A month between Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Dec. 2003

Departure and Journey

Friday We get up at 5:00. At 7:30 the plane for Frankfurt departs from Budapest - a Malev flight. In Frankfurt a 5-hour wait at the airport. There are even little beds to sleep on. Too bad we're not sleepy yet. To pass the time we watch the people cleaning the windows... quite a feat! They must have hired expert climbers since the airport's glass panes are at least 30 metres tall! Then we drink a few "German" beers...... with a taste of wurst. I order wrong and I see two white wursts floating in a cup of boiling water arrive. As for Giampaolo, on the other hand, they get his order wrong (and they apologise) but..... they bring him the wursts I wanted to eat! But he keeps them! Finally at 13:30 we board. The plane is beautiful. Ultramodern. Besides TV, radio, telephone and video games, there are even cameras placed at the front and below the plane.

From the front camera the view of the takeoff is exceptional! It's like sitting next to the pilot. The service on SriLankan Airlines is excellent. The plane is also almost empty so we can even stretch out to sleep!... even though we don't sleep much! We arrive in Colombo at 5:00 local time on 6 December 2003-Saturday

Colombo-Anuradhapura

Saturday Passport control reasonably quick, baggage delivery less so. In fact, the baggage isn't delivered at all! It stayed in Frankfurt! After filling out various forms they assure us they'll deliver the backpacks, whenever they arrive, wherever we are. They make a copy of my travel itinerary. Then they give us a voucher to present at the bank. We'll receive some money for the purchases we need at the moment. Wow!!! They give us a whole 189 Dollars! On top of that we also save the luggage deposit for the day. What more could you want from life?...... After the usual withdrawal of local cash at the airport ATM we get the "taxi voucher" at a special counter (920 Rupees) and off to Colombo! It's almost 8:00 by now. The traffic is enormous. The circulation is chaotic.

It takes over an hour to get to Colombo! At Forth station we buy the tickets for Anuradhapura with a seat reservation on the Intercity Express which, they tell us, leaves at 16:30 (......strange, I had it down as 15:50) but it's also written on the ticket! We venture on foot through the little streets of Pettah, the old commercial centre (let's say market) of Colombo. It's not as interesting as the Chinese quarter or the Saturday market in Bangkok but it's quite picturesque... We buy two plastic bags to put the various jumpers, gloves, etc. in. Here they're not needed and they weigh you down! It's hot and we're starting to get sleepy too! We decide to take a Three-Wheeler that for 500 Rs (about 5 dollars) takes us around for a couple of hours. Among other things we see the Hindu Temple on Jewellers' Street (where a guy insists on making us touch his snake....

with my daughter screaming in fear and running away... and another very relaxing temple on the water in the Cinnamon district. It's the Malakaya Temple. We end up in a shopping centre to drink something. It's incredible but we haven't seen a bar on the street in two hours of wandering. We talk about it over a soft drink and a beer. We don't like Colombo, it's a jumble of chaotic and dirty little alleys in the middle of ultra-modern buildings and mega shopping centres. There are districts that seem to belong only to foreigners or to those who work with foreigners and others crammed only with poor people. It reminds you of a South American city more than Asia. But I've never seen India.... At midday we have another Three-Wheeler take us to the Grand Oriental Hotel. We choose its restaurant on the top floor. View over the port. The restaurant is very distinctive.

It has an old-style English colonial elegance and the staff are dressed in white with blue silk sashes. We eat! There's a huge buffet. The prawns are super spicy! First encounter with the "spicy" cuisine of Sri Lanka. At the end of the lavish meal we taste the Arrack! (a distillate derived from the processing of coconut) which will accompany us throughout our trip. We're incredibly sleepy. We go to the seafront and fall asleep on the benches while our children play on the beach. Young Sri Lankans stroll along the water's edge with their girlfriends: chatting, laughing, going into the water fully clothed. Today is Saturday! And the sun is out!!!! (Ed. note: It's the first time in our trip that we arrive at a destination and it doesn't rain!) Around 16:00 we move to the station.

After a moment of panic because some people tell us that the train to Anuradhapura has already left (with me shouting "I told you it was at 15:50!!!") we calm down because instead the train is there, and it arrives on platform 7! That's certain. Less certain is the reserved carriage because we have "E" and the train has B C D and F............ the E??... we sit in carriage F but they immediately come to claim the seats...... It turns out that carriage E is there but it's at the front, before the "A". A young man explains to me in perfect English that it's not necessarily the case that the letters have to be in sequence! If you think about it, who said that??? Who said that on trains the letters have to be in alphabetical order? At 16:30 sharp the Intercity Express train (also equipped with ceiling fans) departs! And the adventure begins...

the train makes an incredible noise and sways terrifyingly then, once it picks up speed, it also starts jumping... Carlotta and I laugh like crazy.... I warn Giampaolo not to put his arm out of the window because it could suddenly fall on him (I read that this happened to a traveller... who broke his fingers). Where the carriages join, meanwhile, the metal plates serving as gangways jump like mad, even lifting 50-60 cm. one from the other!!! The scenery, though, is beautiful, little lakes, hills, endless stretches of rice paddies and then jungle, then again waterways, rice paddies and jungle. We also witness the twist of a traveller being hit by a stone on the head......... Rescued and bandaged, he sparks panic among the travellers, so all the passengers set about closing - not so much the windows - but iron shutter-windows with slits to let the air through.

Who knows why they're there?! Maybe they often throw stones??? Anyway, since they've "turned off" the scenery for us...... we devote ourselves to observing the inside of the train. The passengers are kind to us... they even offer us peanuts, or rather little roasted chickpeas. They're all well dressed and speak good English. They're going on holiday too. We're the only tourists on board, or at least the only non-Asians! At 20:30 sharp we arrive in Anuradhapura! (and who said that transport in Sri Lanka isn't punctual?!) There the classic Three-Wheeler sent by Hotel Shalini comes to pick us up. And I ask myself "...and if we'd had our luggage?!" I didn't yet know that a Three-Wheeler in Sri Lanka can easily carry two children, two adults and four backpacks.. plus various pieces of hand luggage.... Hotel Shalini is cosy and clean.

They gave us a huge room with five beds (two doubles + a single... which would have been very useful for resting our bags on if we'd had them!). We have dinner based on rice and curry (I'd say excellent compared to the ones eaten later.....) and then at 23:00 we go to bed. First night in Sri Lanka in a bed.. after 37 hours without having had the pleasure of touching one!!!!

Anuradhapura

Sunday Up very early, at least we two adults... so that we have the chance to steal with the camcorder the image of our "kittens" sleeping deeply under the mosquito net (which wouldn't even be needed...). Breakfast. Bicycle rental and off to visit Anuradhapura. The sun is out. The sacred city of Anuradhapura is immense. We decide to start from the highest point and come back down. So we begin with the Moonstone site and gradually, among the various more or less ancient Dagobas, we reach the Bodhi Tree. Today is Sunday so it's a pilgrimage day. There are loads of people bringing offerings, all barefoot, all elegant, the women wrapped in their multicoloured saris with children in hand, starving monkeys stealing snacks from the little faithful.....

Here we discover that apart from the obligation to remove shoes and hat, you can theoretically enter the sacred places with your belly bare but you must have your shoulders and legs covered. Since I'm wearing a sleeveless top they make me put a sari on! For the trousers there's no problem since we're still wearing our winter ones. After a disastrous fall off the bicycle by yours truly, we go to lunch at the Rest House near the Tissaweva tank. It's very typical, in old style with lots of green spaces. The cleanliness, though, is definitely better at our family-run guesthouse. The last stop is at the Isurumuniya Vihara from the 3rd century BC, where the famous sculpture of the lovers is also kept. On the way back to the hotel we stop to buy a spare t-shirt and some light shorts for Carlotta....

