Sri Lanka
Adukkupar

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    • Day 15

      Nichtstun

      September 30, 2019 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

      Seit zwei Tagen sind wir in Nilaveli und geniessen das süsse Nichtstun (abgesehen von Auri's täglichem Sportprogramm bei dem ich übrigens immer noch fleissig dabei bin ;)) .

      Das Leben hier beginnt früh. Erstmal schwimmen im Meer und anschliessend ausgiebig Frühstücken. Die Tage können kaum besser beginnen. Wir lesen viel, trinken Tee und liegen in der Sonne.

      Die Zeit vergeht wie im Flug. Morgen fahren wir mit dem Boot nach Pigeon Island (eine kleine vorgelagerte Insel) um zu Schnorcheln; ich freu mich sehr darauf.

      Bis Freitag sind wir noch an diesem schönen Ort und ich geniesse jede Sekunde.

      Ich schick euch ganz viel von dem schönen Gefühl das ich im Moment hab :-*.
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    • Day 19

      Mehr Nilaveli

      August 19, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ 🌙 30 °C

      Gestern und heute standen Strand, Meer, chillen, bodysurfen, lesen, Cocktails und Meeresfrüchte am Programm 🐟🦐

      Inklusive Strand Flunkyballrunden mit dem Besitzer der Unterkunft. Somit können wir sagen wir haben die österreichische Trinkspielkultur erfolgreich weitergegeben.

      Den letzten Abend haben wir mit unserem bestellten DJ verbracht. Super coole Dancemoves inklusive!
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    • Day 79

      D77-79 Sri Lanka - Nilavelli

      September 21, 2019 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

      So the past three days were big...get ready for this post, cos it’s going to be a whopper. Alright, not really: we’ve done nothing. It’s been pretty great.

      Well not nothing as such - we’ve swum, sunbathed, gone for long [romantic] walks on the beach, eaten food, played numerous rounds of monopoly cards, napped, read, listened to podcasts and music, and then done it all over again. For three days. I feel like we have spent two and half months travelling and are finally on holidays, and it’s just what we both need before reality strikes in a week’s time.

      Our three days in a nutshell:

      Day 1
      Kate got a thorn from a screw pine stuck in her foot, so while she sat on a rock I walked back to the villa to get tweezers and got sunburnt on one shoulder.
      We discovered Leo’s restaurant a bit further up the beach and it quickly became a favourite, having eaten most lunches (except for when we snacked on bananas) and all dinners there since. Leo’s is owned by a local man who is married to a French lady, and they have a little four year old boy who is the funniest kid ever.

      Day 2
      Ate a nice veggie curry at Leo’s for lunch, enjoyed a bit more beach time, had a group of stray dogs proudly run up to us and proceed to have sex next to my deck chair. The local groundskeeper came over and the posse ran on up the beach, stopping only for the occasional enthusiast hump.
      We returned to Leo’s for dinner (fish for me, calamari for Katey) then headed back to the dark beach for our 10 minute walk home. While watching an epic lightening storm out in the ocean, within minutes we heard barking. ‘Quick, turn your phone torch on,’ and low and behold, it was the hyper sexual dogs from earlier in the day, still going at it! It was like the Blair Witch project with us trying everything to deter the dogs from following us, lit by a shaky iPhone torch. Bark, growl, ‘throw some sand!’, ‘it’s not working, turn the light off and walk in the water’, ‘argh they’re coming!’, ‘grrrrrr, get outta here!’, bark, whimper, growl, hump...To be honest, the poor female was probably looking for someone to save her!
      We found the lights on the beach indicating we’d arrived at our villa. We beelined towards it with the dogs on tail. Luckily they saw another couple from the villa watching the storm and headed towards them, providing us with a break to head to our room. The poor couple behind us jumped up and headed quickly towards their villa, probably put out that their romantic night had been cut short! The electrical storm was the highlight here...

      Day 3
      Much the same as day 1. Again, a stray dog ran up to us, this time by himself. It was baking hot so he got on under Kate’s deck chair, dug a bit of a hole and stayed there. He followed us back to our villa, sat outside for about two hours then latched himself into the other couple. We call him Billy.

