Rippin’ waves and enjoying beach life in south Sri Lanka
After a week of pretty intense traveling in Sri Lanka
we started to feel that we were in need relaxing for real.
All the sightseeing and traveling is how you get to experience everything.
Getting up early to catch the bus or train to get to next place, doing one big hike up to an incredible view point on top of a peak, and then the day after you catch the next bus to another amazing place.
It’s all a big experience to first travel to all these places, on the way you get to interact with the amazing local people and get a little hint about everything works in the country.
You experience culture, and it’s all different from where you go, north, south, east or west.
The food taste different, at some parts it’s spicier then others, and at others the curries might be less dry made and more made up with coconuts sauces.
The nature looks all different from north to south!
One week full of all this will make you tired, after a while you just want to sit down and take in everything you have experienced.
It’s all amazing but you definitely need the time to analyze a bit of what you have seen, smelt, tasted and how you felt.
A fantastic experience!
The best thing for us is to do the sightseeing this way and then take the last weeks of just relaxing, well a lot of surfing and from time to time just rent a motorbike and go for a day trip!
Living timeless for a while !
We came to Midigama on the 23rd.
This place is more of a surf haven, a few surf shops, guest houses and restaurants pop up along the road.
All of them are just a stones throw away!
We stayed at a fantastic place, Cheeky Monkey, locally known for Baba’s place!
Great accommodation for 30USD a day (fan), a big breakfast included!
Banana pancakes drizzled with syrup, vegetable omelet and bread, coffee or tea and a fruit shake!
An amazing group of people that work there, super nice and very helpful!
This place also have a surf shop for buy or rent boards, 800 rupees a day!
Great quality boards and you can change whenever you want to!
The “owner” Baba, is one hell of a fun guy, super friendly.
He will help you with anything you want, he can also arrange the whale watching in Merissa for great prices!
If you need to change money just ask him and he will get you a tuk tuk and tell the driver where to go!
From time to time he will take all the people that stay at his place, or other people that want to come along , to a really awesome BBQ in Merissa.
He will arrange the tuk tuk’s and everything!
He’s a really friendly guy, feel like you have known him for years.
If you are up for a party just ask Baba and he will take you to the best place, introduce you to his friends, he will probably be the last man standing!
He likes to party so you will have a lot of fun.
The family owned business that he runs I is running perfectly, you will leave feeling like you have to come back to this place!
The surf shop are in the middle of all the surfable reefs, to the left you got Plantation and to the right you got Ram’s, Lazy left and Lazy right.
Plantation is very popular with its smooth sandy bottom and they waves are crumbling nicely, most of the times.
Pretty inconsistent , so sometimes you have to wait 5-10 minutes for a set, but that set can throw about 5-10 waves at you.
We experienced some pretty big ones!
Avoid 4pm, it can be super crowded.
It really doesn’t matter when you go before that, because this area is not affected by the tide.
Lazy left and Lazy right are also two great breaks, can get big!
The left one is just behind some rocks, so at first it felt a bit sketchy because it felt like the rocks were pulling you in.
It’s pretty shallow here so choose the right wave and get up pretty fast.
If you wipe out, then protect you head with your arms.
When a set of waves get in and you get smashed, remember to try to paddle towards the middle, away from the rocks, where you find a channel.
It’s a great wave once you get it!
The right one is a slower one, awesome for people with a bit longer board.
What we heard the currents can be strong here, so if you wipe out and your leech would break just remember to swim towards the channel in the middle then you’ll be fine.
I’m more of a beginner surfer so for me these things are very important to know.
The famous Ram’s looked like a super nice wave, fast and from time to time big!
But here it is really shallow so for a beginner you should stay away, if you can’t get up fast enough and you don’t know how to wipe out “good” then things can get nasty.
To get to the breaks you can either walk, if you stay at Baba’s place Cheeky monkey, or you can take a tuk tuk and put the boards on the roof and go anywhere and it will cost you a few dollars.
We tried a few spots 10 mins away from Baba’s , One named A-frame, which was really great, big ones!
When it comes to food, you will find Sri Lanka’s best food just 100 meters from Baba’s.
The place is Mama’s, which serve the absolutely best curries.
Every day she serve vegetarian buffé , and it’s different from day to day.
