The illustration details the journey from Kandy to Badulla to Maragala to Arugam Bay to Colombo to Negombo. Why do it, is the obvious question. Well Arugam Bay is one of the worlds top-ten surf beaches, it was discovered by Australians in the 60's so it was somewhat of a pilgrimage; it was heavily affected by the 2004 Tsunami so why not throw some tourism dollars their way; there's a lovely all-day train ride through the tea plantations to get there; and the weather has been so damn hot I really needed to have a swim. The rest of the destinations in the map above all facilitate the means to the end - getting in and out of Arugam Bay.
So I will get the 'what I should have done' bit out of the way up-front. Arugam Bay is most probably the most remote and difficult place to get to in Sri Lanka, which is also part of its charm, and if one is thinking, hmm... I might want to go there one day, pay the $120 for an air-conditioned car with driver from Colombo Airport; obviously cheaper from other destinations. But me, I'm a fan of train rides, have caught trains through 12 European countries, and also most of Australia, so an eight hour train ride from Kandy to Badulla first class was a no-brainer as the first leg of the trip to Arugam Bay. This was to be followed by an overnight lodging in Badulla and an early morning four hour bus-ride to Arugam Bay. Sounded feasible and somewhat an exciting adventure; and so thought my current travelling buddy Ben who decided he would join me on the trip also- a decision I am sure he questioned at various stages.
So the train ride was absolutely stunning, some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen: provided undulating hills of tea plantations one moment to dense coconut and banana tree laden jungle the next, to a total change-up with the countryside looking Alice Springs -esque with dry plains saturated with brown clay and small shrubs - a truly a wonderful experience. An experience further enhanced by my being allowed to travel in the locomotive car and drivers compartment at various times - a childhood dream . The train went through 48 tunnels in total, the majority carved into hard granite mountainside and prior to each tunnel an attendant on the ground would appear on the side of the track and blow a whistle as the train went passed, after which he would disappear into the density of the surrounding flora- antiquated but practical as various parts of the track appeared to have succumbed to rockslides in the past, and I guess the odd tunnel collapse. So as far as the train stage of the journey, both myself and Ben were more than pleased with the experience, as we alighted at Budulla Railway Station to find our overnight lodgings for the train ride in the morning.
The lodgings in Budulla, after avoiding many Tuk-Tuks and touts at the rail station, appeared to be okay considering it's proximity to the railway and appearances from afar. As was the main town of Badulla, which appeared more affluent than other Sri Lankan towns, whereby shopkeepers all greeted you but didn't ask if you wanted to buy something, in the city centre the Tuk-Tuk drivers were all too happy to provide directions without pestering for a fare, and the general landscape had more industry, including a fuel distribution centre, in its home nestled in the beautiful hinterland on the eastern coast of the island. However, it was all to good to be true, as we soon discovered the toilet draining from the base of the bowl into the shower drain- there is no separation of activities, you squat where you wash, just about. The power blew several times throughout the evening; Internet cost a fortune but the wifi didn't work in the room, the mossies and the heat were excruciating, but to top it all off, this city didn't sleep, and as we found out. Our hotel was on a main road, with boom boxes, trucks, cows and all sorts, serenading our unforgiving ears until the wee hours, of which we found out our bus was to leave at 4:30 am. Hence the joyousness of such a great train ride was all but battered by the time we boarded our bus pre-dawn the following morning for Arugam Bay; or so we thought,
The bus ride was your standard Sri Lanka affair, slow and tedious, but being a government bus got us to our next destination in one piece, however, three hours later, this destination wasn't Arugam Bay; we had found ourselves at a bus junction in the small village of Maragala at 7:30 am and the temperature was already 32 degrees and rising. As soon as we (Ben and me) got off the bus we were surrounded by the local hawkers looking for a quick buck, trying to sell us anything from nuts, to grapes, to raffle tickets, in a somewhat more aggressive fashion than we had experienced to-date in Sri Lanka, and after a horrible evenings rest the night before, to be honest I wasn't up for this sort of bollocks.
