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.

Polhena Beach, Sri Lanka

We had decided to take a train from Galle to Matara on monday morning. We got into the railwaystation well before our departure time and tried to order tickets, but unfortunately the railroad tracks were going through some maintenance. So no trains for the next weeks. There was one bus replacing the whole train so it was extremely crowded. We were once again lucky ones and got ourselves seats (even though this meant there was  people pushing you from sides all the time as there was simply no space.)

T.K. Hotel

In Matara we took a rickshaw to T.K. Green Garden Hotel (we had a list of few hotel names and this was the first on the list) and negotiated the price for the room (aka halfed the amount they were initially asking). The T.K. is quite a big resort with 2 seperate apartment blocks and a big garden (with the owners cute doggie Jessie waggling after you) surrounding it all. It's very close to the sea and small strips of beach are everywhere. On the first night we were enjoying beautiful singing/drumming of our neighbours, souding to Mariska like spiritual chanting and Buddhist storytelling but Jaakko thought they might just have been drunk Sri Lankans on holiday.

Beach road

Unfortunately it is Christmas holiday times also for Sri Lankans so the public beach is totally overcrowded (only by men, local women know better and stay away from there.)
So we went up looking for other places to stay around the beach road and found "Sabine Guesthouse" along the coast with a piece of "private" beach.

We saw small lizards and a few big varaans basking in the sun around the beach area, some domestic animals, stray dogs, rocks full of crabs and lots of bugs. There should be crocodiles living here in the wild but we haven't seen them yet!