It's the least we could do! A pointless purchase anyway because during the night our luggage will arrive. Dinner once again excellent, Arrack and exchanges of opinion about the day. I realise that we only left Europe on Friday and we've already seen so many things.......

Mihintale-Pollonaruva

Monday After breakfast we go to Mihintale by Three-Wheeler, which is our favourite means of transport! Mihintale is stunning, an ancient sacred city immersed in the jungle and built on a hill, at the top of which you arrive through hundreds and hundreds of steps carved into the rock, but not too steep. Many polio sufferers beg on the stairs. We're not prepared and we don't have small change. We're forced to pretend not to notice and we feel bad about it. We'll organise ourselves from tomorrow! Continuing through the jungle and the monkeys, past the various ruins of temples and monasteries, we reach the great meditation place, located on the highest peak of the mountain.

A "pseudo guide" who speaks Italian and who has attached himself to Giampaolo follows us the whole way and we manage to "get rid of him" only when we start heading back down, after also having had to fork out some money which we give him if only because he helped Carlotta on a difficult stretch! We come back down the other side of the mountain, passing the great Dagoba built on the hill opposite. The landscape from there is beautiful. We return to the hotel with our Three-Wheeler which takes us along a little road by the tank, very scenic. Thanks. A quick lunch with a Club Sandwich and then we go (again by Three-Wheeler) to the bus station...... this time we have our backpacks too and we discover that miraculously they fit!!! At the station there are loads of people, but there are also lots of buses. Today is Full Moon day or Poya. It's a holiday. A day dedicated to prayer (poya indeed).

We find four comfortable seats on the bus to Polonnaruwa. They tie our backpacks near the driver's seat. We're still the only tourists, but really we've seen very few even in Anuradhapura and Mihintale... The route is scenic and peaceful. The driver is cautious. The journey is pleasant (here too there are ceiling fans!!!) and there are also improvised musicians complete with "tambourines". We also stop at a rest stop. After exactly 4 hours (we continue to be amazed by the punctuality since we were prepared for the opposite...) we arrive in Polonnaruwa. The backpacks are tied so well that we can't untie them... three of them work on it! One of these characters will be a recurring encounter in the coming days..... We take the "mythical" Three-Wheeler and have ourselves taken to Hotel SuduAralyia.

We had booked here via the Internet, in a nice place with a pool, along the tank south of Polonnaruwa. The hotel is indeed very nice, it has a pool and a marvellous garden on the lake shore, the room for four is huge, with a minibar, A/C (which I detest by the way), television, etc etc. It's also very clean! And all this for 88 USD per day (about 72 euros) including dinner and breakfast for the whole family! A dip in the pool, welcome cocktail.... À la carte dinner..., the usual Arrack as a digestif and off to bed. (after washing almost all of Carlotta's little clothes because all the shampoo had spilled into her backpack).

Pollonaruwa

Tuesday After breakfast (at 7:30) they bring us the bicycles we had ordered the evening before. And here we meet the gentleman from the day before again. He's the bicycle man! He leads the way towards the first ruins of Polonnaruwa (the ones at the far south). Here there's the statue of the king of Polonnaruwa with a book in his hand?! Or with a piece of Papaya?... Then we move north. The road running along the tank shore is beautiful, there are women washing clothes, husbands fishing and children running around you. We give the children some biro pens that we brought from Europe on the advice of a friend. Then we meet the bicycle man again. European tourists continue to be nowhere to be seen. And to think I booked the hotels here in the area of the ancient cities because I imagined it would be crowded....

We take a couple of photos of the splendid landscape and then continue our journey by bike towards the northernmost point. The last metres uphill we do on foot. So hot!. The Temple of the Images is beautiful. It was worth climbing all the way up here. A beautiful temple in the middle of the jungle with many sculptures and carvings. There are also thousands of little dwarfs carved around the whole perimeter which Lonely Planet describes as "leaping". We observe them for a long time.... to us they really give a sense of stillness! Points of view?! We come back down, stopping at the various points of interest, the Great Vihara, Shiva Temple, the quadrangle, the royal palace. Polonnaruwa isn't as ancient a city as Anuradhapura because it was built between 1000 and 1200, but it's beautiful.

At 14:00 we finish the visit and after the last photos on the king's pool of stunning shape (in reality it served as a water tank). We eat at the Rest House. There too, outside, there's the bicycle man.... He's omnipresent! Then we return to the hotel. At the hotel entrance, who do we see again? The bicycle man. He makes us a great offer: for 2000 Rupees tomorrow he'd drive us to Sigiriya via Dambulla. The price is excellent (probably because he saw us arrive by bus...) so we accept. A dip in the pool and sunset over the lake. Dinner. Bed.

Dambulla-Sigirya

Wednesday 8:30 after breakfast (mine always based on curry...) we set off. The car with driver negotiated yesterday takes us through beautiful scenery to Dambulla. There we climb our 532 steps (Carlotta and I counted them!!!) to go and admire the cave temples. Five caves, each with its own story, each tied to a different era. The ancient frescoes on the rock walls are fantastic. The portico running along the mountainside where the caves open looks like the one at our house.....(so, beautiful!!). There are loads of monkeys. Here we learn, in spite of ourselves, about one of the rites of Buddhism. Basically while Carlotta and I were busy photographing (with the phone) a nice little monkey with its baby clinging to its neck....... A huge explosion-like noise behind us and splashes of liquid on us... a terrible fright......

Do you know what it was? When a believer has lots of problems he goes to the temple, takes a coconut, two coconuts... depending on how many problems he has, and hurls them to the ground hoping they'll break. If the coconut breaks the problem goes away along with the liquid that comes out of it (let's hope it didn't stick to us....). Around 12:30 we arrive in Sigiriya at the Rest House, a three-bed room booked via the Internet - 33 USD including dinner and breakfast without air conditioning. With air conditioning it was 42 USD. Since I detest air conditioning I said to myself why spend 9 dollars more??? And here you immediately learn something quite common in Sri Lanka: an A/C room doesn't mean it just has the A/C but usually it's also much nicer. Indeed when they show us the room we're shocked...

Peeling and even dirty walls, three beds just plonked in the middle of the room, a bathroom in urgent need of renovation..... "Oh well, - we say to ourselves - for one night we'll make do...." Meanwhile Matteo arrives and says "mummyyyy... look, on the other side there are some beautiful rooms!". We go to see... indeed stunning, with curtains, red velvet drapes, minibar, ultra-modern bathroom, really tasteful bedspreads, pictures on the walls.. I go to reception and ask... excuse me... those rooms?! Ah.. he says.. those have air conditioning, you booked the one without. Yes but excuse me, apart from the air conditioning they're also a completely different thing... I mean a world apart... We have a good laugh about it and so for 9 USD of difference we change rooms to everyone's delight!! We have lunch, very good I'd say, then we set off for the ascent to the rock.

Outside the resthouse they convince us to take a three-wheeler to get to the entrance, claiming that the path I knew about didn't exist and that there was more than a km to walk... (which wasn't true because on the way back we did it on foot and also saw where the path was!)....... We enter from the side of the King's water gardens, with pools, flowerbeds placed on different levels, ancient stairways carved into the rock. From there you start to climb, I think it's about 1500 steps or more to reach the top but it's absolutely not tiring and it's particularly fascinating. Through narrow paths, walls and tunnels, frescoes and inscriptions you reach the platform from which the last staircase starts (this time in iron) which climbs up the side of the mountain. Here, guys..... I had to overcome my fear of heights...

and after having climbed right up to the top of Sigiriya I can no longer allow myself to tell people that I suffer from vertigo....... The panorama, though, repays any hesitation. And it's not just a panorama, it's a sense of deep peace that envelops you. Among the remains of this royal palace perched at 200 m, with its gardens and, here too, the inevitable "pool" which after more than 1500 years still collects water... and where fish still splash around inside.... You wouldn't be surprised to see Kasypa pop out from behind a corner. In the evening a nice dinner, we ask about the departure of the bus (they say every half hour) we down a nice little bottle of arrack to recover our strength (it was a day full of steps....) and off to bed, after Matteo's last ice-cream binge (8 tubs!!)

