5 and a half hours on a bus - not just an ordinary national express bus, but one of the Sri Lankan "hold on for you life" masterpieces is a pretty long time. I wont dwell on the journey as much as the destination, but it was pretty dire - although entirely worthwhile for the experiences we got at the other end of it!
We arrived at Trincomalee (aka Trinco) at approx midday, to be greeted by 35 degree heat - the stuff that I could feel burning my fragile western skin as soon as I disembarked from the bus. We were confronted with what in my opinion was the opposite of the tropical paradise I was expecting just from the location and the stories I had been told. 80% of the shops were closed, presumably permanently after the strife the city has endured since the 2004 tsunami, and over the civil war, and bullet holes were visible on several walls around the bus stop. This should have come as no real surprise to me judging by the number of military road blocks on the road from Habarana to Trinco, and the fact that it was off limits to tourists until only 2008 (or even 2009 by some reports). Open sewers, a lack of westerners, relative hostility from the locals and many UN vehicles passing by left myself and Ben thinking, is this the right place - have we made a mistake.
We went about finding the promised accomodation from the regional Veterinary office, as we did in Newara Eliya, but after inquiring in Gvt. office after Gvt. office, came to the conclusion that such an office did not even exist in trinco, and was in a small town called Upeveli, 4km north of Trinco. A Sri Lankan bus ride, and an hour of trying to follow some atrocious napkin instructions to this office turned up nothing except a dubious looking farm, at which point we gave up, and decided to look for accommodation off our own backs in Upeveli. We looked around a few misc. establishments and were confronted with a mix of mould, insects and overt structural instability, so decided that the beach there, which the guide assured us was touristy, was the best way to find somewhere to spend our 3 nights.
We came across a small place called French gardens, which was in the guide as a cheapy, and was approx 50m from the sea. Upon seeing that it had 2 beds, a functioning shower and toilet and was only 6 pounds a night between the two of us, we were utterly sold! Sure it didnt have a sink, and the shower was just a giant pipe pointed at the floor, we had a room by the Indian ocean, in season, for 6 pounds... we still won! The beach was entirely flawless - flat, blue Indian ocean lapping at the fine, golden sands - small fishing boats perched on the scorching ground, waiting for their nighttime launch. Even the cows wandering up and down the beach couldn't spoil the ideal view and feel of the place. Any feeling that we had come to the wrong place simply vanished, and as we walked up the coastline, we discovered that there were many hotels, including a 200 dollar a night beast nestled in the small bay, just firing up their businesses after the tourist drought of the civil war.
We had a pleasent enough nights sleep, and woke up the next day ready to go to the fabled Pigeon island we had heard so much about to go snorkelling amongst the coral reefs, or what was left of them after the tsunami. after a 15 minute boat ride in what was effectively a bath tub with an outboard, we were left to our own devices with a group of french, italian and spanish tourists on this small island. The beaches of the island were oddly enough not made of sand, but purely of broken peices of coral, and coral ground down nearly as fine as normal sand, giving an eerie reminder of quite how much damage the 2004 tsunami must have done to this stretch of coast, and its ecosystem Not wanting to waste a moment, we got straight in, and snorkelled out amongst the reefs. They have recovered impressively since the tsunami, and I had the exact same panorama through my snorkel that is visible on any Animal Planet show, slowly navigating amongst the coral, seeing endless numbers of fish species pass by!
Small channels had been carved out of the reef to allow us to swim out into the deeper waters without having to come into contact with the coral. The purpose of this was two-fold - Firstly to prevent us from damaging the fragile coral with our western clumsyness and our disregard for nature, but also as, unbeknown to me, getting cut by coral hurts... ALOT, bleeds endlessly and come up in a huge allergic reaction. By the time I had realised this it was far too late, and I was to be bleeding for the rest off my time at the island, which becomes relavent later. A couple of hours, and multiple encounters with coral, angel fish arrow fish and even puffer fish later, we heard there were small (3-4 ft) blacktip sharks in some of the shallow reefs off the island. Having been assured they are safe, and partially beleiving it, we hopped in, bleeding and all to confront the graceful predators of the deep.
Firstly to our surprise they arent predators of the deep at all, these sharks were purely found in the shallow coral-filled areas, flawlessly navigating the shallow waters, which we couldnt even consider following them through without experiencing a world of coral cut related pain. Realising they were in fact scared of us, and would flee on our approach, I made a game with myself - chase the shark... whenever I saw one I would swim after it and see how long I could keep up before it either outswam me, or went into too shallow water. I even impressed myself, keeping up with it until I had to surface for breath (I dove to chase it, as I can use the flippers better underwater than on the surface). Of course there is a good chance it was purely cruising away from me effortlessly, but I prefer to put it down to my fish-like underwater agility!
We tried to play a game of finding nemo, spotting all of the characters from the film, although, perhaps ironically, we didnt see a single sea anemone or clown fish. I saw Dory, a puffer fish, a shark, and other misc fish that I recognised, but NO NEMO, or a sea turtle, which although it was a bit of a shame, I got over it very quickly whenever I realised I was snorkelling in the Indian ocean, surrounded by coral reefs. I did come across a wall of jelly-fish at one point, which was not cool, but I got far fewer stings than I would have expected, and lived to blog another day :)
We left the island very satisfied, although starving, having not realised we would have to go from 10am-5pm without food. We got back to our hotel after another bath-boat ride and a stint on the back of a pickup truck. At this point we decided to go to the 200 dollar a night hotel for their 12 pound all you can eat buffet, to restock ourselves for the next day of strenuous relaxation by the beach. I will leave this blog here, and resume at the point were we arrived for our all you can eat bonanza!
No comments:
Post a Comment