However they persisted, asking lots of questions, and effectively trying it on for almost an hour while we waited for the bus, which this time we hoped was destined for Arugam Bay. 'It was coming at 9am, 10am, 10:30 am, as we continually were told different times, and there was a mass of people lined up for the journey. The bus arrived at 10:45 and departed for, not Arugam Bay, but Pottuvil, a small Islamic Village 5km from our desired end. All the while, in the nearly four hours wait the temperatures had soared to close to 38 degrees, with 80% humidity; I'm generally good with the heat, but found myself hurriedly diving into my tightly packed- overly secured backpack for some rehydration tablets to bung into my water bottle before I near on passed out: the legs had the wobble and the head was fading in and out, all the while wondering why the fuck I had packed my bag so securely and couldn't find these bloody pills. Once rebalanced again all was fine. Incidentally, a young German fella by the name of Arthur, with just a daypack wandered over to us and said we were the first foreigners he had seen for a while; sparked a conversation, and two became three as we headed off as the group we coined 'the axis of awesome' ( Athur was fond of the word awesome) to Pottuvil and hopefully Arugam Bay.
The bus ride itself on all accounts wasn't too bad, filling up to capacity four times throughout the trip, with mine and Ben's backpacks tied securely between the driver and the front windscreen, nestled comfortably on top of the engine, in the early seventies red 'Lanka Leyland' bus. Ours wasn't the only cargo for the journey, with several punters joining with bags of potatoes, onions, haberdashery and the like, who were either just jumping on from their daily shop at market or were traders moving between markets in each of the towns we travelled through. Funny, but not for the person concerned, the bus came to a screeching halt a number of times throughout the trip, as is usual for the rogue cow, errant cyclist, or to pick up a passenger who had signalled to late, and the man with the potatoes and onion's, his load rolled straight down the centre isle through the feet of the more than legal capacity bus, ending up at mine and every bodies else's feet up the front where we were plonked, as this is where we were shoved there by the conductor, as he recognised mathmatically, three six-foot plus lads weren't really going to fit anywhere else. On every sudden halt for the next 200 km I was finding vegetables at my feet, even after the poor chap had alighted, and the poor bastard, really was concerned about every spud. It made for a fun and interesting ride, as did the fact that the radiator ran out of water several times and we were driving with the radiator cap off, which was situated on the front dash where our bags once were, and the conductor was filling it with water from buckets the driver had stored under his seat after collecting them at various road side stalls along the way. This made the front of the bus feel like a sauna in the already soaring 32+ degree day outside; most probably close to 40 in the bus.
After imparting a bit of knowledge that there was air in the system due to a leaking gasket somewhere, and this the was cause of a lot of the problems, the conducter and driver befriended our group, and this thankfully worked to our advantage, as the bus indeed did only go to Potuvil and not Arugam Bay, and the bus driver taxied us to the door of our hotel in the government bus, which was pretty funny getting chaufer driven in a near empty bus, and well off its usual route- saved us quite a few hundred rupees to-boot!. Further, as we had no idea where our hotel was, he also telephoned ahead and ensured the hotel governor was there to meet us on the main highway. The conductor was great, and could speak reasonable English, as we discussed the various similarities between our countries, especially the fauna and flora- crocodiles and bird life in particular; and the driver with not much in the way of English, did understand a bribe of some duty free cigarettes and some free engineering advice which he seemed to respect after telling them I had been in the Navy. They were both also really appreciative of the efforts Australia had committed to the tsunami relief after it devastated their village in 2004.
Arriving at the hotel, which was a series of concrete chalets built by the family that lived there, seemed like we had found the oasis we deserved after our shitty night in Badulla and tedious public transport experience. They cooked dinner for us which was excellent: fried local fish, daal, curried beans and ladies fingers (okra) and papadums, and we had a good old chat and enjoyed the evening in our new digs. After a swim at the beach, which was 100 metres down a back track of the small village which illustrated signs of ongoing infrastructure renewal after the tsunami, including new drainage, break walls and roads, we all turned in for the night, each assigned to our own individual chalet. Fan, check; flushing toilet, check; hot water, no, but not really required considering how hot it was; mosquito net, check; WiFi, no; and reasonably peaceful except for the bloody crows and squirrels on the roof. I donned my mossie cream, lit a coil and thought this would be a great nights sleep, it wasn't, mossies were relentless; every dog in the bay howled throughout the night, and to top it all of, there were bed bugs; I had changed clothes several times throughout the night and applied mozzie cream thinking it was mozzies, but discussions with Ben and Arthur in the morning, and they too had both had a terrible nights sleep for the same reasons. What to do, they were lovely people who offered to cook us a fresh seafood BBQ that day and possibly take us out on a fishing boat. But another night of bugs and no wifi, and we were destined to leave. They asked if we wanted breakfast as we snuck away for an early morning swim, which disguised our mission to find new accomodation, a pursuit Arthur was the most ardent at convening as he loved to haggle, to the point where both Ben and. I were getting embarrassed at the extent he went to to save $2; but to his credit, after we had visited almost every hotel in town, and there are plenty, so we found out, we struck a deal with a new place which promised to be much better, with the beach literally 50 metres from our bungalow. Now to make the escape without hurting the previous governor's feelings as they had taken us in at short notice, had been so nice to us, and thought we were staying for several nights; but we had to go. Luckily when we returned only the mother of the house was there and she couldn't speak English very well, and after secretly packing our bags we announced that the lack of WiFi was a major issue as we were journalists and had to go, paid our lodgings and made the dash to our new digs (below) before the rest of the family had returned.
