We chose Unawatuna as our first stop on the route through Sri lanka's southern beaches. The beaches in the north are hard to reach, the beaches on the east are in the rainy season and the western beaches are supposedly touristy. So the south it was.
Unawatuna would have been idyllic 15 years ago. All post-tsunami rebuilding seems to have taken place as close to the sea as they possibly can. Some businesses are actually in the water when the tide comes in. The sand is sparkling white and the sea is every shade of blue and green imaginable, but it is all spoilt by the greed of the local businesses. It is impossible to get any seclusion on the beach as every one is on top of each other. The food establishments serve boring, ubiquitous food and then charge double of anywhere else in Sri Lanka (apart from Galle, but then the food is worth it). Tourism is still a growing phenomenon in Sri Lanka, and they are still trying to find their feet.
Sri Lankans are actively trying to grow the tourism trade, setting its sights fairly high. Since the war ended in 2009 the numbers of people visiting the island have drifted steadily upwards with 800,000 visitors in 2011. This is a record, and a massive 40% increase on the year before, but still not huge numbers, when you consider that the tiny island of Bali relieves 2.4 million visitors a year. Sri Lanka are aiming for double this number. Eight spots in the country have been awarded Unesco World Heritage status, which is a large number for such a small country.
Sri Lanka is already fairly well populated with indigenous people. Sri Lanka is almost exactly the same size as Ireland, but houses four and a half times as many people. That is 20.8 million people!
I feel at the moment that the country is too expensive to become popular with backpackers. Everything you want to do has hidden costs and the simplest outing ends up costing you loads of money. A non-negotiable 10% service charge is levied on everything, even guest house charges. When you go into anything run by the government (so any of the eight world heritage sites or national parks) you get charged a fixed service charge of $8 regardless of your group size, and then a 12% tax on top of that.
The Sri Lankan people haven't quite gotten used to tourists being in their country and this sometimes feels very unfriendly. Bartering is not warmly received like in other Asian countries, and the stares you receive don't have the same intrigue or friendliness as in India. Sometimes on a bus people won't even sit next to me for some reason, which just leaves me feeling like a pariah!
Sri Lankans come across as being fairly humourless and unwelcoming, which is quite understandable for obvious reasons. People seem very relieved that the war is over, though unfortunately the damage is visible and lasting. A huge proportion of the killing that took place was in the last two years of war, not that long ago. Obviously the devastation of the tsunami in 2004 has also massively affected the society. A staggering 30,000 people were killed and many more were injured, orphaned and made homeless. People are generally quite grumpy and don't seem to take the same pleasure in life as the Indians. You will always find groups of Indians playing games, listening to music, gossiping or dancing, but the Sri Lankans don't seem to have the same enjoyment of down time.
There is an obvious class system in Sri Lanka with Sinhalese first, and Tamils second. There are different buses, schools and areas for different groups of people, so segregation is very much active. Sinhalese make up 74% of the population and just 9% is a mix of Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils.
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One day when we were in Unawatuna we took a trip to the local Turtle hatchery. I love turtles and giant turtles so this was a real treat. The guys work hard to preserve these gentle giants, they have to buy the turtle eggs off of the fishermen who collect them illegally. If they didn't buy them they would end up being eaten, or sold along on the black market. They hatch hundreds of turtles every year. There are 5 species of turtle and all 5 of them come to Sri Lanka. They are hornbill,
As well as a hatching programme they also run a rehabilitation scheme for any turtles that they treat for medical issues. I got to hold a teeny baby turtle, so it was a worthwhile trip!
The high prices in Unawatuna had us moving on fairly rapidly to Mirissa, about 30km along the coast, to the east. Mirissa doesn't get as much press as Unawatuna, so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised. The beach is wide and long, the bars and huts are set right back from the beach, and the prices are manageable, with even a few bargain restaurants for cheap eats! This is more like it!
Mirissa is famous for being the place to watch the worlds biggest mammals-the blue whale. Lonely planet reports the prices for trips out to sea being really expensive, over £80 per person. This puts a lot of people off from coming down here as they think they cannot afford it. We managed to find a trip for £15 each, and it was brilliant!
We got picked up at 6:20am and were dropped back at our guest house at 13:00 so we were on the water for a good few hours. We sailed about ten miles out to sea, to join up with the path that the huge whales cut through the ocean. Everyone that we had spoken to in Mirissa had not seen anything, but we were lucky enough to see 2 fully grown ones! It is brilliant, they surface, blow huge puffs of water out of their blowholes, rear out the water and them dive back down. Twelve minutes later they are back up. We stayed with them for quite a while before heading back to land. The companies that organise the trips are under strict laws to not get too close to the whales, as if they get distressed they will change their swimming habits, therefore losing a huge amount of money generated by tourism. Despite these supposedly strict restraints you still see the boats trying to get as close to the great beasts as possible, the captain no doubt being egged on by an uneducated tourist.
On the way back we saw a huge school of dolphins who were hanging hopefully around the fishing boats, hoping to get anything that fell out of the nets. I've always had a soft spot for dolphins so it was amazing to see all of these animals swimming in unison.
We are now back up it the south of the Hill Country to do some hiking. We are staying in a little village called Ella, which is sprawled along the side of the ridge that makes up the stunning Ella Gap. This is a huge ravine overlooked by the mighty Ella Rock. Interspersed with tea plantations and crashing waterfalls Ella is the prime spot for some hiking. A real backpackers retreat, the small town is great for kicking back after a long walk, having a few beers and chatting to other travellers.
We did several walks whilst in Ella which afforded us some amazing views. We did the challenging walk up to the top of Ella Rock which took 4 hours. The view was incredible! You can see for miles and miles, misty plains, mountains, villages and forest
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