      Our beach journey of relaxation continues tomorrow when we head to Negumbo in preparation for our departure.
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    • Day 9

      Sri Lanka Tag 9

      January 9, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      Heute sind wir gegen 6 Uhr aufgestanden und haben uns abreisefertig gemacht, da es für uns an einen 100km entfernten Strand in der Nähe von Trincomalee ging. Auf dem Weg dorthin kreuzte ein Elefant unseren Weg und wir wurden bei 2 von 4 Polizeikontrollpunkten angehalten. Bei beiden wollten die Beamten nur wissen wo es hin geht und woher wir kommen (Land). An der Unterkunft in Nilaveli angekommen durften wir unsere wunderschöne Strandhütte beziehen, welche nur etwa 100m vom Meer entfernt steht. Wir entschieden uns dafür eine Runde ins Meer zu gehen. Die Begeisterung für die schöne Natur Sri Lankas wird leider immer wieder durch den ganzen Plastikmüll, der überall zu finden ist, getrübt.
      Zur Mittagszeit schmissen wir das tuk tuk an und fuhren zu einem nahegelegenen Fisch und Curry Restaurant, welches bei TripAdvisor lediglich sehr gute Bewertungen erzielte. Dort angekommen gab es für mich Nudeln mit Gemüse und für Matthias einen großen Teller mit Seafood und Reis. Die Teller wurden leer geputzt, da es super geschmeckt hat. Als wir uns jedoch auf den Heimweg machten bemerkten wir, dass Matthias wohl das Seafood nicht ganz so gut bekommen ist. Seine Arme waren voll mit roten Punkten😁. Bei einem kurzen Stop im Hospital haben wir uns überlegt die Symptome selbst zu behandeln ☺️. Nach einem kurzen Besuch auf der Toilette 🤢 gab es einen Gläschen Rum und die Punkte wurden wieder weniger☺️. Nach dieser Tortur haben wir uns dann erstmal eine Kanne Tee am Strand gegönnt und den Sonnenuntergang genossen. Heute kugeln wir uns nicht ins Bett. Tag Ende.
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    • Day 12

      Nilaveli

      September 24, 2015 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

      Endlich Strand

      Heute war der letzte Tag unserer Reise mit Tampike. Er brachte uns zum Abschluss nach Trincomalee bzw Nilaveli.

      Wird konnten es kaum erwarten uns in den indischen Ozean zu stürzen. Nachdem wir das Hotel nach mehreren Anläufen gefunden haben (vertraue niemals Google Maps), verabschiedeten wir Tampike, zogen uns um und konnten endlich die Abkühlung genießen.

      Leider wurde das ganze etwas durch dunkelblaue Qualen getrübt, die wir nicht kannten und auch nicht näher kennenlernen wollten. Also entschieden wir uns für einen Strandspaziergang. Auch hier an der Ostküste wird fleißig gebaut. Dennoch hat man noch fast den ganzen Strand für sich allein. Nur das Müllproblem müssen die Singhalesen nich hinbekommen. Ansonsten ist es ein schöner weiter Sandstrand.

      Kurz vor Einbruch der Dunkelheit kamen wir zurück ins Hotel und genossen unser Abendbrot.

      Morgen leihen wir uns einen Scooter aus und wollen die Gegend etwas unsicher machen.
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    • Day 106

      Back to Nilaveli

      September 2, 2018 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C

      We had a few different ideas and feelings about where to go next and spend the rest of our time in Sri Lanka. We end up deciding to head back to Nilaveli Beach where we spent Lila's birthday. We get lucky with a cancellation to get a room at the place we stayed last time, so enjoy a lovely 3 last days in Sri Lanka by this beautiful east coast beach. Lila tries some snorkelling and we see an amazing storm come through the beach. Each day we were there it was magical watching Lila's confidence and love of the sea grow 🤗. It is so much joy watching her enjoy trying to put her head under the water and playing in the soft waves ❤ 👌Read more

    • Day 22

      Polonaruwa —> Marble Beach —> Nilaveli

      January 27, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

      I woke up at 5:45 and it was beginning to get light outside. We had heard that at sunrise you can go and watch the local fishermen bring in their catch. They are obviously up much earlier than us. I rose Tom and we headed to Kalkudah beach where the sun was beginning to rise. We stood on the old Kalkudah Jetty, built by the British in 1901, and watched as a fisherman came to shore. We didn’t think he’d been successful as his pile of netting looked empty, but as he and all his mates on the beach began to unravel the net there were loads of fish in there! It was pretty cool to see all the locals pitch in and it seemed that they all took a share of the catch. We headed back to our ‘Inn on the Bay’ to pack up our stuff as we thought it best to get going as the drive north to Nilaveli was about 120km.

