Madhu Island and more

To wrap up the last part of Sri Lanka I took a bus from Uduwalawe to Embilipitiya, then bused to Matara. It was another scenic route down to the water. and along the coast from Tangalle to Matara. Matara had some cool stuff. The guesthouse I stayed in on the outskirts of Matara, Seasons Four, wouldn't have passed a safety expectation. The room was in a building behind the family's house. The building was slanted down towards the marshy back of the property. The bed was still comfy and the mosquito net didn't have holes. Plus it was across the road from the beach. I couldn't complain, especially when they made me dinner and breakfast.

Travelling during a country's red letter days can be problematic. Travellers rely on restaurants for food. I walked 6km in one direction searching for food. Little shops were all closed. By the time I had reached a Perrera & Sons everything had been picked over from the lunch menu. Then I found a Pizza Hut, but I couldn't bring myself to eat pizza in Sri Lanka. So I walked back to my guesthouse and asked if I could have dinner there, he said of course.

When I was called for dinner I received a 4-person meal, it was nuts. I barely made a dent in the curries and rice, and I was starving. Everything was so delicious but I was starting to fall asleep from all the walking and heat from the day.

The next day I bought fruit from a fruit stand and sat on some rocks on the beach to watch the sunset.

 
After that night, I packed up as I listened to the morning playoff game, then hunted for an ATM that accepted my bank card. That's one collective thing I really miss about Commercial Bank and Ooredoo: International bank card use and the 100QR Passport for international calling. Both make travel life so much easier.

Anyways, the train to Hikkaduwa was pretty nice, no Kandy to Haputale but it was still nice. I'd recommend taking the bus though because the roads are closer to the water than the train tracks.

After I arrived in Hikkaduwa I got a tuk-tuk to Balapitiya, the town I was staying in. I'm really happy I took a tuk-tuk and not a bus because the guesthouse's location on the map was wrong. 5km-off wrong. The tuk-tuk driver called the place and figured out where to go. We finally made it there, and the place I was staying was the most rustic one in the area. The gate looked like it was stripped off a shipping container but you get what you pay for. Again, mosquito net and comfy bed =  happy camper.

My first full day there I got up and had a wonderful breakfast and set off for something I'd been excited about since the beginning of the trip. Madhu Island and Cinnamon Island. The island was a 40-minute walk from guest house. It was a cloudy day so it wasn't a tough trek. I didn't expect it to be such a quiet walk through a residential area. Then you get to the bridge to the island.

  It was so quiet, the lake was so calm I had the moment all to myself. It was so cool. As I walked across the bridge, motorcycles passed and asked the standard questions "Where are you from?" and "You like Safari?"

Once I got the to the island it was still very quiet. There were mothers and their kids walking the opposite way, probably going to school or daycare, but they were all shy. I got to the temple which was tourist-free. A monk showed me around the area and explained the ages of all the buildings and trees.

 Here's a sleeping Buddha.

 The main shrine at the temple.

 Monk-dolls

  Growing up, my mom had a sewing machine like this in our spare room. 

It was a really cool experience to just be alone in a holy place. The monk asked for a donation and gave me a bracelet (which I'm still wearing) and a delicious king coconut. 

After that, I kept walking down the path and found some dudes and some boats and asked if they could take me to Cinnamon Island. They nodded and directed me into the boat. The two-man crew consisted of a one-armed driver who spoke the most English and another guy who tied the boat up when we stopped.

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We got to Cinnamon Island and they were not ready for visitors. So, in broken English, our captain said we'd come back in about 5 minutes. That was fine by me, then we picked up a random bunch of people off the mainland. They were here on holidays, most of the guys worked in Dubai at one of the five-star hotels. We went back to Cinnamon Island and they gave me some cinnamon oil to try. It works like tiger balm, don't eat it. They also explained the process of how cinnamon is made.

After Cinnamon Island, we hopped into the boat and went to a fish farm. This wasn't just your plain old fish farm though. This fish farm bred tilapia and the fish you find in the lobby of Chinese restaurants.

Each square of water had I'd guess between 100-150 fish. You could dip your feet in and the fish would eat away all your dead skin. They weren't big fans of my callouses. It starts off as a weird feeling then it starts to get relaxing until a big fish starts going at your toe hair.

Once the fish farm was ruined by the ever-so-common throng of Chinese tourists, we left and floated through a "forest" as the Sri Lankans called it.

Our guides, leaving the forest. 

Then the locals got dropped off on an island, they just wanted to hang out and explore for a while. I was beginning to get hungry so I asked to go back to Balapitiya and these two gents above took me back. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not clarifying prices before getting into their boat so I was stuck with footing a hefty price (in Sri Lankan standards) because we didn't have enough middle ground language-wise to negotiate. 

It felt bad leaving on a sour note like that but when I looked back at these photos as I wrote, I felt calm and relaxed remembering the day and holiday as a whole. This was a beautiful country with incredibly friendly and helpful people. I definitely plan on coming back to Sri Lanka again.