Sigirya-Negombo

Thursday 6:30 wake-up. Quick breakfast. Paying the bill. We wait for the bus. The receptionist makes us his umpteenth, rock-bottom offer (yesterday we had already refused two, at 5000 and 4000 rupees respectively...): 3,200 rupees to take us as far as Negombo (4 hours minimum...). We quickly weigh up the fact that by bus it'll take us at least seven... (with two changes and having to go through Colombo) and so we accept! Indeed at 12:30 we're already in Negombo at our "All Inclusive" hotel, full of more or less young Germans... I mean practically our hotel looks like the destination of trips for the elderly... no big deal, there's also aqua aerobics.... Negombo beach is like any ocean beach, sandy, wavy with sufficiently murky water. We sunbathe all day, also so as not to arrive in the Maldives tomorrow with the cyclist's tan that we all have! We drink, we eat...

At 16:30 Giampaolo and I decide to go and see the Dutch Canals near the port. We look for a bicycle rental that we can't find but asking here and there we immediately find a family that "rents" us theirs. Mine is acceptable, Giampaolo's is a disaster..... But we need it to get to the centre... blimey, over 5 km.... Pant pant... Armed with a camera and camcorder (strictly with an almost flat battery...) we photograph the fish market... an enormous square, filthy, full of black crows and cows... with all the fish drying and the fishermen re-mending their nets. A stench.... but stunning colours! We pass in front of the old Dutch fort and reach the canals. They're beautiful and we arrive just in time to capture the sunset! Too bad my camcorder battery has run out... Anyway Giampaolo takes some beautiful slides.

Then at the end of the roll, during the last winding, you can tell the film breaks... "It's broken..!". We head back towards the hotel looking for a photographer who has a darkroom... but nothing... oh well... we'll try tomorrow morning. After dinner (the buffet wasn't bad at all) Chris comes to visit us, a friend of an Hungarian acquaintance of ours who worked in Sri Lanka a few years ago. He's Sri Lankan. Very nice, we chat all evening, he promises he'll book us the tickets for the scenic train to Kandy (something we hadn't managed to do because you can't book more than 3 days in advance). When we get back from the Maldives he'll get them for us! Around midnight we go to bed... and here the Fantozzi-style scene happens. Yours truly, to kill an insect spotted on the ceiling by Matteo, in a fit of recklessness puts her hand through the blades of the moving fan, hurting herself badly....

The insect survives!!... the hand less so...

Negombo-Malé

Friday Bright and early we go looking for a photographer by three-wheeler... but it's so early that they're still closed. We wait. Once the business of the roll of film is sorted out (which had indeed broken), we go back to the hotel and have breakfast. They let us keep the room until 16:00. That's good, so we can go to the airport after a nice shower. A day of lounging on the beach. Lunch. Then we play a bit at "mongalizza" in the waves, luggage and off we go! (Ed. note: mongalizza is a type of curly-haired Hungarian pig) The plane for Malé is at 19:20 and they told us to get to the airport 3 hours before!! It seems excessive to me but since we first have to go to the SriLankan Airlines offices to see about moving the return tickets (we have the return at 6:00 in the morning on 1 January....) at 16:00 we leave the hotel. The waiting lists we're on for 4 January are still "waiting".

We check in and then wander around the airport... Who knows why they call you 3 hours before?! Next time we'll only come 2 hours before! We arrive in Malé at 19:45 local time. At the airport we meet someone from the village of Halaveli who tells us to be at the airport the next morning at 6:50.... I tell him we had to phone Mr. Solih, he tells me that Mr. Solih has left... Anyway we decide, just to be safe, to phone Mr. Solih anyway as soon as we get to the hotel. We take the taxi boat to the centre of Malé and then, backpacks on our shoulders, we set off on foot towards our hotel booked via the Internet, it's not far. Meanwhile Giampaolo complains about how all the other tourists left on super luxury boats....?! We arrive at the Buruneege residence where, after half an hour of waiting....

we find the horrible surprise that the suite with red curtains and four beds booked on the Internet is nothing but an ugly, shabby room with two beds, no windows, opening onto a restaurant room... And this for 65 USD?! I get very angry, even more so. At that point they put me on the phone with the "manager" who asks me how much I'm willing to pay..... Not even a cent! We leave.... After a couple of attempts we find for 70 USD a nice three-bed room at Hotel Kam (think, it was right opposite the pier where we'd got off the water-taxi... ha ha ha...). We inform the village (which confirms that Mr. Solih is in Sri Lanka) that we're in a new hotel... They say they'll come and pick us up tomorrow morning at 8:30 to take us to the airport. OK! After a quick shower we go to see the town of Malé. Giampaolo, who had been there 30 years ago, finds it completely changed.

Indeed it presents itself as a modern little town, well kept, clean and organised. We drink a nice bottle of sparkling wine (strictly non-alcoholic) in a little bar where Matteo and Carlotta fight over enormous ice creams (not without consequences...)! Then we head back to the hotel and passing in front of a hotel we peek into the party of a Muslim wedding.... such elegance! Our hotel has a pool too but on our return we no longer feel like swimming and besides, it'd be ridiculous to have your first swim in the Maldives in a pool in Malé, right?!

Malé-Halaveli

Saturday At 8:30 sharp a representative of our village arrives to pick us up.... He walks us to the pier, puts us on a water-taxi (which we pay for) that goes to the airport and explains that there we'll find another representative... Well..... he could have saved himself the effort and told us on the phone, we'd have managed on our own.... Anyway we arrive at the seaplane terminal and wait..., they offer us tea and coffee.... And we wait... at 10:30 they finally load us onto a nice red seaplane, which looks lovely against the blue sea... The seaplane experience is exceptional. The pilots are in shorts and no shoes. The panorama is breathtaking. After two intermediate stops in two other atolls, we arrive at the Halaveli platform. But there no one can be seen. The village looks nice from there...

but how do we get there?! After ten minutes of waiting the seaplane captain, who evidently by contract couldn't abandon us on the platform, pulls out his mobile phone which has an immediate effect. After two minutes we see some Maldivians come running along the pier, jump onto the boat moored there and set off to reach us!!!... Maybe they didn't see us arrive... but it's strange that they didn't "hear" us because in the quiet of the Maldives a landing seaplane doesn't go unnoticed! Welcome cocktail, various formalities then they accompany us to the room, beautiful, spacious, with a nice big bed and two other comfortable beds, a nice veranda and the tap for washing your feet before going in... two metres from the sea........ Once the room and wardrobes are organised we have a nice swim and then we go to eat... They're all Italians........ well well...... it's a Grandi Viaggi village..

better this way, maybe Matteo and Carlotta will make friends. Bad news, there isn't a single child! Today is Saturday. We have 8 days to spend here.

Maldives 14-21 December

Let's sum up our stay in the Maldives: gorgeous sea, wonderful weather, nice village, marvellous beach (both for swimming and snorkelling), good food. During the week other Italian children arrived, so our kids had a great time.... We, on the other hand, after five days started to get a bit bored...... apart from a couple of snorkelling trips, "endless" walks around the island both on foot and by canoe, the seven o'clock appointment on the pier to see the manta rays and the sharks that come to shore to nibble on what the tourists throw them...