Our new digs were great, we each had our own bungalow, it was clean, $7 a night, had Wifi, and no bed bugs. The order of the day for the boys was to hire a surfboard and surf the point, which in the right season can reach 10 foot, and the right hander stretches right across the bay for a good 150 metres and can be rode for a good 300. Unfortunately the swell was only 2-3 foot throughout the day, but for beginners in Arthur, and Ben who had surfed a little before but nothing quite as big as 10 foot, the waves were perfect. Me, having been both a Maroubra and Clovelly local in previous incarnations assessed the situation as perfect for body surfing and didn't bother with hiring a board, however I did serve it up to the backpacker surfers out the back, dropping in on a few, and also teaching a few young kids who had chosen to swim fully clothed, how to swim. Seriously they were out of their depth and many of them could have easily drowned. Another plus of Arugam Bay, was the local tailors who could knock up any type of surf wear you desired, as advertised by the Billabong, Quicksilver and Rip Curl board shorts, rashies, and ladies costumes hanging in their window. So I got two pair of tailor made Billabong boardies and a quicksilver rashie knocked up for under $40.
We spent a couple of full days in Arugam Bay basically surfing, sleeping, surfing, then sleeping again, littered in between by some fine cuisine which had been nurtured in the area by the multitude of foreign tourists who arrive at the bay each year, of which Israeli tourists were the most frequent visitors according to locals. This included getting a full English breakfast one morning served within 40 metres of the beach. The one downer I guess, and this goes for all over Sri Lanka, noise is frequent, constant and loud, be it from the various religions- Muslims, Sinhalese Buddhist, Hindu Tamils or Christians, to the constant beeping of horns, nursery rhymes belting out of bread delivery trucks throughout the night, to monkeys playing rugby on your bungalow roof. And this was the same for Arugam Bay, the Muslim call to prayer, as this was the dominant religion in the area, certainly let you know it was 5am, as did the bread truck at 11pm, and the monkeys at whatever hour they saw fit. Moan over, you do get used to it, as you do the heat, because you just have to sleep, and learn to live with it. As noisy as them bloody monkeys were, boy were they cute. It was a whole extended family that came to visit us on the Friday morning with the fathers keeping lookout on opposing roofs, mums suckling their young within this security perimeter and juvenile monkeys just making asses of themselves as kids do, ripping up roofs, throwing each other around and jumping from bungalow to bungalow- cute, but bloody noisy; however I feel lucky for the experience.
Come Friday evening after a big day in the surf, my toilet decided it was unserviceable, of which no remedy was offered, there was a power blackout, of which we heard lasted well into the night, and the fact that we had to get to the west side of Sri Lanka eventually, triggered a spontaneous decision - let's catch a bus to Negombo, the next biggest city north of the capital. Colombo. By all accounts Negombo was very tourist friendly, had a great hostel owned by the people who owned the Kandy hostel we had stayed in, and surely what not a better way to spend an evening rather than sitting in the dark and having a smelly lav. We had heard there was a bus leaving Pottuvil in 45 minutes and the journey would take 9 hours. Not for the faint hearted, but had to be done, as all my lobbying of Arthur and Ben in the previous two days to share an air conditioned car with a driver for $40 bucks a head, which would reduce the trip down to 5-6 hours, came to no avail; understandably as their budget was not as flush as mine, however, I'm sure they were both eating their words towards the end of that bus ride. So we caught a Tuk-Tuk to Pottuvil, loaded up on snacks, water and got some take away food.
