Beaches.

Saturday 30 March 2013 – Tangalle.

Now that I am in Tangalle and on my own I pretty much intended on doing not much at all. I am looking forward to some time on my own – just chilling. I know it sounds like my life is one big holiday and you may question my need to chill, but I find travelling tiring – especially when it is so damn hot and humid. I am also keen for some alone time with a month of enforced company on a yacht coming up in a few days I want to maximise the opportunities that I have for some solitude.

After breakfast I did not do much for a while before heading over the road to check out the local beach, I had heard the beaches close to Tangalle were not that nice but this one seemed perfectly fine and it even had a wee spot for swimming in, which was even finer. So I took the opportunity and had a quick dip, the water was incredibly warm. The surf was good but the beach was so steep it was impossible to body surf in, a shame as being able to body surf would have been very nice indeed.

I walked out to the point for a look and found numerous remains from the buildings that were devastated in the 2004 tsunami that caused havoc along this whole section of coast.

Sadly greed and stupidity has meant that not too many lessons were learnt and buildings have cropped up right on the beach again.

I lay on the beach in the sun for a while, I want to start building a base tan before I get on the yacht, hopefully it will prevent me from getting burnt. I took it easy though and only spent a short time. While I was out my room was cleaned. Like being in a hotel !!! I have paid a whole more for a whole less in some places.

In the afternoon I took a tuk-tuk over to the eastern side of town to the big beaches where the bulk of the guest houses are, I was looking for a piece of street art by my favourite artist Phlegm and thought this would be the most likely place. I had a brief walk around, but the place is bigger than I expected and I could not find it. I also did something radical and asked some people if they knew it at all, I even showed them pictures on my cell phone, but no one knew it. Even the infamous tuk-tuk drivers could not help. Oh well ! I wandered down to Medaketiya Beach and started heading east. I had not gone too far when I hear my name called from the road and there was my German friend Benne, heading back to his guest house up the beach. We had a wee chat for a while before he went to his room and I carried on walking up the beach. It is terrible 🙂

I walked for forty minutes or so and never really got any closer to the end so turned round and headed back towards town, finally grabbing a tuk-tuk on the edge of town and back to my place. I arranged with the tuk-tuk driver to meet me at 8:30 tomorrow morning to go to some cave temples which are about twenty five minutes out of town. I was going to do it today, but in the end could not be bothered. Even though it was late afternoon it was still hot and I was in need of a shower and a cool down.

I had agreed to meet Benne for dinner at one of the local Lonely Planet recommended places with a specialty in kottu roti, it was OK, definitely not as good as the Muslim Hotel in Kandy. I had to walk all the way back into town to get a tuk-tuk to take me back to the guest house. Most things were shut, even though it was only 9:30 in a tourist town – I like it!  It was a long dark walk, but I felt totally secure – more so than I would in Auckland, Sri Lanka is like that!

A very chilled day, and one I enjoyed immensely…