With a pile of books read and a few photos taken, tanned like Africans, everything around us flowed slowly and pleasantly except that....: During a quiet evening, while we were having our aperitif, two couples arrive who practically never sat at our table and say to us "can we sit here with you?!" But of course!!! And blimey, they start telling me they had found enormous spiders in their room (both in one and the other), big black hairy ones, and even ones that jumped. Damn them... couldn't they have told someone else?! Me, who the only "beast" I can't stand is the spider... and then that it jumps...?! After the first two nights spent scrutinising the room from top to bottom, sealing the bathroom door and having insecticides sprayed around, I established that they couldn't get into our room! Case closed. In fact, we never saw any. We still wonder whether they really were spiders...

could it be that they were actually crabs?

Halaveli-Malé-Colombo-Kandy

Sunday After paying a frightening string of extras (in two rounds.... one last night and one this morning... because maybe they were embarrassed to charge us all at once) they take us at 7:30 to the platform where we arrived, where we wait for the seaplane which, right on time, arrives (thank goodness, because in an hour and a half we have our flight to Colombo!) On the plane to Colombo it's freezing..... the air conditioning is on full blast... everyone is wearing heavy jackets... they're lucky because coming from Zurich they have them at hand....... We land in Colombo right on time, it's 11:50. We try to call Chris, our Sri Lankan friend who among other things should have picked up our tickets for Kandy. We were supposed to have lunch together. Unfortunately he can't come to lunch with us.

He has a relative in hospital but he'll make a quick stop at the restaurant to give us the tickets. Really kind of him! After a brief visit to the Sri Lanka Airlines offices for our waiting lists... (in vain this time too) we go back to the Taxi counter where two weeks ago they were selling the coupon for the centre of Colombo for 920 Rupees.. They tell us that taxi counter doesn't work for foreigners... so I protest.. and two weeks ago?! They tell us IMPOSSIBLE... Fine, sometimes things change. We go outside. There are taxis for foreigners! 1500 rs. We start arguing... but why, if two weeks ago I paid 920, do I have to pay 1500 now? In the end we agree on 1000! We decide to go back to eat at the Oriental Hotel, besides the view is wonderful and the food is good... Chris joins us and gives us the tickets. We insist on paying but he says it's his welcome gift in his country.

Abuwayan! At 15:15 we go to the station. The train leaves at 15:35. It's Sunday, thank goodness we booked..... Our carriage is the panoramic one so you can't go wrong, it's the last one! You travel sitting facing backwards and the final part of the train consists of a large glass window! This time there are two couples of foreign tourists besides us! The train travels like the other one. It sways and jolts... but by now we're used to it. I make friends and chat a bit with a Sri Lankan lady. She's from Kandy, speaks good English, they came to Colombo today since it's Sunday to have a look around, with their 5 children, all boys! My Carlotta arouses curiosity, so blonde... As we head into the hills the scenery becomes really beautiful, waterfalls, mountains, and jungle jungle jungle... Every now and then some plateau cultivated with rice paddies and then jungle.

The railway line here also serves as a footpath but when the train arrives everyone disappears into the jungle..... and then re-emerges.. as if from nowhere. It's wonderful to see from this position the swarming crowd of people who, as soon as the train has passed, reappear on the tracks in their dozens and in a line. At 18:00 we arrive in Kandy. I booked by phone at the hotel Queens (I had chosen another family-run one but there was no way to find a room). On arrival the hotel looks very good. A beautiful colonial building right in the centre of Kandy, a stone's throw from the Temple of the Tooth and right on the lake. The lobby very impressive. Friendly staff. They give us the rooms. Rather ugly but above all dirty... Is air conditioning the problem here too? No, they show us others... all the same.

The description certainly doesn't match the one in the Lonely Planet, with the antique bedspreads?!!. Anyway we settle into our two adjoining rooms and sort out our luggage. We unpack everything too since we'll be here three nights! Then I go to call housekeeping and politely ask them to clean.... because the bathroom is disgusting too, the tiles... the toilet flush leaks... the one in the kids' room too. Under the beds it's full of "furballs"... dust ones, thank goodness. Meanwhile we go downstairs to have a drink. The story of the cleaning that took place is told by my son Matteo: "Two of them arrived in the room with a dirty rag, ruined like the one we use to clean the dog.

One went into the bathroom with the rag, wet it a bit and banged it on the floor, then with one leg he jumped on it and from the semi-wet rag came out so much dirt that instead of cleaning it, the bathroom got even dirtier. Then without even rinsing the rag he came out of the bathroom and gave it to the other one who had asked him for it. The one who no longer had the rag started kicking the bed to move it so the other could clean the floor with his (dirty) rag. Then they went to the other side of the bed and pushed it back into place with their foot. Then it was the bedside table's turn, one of the two lifted it and then dropped it on the floor so one of the glasses fell..... Then they changed the towels and left." In the evening we decide to try a small local trattoria where we ate for very few dollars..

But everyone laid into me because they didn't like it!! Then again, you can't organise everything perfectly in two hours....

Kandy

Monday Breakfast at the Queens I'd say is exceptional! It definitely makes up for the level of the rooms... so much so that we decide to have dinner here too this evening. The restaurant appeals to us! We go straight to the Temple of the Tooth just in time to visit all the prayer halls, the elephant museum, etc. saving the main temple for 10:30 when the signal for the start of prayer is given with the sound of drums! It's the Kandy drummers. We also watch a ceremony that seems to recall a baptism but it's behind closed doors. We go to watch the opening of the door where the tooth is kept. You can see the golden casket. The sounds. Here it's the sounds that stay with you. The background drums (playing incessantly for an hour), the prayers rising melodiously from the choir of the faithful crowded along the stairs and wherever there is room.

The smells stay with you too, a shame that these can't somehow be "canned". After taking the routine photos with the elephant guarding the temple, we go to visit the smaller Hindu temples. We then visit the Kandy museum, where they try to sell us tickets for the dance show held at the cultural centre... We, given my distrust, don't buy them.... On the way out another character accosts us and in turn insistently tries to sell us these tickets... We go straight to the cultural centre. There we buy the tickets... but - in any case - from a shop assistant in the crafts centre located inside. He also reserves seats for us by marking our names on the chairs?!? The prices are identical everywhere. We haven't understood exactly how the ticket sales work.. but anyway we have them. There, moreover, we buy the most beautiful little craft objects we have seen around so far.

A shame that we still have so many days of "backpacking" ahead of us so we have to give up the bulkier things. A brass engraver creates on the spot a little elephant for Carlotta with her name engraved on it. It's a hit. We order another three for the evening to give as gifts to her friends. We have lunch there at the cultural centre: there's a very nice little restaurant. They don't serve alcohol but at midday one can do without. In the afternoon we continue the panoramic tour of Kandy in a tuk-tuk. We stop by the station to book the train towards Nuwara Elia and Ella for the day after tomorrow..... No room! They say we can risk it... but travelling standing for hours without enjoying the scenery of the mountain region is absurd. We'll have to get a taxi. We phone a guy we met last night in the tavern. He had offered to take us to Pinnewala to see the elephants tomorrow for 2000 rupees.

We confirm the job for him, then we'll discuss the rate with him for the following days. Appointment 8:30 at the Hotel Queens. We go to buy a small bottle of shampoo so we visit the commercial area of Kandy, I mean the area where they live, where their shops are, their restaurants, etc. We stop by SriLankan Airlines but still no news.... In fact they tell us that anyway the waiting list for the 4th via Frankfurt isn't valid because since our ticket is via Paris you can only change the date but not the route!!!! (great news!!!......) We put ourselves on the list for Paris but who knows, at this point not even a seat will turn up... We stop to browse in a shop of Batik, silks, saris, etc.. The prices seem to me rather high... but!? We don't have any terms of comparison yet. It's already late and we have to hurry to the show. We arrive at the cultural centre...

our seats "reserved" complete with a strip bearing our name are still there! Perfect. The Kandy dancers are good but the show gets tiring after a while... (there are even tourists sleeping...) We get to the final part where there are those who walk on hot coals and eat fire. Something to film!.... But the usual battery fails me! The show over, we go back to the hotel for dinner. While the men go up to the room for a moment, Carlotta and I slip into a covered market, exactly next to the hotel, where they sell shoes, clothes, saris, table linen, silks....... everything and at rock-bottom prices. Right away we notice that the exact same shirt that Giampaolo liked in the shop today costs a third here! We don't buy anything also because it's about to close but we promise ourselves we'll come back tomorrow evening! There are batiks too! Excellent dinner with Sri Lankan wine!!.