Now take away food in Sri Lanka is called a parcel, whereby if you order something like the traditional meal Kothu, which is like a stir fry of veges, cabbage, egg and your choice of meat on a hot plate chopped, diced, flipped and turned with two aluminium spatulas, done so with again noise, as the chef bashes and pulverises the food into the hot plate until it resembles tiny pieces of what it originally was; then it is served onto a piece of plastic akin to shopping bag material and the wrapped in newspaper, and that's it! All well and good if you don't mind eating with your hands as no plastic cutlery was supplied and my back-up plastic forks collected after every take-away I had eaten before I left, was stowed away in the cargo hold of the bus. Incidentally eating with your hands is the way most Sri Lankans eat, and always with the right hand, as the left hand is for other activities. So the sight of the three so use trying to eat our parcel of Khotu on a very crazy and bumpy bus ride with only our hands was a sight to behold. We were all sort of embarrassed by the occasion, looking up at one another and giggling at I guess how proper we thought we were and this was against what we knew and had been taught- scooping stir fry into our mouths, getting it all over our face and hands, but were so hungry and we got on with it, but only after I pulled out my handy pump-pack of sanitiser.
Nine hours on a bus in the dead of night, who cares we can sleep and wake up refreshed was our thinking; hahaha, as if! It was yet another crazy Sri Lankan bus ride full of events, NOISE, and generally not conducive to even remotely sleeping. First, we were lucky enough to get a private bus, costing us 900 rupees each for the pleasure, which we had paid to a local shopkeeper come booking agent, who provided us an official booking slip, seat numbers to-boot, and who also told us we had to pay the conductor an extra 100 rupees each for our baggage; so $7.93 AUD for the journey to the other side of the country seemed pretty fair, until later in the trip we were given our ticket which stated the trip was only 500 rupees. Ok I'm quibbling about $4, however this was the trend in Sri Lanka, we were overcharged at every turn; most products have the rupee price stamped on them and we were routinely charged 25-50% more than stated, and spent many an awkward standoff discussing the actual price. I get it, it's a poor country and us Westerners have a bit more disposable income and a higher standard of living, from our point of view anyway, but the blatant ripping off whilst smiling and saying thank you, did begin to grate us after a while, and this was yet another occasion. I was once told not to fight for principles as it was better to fight the politics, as the means was less painful personally and the end more advantageous, but fair dinkum, it's not good for tourism in Sri Lanka if tourists who are willing to spend their hard earned on your wonderful attractions, and pay top dollar, are continually deceived financially.
That said we were on our way, and the beauty of the private bus, as I explained in an earlier blog, was the sound system: this bus had 5 massive speaker boxes with subwoofers in each, and lucky for us there was one right above the back seat where we were seated! I mean let's be fair, the driver had a long way to go and music is a great companion, but not at a 120 decibels so even with iPod headphones on you couldn't hear anything you might be listening too; further, the dude had ADHD and would flick between songs continuously for the whole trip, of which they were poor Sinhalese rip offs of Guns and Roses, Europe and Rastafarian style reggae- it was fuckin awful! Not to mention his ability to maintain the private bus driver mantra of getting there as fast as possible, in the middle of the road, beeping and overtaking everything in site, as we swayed and swerved all over the joint hitting bump after pothole and then suddenly screeching to a halt as he realised that the oncoming truck wasn't going to move for his next daring overtaking jaunt. All three of us tried every possible body contortion as we spread across the back three seats to try and get to sleep: Arthur and I on the back seat- me in front of the back door, and Ben on the seat directly in front of Arthur. It just wasn't happening, this sleep thing, let alone trying to eat our Khotu parcel by hand.
First stop, three hours in about 11pm at a local all night takeaway in Wellawaya, which appeared to be the only joint open in a somewhat deserted town centre and a common stop for many long distance bus routes, as there were two other buses parked there as we arrived. At first we wondered what was going on, how long we would stop for etc, so after sitting there curiously/tentatively assessing the situation we got off to stretch our legs, and were immediately confronted by three drunk blokes whose idea of personal space was four millimetres from my nose. My natural instinct to be defensively assertive at that distance, but a deep breath and a few slow paces backwards was the only way to deal with this mob in a town where I knew nobody or where I actually was at this bloody hour. The hassling and yelling questions at us including the bonus of a trail of snot and spit to accompany was starting to grate, then a Sri Lankan guy from another bus asked me in very posh English accent what I thought Australia's chances were in the cricket and continued chatting to us, all the while relaying my message to the drunks to back off out of my face, but as drunks are, they persisted and we retreated back to the bus, hoping for a departure sooner rather than later. We departed on the bus and we thought that was that, until halfway down the road the drunkest of the three we had encountered, who had snot all over his face and was continually asking the same question in Sinhalese with a begging posture made with his hands, appeared walking down the corridor of the bus and wanted to sit with us, where clearly there were other seats up the front of the bus, but I think the other Sri Lankan passengers hurried him on. I felt for him, but he was persistent and kept hassling, touching and asking, and we put up a united front and said no, because it was inevitable he would not only hassle us but most probably fall asleep on one of us. So he ended up plonking himself at our feet on the floor between the three of us, still touching asking and begging....farkkk... He probably meant well, I did question my stance personally, but the bus ride was bad enough already without more grief. Finally I gave him a cigarette, thinking it would either shut him up or he would get thrown off the bus or made to sit on a seat somewhere, none of the above occurred as he sat there smoking the back of the bus out, then rolled over onto the floor, pulled his sari over his head and went to sleep. Phew..issue sorted apart from the occasional having to move him off my leg or foot or tell him no to his persistent questioning.
