The Adventures of Michalina: Sri Lanka: Mirissa and Galle

Apologies for the very long hiatus.... The wifi in Sri Lanka is hard to find and when you can find it, it's not very good! So I have been leaning in favour of sipping from coconuts on the beach than blogging. Apologies again.... hehe

Jan. 12
We arrived in Sri Lanka early in the morning, and eventually navigated several public buses to go straight to Mirissa beach, which is several hours south of Colombo airport.

Mirissa is gorgeous! The beaches are sandy and lined with coconut trees. And there are interesting big rock points to explore with cool creatures. Some people surf here as well. It is a very touristy place, so guesthouses and food are expensive and not that great, but there are plenty of restaurants on the beach to have a beer at (which also all offer happy hour from 3-9 with half priced cocktails!!) The goal of our stay in Mirissa was to rest up before Darwyn started his tours. We spent a few days here hanging out on the beach, drinking/eating coconuts, finding the best restaurants, and getting sunburnt.

We found one amazing restaurant that served delicious rice and curry (what you are supposed to eat for pretty much every meal in Sri Lanka). It was run by Lucky and Dami. Lucky did the serving, and his wife, Dami, was the master chef. She grows many of the spices she uses in her backyard, and blends them up to create custom spice blends for different dishes every week. She let us smells these spice blends one night, and they smelled amazing! No wonder her food tasted so great! She also didn’t use MSG like other restaurants.

After some R&R in Mirissa, we made our way to Galle to meet up with Dag and Maria for a couple days. We had an awesome time testing out restaurants (some good, some not so good) and activities for their guests on the upcoming tour Dar was helping with. We went on a great bike ride to a beautiful little temple and a small tea plantation/factory. Darwyn made friends with a tiny puppy along the way. We are still plotting how to smuggle a puppy back home….

Galle is a very interesting town. Most of the attraction for tourists is in the fort, which was made by the Dutch. The streets in the fort are tiny alleys and the buildings are white and terra cotta coloured. It looks like a chunk of Spain got dropped in the tropics! We spent a few days exploring here. We walked along the fort walls by the ocean, checked out little restaurants and shops, and had gelato. Outside the fort is the new town, which is much crazier. We did some exploring here too, mostly to find a wine corkscrew (which, due to the stinginess and resourcefulness of Darwyn, ended up being a wide-thread screw and some carabiners. It worked!)

Dar and I parted ways on the 17th. He went up near Colombo to greet the guests, and I found a new guesthouse to stay at in the new town. I made friends with an English girl living in Australia right away, and we explored and ate lunch together the next day. She left for the airport that afternoon, but then I met a girl from Germany and we went out to dinner. It’s easy to make friends!

One day I went on a whale watching tour back in Mirissa. It was amazing!!! I chose the company because it abides by the whale watching regulations, i.e. not getting too close to the whales. Other companies harass the whales a lot! It was a great time, although we spent 8 hours on the water, which I wasn’t expecting! Anyway we saw 4 great blue whales, giant sea turtles, and flying fish. One turtle was tangled in a big net, and one of our tour guides jumped out of the boat, hauled him on board, and cut the net off. There was still a very tight bit of net on its fin but hopefully it can survive now. I also saw one fish jump out of the water and “walk” on its tail!! After the tour, I also found a giant land snail and saw some beautiful butterflies.

The next day I made my way up to Colombo to meet up with a new group of friends. Remember Josh from Australia who we shared our train troubles with? Well he is now in Sri Lanka too so I met up with him and his friends that he met in Africa on their Sri Lanka adventure. It has worked out so well! Their friend Mark who is from Sri Lanka is organizing the tour. I have been getting on great with all the people in the your. They are all gems! There are 4 of us girls and 3 boys and we are all wreaking havoc all over Sri Lanka. I intended only to stay with them for 4 days, but I have decided to stay with them for several more. The traveling is just too easy and it’s too fun! More about that in the next post!

We found a little hermit crab friend

A different friend on the beach

Mirissa sunsets.... different every day!

Flowers in the trees at the tea plantation

Vegetable market in Galle

A really cool vegetable that has stretchy and very strong threads when it is broken. You can stretch them out and it still holds! They felt like spiderwebs.