About 5 different fresh made curries made from soy, pumpkin, ocras, potatoes and other wild greens , some of these can be spicy so I loved it!
Served with papadum.
As a desert you get bananas!
All this for 200 rupees(1.2USD), fantastic.
For Christmas we hooked up with our four Swedish friends, one of them which we meet on a surf trip in Portugal!
They stayed at The Plantation Inn, another popular surf place to stay at!
We signed up for their lobster BBQ!
The mission that day was to each one of us buy 5 Christmas presents, to later on at the BBQ play a present swapping game, where you roll a dice and if you get number 6 you get to take a present from anyone.
There’s 3 rounds and every round got faster and faster.
At the end of the second round you got to open the presents so everyone could see what it was and then continue the game.
At this round you could actually take what you want, but it all pretty much ends up everyone is losing and then taking back what they want, and usually it ends up that everyone wants the same thing.
A fun game!
The BBQ was amazing, a massive lobster, over my expectations!
To this we enjoyed a very tasty vegetable fried rice, a salad , a desert and a glass of champagne.
It was worth the 3000 rupees.
Once a week during high season they offer this delicious BBQ, different seafood all the time!
On the 27th early morning we had booked the Whale safari in Merissa trough Baba, we got a really great deal for 5 of us, including the tuk tuk there!
We got to the harbor and there were about 6 big two floor boats docked.
The first floor had all seats row by row and on the top floor they put cushions on the floor for you to sit on, they also provided life jackets.
We left harbor around 7am ,they served a light breakfast.
Coffee or tea and a sandwhich with white bread, cheese and lettuce.
We went with a new company named Whale Warriors.
www.mirissawhalewarriors.com
The captain had 30 years of experience in this ocean, he was a fisherman before he got into this.
A nice crew , all very nice.
My need for coffee was not a problem, they guy run gladly up and down the stairs on the rocking boat providing me with 5 cups of Sri Lankan coffee.
On these whale tours you get the opportunity to see different kind of whales and dolphins, but people are mainly there to get close to the world biggest living thing, the Blue whale!
The tour was about 4 hours, we spotted our first blue whale after 40 minutes, as well as dolphins!
These enormous creatures are truly the kings of the oceans, so huge!
With a length up to 30 meters they look like a living submarine.
When the surface they breath for a few minutes before descending down again.
For about 7-10 minutes they are deep down there and then they ascend for air.
It’s an incredible feeling to be close to one of these, it’s even better when the breach and show their massive tail! WOW!
On this trip we saw about 10 blue whales, which two of them were next to our boat breaching the surface and one of them showed us their tail!
One of those suckers farted at us, a smelly misty wind covered they boat.
A horrible smell! Almost like the Swedish delicacy “Fermented Herring”.
If it was not a fart, and it was from it’s blowhole, it should think about cleaning it’s hole!
This is one of the only spots on the planet where you can come to enjoy these massive kings of the oceans, atleast knowing that during this season you will have a good chance seeing them.
I recorded the whole session with those two blue whales, it was amazing, atleast I thought I did.
Until the whole experience was over and at that point I pushed record and realizing I did, darn.
An experience of a life time!
We came back around lunch time and then took a tuk tuk back to Midigama, to Mama’s for our last dinner there, atleast we thought so!
Then we took our bags stood along there road and waited for the bus.
Every bus just drove past us, even though we waved and waved!
Realizing that it would not stop for us because of our luggage, it would take to much time for them to run out, open the back and throw the bags in.
5 buses drove by us!
From nowhere a car stopped and asked us where we were going, we said Hikkaduwa and the man that was driving said – jump in I’ll drive you!
Him and his family were on their way to Galle which is about 20 minutes away from, but would happily drive us to Hikkaduwa!
Lovely people!
This is the last day of 2015, it has been an amazing year full of experiences.
Meet some incredible people, achieved many goals and went through with some of my and our plans.
I have learnt so many new things this year because of devotion and persistence, and with great support from my girlfriend and friends.
It’s all about priorities, having a plan and creating a strategy!
I’m very happy to see that there are so many readers and people that support my journey.
There will be a lot more from where all this came from!
Thank you and see you all next year!
Happy New Years 2016 from Hikkaduwa!!