As if the ride wasn't already fun, a few hours further into the trip the army stops the bus and begins searching everybody's bags quite feverishly, I asked why, the soldier said its routine, smiled, briefly squeezed my bag and moved on; it was quite confronting having the bus surrounded and cabin filled with ten or so soldiers with weapons, with that serious look of intent about them. Funnily enough, they stepped over the drunk on the floor. Phew, that crisis over, maybe some sleep time is possible, if only the music could be turned down! Next stop was another roadside diner about 60 km out of Colombo, in the meantime I had rung ahead and hoped we could get a booking at our preferred hostel, as due to our spontaneity in leaving, had overlooked the important issue of somewhere to sleep. This diner was akin to the first but without the drunks, but lots of glaring eyes and absolutely filthy toilets you could smell as one alighted from the bus, but after seven hours, holding it in wasn't an option to hold on. To Arthur's credit, he did as one does in Rome and found a spot on the side of the road, whilst Ben and I suffered the stench and quickly boarded the bus. Not long to go we thought and we would be in Colombo, the next mission was to find out how to get to Negombo at 4 am.
Finally arriving at Colombo at 4:25am on a Saturday morning after boarding the bus at 7:45 the previous evening and we were pretty toasted, as we fumbled around the bus terminal trying to find a connecting bus. At this stage Arthur announced it was time for him to leave us, as swiftly as he joined us all the way back in Maragala in the searing heat on the Wednesday morning,MHD departed, as he was keen to catch another bus to explore the southern part of Sri Lanka, and the axis of awesome had disbanded and it was back to Ben and me the crazy duo who started this adventure in Kandy after meeting the Friday previous. Does anybody in Colombo or a Sri Lanka for that matter sleep? The terminal was jam packed with people, all the fruit vendors, tobacconists and roti sellers were all in full swing, even touting us at this wee hour. Oddly though, of the conservative, say 5000 people at the terminal littered across each of the bus sheds, there must of only been a handful of women, the place was full of young men 'just hanging out' or older men on their way to work, and to be frank, with backpacks on and looking like odd token tourist, it was a little intimidating, especially because nobody could give us a straight answer as to where the Negombo bus actually left from and at what time. We left the complex and headed for the main road where we saw a police car, thinking that would be best for both security and directions, but upon approaching the police car it took off. So I started winging it, because I knew that the private bus touts would always be around trying to steal customers from the government buses and charging double the price, so headed for the first one I saw and asked him which bus went to Negombo. As luck would have it, he was touting an airconditioned bus to Negombo for 600 rupees, four times the cost of the government bus, but at that time of day who cared, although we were a little suss as to whether it was the truth. Got on the bus and found a middle aged man who was dressed reasonably professionally for that time of day, and he confirmed this was our bus, thank god. The tout/conductor said the bus wasn't leaving until full, which is standard in Sri Lanka, and that would be in about 40 minutes. So I dumped my bag with Ben and went to go and get us a drink, on the way out confirming with the tout that he would wait for me. Again got overcharged buying a drink and a packet of cigarettes, but wasn't up to arguing and quickly made it back to the bus until I realised it had its lights on, doors closed and was ready to leave- without me! Raced across the road, and Ben told me that he had to stop the driver from leaving a few times because I was missing...we would have both been stuck, me with no bags and Ben with both bags in the middle of nowhere. Finally we reached the Negombo bus station, hopped straight into a Tuk-Tuk and by 5:30 arrived at the hostel, which like the Kandy hostel owned by the same people, was really just a big house, where we were greeted by a lovely lady with a glass of juice and a cup of tea; totally exhausted after such a trying week, night, morning, but we'd made it. Geez that air conditioned car with a driver would have been good!
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