Kandy

Tuesday After a super abundant breakfast which in my case this morning consisted of extremely spicy curry with a kind of noodle shaped like nests (the Queens buffet is really excellent!) at 8:30 our driver comes to pick us up and we set off for Pinnewala, where the elephant orphanage is. We hadn't planned a stop because the Lonely Planet gave no information about guesthouses and hotels... but there are dozens of them!!! Even restaurants with terraces directly on the river where those ninety or so baby and also big elephants bathe. There's one poor thing without a little foot.... Matteo gets very angry because another elephant (very naughty!!) pushes him and he falls. He struggles to get back up... We bought the tickets which however in theory to see only the elephants' bath weren't needed.... They only check them on the other side of the road where the actual institute is...

which we go to visit but, while all the elephants are at the bath on the other side, there's absolutely nothing to see. Only a few elephants, and on top of that chained up, pretending to work. Visit over and heading back towards Kandy we have ourselves stopped for a moment at about 3 km. There's another elephant institute (the Millenium Elephant Foundation) where you can even have a little ride on one.. Very expensive! We take only one elephant and three of us go on it, me and the kids.... The elephant arrives, they put a big cushion on its back and help us climb on... scary... that time we went to Thailand there was the scaffolding with the little seats.... Fine.... Let's hope it doesn't decide to go down to the river.... A twenty-minute little ride in the countryside and back. The man from the institute offers to take our photos.... Not a single one came out...

never mind! Afterwards our driver insists on showing us a spice garden. Carlotta and I are in fits of laughter because the boy acting as guide, I don't know whether from shyness or something else, every time he finished a sentence gave a little laugh "hi hi hi hi". And this for the whole tour. The visit is free but they offer to sell us ointments and various oils... the same ones that at any Sri Lankan stall cost a quarter. We buy nothing, we leave a small tip. Our driver isn't outside because he got a flat tyre and went to change it.... We wait in the sun. Here it never rains, since 6 December we haven't seen a drop of rain.... We go into a little shop and discover some delicious Sri Lankan chocolate... we buy a few packets. Meanwhile our driver arrives and takes us to a restaurant, alas this time chosen by him.... A shame. We eat quickly and head towards Kandy.

Stop at the Botanical Garden. Not to be missed. At five we return to the Hotel and begin the negotiation with our driver for him to take us the next three days from Kandy to Dalohise, from Dalohise to Nuwara Elia and finally from Nuwara Elia to Tissamaharama (Yala Park) passing through Ella. Between a beer and an arrak we agree on 100 dollars all inclusive! (80 euros). Handshake and appointment for the next morning at 9:00! Colossal argument with the woman at reception whom I had begged in the morning to send an urgent fax for me (again for the plane business) and she didn't do it because it cost two dollars and 80 cents and she didn't know if I agreed. She does it right away! Then off to the little market and we do some shopping. Matteo finds a beautiful "Cavalli"-style shirt..2 dollars. Giampaolo buys two or three... In the end I buy nothing (the eternal indecisive one...).

Then a few batiks... a little jar of balm. Dinner at the Oriental always in the hotel. In the evening Giampaolo and I take a little stroll in the city. We buy a bottle of Arrak to take with us on our travels and some chocolates (the good ones!!). Then bed.

Kandy-Dalhoise (adam's pick)

Wednesday After yet another disappointment at the SriLankan Airlines offices... we set off! After a few metres the driver stops, gets out of the car, crosses the road, kneels before a small shrine and prays. Could it be a bad sign??? Then we begin our journey through the hills. It's a bit cloudy but we can't complain. Today, though, I choose the restaurant from my Lonely Planet. In Dickoya, and I do well because it's beautiful. The Upper Glenclairn is a building from the early 1900s, with glass windows and a terraced garden. It has a wonderful view over the lakes and is full of flowers. On top of that we also ate very well and spent practically nothing. After lunch we continue and reach Dalhoise. There I booked at the Green House. Two rooms for 4 dollars each.

You walk 200 metres on foot with backpacks on your shoulders since the Green House is at the very top of everything else, with "stilt" terraces and a final very very steep little stairway full of flowers and plants... so we get in training for tonight! We're here because tonight we're doing the climb of Adam's Peak! The driver, after an argument with the owner because she wouldn't give him a place to sleep, leaves. It seems that here in Sri Lanka everyone has free beds for the drivers who accompany tourists) but the lady of the Green House had also rented out the little sofa in the entrance for the night.. so...... We take possession of our simple but nice rooms, the lady offers us tea, we enjoy the view a bit, then we take a little stroll in the village....

Many pilgrims are arriving, some with blankets, others armed with very heavy woollen hats, others with backpacks and sleeping bags... very few tourists. Some pilgrims are bathing in the stream. It's the ritual, they purify themselves before the pilgrimage. It's so beautiful. You also start to hear sounds. The sounds of Sri Lanka. We take a stroll around the stalls, men and women separately: we have to buy a few little gifts for Christmas to exchange with each other tomorrow evening but.... We've chosen exactly the right place! Here there are only stalls for the locals.... Little hats... little dolls... trinkets for children..... costume jewellery..... Carlotta and I find a little necklace for Matteo and a crocheted cotton cord that can be adapted as a glasses holder for Giampaolo. Even if we wanted to we couldn't do better. Back to the rest house for dinner.

And there a surprise!!! While we're having dinner the owner's daughter arrives dressed as Father Christmas with gifts for everyone... too lovely! The owner must really be a capable person. She's the Marketing Woman of Dalhoise... For most members of our family (excluding yours truly) the dinner is inedible, it's so spicy and seasoned. Giampaolo forces something down and we give the kids eggs. The lady worries... wasn't it good??? No no.. - you feel bad even in these cases... you don't know what to say because spiciness for them is like parmesan for us... if it's missing on the pasta it isn't as good! Around 10:30 we go to bed.

Climb to ADAM'S PICK - Nuwara Elia

Thursday CHRISTMAS Wake-up at 1:30! At 2:00 we set off.... In the end we leave at 2:15 because there's also the snack the lady of the guesthouse prepared for us, hot tea and biscuits! We set off along the path..... and we walk... and we walk..... funny thing, every now and then I get texts... Indeed it's Christmas Eve and in Italy and in Hungary - where we live - it's 9:00 in the evening. They're sending good wishes and we've been struggling for almost an hour... But the hardest part comes after the first hour and a half... Unbelievable, at a certain point it seems you can't go on. Then you look around amidst this whole crowd of pilgrims, children, old people, sick people... they make it, with effort but they make it. So you go on. Every now and then you stop in one of the countless tea rooms, drink a tea... rest....

Then after a while you even stop drinking tea because you need the loo and toilets along the way are scarce............ At 4:30 a wild boar at full speed nearly runs over me and Carlotta!!! And this amuses many people. At 4:45 we think we can't go on anymore!!!... The stairway is steeper and steeper and the steps higher and higher! We don't even talk to each other anymore. Only Carlotta still has the strength to run....and she even sings! At a certain point we meet a couple of Italians..... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!... I ask them if they know how much further.... They look at me in disbelief then she says: if we had already been there you certainly wouldn't have met us here.... At just past five we reach the part of the stairway where there are handrails! HOW LOVELY!! I confess that from there on I climbed by sheer arm power (I couldn't feel my legs anymore...).

