The Hikkaduwa Guest Houses

Just thought I would mention the funnier names of guest houses in Hikkaduwa:

Funky de Bar
The Drunken Monkey
Casa Lanka

I'll post more when I think of them

The Hikkaduwa Get Away

Right on the heels of our Maldives mini-vaca we decided to go to Hikkaduwa which is a nice break from the city. If we had a car it wouldn't be that big a deal but being that we don't we have to get a ride, be it by train or driver. Well the train is the least expensive route but also the most miserable. We never really found out how much a car and driver costs but we asked our usual trishaw driver to take us in his trishaw.

The drive south took much longer than expected, he said it would take 2 1/2 hours but the traffic was awful getting out of the city. It eventually took us 3 1/2 hours. We took breaks along the way stopping at some fruit stands and buying this strange fruit, I'll have to take pictures of it.

We stayed at the same place we had before, The Time N' Tide Resort (sic), it's a guest house, just a better guest house. On the low end of the scale a guest house might only have bars for windows and no hot water for showers, maybe no door for the bathroom etc. This place has a air conditioning, mini refrigerator, rain shower head, hot water for showers, nice pillows, free wifi and balconies with great views.

I was hoping to ride the waves but it's not surfing season on the east coast and the waves were horrible, just vicious overhead waves one right after the other that were relentless and were so difficult to get past. I tried and tried and just wore myself out. I was the only knucklehead trying to ride the waves. I caught two rides, but it wasn't worth the effort.

We were having pizza at the pizzaria the guest house has on the second floor facing the street. The whole dining area is open. I mentioned to Chris that I see people lining up and it looks like they are getting ready for a parade. As it turns out there was a parade complete with three elephants. It was a mini version of the Perhera festival parade, with fire twilrlers and the monkey people and the stilt dancers etc.

Another thing that was going on was Hikkafest 2010 which was this huge party that seemed to be attended by only Sri Lankas's privileged youth. The ticket prices were quite expensive. The morning after we counted two past out drunk kids sleeping outside, one just two feet from the busy street. The music went on all night till day break.

We enjoyed our favorite cheap food while there, rotty, which is hard explain, except that it is dough that is filled with usually veggies or chicken or chicken and cheese or veggies and cheese or chicken and eggs (You get the idea, whatever you want), it's folded over and grilled on both sides and sliced up, served with a hot sauce, delicious. We had 3 dinner rottis, 2 deset rottis and drinks for about $6.

All in all a good weekend but can't wait for the waves to calm down!

The Hikkaduwa Mini-vacation

Beaches, palm trees and sunshine, well maybe too much sunshine. So was our weekend in Hikkaduwa. Hikkaduwa is about 2 hours south of Colombo by train, probably get there faster by car. It caters to two types of people, surfers first and foremost and then German's.
We were able to stay at a nice guest house that totally surpassed our expectations. Guest houses are a cross between a room for rent and a hotel. This one had just recently opened and everything was new to include a rain shower head in the bathroom, king sized four poster bed, hot water, a/c, free wifi and breakfast served on the beach all for a tidy sum of less than $34USD per night (Everything except for the breakfast is pretty much unheard of at most guest houses). Mind you this wasn't the Hilton and there is no TV, radio or carpet but its sole purpose is a place to crash after a day on the beach.

Thankfully our guest house was right on the beach, but just about all of them are. Hikkaduwa is one BIG guest house, they are there one after the other with colorful names, of course I can't
remember a one.

On our first morning out we walked along the road then went through a beach access road to the beach. While walking we came across some fishermen waiting by their big wooden boat.
They waved us over and asked us to help move it up the beach. So we both turned around
and grabbed the outriggers and lifted and pushed backwards when the shouts of the men
reached a crescendo. I wish I had pictures of the fishermen and their boat, but we didn't
take many or any photos. I was breathing rather hard when we finally got the boat to a point where it wouldn't move any further,

Aaah, the beach. After the tourist filled beaches of Berewula and the man crushing waves
of Matara we found the perfect medium. Long expanses of mostly uncrowded beaches as
all of the (German) tourists are hiding under shady cabanas.
My goal was to boogie board and there are two surf breaks, one was for the surfers as I found
out through much intimidation by one of them as I rode the waves (Tried to crash into me a few times on purpose) so I relegated myself to the other surf break where surfing lessons were being taught. Not as much fun as the other surf break but wasn't going to get clocked by a surfboard either.

We visited a rotti stand that there are many of here in Colombo but this one served banana chocolate and pineapple coconut rotti's. Would help is I had a picture but we didn't take any! DOH!

You know I couldn't find one picture of what we ate via Google, tag people, tag! LOL
We both enjoyed vegetable rottis and a desert rotti, Chris banana and chocolate, me the pineapple. With drinks it was all under $6USD. Great deal! And a yummy and filling one at that!

We enjoyed a long conversation with a Brit traveling through Sri Lanka while at the rotti stand.

Nights were punctuated with fireworks and star filled sky's with the occasional tourist bus driving dangerously fast down the narrow main road.

We returned on the 11:20 train to Colombo with many, many German tourists.

I should and will blog about the train ride.