Day 112 Ahangama and Galle, Sri Lanka

Day 112 – Hers.

Our hotel is fantastically clean, quiet and comfortable and we were allowed a lie-in this morning – breakfast wasn’t until 8:30 – so I had a brilliant night’s sleep and didn’t want to get up even then.....  By the time we emerged, several members of our group had already had a swim, a walk, a run....this is truly a lovely, relaxing way to end our travels.

We boarded the bus at 9:00 and were taken to a sea turtle conservation project.   The centre is located on one of the main stretches of beach frequented by turtles for laying their eggs.  They ‘rescue’ any eggs laid during the night before the locals can dig them up – or pay a higher price than the food market – and then rebury them inside the compound.  After two months, when the eggs have hatched and another 5 days for their shells to harden on the underside, the turtles are released on the beach to crawl down to the sea and swim away.  The project has been going for 21 years – and as it takes a sea turtle 30 years to reach maturity, they have another nine years to wait before the first returnees.  It is quite an important project globally – there are seven types of sea turtles in the world and Sri Lanka has five of them.

The centre also provides an A&E hospital for injured turtles, reintroducing them to the wild once they have recovered.  One large turtle currently in residence has an amputated front fin (“Ooooh – a paralympic turtle,” said the vivacious English medical practice manager, with the quote of the day....) but will still be released when he has put on enough weight to be able to dive.

We then drove on to Galle, a World Heritage fort site and clearly a major holiday destination of the not far distant future.  The number of construction and restoration projects underway in this amazingly well-preserved colonial fort city was quite astounding.  The shopping is already better than any of the places we have visited; there are also already quite a few lovely cafes and restaurants – and the vibe is very like Antigua in Guatemala – a great place for a holiday – or investment.... We spent half an hour in one cafe talking to a local about the opportunities for foreign investors.  There are no restrictions on foreigners buying property – and no residency requirements, very unusual in such a desirable place.  We saw the international cricket ground – where New Zealand would be playing Sri Lanka today if they hadn’t lost the test match in 3 days....(The Aussie cricket fans were sorry to have missed it but not surprised at the result) and the colourful markets and large commercial area in the city outside the fort walls.   Rob suddenly announced that he would be quite happy living here – quite an admission given the heat and humidity......

After 3 ½ hours of cafes, shopping and strolling along the walls of the fort, we returned to the hotel along the coastal road – noticing again the remnants of buildings destroyed in the tsunami. Deva told us of several people he knew who were killed.  Apparently, it was a Full Moon Day (a holiday) in Sri Lanka – and hundreds of thousands of people had headed for the beach for picnics and outings.  The train that was washed away (with worldwide media coverage) was on a bit of track just down the road from here – 1,200 people were on that train and only one boy survived.  In addition to the 40-50,000 fatalities, over 2 million people in Sri Lanka lost their homes.  Deva told us that even though the civil war was still going on, the whole country pitched in to provide food and emergency aid to all of the affected areas – perhaps that was even the beginning of the reconciliation.....

We have noticed as we have travelled around that there are distinct ethnic/religious groups in different areas.  The Hindu Tamils live mainly in the northeast – which is still largely undeveloped for tourists as there are many landmines to be cleared – or in villages strewn amongst the tea plantations (though many of these are actually Indian Tamils who have immigrated).  The south coast has a large Muslim population and the southeast and east coast have many Christians – a legacy of the Portuguese and Dutch colonial settlements.  The Sinhalese majority, though, is largely Buddhist – and pure white stupas dot the countryside even here.

We arrived back at the hotel at around 2:00 and swam, napped, read – generally chilled – for the rest of the afternoon.  Truly a wonderful end to a wonderful trip – okay, not quite the end....we still have Colombo to go....

Day 112 – His.

 So this isn’t quite the end of the trip as we still have another day to go but people are starting to leave. One of the guys has arranged to meet his girlfriend in Galle so won’t be coming to Colombo with us and several of the others have flights out mid afternoon to early evening tomorrow. So, we decided to have the traditional last night meal tonight instead of tomorrow. It was a lot of fun and Deva pulled out the stops by hiring a DJ and we danced into the wee hours (that's 10pm in Sri Lanka....). As Patti said a great ending.