      We hit the road via the petrol station for some fuel and oil for Greta and some veggie roti, other baked goods and 5 bananas for the price of 4 for us. The weather was perfect, wall to wall sunshine which made for easy motoring. After nearly three hours of driving we got to Marble beach, still 30km from Nilaveli, as we had been recommended this beach by the guy who ran the hostel in Sigiriya. It was 30 rupees each to get in and it was a nice beach...small low breakers and you could walk out miles. We chilled here for a bit and enjoyed the waves, messing around as usual trying to kick and punch holes in the breakers...such kids. On the way back to the Tuktuk, I noticed a big monkey running around. We immediately realised that we hadn’t put the sides down on the Tuktuk again! Then I realised that I still had a banana left which I put on the back shelf...safe to say that was long gone - the cheeky monkeys!!

      Anyway, we hopped back in for the last bit of the journey and we eventually got to Nilaveli. The maps.me app took us a weird route so it seemed our accommodation was miles from the road, but it actually wasn’t. When we got to the aptly named ‘Nilaveli Sand Life’, it was like paradise. Sand roads, palm trees, little beach huts and a place where it felt there was a no shoe policy. We were shown to our beach cabana, right on the beach front and we could hear the waves crashing. It had an outside shower, a small wooden table and chairs and best of all, a hammock for the full beach vibe. We both immediately relaxed and I went to set myself up on the beach with my book. Tom did the same in the hammock and we spent a couple of hours just taking a break from the dirty smelly part of travelling.

      After a few hours we both got ready and headed out for some food. On the way for food, we got stopped by the police. I was driving, so got my licence ready. They looked impressed that we had the right documents and asked us where we were from etc and asked if we liked Sri Lanka - of course we said yes...they were armed. They gave my licence back and we parted with a handshake - another nice encounter with police who seemed happy that western people haven’t been put off coming to Sri Lanka after the trouble last year.

      We were a few kilometres from Nilaveli town so we hopped in the Tuktuk and set off in search of food. Not too far in we found this little place, N.K. Family Restaurant. It was a tiny little place, but the prices were good and we were hungry, obviously we ordered veggie rice and curry. It came and I can honestly say it was the best tasting food I’d had since my send off dinner by the Beck Bottom Gang. Everything was so tasty!!! We finished up and the lady took our plates away and then immediately said the cost to us...she wasn’t being rude though as there is quite a big language barrier here in the north and the people are very different to other parts of Sri Lanka. We paid and went on the hunt for a little bakery to satisfy our sweet tooth. Whilst we were having dinner we saw the bakery man go last playing his tune, so we started investigating with locals which way he had gone. We ended up not finding him but instead finding a brilliant sunset on a bridge...the randomness of travelling never gets old. We ended up getting some stuff from the local shop instead and then came back to our beach for a long walk and a chill on the daybeds. What a long day it had seemed, but we were now set for 4 nights at Nilaveli Sand Life to have a recharge.
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    • Day 23

      Nilaveli Beach Day #1

      January 28, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      We had decided last night that we were going to get up for sunrise, and that we’d enjoy a lie in within the walls of our beach cabana. I had an amazing night sleep with only the sound of crashing waves to put me to sleep. Breakfast was included at this place and started from 7:30. I went out a bit earlier and left Tom asleep to go watch the ocean on the daybed...what a way to wake yourself up. At 8am we both went for breakfast, and as it was only £5 a night each, we weren’t expecting much. It turned out to be a right spread with Jam, bread, eggs, banana pancake and a roti, all topped off with freshly squeezed papaya juice all of which was delicious!!

      We came up with a plan for the day over breakfast. We would head to Nilaveli village and try and get on a boat to Pigeon Island - a national park 1 kilometre off the coast which had some decent snorkelling. We had read that it shouldn’t really cost too much - £8 per boat regardless of numbers of passengers and an undisclosed entrance fee. We turned up at the beach and were heading for the government office when we were descended on by about 10 men offering boat trips etc and throwing prices at us. There was no way we were going to take the first offer and certainly not going to the national park without an official ticket from the office. However, when we got there the office was shut and various locals were trying their best at impersonating official park staff - no Oscars were going to be won today. We were told that the office would open soon, but it was after 9am so we smelt a rat, as this office should be open early morning. One of the boat men had offered us a ‘deal’ of 11,000 rupees (£45) which we just thought was ridiculous. We waited around for a bit with Tom going for a swim until we decided that we’d call it a day. On our way off the beach, the same boat man approached us and we started to barter the price down and managed to get it down to 7,000...still too much for us for a snorkelling trip, so we headed off back to our place to chill out on the beach.