At 5:45 we arrive at the top of Adam's Peak (2200 m.)! Adam's footprint or the Buddha's or whoever's, is rigorously covered with fabrics, silks, cushions. So you can't see it. They have us make an offering and also have us kneel on the footprint... Fine... a little prayer.... The sounds aren't very fascinating up here.... There's this voice on the loudspeaker announcing loads of incomprehensible things, which covers the songs and prayers... After a brief walk around the sanctuary (there isn't much to see) we head up a side staircase leading to a small terrace. We want to admire the sunrise. Carlotta, who did the whole route skipping along without any problem, right at the moment when the sun is about to peek out urgently needs a toilet visit...

so, in the middle of the pressed crowd, we make our way with difficulty looking for the toilets which are (of course) on the opposite side of the sanctuary.... We come back at a run just in time to film the sunrise! After the sunrise everyone moves to the other side of the mountain from where you can admire the shadow of the mountain itself projected on the low clouds. I had read something in the Lonely Planet about the butterflies that go to Adam's Peak to die but I didn't imagine there would be so many... beautifully coloured.... We take a few slides.... Then we start to descend! And if going up took us 3 and a half hours, to come down we take more than 4!! (Matteo and I almost five)... We even get to look enviously at those going up... Our knees can't take it.... Well... it'll pass. Reaching the Green House the lady offers us a hot herbal bath which we immediately accept...

First Carlotta and I go. In a rather rustic bathroom, with even a few little spiders on the walls, we're greeted by a big iron tub with boiling water and various leaves and weeds floating in it. Carlotta and I (after adding plenty of cold water to avoid burns) immerse ourselves. It's pleasant and we stay a good half hour. Then we go back to the room and tell Giampaolo and Matteo they can go... we tell them there's a beautiful marble tub waiting for them. They set off happily and we laugh. At 12:3 our driver arrives and we're about to leave when the lady of the Green House brings us breakfast! She says it's included in the price so we have to eat it.... We have breakfast, deciding at this point to skip lunch...

also because tonight a mega Christmas dinner awaits us at the hotel in Nuwara Elia! After a wonderful route through the tea plantations and the mountains, we arrive in Nuwara Elia at the Hotel St.Andrews duly booked well in advance via the Internet. We enter limping into the beautiful colonial-style rooms. It's very beautiful, classic and elegant. Just what we needed this evening. In the evening a big dinner with an exchange of meagre little gifts (but it's the thought that counts) then a couple of little glasses of Arrak at the hotel's piano bar. I play a little something on the piano too... but I only arouse the interest of the pianist (who is perhaps grateful to me because he gets a rest!!). Then, still limping, we go to bed. In the room there's some sign of battle.... but Matteo and Carlotta are by now fast asleep.

Nuwara Elia -Tissamaharama

Friday We wake up with incredible pains in our legs. Adam's Peak is making itself felt.... 8:00 breakfast! (Gigantic buffet...) I take a load of...... something I thought were olives... and which unfortunately turn out to be incredibly sour fruits. Then we set off for Ella. In the evening we have to be in Tissamaharama. We stop to visit a Tea factory (the Pedro Estate) where they give us a nice guided tour. Still limping we manage as best we can up and down various stairs..... and little stairways. We buy tea too! We take a few slides of the women picking tea in the mountain plantations. What lovely colours. They earn only 50 dollars a month... but they're all very dignified. And this is Asia. And it's also what I like about Asia. Along the way we stop for a brief visit to the rock temple of Dowa..... Giampaolo complains.... more stairs...

In Ella (where if you're not a mountain trekking enthusiast, apart from the wonderful view there isn't much to see) we stop for lunch in a little restaurant chosen by the Lonely Planet. A bit hard to find.... With our driver who doesn't understand why we insist on going to one place rather than another..... But the choice proves good this time too! Great view over the mountains. Very kind owners. Good food and low cost. After lunch we set off again. A compulsory stop at the famous Ella waterfalls. Today there's folklore... it's a holiday for them too, the schools are closed and everyone is out on a trip. They bathe, sing, laugh, there's even a makeshift little band formed by a group of boys, admittedly slightly drunk but likeable. We set off again for Tissamaharama. The journey is still long. At 17:00 we arrive in Tissamaharama.

After unloading the luggage, taking possession of the rooms (negotiating the price relative to whether or not they use air conditioning.....), paying our driver...... we jump into a "tuk-tuk" to have a look around before sunset. A tour along the river. Wonderful. Three or four photos of the Sandagiri temple with the sunset reflections outlined against the imposing white walls, a bit of film of the bathers in the canals and in the tank (lake) of Tissa Wewa. A stroll under the trees teeming with bats. And then back to the hotel. Argument with the kids over the choice of the room, then dinner. We make arrangements for tomorrow's safari in Yala park but we do it quickly: it's the same owner who organises it and we'll go in his off-roader! At this point we also agree on a final detour of the trip so we can pass through the village of Kataragama... at 18:00 in time for prayer time).

Then dinner! A little cigar smoking, a little arrak drinking and a long chat with the owners - Mr. Tissa and family. It's very pleasant staying here. I'd say they behave in a very similar way to how we treat the customers of our farmhouse. Congratulations!

Safari at Yala Park

Saturday Wake-up at 4:30. At 5:00 departure for the safari in Yala Park. The weather is fine as always (this year we've been very lucky!!!!). After an hour of travel we enter the park. We pay the entrance fees (very steep......!!!) then set off again complete with a "guide" assigned to us by the Park management, equipped with a bird-watching manual. At 6:30 we already spot the first elephant. Hard to miss... it practically blocks our path. On top of that it's one of the very few elephants in Sri Lanka with tusks!!!! It's dawn. At 7:20 the clutch of our Discovery "goes"..... "it's brooooke!" But our driver is very good so he'll carry on all day without it! Towards mid-morning we also spot a leopard...

followed by the cries of our Park Guide "..you're really lucky, you're really luuucky!!!" Then we saw spotted deer, crocodiles and, besides the myriad species of birds, lots of buffalo, crocodiles, monitor lizards and monkeys. Yala park is very beautiful. There's steppe, jungle, forest, lakes, marshes, rocky little hills, canals and beaches! Beaches..... As it happens at 11:30 we arrive at a beach where they tell us we won't set off again until 15:00. It would be useless, they explain, because it's too hot and the animals during this period hide in the forest. By 12:00 we've already finished our sandwiches and our beers. We have little water left... We get bored. If we had understood properly that we had to stop for so long, either we would have brought our "beach gear" (apart from the fact that the sea here is horrible) or we would have chosen the half-day safari.

The thing is the price is more or less identical... so we'd thought it was worth it... but.. We sleep a bit.... We stroll a bit more... then we convince our driver to leave a bit earlier... ha ha.. we catch them studying from our guide the names of the wild animals of the park in Italian!! In the afternoon we spot far fewer animals than in the morning. Except for a splendid elephant (also with tusks!). At 16:30 we start heading out of the Park, this time towards the north. We drop off the "Park Guide" and don't even give him a tip... indeed our driver had told us they always expect one... never mind. Since our driver moreover knew at least ten times more than the guide... we decide among ourselves that we'll give the tip to him (if only for the effort he made driving without a clutch all day!). At 17:30 we arrive at Katagarama.

The first thing that strikes us are the shops displaying fruit.... Beautiful decorations. And as we go deeper into the centre of the town these stalls get denser until they're right next to each other. Hundreds of stalls displaying fruit so well arranged.... a spectacle!! Our driver explains that they are trays prepared for the offerings to the temple. We head towards the sacred area, cross a little bridge over a stream in which children, women and.... whole families are bathing. At 18:00 there are already dozens of the faithful queued with trays overflowing with fruit, waiting for the temple doors to open. In the garden of the main temple there's the corner for "breaking" coconuts. We also meet the Austrians we had met at the Queens in Kandy. Then we return to the hotel. A restorative little dinner and bed!!!!

