Mihintale

As it was our last day in Nilaveli we both decided last night that we were going to wake up and see the sunrise over the ocean, as the east coast is perfect for that. We crawled out of our beach cabana at 6:15, still half asleep and there it was...the sun rising, almost creeping over the horizon and lighting up the sky. We watched as it became completely visible and then made our way swiftly back to bed to try and get some more sleep. However, we didn’t get back to sleep...instead we were looking into the Coronovirus: the virus that started in China which has spread globally, killing over 200 people thus far... oh the joys to hear that Sri Lanka and India were two of the countries it had spread to. At around 730 we got up and made our way to have an earlier than normal breakfast...we wanted to beat the Russians who checked in yesterday!

After breakfast we chilled out on the beds, I finished the book I’d been working on - a crime thriller - after only starting it yesterday. I went to go and pack up our stuff as it was an unusually early check out at this place, 10am. Accommodation was paid up, room was empty, Tuktuk was fully loaded, so we were good to go whenever we wanted. This little place in paradise only cost us 5000 rupees each for 4 nights. Incredible value at just £5.20 a night!! A few more hours had passed and we were still on the resort beach...just because we checked out didn’t mean we were going to leave this place! Nor did it mean we weren’t going to occasionally use our shower either. However, sadly we eventually decided to make a move.

Tom was driving the whole way to Mihinthale today, we made our way through crazy Trincomalee traffic and found a local place to stop and grab some lunch! After we broke down the language barrier, we think we ordered a large portion of vegetable fried rice for 250 to share...he came over with two plates of fried rice, I guess he just divided the large portion onto two plates? We dug in, and it was very tasty! He approached when we had finished, “Country?” he asked, to which we obviously responded and then the conversation come to an end there. We then asked for a sweet roll and a 5L bottle of water to take away which he got and then asked us for 210 rupees.... that’s just less than 90p, that was by far the cheapest lunch we had so far, but we sped off in our TukTuk before he realised he had maybe made a mistake and not charged us enough, or at least we tried to speed off, the front wheel of the TukTuk was stuck in a hole! Eventually out of the hole, Tom slammed the throttle and off we went!

50 kilometres had passed, the scenery was gorgeous, we passed rice paddy after rice paddy and lake after lake...but unfortunately it was all very samey and the road was just straight. So it made for a very boring drive in fact. I could see Tom fidgeting and stretching - obviously tired - so I offered tk drive but he refused, instead asking that I blast how the music and we have a good singalong to make the journey go faster.
Thankfully, Tom didn’t fall asleep in the TukTuk and I got us to the hotel in Mihintale safely! The hotel was called Afenta Hotel, it was only recently opened, still unfinished in parts, but was run by a really nice young guy who kept apologising for his poor English...funny, as his was probably close to the best we’d come across. We checked into to our large double room, with private bathroom, it was very clean and stunk of Dettol...I think my mum would have even been okay staying here!

Shortly after arriving we asked the owner for some good food places for dinner, I stood with him and he pinned two on his maps and we made our way to check them out. The first was ‘P&S’, we pulled up outside...it looked like a fancy Greggs at the front with a seated area that felt very local with plastic table and chairs and a glass counter top filled with different types of curry. We saw on the menu that potato curry and dhal curry were 70 and 60 rupee, “great” we thought, “today’s dinner is going to be super cheap”! We then asked him how much a plate of rice would cost to eat the curry with, to which he replied after doing some bullshit maths 320 rupees...nearly 5 times as much as the bloody curry!! Obviously he was related to the man in Kandy! Tom gave up at that point, patience for scamming at rock bottom and wanted to leave, whilst I was trying to get through to him that it’s impossible to charge so much for a single plate of plain rice - I was determined to get a sensible answer in the region of 50 rupees for a plate of rice, but it never happened. Eventually I gave up too and we left P&S completely baffled, we went to check out the second place. From the outside it looked like a shell of a building that had been burned down 20 years ago, with some fancy lights around the doors and windows...however, this didn’t put us off as some of the worse looking places we’ve eaten at before have had the best food! We went inside and they had veggie curry and rice for 170, sold! We ate, the food was pretty good...and then came the bill. Our maths calculated 170 x 2 = 340, however in Sri Lanka 170 x 2 = 480. We weren’t having any of this and after some awkward standing around at the till, the guy reluctantly gave us a fresh bill with 340 on it...we gave him a 500 and then waited for our change...which just as reluctantly as the second bill did arrive.

Feeling pleased at ourselves for paying the right price for dinner, we decided to “splash” and treat ourselves to a nice cold Coca Cola at a grubby little cafe...boy, we know how to treat ourselves! We were approached by various people whilst we were trying to enjoy our drinks, one guy chanting “UK, OKAY” repeatedly, another guy trying to sell us a private tour around Mihinthale ruins and another talking about deer...very random! Tom thought the deer man worked at the cafe and tried to pay him for the cokes, he took the money and very honestly gave us the money back. We paid up and went back to our room where to our complete pleasure we found hidden away in the bottom of my day bag a couple of biscuits that we didn’t eat last night! We inhaled these and then hit they hay!Read more