Varkala Beach, Kerala

After being waved goodbye by the whole family and a very sad acting 'mama' we took a local train from Kovalem to holy town Varkala and from there a richshaw to the beach. This beautiful beachtown is again an enormous tourist attraction.

 The way to serve 'illegal' beer in a holy town

The beach is reachable with steep stairways down the rocky cliffs. On top of the steps is a colorful boulevard packed with souvenirshops, Indian, Tibetian and Westernised restaurants, Ayurvedic wellness spa's and lots of holidayresorts. Those vary from luxury hotels to bamboohuts and private houses with handwritten notes saying "room available" or "guests welcome".

Varkala cliffs

We chose this time for Holiday Home Beach Resort, a family run place with about 10 rooms and few rentable cottages in the garden. Close enough to the beach and still fitting our budget, we decided to stay here for 2 weeks. (another good reason was the free wireless internet for guests!)

Our pet lizard

On days that we didn't spend on the beach we visted the surroundings; other bays next to our beach (with clearly much more local visitors), Varkala city, few temples on the way and another holy water tank.

Holy water tank

Kovalam Beach, Kerala

BACK IN INDIA

We had a real short flight from Colombo  to Thiruvanuputtaram (40 minutes) and we were back in India. We took a taxi directly from the airport to Kovalam Beach, the nearest tourist resort. Kovalem appeared to be a little like Miami of Kerala, the beach side is only for tourists; local people (men) are not really allowed in the water and often called back by beachpatrol, at Lighthouse Beach.

The beach side is dominated by luxury resorts and its hard to tell in which continent you are.

Kovalam Beach

Luckily we found a friendly homestay back away from the beach strip in a more rural, shady and green area . 'Mama' and her 31 year old son welcomed us with a nice tea and chat, even their beautiful dog Snowy got to join us with a bowl of chai.

 Mama's breakfast: Papaya & Puttu (steamed rice with coconut) with bananas

Godess Snowy having chai

We had every morning a traditional Indian breakfast and in the evening veggie curry from 'mamas' kitchen. They use fruit and veggies (like papaya, bananas and tapioca) from their own garden and the leftovers are fed to the rooster and his 11 chick(en)s.

 

 Dosa's for breakfast

Negombo Beach, Sri Lanka

After a relaxed 12 hour train ride with again awesome views and a train-lunch of cooked noodles with spices wrapped as a tight package in bananaleaf, we arrived to Negombo on sunset. We got a rickshaw and found a hotel with strong 70's vibe - "Star Beach". The town itself didn't look that interesting so we spent our last day in Sri Lanka sitting on the beachside and walking up & down the tourist strip (aka beach road).

Relaxing at Negombo Beach

Ella, Sri Lanka

On Wednesday morning we took a train from Kandy to Ella, a small village in a valley of the Hill Country. We tried to purchase tickets beforehand on Tuesday but they said that there is no presales of tickets & first class "observation" wagons tickets are sold out. The trip was merely hundred something kilometers on the map so we expected fast transit.

So in the morning we purchased our second class tickets, got (after transfer) into the long distance train and found out that there was no seats left. After a few minutes of standing up in the rocking train with our backpacks we decided to sneak into the first class wagon. There was plenty of space in it and it was the "sold out" observation wagon. The observation wagon means that it is the last wagon of the train and everybody is seated in "cinema style" on comfy chairs looking out of a big window - back of the train. This also means that everybody is sitting "the wrong way around". We were slightly supriced when the conductor came to sell us the "upgrade" ticket and told that it was over five times more expensive then our 2nd class ticket, but we were forced to settle when he told us even more "shocking" news. The 100 kilometer journey through the mountains takes over 7½ hours.

"Observation Wagon"

Happy and satisfied with our luxury seats we were watching the landscape with mountains, waterfalls, distant villages, little mountainstations and forever stretching teaplantages for quite a while. Unfortunately it started (again) to rain and the glamour of mountain spotting lessened a bit with dropping temperatures, moistness and fog.

Tea plantations

After about 8 hours we arrived to Ella and got a free ride from the railwaystation to Ella Holiday Inn Hotel by a local hotelhustler. He had shown us a card of the place which said rooms starting from 800 rupies - when we arrived to hotel the price had changed to 2000 rupies. The receptionist even said that do not look prices in your guidebook, you need to triple them to get the real price (this has actually been mostly true in our trip to Sri Lanka, you need patience and good haggling skills if you are going to get a price quoted in Lonely Planet or Rough Guide...) As we declined to pay 2000 rupies for the room (in comparison in Galle Fort we paid 1100,  Sabines cottage was 700 and Kandy 1200 per night) they told us to visit some of their friends cheaper places. We got a kid from the hotel to guide us through the backyard of the hotel to a steep mudroad, via used car-tire-stairs up to a family house.  There we were seated to a nice "kitchy" living room filled with different spiritual figuirines. Our new landlord gave us a big room with bathroom for 1200 rupies. The place is a real homestay place - they have two rooms to rent out and we are the only guests. So for a change we have a nice family atmosphere of staying with Sri Lankans (Mother, Father and three teenagers.)

"Stairs" to our guesthouse

When we arrived it was pouring water so we asked our new landlord to prepare us a rice and curry for our eveningmeal and we got an absolutely huge and tasty meal. Unfortunately it is the coldest month of the year in Sri Lanka and we were really cold at night. The next day we loaned woolly shirts and an umbrella from our landlord and went out for a walk. But the weather outsmarted us, it got completely sunny and warm after 15 minutes of walking. And to make things better we were walking uphill track to "Little Adams Peak" mountain.