Tissamaharama - Tangalla

Sunday Tuk-tuk to the bus station and then heading for Tangalla! The bus is packed, oh dear!!! It's Sunday!! They even charge us for the place for the backpacks.. a few euro cents anyway.... The experience certainly isn't like the previous one (from Anuradhapura to Pollonaruwa). The driver, as soon as we're out of the city, starts driving like a madman... overtaking on bends, braking, accelerating, honking the horn like a lunatic.... The bus staggers, sways, even jumps! My family all silent. I feel the weight of their looks of disapproval for choosing the bus as a means of transport.... So I keep quiet too. Then again, how can you predict it?! The other trip had gone smoothly as oil. After about an hour we arrive at the town of Amabanatota..... and what does the bus do??? It stops for a quarter of an hour because it's ahead of schedule! Incredible...

and then why did it drive so fast? We arrive after another "sprint" hour in Tangalla and wait for five minutes for the tuk-tuk that was supposed to come and pick us up from the guesthouse that Mr. Tissa booked for us last night.... But nobody comes... so we take a random tuk-tuk. We arrive at the Fisher King owned by a retired German (who cooks Sri Lankan style) and a relative of Mr. Tissa. They show us our rooms with bathroom and A/C but very very dark, and at the back.... I spot two others... nice, big, with spacious windows on the sea, without private bathroom... but what does it matter? The shared bathrooms are right outside 2 m away and very clean. They also cost less (4.5 usd instead of 6!!) so we save too! We drop our bags and while I wait for the troops to settle in I run to the beach! Ahhh how lovely the sea is... indeed a bit rough....

Actually if I look properly, very rough!!! Fine... it can't always be all perfect... at the same time the good weather has never abandoned us on this holiday. When the rest of the family arrives at the beach we collect a few shells and then decide to take a little stroll. We take a tuk-tuk (what a novelty!). Let's go and see the bay on the west side of the town. In the centre there's also a market where we take a brief stroll but buy nothing.. Then we have ourselves taken to the "Cactus" restaurant on the beach, at the southern end of Tangalla beyond the promontory. There's only one man, who does everything: cooks, serves, takes the orders?! Excellent! A colossal feast of prawns, squid and various. There was wine too. Tiny bill.

On top of that the bay where the restaurant stands is also sheltered from the waves and you can swim! We end the day on the beach revelling in the sun! Towards evening we meet a Swiss woman who has been here for three months....! Well, if you consider the prices... and a person does a job that allows it.... (writers, translators, journalists, unemployed people...) they definitely spend less than staying at home! In the evening we eat at the hotel, also because we're feeling very lazy! The food is good. There we make the acquaintance of an Australian couple who are doing a round-the-world trip: 8 months... think how wonderful. After dinner they go to see the turtles laying their eggs... we already saw them two years ago in Costa Rica so we give it a miss. And the kids are already asleep anyway.

During the night we're forced to wake the owners (and thank goodness they woke up!!) because on the way to the bathroom the door locked itself with the keys inside...!! Ha ha!

Tangalla - Mirissa

Monday After breakfast we set off for Mirissa. We're sorry to leave Tangalla but in theory in 3 days we'll already be on the plane! On the phone SriLankan Airlines gives us no news... so in doubt we're forced to speed up the stages. A shame! Along the way we make two stops: the first at the "Ho-o-maniya blowhole", a rock formation on the coast where the seawater is pushed by the waves with force into a 23 m high cavity, with the result that very high jets spray out! The second stop is at the Wewurukannala temple, a complex of temples where, besides the statue of the seated Buddha, among the tallest in Sri Lanka, there's a temple with comic-style decorations depicting every type of torture and punishment inflicted on sinners. Truly shocking... so much so that Giampaolo and I leave. Strangely our kids look at the whole thing and come out... even laughing....

It's clear that we identify too much with it.... Mode of transport chosen this morning (35/40km)... guess what? TUK-TUK!!! In Mirissa we have some difficulty finding a place. The hotel where we finally find availability is so-so and also dirty enough but..... the beach is gorgeous! There are also lots of Italians... in fact they're almost the first ones we've seen (apart from the Maldives)... but most of them aren't staying there: they're part of organised trips from Hikkaduwa, would you believe...... Rest and colossal feasts of fish. Sea beach... aperitif on the promontory. Warm Coca Cola (no alcohol) or water (warm too)...

they've just opened the place (in fact officially they open tomorrow morning) so they don't have a fridge yet! Best of luck!! Dinner at the hotel where we make friends with a couple from Bologna and after dinner we go to have a drink together in one of the many bars on the beach (Matteo and Carlotta included, who grumble about the "mediocrity" of the disco music).

Mirissa - Unawatuna

Tuesday At breakfast we make friends with a couple from Rimini who are also heading to Unawatuna! All without a booking.... Perfect! We're in for a treat since we're on the eve of New Year's Eve! We say goodbye, arranging to meet somewhere on the beach in the afternoon... but we'll meet up much sooner!! We pay the bill and after a good half hour of tuk-tuk (by now our undisputed means of transport) we arrive in Unawatuna. Yesterday I had already made several phone calls to reserve rooms... but they all either said full... or said not for one night!... I thought it better to go in person! But the situation didn't turn out to be the best. With my trusty Lonely Planet in hand I start scouring the rest houses.... I go in wherever I happen to: the first guesthouse FULL... the second too, the third and fourth....too!!!. At a certain point our driver says to us...

I'll take you to someone I know... The place is squalid, at least 200 m from the sea.. Oh NO!!!! The last two days I'm spending them by the seaaa!!. After an hour back and forth, more or less good offers (basically I saw 80%) of the hotels in Unawatuna, we find (1) available room at the Unawatuna Resort hotel (4****) but only for one night! The price for the whole family is 90 dollars including breakfast and buffet dinner.... (70/72 euros... given the setting, peanuts!!!).. but only for one night.. And tomorrow??? So we continue the search and head east.... We find a place in the

Unawatuna

Wednesday After breakfast they show us the rooms... a bit shabby, a bit dark, but very clean and with big bathrooms. They move all our luggage for us while we stay on the beach. In our hotel there's an International Project for the Protection of Little Turtles. When they lay their eggs the place is fenced off and protected and when they hatch they keep them a few days in small tanks of salt water and then help them reach the sea without being devoured by seagulls or various birds! And precisely this evening at 6:00 pm there will be this event! They give us a flyer in which they ask for everyone's cooperation! And we'll be there. We go to lunch at the little restaurant spotted the day before (the first toward the West after the Hotel) and there we go wild with prawns, lobsters, cuttlefish.... The service is very slow... but from tomorrow we'll adopt a trick! You go at 12:00, you order...

you drink your aperitif lying in the sun (they too have sunbeds available for customers) and when it's ready you eat. Matteo and Carlotta stayed at the hotel saying they'd eat two pizzas.... But at a certain point they arrive and devour half our big prawns! Sob..!! After lunch Giampaolo goes to his room assailed by a terrible earache... I sit with Matteo and two Italian kids he's made friends with and we joke around a bit together! We laugh a lot (sometimes it's nice to be children again!!). The girls instead are in the pool. 6:00 pm Armed with video cameras, digital cameras and not, we head to the beach to witness the little turtles entering the sea. Wow, there are hundreds and at the same time a little further on there are also those that are being born... they're helped out of their shells and then put into the tanks. How cute.

