Dikwella —> Tangalle

I still woke up feeling awful and had convinced myself it was Dengue, but Tom said that I was being ridiculous and it was obviously the amount of sun we’d had. We’d decided the night before that we weren’t in a rush, so we were having a leisurely day. Over a game of shithead we met Sophia, a yoga instructor from Swindon but living in Bristol. She recommended that we go to a secret beach (unlike Heriketiya) which wasn’t too far away. It looked really nice on her pictures so we gave it a go. Abandoning the game of shithead, we fired up the Tuktuk and set off for Blue Island beach - it was gorgeous. A little beach bridging a little island to the mainland. We saw the locals bring in a massive tuna fish, taking three of them to carry it to the scales they were all exlaiming ‘big fish’ with their arms open wide! We chilled here for a bit watching the waves crash on the rocks and then headed back to the dinner place of last night to grab a veggie roti.

We saw Sophia walking along the road, she was heading to the blow hole so offered her a lift. We had to quickly check out and pay (not that the host was bothered or precious about our checkout time) and then we all headed to the blowhole, our first passenger!! After a quick fill up of fuel, we were at the blowhole...well, nearly. A guy tried to stop us and makes it for parking but we politley declined and parked up the road...RS50 saved (20p). We walked along the trail until we reached the blowhole visitor centre. Obviously this was not a free attraction, 250 rupees...and the man said it wasn’t great today because of the calm sea so we gave it a miss and went to a nearby beach for a swim...completely secluded apart from a few local men. We all had a nice dip in the beautiful sea and chatted for a while. We dropped Sophia half way back and then made our way to Tangalle and the Sun Star Homestay a few kilometres from Tangalle town, down a questionable road. Turned out to be a really nice little place albeit in the arse end of nowhere. We dumped our bags and decided we’d go get some cash from Tangalle town. ATM 1 didn’t work, ATM 2 took some finding but we got cash and stocked up on water. We headed back to the guesthouse and straight to the beach as it was really close. We chilled out and read our books for a couple of hours as the sea wasn’t the best to swim in.

Back to the homestay and it was time for dinner, as we hadn’t asked earlier it took some time to come, but when it did it was the best Sri Lankan food we’ve had, and the quantity was insane. We shared dinner and stories with a Swiss couple and a Spanish/German couple, getting tips for ourselves for later in Sri Lanka and other places and dishing out a few ourselves. At 20:30 our host had said we could all go with him to see if any turtles were on the shore laying eggs, we all jumped on this great little perk to this homestay. We all set off and we walked for what seemed like ages away from all civilisation until we came across a small green turtle digging a hole with her fins to lay. This is something we’d both wanted to see for ages and for the second time this week nature amazed us! We sat near the turtle for about 40 minutes until our host said it was ok to go closer and take a look. The turtle was patting down and covering up the eggs, the body making a deep thudding sound and vibrations felt through the sand a few meters away! Job done and she span round and made her way back to the ocean. Truly amazing! With it being 11pm now we all headed back to the homestay for a good nights sleep so grateful to have seen nature at work this evening.Read more