      We got back to our resort, that we practically had all to ourselves including the beach loungers and hammocks and we knew that wherever we went next, the chances of it being this peaceful and relaxing we’re slim...so we decided to just enjoy the tranquility whilst we had it and just chill out after what had been a hectic few weeks on the road. We set up camp on the beach, each taking a sun lounger directly in the sun and a daybed in the shade and would switch around depending on how hot we were, both getting into our books and the frequent dip in the sea. It was paradise, thank god we didn’t listen to people recommending for us to skip this place as it was “out of season”.

      A few hours had passed and Tom started to feel a little hungry, so he decided to venture away from the beach to get himself a Kottu. I didn’t want any food so this would be the first time for Tom driving the TukTuk alone! He found a Kottu for take away for 200 rupees, brought it back and ate it on the beach...which made me have immediate food envy. After Tom finished his food we chilled out some more, read our books and (you guessed it) played more silly games in the sea. After a little while we both decided to go and get showered and ready to go and get some food, upon going back to the room. Whilst I was showering, Tom found the two 5litre bottles of water unopened in the hut...he was confused by this as I had refilled our bottles this morning. We both looked at each other and the look of regret on my face meant it could have only one explanation...I had filled our bottles of water up with the other 5 litre bottle of shower water we were using to wash our feet before entering the hut... what a silly move! As we had been drinking it all day and were both fine, we saw the funny side of it...but we still awaited the dodgy stomachs!

      After getting our outdoor showers we got ready and walked along the beach to find somewhere for me to get Kottu. Along the way we were stopped by a few groups of cheeky kids, one of them even asking if they could have Toms’ ‘slippers’, his bracelet and then some rupees...piss off kid! We got to the local place and I ordered my veggie Kottu, and before it arrived I heard the music from the bread man getting closer and closer...Tom jumped out of his seat and ran outside to coincide with him as we had missed him the previous night. On his way outside Tom asked me if I wanted anything, I said yes with a nod looking forward to whatever came back. Unfortunately it seemed Tom didn’t hear or see me say yes or nod. So he came back with just baked stuff for him! I even sent him a load of messages to ensure I got something, but Tom was obviously not looking at his phone. We agreed that from now on we would just assume that the other person wanted something so they didn’t miss out on the best baked food ever!

      However, it wasn’t all bad news for me, as on the walk back to our place we stopped at various little shops (more like front rooms) for snacks and ended up having a feast back at the place all for around 120 rupees. Bargain! We saved some of the snacks to watch another film in bed and listen to the sound of the ocean as we fell to sleep.
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    • Day 25

      Trincomalee and Nilaveli beach day #3

      January 30, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      Again, we had a fantastic nights sleep courtesy of the sound of the sea. We rose early as usual and went to the table and chairs to await our breakfast, again it was eggs, break, jam and roti but it was as good as previous days.

      Today we had decided that we’d got toTrincomalee to check out a few of the sights we had heard about. We hopped in the Tuktuk and saw that it was really empty on fuel. I spun the knob to switch us to reserve fuel just to be safe and we headed to Trincomalee. On the way we stopped to get fuel and the fill up cost us just over 1,000 rupees...our biggest one yet but still only £4.20. One of the guys said our tyre was needing some air, so he filled it up, not sure if he wanted money or not. When he had done he then said “money”, he tried to get 100 rupees from us... we said we had no cash only card and drove away saying we’d come back later, oops we forgot! Trincomalee was a town with not too much going on, so we went to the tip of the headland where there was an old temple (Hindu) and the old Dutch Fort.

