Sri Lanka - 3 Ratnapura and Tangalle

For the last bit of our holidays the brake went on. 4 nights in Ratnapura were followed by 3 nights in the beach resort of Tangalle. The heat was ramped up a bit too! Both hotels were great and loads to do but at a more leisurely pace. Ratnapura started with a look around town and a shop for the cookery lesson we were to have  in a local village house. Walking around town the locals and traders were so friendly.

Dream on Peter!

1951 post box with shoe repairer at work

Getting out the coconut oil

This guy threw me a few poses

It was at this time that our driver/guides helper finally came into play and had a role to help us get the shopping in. We had christened him with our own pet name of Rien a Faire as it seemed to sum him up. All he seemed to have done up until now was to count people on the bus.

Quelque chose a faire !

All the tuk tuks carried their own messages

Loved the Hindu wooden trucks

I wonder!

 Shopping all done it was back to do some serious cooking under the watchful eye of the hotel chef and village cookery expert.

The most unpopular task was shredding the coconut - they took forever and we all got on board!

Marie-Claude

Pierre

Gerard

Expert at work!

It was great watching ( oops I mean helping) this cook build a series of curries with what we had bought at the market.

Pierre and Francoise

Albert - I missed Nicole somehow but am sure she was helping!

Now ... what have I forgotten

The photo doesn`t do it justice but what a superb meal of curried chicken with beans, peppers, coconut with ginger and chili, carrots in a beautiful cumin based sauce, jack fruit! Quite the best meal of the holiday. This is jack fruit if you are wondering

After lunch and a drink we dropped into the local gem mine.

Next day everyone else went off on a trek through the Sinharaja rain forest. We got up too at 6 am but when checking out that it was 15km in 34 degrees and 90% humidity decided that a day by the pool beckoned instead. After a short doze and a very nice freshly cooked breakfast we chilled!

If you click on this image left you might see a 70 year old gardener climbing the tree for coconuts. With just a short length of rope around feet and tree he must have gone up 5/6 whilst we lazed at the pool - dropping the coconuts with a thud to the ground around them. Amazing to watch!

The flower petals that had dropped were carefully swept up by attentive staff working around us and we were  able to walk around the grounds as the only guests at home that day. Lovely.

Lady drying her washing

Pond outside our room

View from our balcony

Palm tree outside our balcony

When the others came back with tales of long hot walks, legs bleeding with leeches etc we were sure we`d made the right choice for us!
The next day was probably my favourite day of the trip with a visit to the Udawalawa National Park. Fantastic 3 hour + safari on great all terrain jeeps. So much to see!

Chameleon on tree as we set off

Kingfisher - or was it a Green Bee eater?

Hawk eagle

Plenty of water buffalo

Living in harmony with the birds taking bugs from their ears

A crow picking at the bones

Definitely a Green Bee Eater

Parrot in flight

Crocodile

But it was the elephants I had come to see....

The big daddy

Little one bird watching!

First a dust shower after the water

Then a little dance!


Loved this place and well worth a visit. The leopards eluded us - no doubt asleep in a tree in the heat somewhere but we saw everything else there was.

Everywhere we went we seemed to be followed by a lorryload of French people though!

En route for the hotel we stopped at a colourful market at the side of the road.Again met such friendly people. I`d challenged myself on this holiday to ask at least 10 strangers if I could take their photo rather than steal an image here and there and I smashed it - such was the friendliness of the Sri Lankan people we met.

 Once back at the hotel there was time for just one more temple visit - this time to see a Buddhist service where no photos were allowed but very interesting to watch.

Peter was bemused by the wooden scaffolding and absence of health and safety cares

After more rest and recuperation by the pool it was then off to our final stay. Before leaving I`d been in dispute with Travelbird when they told us that the Tangalle hotel we`d booked was having building works and so far from the airport for departure that it was unsuitable. Instead we would be staying in a much worse hotel in a much worse resort (Wadduwa) according to the reviews I read. We should not have been surprised when our driver took us to the Paradise Lagoon Resort Hotel in Tangalle then! The only hotel that we actually stayed at from the original itinerary and the the only one they told us that we would definitely not be staying at!!! The hotel was wonderful. A short tuk tuk ride into Tangalle but with a wonderful layout. Gorgeous pool, 2 restaurants with a lagoon between hotel and sea where you could kayak if you wished and a bridge over to the gorgeous beach restaurant. Wonderful throughout!

By the beach restaurant

The pool

Bridge to beach restaurant

Beach restaurant

The lagoon

Beach restaurant

On our 2nd day we got a tuk tuk into town

 We met Tony at the port. A fisherman he told us how he had lost all of his family in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. He survived by clinging to a palm tree for 45 minutes until help arrived. he was grateful to British surgeons who saved his arm and leg and aid that helped buy him a boat to ply his trade. He told us how when the sea went out prior to the tsunami, for over a kilometre, they had seen nothing like it. People ran out collecting the fish floundering on the sand only to next be struck by a 30 ft wave coming in that killed 34,000 people and destroyed their town. Now there are warning towers that serve to give a 25 minute warning enabling people to get the required 2 km away fro m the shore to survive. Chilling stories. Fisherman pray at their Buddhist temples and tie an offering to the tree in the port authority before going out for luck. Of course we were tackled by port security and charged 100 rupees per person for "entry" - the only tourist racket we witnessed on our trip here. Tony wanted more but given our trip into town was primarily to visit a cashpoint for more funds he got less than we would have given. There was only time for the 4 of us to get totally bamboozled working out how many rupees we needed to withdraw before getting some wine and beer and heading back to town. So glad I rejected Peter`s advice to get out the maximum 180,000 rupees allowed or we would have needed to buy a wheelbarrow to get it back to the hotel. Wine was the most expensive thing to buy in Sri Lanka but someone needed to show the flag as our fellow French travellers didn`t touch a drop! They seemed to catch us drinking on our balcony / table all of the time and I`m sure thought that we were alcoholics.

The "Luck" tree

Tsunami warning tower in background

Evacuation centre and warning  back from the beach

We found an idyllic beach bar further along the beach. Aid money had sought to create more tourism such as this and the hotel we were staying in seeking to attract more funding to Tangalle to aid recovery

View from the beach bar

 So nice to just chill then at the hotel after a hectic programme. Time for a last few shots of our travel companions and exchange of emails

 We`ll miss out French friends and of course we`ll miss the lizards that came to see us in our room too - and the other little frog that came but I missed the shot of. On aime bien les grenouilles!