metre, they were a little intimidating when they lurked out of the shadows of the sea but never did they hang around long. Unlucky in finding any turtles we called it a day when I felt my skin frying from the heat. We jumped back on the boat and headed back to land to pick up our things and hitch a ride with Madu and Franco in the spacious van back to Colombo. 

Too much rice & spice, farewell Sri LankaThe drive down was long, however, Madu kindly took us through Anuradapura, the Ancient City we had previously missed, & showed us a couple of sites. Starving, & with Franco desperate to sample local food, we pulled into a tiny roadside restaurant in the middle of nowhere & took a seat around one of two tables. Before any time at all, a huge variety of local fare was laid before us & we got stuck in. The food was delicious, authentic & a bargain. Franco was over the moon! We hopped back in the van & before we knew it after a tiny bit of shut-eye, we reached Colombo.

The next three days in Colombo involved not much more than cycling around every day to exchange rupees for the USD we needed in Africa. Feeling more relaxed & kind of enjoying the city the second time around, we headed off for one more night in the Airport suburb of Katunayake. Later working out this was a waste of time as you can just get a transfer straight from Colombo. Too much rice and spice had me vomiting and cramping for days so come mid night on the 16th May I was ready to jump in one last tuk tuk and head for the airport.

We boarded the plane just shy of 4am and indeed did we feel ready to fly! It was only a short 4 hour flight to Sharjah which we were originally meant to transit just for one hour, however I received an email earlier that week extending in to a 24 hour transit. So at the time we accordingly changed all of our Nairobi plans with our tour; ‘absolute Africa’ and arranged to have them go out of their way to pick us up directly from the airport on the first day of our 52day Safari. 
We arrived to the transit desk only to be told our flight was to leave in an hour?!?! There was not enough time nor Internet to change our plans for Africa again, so they decided to let us stay as previously stated in the email. Then they changed their minds again and told us we had to leave on that flight even though our luggage had tomorrow’s flight tags. Obviously overwhelmed, 4 hours sleep and a funny tummy I did all I could do… I cried. A lot. And without any further delays we were back to being booked on the next days flight, with a transit airport hotel and 6 meal vouchers! We definitely paid in emotional stress but I was glad to find some sort of compensation. 

Spending our first two meal vouchers (which were only valid at one cafe), brekkie was a canteen style tray with juice, water and a sloppy plate of scrambled eggs and sausage. Bloated and belly-full we checked into our transit hotel which was literally inside the duty free shopping area.. It was bizarre that just a flight of stairs could take you down to a peaceful dark room with no windows, resembling a gentleman’s club and smelling of a hospital we climbed into bed and fell asleep.  
Waking just after 2pm we set out to see the sites of the small airport, which consisted of changing some more monies over to USD, and smelling and spraying just about every perfume in duty-free and Victoria’s secret. Cashing in on our next (lunch) meal vouchers we we played up another sloppy meal of salty slow cooked beef and dry chicken covered in tomato paste, I was just cheering that it wasn’t rice! 
After hours of cards and chess in our dark little cove, Sean decided to take me out for dinner.. It cost him our last two (dinner) meal vouchers for the exact meal we had for lunch! We sneakily took some duty free beers home and pondered over why hadn’t we just purchased a big bottle of spirits earlier!? Lack of fresh air, and a bit boozy we hit the hay just before mid night! 

Rather conveniently our gate was about a 10 minute stroll from our hotel room, however the flight has already changed from 7:30am to 9am hence me writing this now. Here’s hoping that we do depart in half an hour to meet our bags and the bus in Nairobi at 1pm ready for our AFRICAAAAA SAFARI!!!! Let’s Fingers crossed! Let’s get primitive!