Day 11 - Some highs, some not so highs.

16:00
And so, it’s time for the last leg of our trip. After this, we shall, indeed, be legless.

Vicki and I have both slept adequately, and are up in decent time to get packed. Lalanika has subtly been shifting forwards by a few minutes the time she brings our breakfast each day, and is setting up by 09:15. We have some omelettes, fruit, toast and yoghurt.

We have a short wait for our van to Tangalle, but nothing like as frustrating or hot as the one that brought us here to Mirissa. I’m so pleased V, S and S have all loved Mirissa as much as I thought they would. I had a feeling it would probably be their favourite stop along the way, and I suspect even after our stay in Tangalle, that will prove to be the case.

The drive over to Tangalle is fairly uneventful. We’re on a highway for most of it. The landscape passing us by is incredibly verdant - much of it made up of rice paddies and cattle grazing land. It reminds me very much of Kerala, that beautiful and lush state to the South of Goa.

We arrive into Tangalle around 12:30, and our rooms aren’t quite ready yet. There’s a bit of a communications snafu, which we ultimately resolve through the use of an English to Sinhalese translation app. We have a cold drink while the rooms are made up, dump our stuff, and head out pretty quickly in search of sustenance.

We make it maybe 200m down the beach before finding Simon (who’d wandered off to make a couple of work calls) and dropping into a beach bar called Brother’s (their apostrophe, not mine…) We have a tasty late lunch of kottu, grilled calamari, battered tuna - that sorta thing. It’s super hot and super humid today. There’s the threat/promise of some rain, which I think would largely help us out. I pad back to our room for some chill time, while the others head further along the beach for an explore…

22:30
I’ve felt a little par-boiled today. I don’t think there’s any one thing getting at me, but a combo of things have combined to leave me feeling physically and mentally sub-par.

I feel better for a short rest, and get freshened up to head out around 19:00. We wander down the road that runs parallel to the beach, and we walk past countless beach bars and restaurants. After a late lunch, we’re not particularly hungry. We’ll maybe grab some snacks if the mood takes us. Many of the beach bars offer a happy hour though, so we find one that looks/sounds attractive and pile in. Sampa Beach Bar offers buy one get one free on cocktails until 20:00 = WINNING. Vicki manages to swing a decent virgin colada, whilst Si, Shenda and I lap up our mango daiquiris.

We ordered some simple snacks - some roti and a chicken sandwich. An hour later, we ask where our food is, and are told it will be another five minutes. We ask again after five minutes, and are told they've run out of gas, and the chef has had to go and restock. We wait another five minutes, and ask for the bill - but we’re told the food will arrive any moment. One of the service team stops by our table, and tells us that he is working alone in the kitchen this evening, so the pace of service is slow. We’re unsure if it’s the gas, or the chef working alone - but we all smell bullshit.

Shenda goes to the toilet, and pops her head around the kitchen door while she’s there. When she returns, she says the kitchen does NOT look good. We decide to leave.

We calculate the exact amount owed for our drinks, and leave this in cash as we walk out. One of the workers behind the bar starts to say something aggressively in Sinhalese to Vicki and Shenda, until I turn around and stare him down. He apologises.

We walk perhaps 400m down the road, until we find we are being chased by a tuk-tuk. When it slows down, Shenda initially thinks he’s asking if we want a lift, so waves them away. It turns out to be two different members of staff from the beach bar, demanding more money from us.

They try and tell us that the happy hour deal is buy TWO to get one free, which is not at all what we were told when we ordered. We hold our ground, and the discussion gets increasingly heated. I can feel my hackles exponentially rising. Eventually, we’re being shouted at, and when I respond in kind, I get asked to keep the noise down by the manager/owner dude.

I can deal with slow service - if you TELL me that something’s going to take a while. I cannot deal with lies from the service team, and aggressive behaviour from the manager/owner.

Fuck you Sampa Bar. Fuck you.

Frustratingly, I’d tagged a few bars and restaurants literally no more than 50m from where we’d been sitting as worth a visit during our Tangalle stay. We stupidly got sucked in by a seemingly good happy hour deal. Curses.Läs mer