      We parked up and began our walk to the temple, harassed along the way by a couple of beggars and cafe people wanting some money. We got to the entrance of the temple and once again there was a charge for leaving your flip flops which we always take exception to. We stuffed them in the bag but the guard still wasn’t happy. I ran up to see if the temple was worth a visit and it was to be fair. We both went back to the Tuktuk and dumped our flip flops, being harassed there and back by the same beggars and cafe people - got to give them one thing, they’re persistent. We walked barefoot in smug as you like and had a look round. The temple was perched high on the rocky headland with steep cliffs easing down to the ocean. It was a very colourful temple, made more so by, what we guessed was, a wedding. Lots of drums being sounded and people milling around gave it quite a buzz. By this time it was getting pretty hot so we decided that we’d check out Trincomalee beach, however it was no where near as nice as ours at Nilaveli, so we headed back via our bakery man - now a best friend. Instead of us asking what we wanted, this time he just said for us to come into the back room where it’s all made and and go through everything and pick out what we wanted. With the prices of everything firmly in our minds from the last three days of buying things we got ourselves 100 rupees of baked goods and headed back for a chill, swim and a read of our books.

      We headed out for dinner to the local Kottu man at the main road, which was nice and easy for us. As we’d done some maths earlier in the day, we realised that we comfortably had enough cash to see us through the rest of Sri Lanka, so on the way back we went and bought even more baked stuff from our guy - we were slightly obsessed and was probably a good job we were leaving the following day. We got back via the beach and it was a dark clear night, so the stars were out in full force. We had to sort out a plan for the tomorrow, would we try and get to the west coast in one chunk, or would we break it across an afternoon and following morning? We decided on the latter and that we’d stay a night in Mihintale - a temple/ruin filled town much like Anuradhapura. With that decided we headed back for our final sleep in the beach cabana. I went to do my teeth and came back to Tom saying “don’t panic” whilst sat in the room. Immediately I guessed what it could be...a cockroach!!! Tom thought he had trapped it under a big bottle cap, but it had somehow escaped and was now with all our stuff in the corner. We thought that it must have gone out through one of the cracks in the floorboards, so we safely went to bed under our big mozzy net. About half an hour later we were both reading and I looked up to see the same cockroach climbing up the mozzy net, but couldn’t see if it was inside or outside the net. I got up with a massive exhale and quickly got out the net leaving Tom behind (sorry). He promptly thanked me for the quick escape and we saw that it was inside the net! I got a big empty 5 litre bottle and fed it inside the net trapping the cockroach, and Tom craftily went in and screwed the lid on, we’d triumphed and could now sleep easy.
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    • Day 24

      Nilaveli Beach Day #2

      January 29, 2020 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

      It was about 1am when today started. I was up with my torch on in bed trying to kill mosquitos that had managed to sneak through the holes in our net - much to the displeasure of Tom who I’d woken up with the ruckus. Feeling like he’d had a full night sleep, Tom asked what time it was. “It’s only bloody 1am” he cried back in disbelief. He now had the task of getting back to sleep whilst my Mosquito swatting operation was in fill swing. However, surprisingly we both fell back to sleep pretty quickly and slept through till 745, woke up and had our free breakfast which was the same as yesterday, with the addition of a cup of tea. Great way to start another day in paradise!

      You can probably guess what we did first thing...read our books on the sun loungers and then went for a nice dip in the sea. We repeated this for a few hours and it was bliss. The weather was perfect and again we had the beach to ourselves. A few blissful hours had passed and we decided to go for a walk up the beach, Tom made a slight detour to get some baked food whilst I sat and looked out over the sea and went for a swim. He very kindly picked up some baked goods for me after I missed out on the bakery man last night...a nice little surprise when Tom returned to the beach. We ate our food and then continued to walk further along the beach, dodging the thousands of crabs on the sand beneath us. After walking to the end of the beach we walked all the way back to our hotel, getting quite hot by the time we got back so we jumped in the sea to cool down. A bit more chill time followed and then we went to get showered, ready and made our way to get dinner.

      Tonight we thought we would drive a bit further north the a town with a bridge we’d been to the previous to get food at a local place, already having done a price check the previous night. It wasn’t a glamorous place, next to a pretty station and with cows seemingly guarding our Tuktuk, but the guy running it was really friendly. We both had fried rice with “gravy” and oh my god it was so good! The gravy was essentially curry sauce and it was amazing, we even asked for seconds of the sauce as we got through it so quickly! After food we made our way to the bridge and sat and watched the sunset over the river, it was a great sunset again tonight! After the sun had set we went back and had another chilled evening at the beach and in our cabana reading our book and watching some documentaries - super chilled day!
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