Traveling while living abroad
Taking advantage of your location- Post 2 of 3
I’m not sure how detailed I should make this, but I’ll do my best not to be too long-winded. We landed at the airport in Colombo and were immediately struck by how different Sri Lanka was from India. These countries are separated by no more than 35 miles (ca. 56 kilometers) of Indian Ocean, but they are incredibly different. The airport was quiet, clean, and orderly, and we swiftly obtained our visas-on-arrival and breezed through customs. We walked outside and felt a familiar tropical breeze. It was so calm. It felt very safe. We were going to have fun.
Our car service driver was waiting for us with a sign. We opted to rent a van with a driver for the week, using AMA Lanka as the company. I would highly recommend them for any Sri Lankan travel. Lall, or Mr. Lall as the kids would call him, drove us to the Hilton Colombo Residences for the night where we relaxed in a 3-bedroom suite with views of the city and the ocean. This is a 5-star hotel, and our massive, hardwood floored suite cost barely more than the price of a room at the Holiday Inn Express. They swept the bottom of our van for bombs upon each return to the parking lot, which was interesting. Apparently, our research and memories fell short of recalling the 2019 Easter hotel bombings, but this Hilton was a hotel that would not be taking any chances.
We ventured into the city for dinner and landed at a restaurant called Arabian Knights, which should have clued us in to something. After a 2-hour wait and some poorly preforming chicken shawarmas, it was time to throw in the towel and get some rest.
For breakfast, our hotel had a wonderful buffet (we wished we’d just eaten there the night before) and the kids went around to each station, tasting the offerings of the morning. The choices and hospitality seemed endless. There was even a “kid-friendly” entertainment room attached to the dining area, where a magician was doing their best to compete for attention against the donut and cookie decorating station set up along the back wall. I did not envy that magician. The kids would have been completely happy to stay here for the entire vacation, but we had an itinerary, so we passed by the metal detectors one last time and headed off to Udawalawe for our safari.
Guys, I’ve never been to any other Southeast Asian country to compare Sri Lanka to, but from movies, documentaries, and old pictures I’ve seen, going to Sri Lanka is like stepping back in time to the 1950s in Asia. It’s completely, overtly enchanting. The numerous shops are small and tidy and reminded me of the flashback scenes in The Karate Kid 2, in Okinawa. The freeways are in impeccable condition and totally surrounded by untouched nature. You could look out the window and easily pretend you were in a scene from Jurassic Park, only instead of velociraptors waiting in the bushes, there were large monitors slowly crossing the road. Wildlife was all around us, all the time. Something we saw frequently were peacocks. Peacocks all over the place. They were on the sides of the freeways, regally perched in trees, and atop mountainside boulders. These things were everywhere.
We see or hear occasional peacocks on the mountainside here in Kodaikanal, and there are wild peacocks in Hawai’i, in the Texas Hill Country, and Florida. Peacocks themselves are not unusual visitors to lots of places, but the sheer volume of them in Sri Lanka needs to be appreciated.
Our safari was incredible. It got to the point where we had seen so many wild elephants walk past us that we began to only be excited about the OTHER animals we also saw. How crazy is that?! Dozens of elephants, peacocks, monitors, various tropical birds, mongoose, a stork (they’re huge and crazy looking!), different types of monkeys, crocodiles, water buffalo, sambar deer, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. It was truly a wonderful experience that our whole family thoroughly enjoyed.
With half of our checklist completed, it was time to head to the beach for our epic surfing experience. Goodbye Udawalawe and hello Arugam Bay!
Arugam Bay, as we found out upon researching, is one of the top surfing destinations in the world. Ravi and 50% of the kids were excited to surf again, and we were eager to see this incredible point break of seemingly endless waves that we’d just read about. The original hotel we wanted to book didn’t have free cancellation, and we were gun shy to lock ourselves in to 3 nights without it, so we went with another highly rated beachfront hotel. It looked a little crappy in the pictures, and it was less expensive than the other one we wanted, but the traveler reviews were outstanding, so we reserved it. After 5 hours on the road, we finally drove up to The Sandy Beach Hotel and knew immediately we had made a mistake.
Sand crunched beneath the van tires as Lall parked in the tiny lot, in between a palm tree and a tuk tuk (the auto-rickshaw of Sri Lanka). We walked the narrow cement path that cut between small cottages until we got to ours. Nope. Don’t like it. Ravi unlocked the door, which opened immediately into the bed. Nope. He quickly turned and asked, “Do you want to go? Should we go somewhere else instead?” I did not want to be a brat, so I chirpily replied, “Let’s look at the whole space first.” Nope. This beachside cottage was a school for ants. Literally and figuratively. It was tiny and unkempt. I hated it in my bones, and imagined this feeling was what changed Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk. My skin felt hot with disappointment, but it was dinner time and I didn’t want to be the wet blanket that smothered anyone’s campfire. The kids seemed unfazed by our scroungy accommodations, so I put on my best “Mom” smile, and we walked down the sandy beach lane to enjoy some wood fired pizza.
We walked back to the beach after dinner to discuss our plans. As the kids gave pets and scratches to a couple of the stray dogs that were close by, Ravi and I decided this would be our first and last night on this end of Arugam Bay. The Sandy Beach Hotel was full of bugs AND full of lies. Our conclusion was that those glowing reviews were created under false pretenses, and we fell victim to them.
Sometimes you cannot help but fall into tourist traps while you’re, you know, a tourist. Ravi would describe our experience in Arugam Bay as just that. A huge tourist trap. Strangely, though it was off season when we went, there were a multitude of tourists, mainly Russian and Eastern European, and it totally threw Ravi and me off. The surf lineup at Whiskey Point (the best surf break) was very crowded and peddlers all carrying the same “handmade” shark tooth and seashell jewelry flocked to us like hungry seagulls to an unguarded sandwich. This was not the peaceful beach trip we had planned so off we headed 30 minutes away to the more desolate side of the bay.
Talk about a 180. The Riva Del Sole was a unique, boutique venue consisting of 6 or so individual A-frame cabins. Each faced the same direction, toward a central courtyard on the property, but was staggered to give every unit some privacy. The ocean was a pleasant 3 or so minute walk away, and we were often accompanied by up to 10 stray dogs. Sri Lanka is similar to India in this respect: they both have a stray dog issue. The water here was wild and rough and though everyone played in it no one wanted to surf anymore. It happens. Since we were so far removed from civilization in our new location we opted to eat at their small outdoor, covered restaurant for our meals over the next 2 nights. This quickly added up and in the end we paid more there than we did at the 5-star Hilton. So many lessons learned on this trip!
Please stay tuned for Part 3 of 3 of our Sri Lanka trip!