Little Adams Peak

End of Hill Country

After an hour of climbing up the path via teaplantages we got to the top. It has nice views, you can even see where the "hill country" ends and plains begin. Later on we went for another long walk to the just out of town river "as it is only few hundred meters in our map" but gave up after climbing & descending over hour in zigzag motion. On our way back I found a shortcut, a mudpath that seemed to go straight down to our starting point. Unfortunately this did not take us to our starting point but to the railroad tracks. Mariska was a little reserved about the idea of walking on the traintracks but luckily she agreed to rather do that then climb back up on the slippery slope. In general local people use railroad tracks as pedestrian paths everywhere around Sri Lanka, so there was no real "danger" in doing so.  There's daily only 6 trains stopping in Ella so it is a rare sight to see one. Railroad tracks are usually the shortest and even safest roads for people walking from village to village.
When we arrived back to our guesthouse we had another huge curried meal. Unfortunately our landlords had some bad news, the father's sister had died during the day in a hospital in Kandy, so they are going there on Friday morning (they said they are taking an express bus and arriving in under 7 hours!).

Tea plantations

On Saturday morning we are planning to take the early train to Colombo and try to get to Negombo Beach for our last day. On Monday morning we have a morning flight to Thiruvananthapuram (or more friendly Thrivandrum) in India.

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Early in the morning we left from Matara with a bus back to Galle from where we could take a train to Kandy. There are usually trains from Matara too but they are working on the tracks at the moment. In Galle we bought traintickets for the only train to Kandy, leaving at 14.30h so we had suddenly lots of time to kill with walking in the rain, surfing the internet, munch and lunch.

In the train we found out that we had chosen the slowest way and worst time to get to Kandy, it would stop at almost every station, linger via Colombo and from there on it would be dark outside so we would not see the promised nice green Hill County views we hoped on. In the train we met Sri Lankan catholic reverent Harold Marasinghe. He is a friendly old man with lots of stories and during the trip he told us interesting facts about places, churches and rivers we passed with the train. Around 21.15h we finally arrived in a dark and rainy Kandy where we asked a rickshaw to drive us to Saranankara Road where lots of guesthouses are situated. We ended up in Lake Inn Guest House, we have a spacious room with hot shower which we used immediately (maybe a little too long) because it felt for us extremely cold in this higher (500m altitude) part of Sri Lanka.

Monday when we woke it was heavily raining so we stayed in bed untill we got hungry and then walked to the nearest place to eat a nice spicy curry. After that we strolled around in the city slowly getting more and more wet. In the middle of this shoppingtown is Kandy Lake, lightbrown water surrounded by different big trees which are all having their botanical name shown. Where we stay is a walk away uphill on curvy lanes, from there you can see the misty forests around us.

Kandy Lake

Temple of Buddhas Sacred tooth relic

On Tuesday we walked around to see a few temples and we spotted monkeys picking fruits from trash and a hard working elephant. We also walked around the Kings Palace and looked at the Temple of Buddhas sacred tooth relic.

In the evening we went to watch Kandyan cultural centres display of traditional Sri Lankan music (drumming), dancing and firetrickstery.

Traditional hairremoval

Polhena Beach

At Sabine's Guesthouse we experienced a real 'bounty island' holiday; with only 4 rooms to rent out, the a small strip of white sand surrounded by palmtrees was really only for us to use. We rented snorkeling gear to spot coral and tropical fish. Jaakko got nicely addicted to this exciting search for wonders of the underwaterworld so that he every morning jumped out of bed before me to have a refreshing dive into the blue ocean. Anura and her sons, the friendly owners, made us every morning a nice breakfast with bread and fruits that we enjoyed at a table on the beach with a beautiful view when the sun rises. On new year's eve we had the best curry ever in our own beachgarden! Those things make you immediately forget about little flaws like no hot water, a not flushing toilet, a thin roof that almost collapses and a moldy bathroom.

I had a few little accidents that I probably should take for granted in a paradise environment. The first day I went sunbathing I nicely spread out my beachtowel, sprayed sunscreen all over myself, put my cap and sunglasses on and read my book. After frying my backside I turned around to lay on my back  and closed my eyes behind the glasses to feel the heat of the sun warm my body and hear the calming waves of the sea. Until I in one second didn't know what happened to me, I woke up, jumped up and gasped for breath all at the same time; the sea had come to visit me. My whole towel, body, book, everything soaked wet by a high tide!

Another, less funny, moment when nature and I crashed into eachother was while swimming. The bay where we stay is full of rocks and coral so you have to be carefull where you swim. The currents are strong and corals sharp so in the end I couldn't really control my own directions and scraped my foot on a rock. With a bleeding foot I first had to go through the sand to the shower in our room, stinging and with lots of cuts (luckily not too deep). Anura came to see me, I think she had seen me walking like a duck on one foot and one heel, and she put some bright purple natural Ayurvedic potion on it (which after 5 days still hasn't disappeared). Our neighbour, a deliciously cooking currychef (and family of Anura), asked me one day later what's wrong with my foot and he offered to cure it with his Sri Lankan medicine. It was a stinky brown oil from "lots of tree leaves". I hope my foot will heal soon with or without the help of those mysterious, harmless cures from nature.

My last accident happened in the towncentre of Matara where I walked with my arm into barbed wire...that was the most painfull of them all. Matara is the nearest city from Polhena. We visited there another old Dutch fort, one in the shape of a star, surrounded by water with at least one crocodile living in it. Another nice feature of the town is a small island in the sea where you can get with a long bridge. It has a Buddhist temple where a few monks live. We also alreay purchased fighttickets back to India. We fly on the 17th of januari from Colombo  to Trivandrum in Kerala.

VOC Dutch starshaped Fort

The last days of our stay in Polhena Beach it had been raining every afternoon untill the night so we decided to move on to the Hill Country area.