Meanwhile a guy convinces me to put a python around my neck (I must surely have drunk too much today to pre-celebrate the end of the year!!!) but Giampaolo doesn't film me! Rightly there are the little turtles, But since another occasion like this (I mean the snake around my neck) surely won't happen again.. I beg him "Giampaolo film me... film me... quick...!!!" Even Carlotta strokes the snake (incredible the trust mothers can instil!). Having finished the show (I even had to pay!!) we return to the little turtles, there are waves and some come back to shore... you have to put them back in the water and watch out for the seagulls! After a nice shower we put on the most "elegant" clothes we've brought... always relatively speaking, the backpack-format ones... and go to dinner. Music, shows... they've really organized it well.

The buffet is excellent, spread out in islands between the restaurant, the beach and the garden. In the end we don't eat much but drink a lot. So much so that Giampaolo and I after midnight take a nice swim in the sea! All wet we put our clothes back on (poor things) and go to wish happy new year to the owner of our little restaurant who sets us a little table on the beach with a candle and gives us drinks on credit (we'd left everything in the room...). We'll pay tomorrow morning. We retrieve our kids and at 3:00 in the morning we go to sleep.

Unawatuna

Thursday Woke up nice and slow - breakfast - Giampaolo's ear hurts more and more. We go to pay for the cognacs we had on credit last night and the owner of the little restaurant looks at us and laughs a lot.... Who knows why? A day of rest and sunbathing. The weather is always gorgeous. For today we ordered lobster!... hoping that whoever eats lobster on New Year's Day.... (ED: a hope unfortunately not confirmed as of today...) I run into the guy with the python again and I flee.... Tomorrow is the last day... we decide to go to Galle! We've only been there for the Sri Lanka offices and we absolutely haven't seen the old quarter! In the afternoon we take a little stroll around the town and we also find a huge antique shop with old things. There are some stunning things but alas the things we like are out of "scale."

Unawatuna (Galle)

Friday After breakfast we set off for Galle. Matteo and Carlotta refuse to come. I understand them, by now they've formed a little group of 6-7 kids, all Italian and their age... Never mind, we'll go. We wander around the historic center for a couple of hours... then we settle onto the terrace of a restaurant but after a few minutes we realize it's nothing special, the service is terrible and it's even expensive, so we hurry off, grab a tuk-tuk on the fly and go back to our little restaurant on the beach! And off we go!!! Another feast. Giampaolo's ears still hurt. This morning they got him some antibiotics... let's hope it clears up! Tomorrow we leave for Hikkaduwa! And the last three nights we'll spend at an all inclusive in Beruwela to finish in style!

Unawatuna - Hikkaduwa

Saturday We set off early for Hikkaduwa - always by tuk-tuk!! In Hikkaduwa the small guesthouses and guest houses are all full. We opt for a hotel that's neither here nor there... after all it's only for two nights. After dropping our bags in the room we head to the beach... and there we discover a reality completely different from the previous ones. The hotels and guesthouses are all fenced in.. some even with barbed wire! Beach loungers nowhere! Romantic little restaurants none.... What a dump. The sea, however, makes up for it since the coral reef (which, by the way, they're destroying) is right there two steps away and it's full of colorful fish that you can admire even standing in the water. We go snorkeling but it's stressful because dozens and dozens of speedboats taking tourists on excursions pass by you left and right creating waves and making an incredible noise....

And then.... poor coral reef.... We take a stroll along the very long beach.... It's absurd... it seems like the beach doesn't belong to the village. There are very few people and yet the guesthouses are all full... The vacationers are all inside the fences, each one in their own hotel. You can't take loungers outside... it's crazy! We don't find anything nice for lunch so we decide to stay at the hotel but the menu is depressing. In the afternoon Giampaolo and I take another long walk on the beach and spot a family-run little restaurant on stilts. Not bad: tonight we'll eat there. And we eat really well! So much so that we order lobster for tomorrow night.

Hikkaduwa

Sunday Morning at the beach but after lunch we decide to take an excursion on the lake. By catamaran (always the authentic kind!!) we visit the shores of the lake, the crocodiles, the monitor lizards and various species of birds. We stop to visit a temple on the coast. There's also the school! The one on the islet in the middle of the lake, on the other hand, is a place of spiritual retreat. You can't even dock there! Towards evening we take a tuk-tuk to Ambalangoda, a place famous for its mask carvers. The place mentioned by the Lonely Planet is now closed.... Just as well because it seemed a bit too touristy. Our taxi driver then takes us to a family, where we find beautiful things at rock-bottom prices! We buy the last of the gifts, chat a bit with the owners... A little girl is overjoyed to learn that we're from Milan because her dad has worked there for years.

She even gives us a photo of herself. We head back loaded down with masks (where will we put them???... tomorrow we're taking the train!). We rush to our little restaurant (the lobster awaits us!!!) and decide to bring them as a gift what we won't need anymore... also because we don't have any room left: the beach towels and Matteo and Carlotta's clothes, at least the ones that by next year will definitely be too small for them. We'll give them to that family (I noticed they have several children!). A dream dinner. Then off to bed.

Hikkaduwa - Beruwela

Monday At eight-thirty we head to Hikkaduwa station. Train to Beruwela. An hour standing amid jolts and bounces... as usual. This train, though, is full of tourists! Matteo and I have a good laugh because the Sri Lankans next to us keep eating!!!... they're evidently having breakfast. We arrive at our 4-star hotel by tuk-tuk... all shabbily dressed with backpacks on our shoulders..... they look at us strangely... At 11:00 we already take possession of the room... Very nice, very elegant. They put nice colorful bracelets on our wrists and the hotel is ours!!! Off to the beach... Here too everything is closed off and fenced in. On top of that there are even guards at the gates that open onto the sea. The loungers are strictly placed on the grass inside the fence and as a finale - to our great disappointment - we discover that the sea is horrible...

I'd say like at Negombo, though at least there everything was developed along the beach... How sad.... But why didn't we stay in Unawatuna?! And it's clear that if we'd known earlier about the flight change we could have spent three or four more days in Tangalla and Mirissa too. Those were real seaside spots!!! Anyway, here we are now. Let's enjoy the all inclusive and keep quiet! The kids spend all day in the pool. We take a little walk on the beach but it's truly disappointing, muddy... a dump! What's more, the sea is rough and dirty! The food, on the other hand, is excellent... They even serve wine.... and it's all included in the price... what more could you want from life?!.. The seaaaa!!!! Oh well. Evening in the disco.

Beruwela 6-7 January

Tuesday/Wednesday We spent the last two days sleeping, eating, drinking and swimming in the pool... No!!..... there was also the Yoga class!!!! In front of the beach (at the level of the guards and strictly under control) various souvenir and sarong sellers, men and women, displayed their wares every day.... It wasn't clear whether they were the ones marginalized outside the hotel or whether we were the "tourists in a cage"! Last night we even saw the storm!!!! Here we made friends with a couple: him from Sri Lanka and her Italian - they live in Belgium! Very nice. So we also pleasantly spent a couple of afternoons. This morning we woke up and after breakfast we learned that today no alcohol is allowed! (nice... you're at an all inclusive and you can't drink anything!) because it's poya day (prayer), so an absolute ban on serving alcohol throughout the entire nation...

it happens once a month.... And of course it happens to us right here and on the very last day... Oh well... After sunset, though, the first little beers start coming out.... I spend the last of my rupees buying sarongs on the beach and then I give the ladies more of our kids' little clothes. A superb dinner. A little dancing in the disco and.... good night everyone: tonight the taxi is at 2:30!!

Return journey

Thursday We arrive at Colombo airport at 4:45! Perfect timing: exactly two hours until departure! Check-in procedures quick and boarding on time. 6:45 we take off. After this splendid month of vacation all that's left is the bitterness of having wasted the last days in places that weren't worth it. After a scenic tour of Paris to kill the five hours of waiting at the airport, we set off again for Budapest at 18:50! Arrival in Budapest at 21:00.. thank goodness our friend Gabor came to pick us up. Another 150 km by car and finally to bed! Tomorrow morning there's: school for our kids and a return to the routine for us.