Unavatuna trip

DSC04412
Originally uploaded by Rob@SFU.

My trip was quite nice. I went with a Denisfrom work down south again and as usual it was an interesting train ride down. The train tracks are rather worn and the train cars themselves date back at least 50 years so the springs are shot. The ride reminds me of those mechanical bulls you can ride, except those are a bit tamer! I now know why nobody rides on the roof, they wouldn't be able to stay on!!

We got to the hotel and it was quite nice. It was raised up on the rocks right on the ocean but also had a rock feature between the ocean and the hotel that came up to about the second story. Our rooms were on the third floor (all rooms were actually on this floor - "all" is really only 4... The first floor was living quarters, the second floor was a large eating area and then the four rooms on top. The rock feature in front of the hotel protected them from the tsunami, however their grounds were flooded. Right below the room s the waves would crash into the rocks and send up great waves of spray about 20 feet in the air. About every few minutes you would get a huge wave and it would spray a good 40 to 50 feet high. Then about 10 seconds later you'd get the spray in your face if you were standing on your balcony. It was quite awesome.

Once we got settled in we went for a walk to the main beach, about five minutes away. Along the way we ran into a group of large monkeys and a medium sized monitor lizard. Some photos are posted on my flickr site (see previous post for URL). I did capture the end of a big wave on the video camera, I'll try to get a video clip posted somewhere as well later.

We went swimming at the beach and the water was quite nice. As it is monsoon season the water is quite a bit cooler but still really nice. Even refreshing almost. We walked down to the far end of the beach and had a nice meal on the beach, it was rather pleasant. We then headed back to the hotel and then walked to "Jungle Beach", which is trail accessible beach that is literally a beach in the jungle, very nice and a great place to swim. There was a group of young Dutch women teaching a couple of local girls how to swim there and other than them it was empty. On the way back it was an interesting trek through the "jungle" and we got a bit lost but you can always hear the roar of the ocean so you can't go too far wrong. It was an adventure. After we got back we showered and took some naps and then headed out for dinner. We had a buffet at a beach resort which was a bit pricey, about 6$, but hey, we splurged. We then headed back and it was pretty dark and the roads are all sort of road/trail with lots of damage from the tsunami. We wanted to get a to larger road where we could get a ride but as it had rained really hard during dinner the roads were pretty washed out. We came around a corner and could hear a vehicle when I saw something moving ahead of us in the shadows. It then moved to where it was silhouetted against the headlights from the car and was a large dog, a very large dog. It moved around the corner and something in my mind was telling me something was different about the way it moved, not in a dangerous way, just different. Denis had noticed it too but didn't say anything, he'd had a few beer with dinner and thought it was the effect of those that was confusing him. Anyway we rounded the corner and bumped into the "dog", it mooed at us and we both broke into laughter as it was a medium sized cow... How brave we were... The owner of the hotel passed us on his way home and gave us a ride back so that was nice. We headed to bed and I was asleep within minutes after all the swimming and walking and sun only to be awoken with a crash about an hour later as a gust of wind hit us moving at least 100K. A storm hit with an incredible crashing of waves and wind and rain. It was incredible. I had been sleeping with the patio doors open but the rain was coming in sideways so I shut them and enjoyed the sounds of the crashing waves and of the rain hitting the building. About an hour later I was woken again as the storm turned up another notch. I had cringe at the thought of all the people down the road still living in tents and wondering what it was like there. I got out of bed around 2 to film some of the trees on the back of the hotel but missed the rain and some of the bigger winds, it was still awesome though. When we woke up it was still stormy so we had a nice breakfast of fresh fruit, coffee and toast with jam (fresh home baked bread, my first since I've been here). We decided to head out on the 10 AM train as it was going to rain for the day. We fought our way onto the train and eventually found two seats between two windows. The train ride journey is 160K and sitting by a window is almost a must. The two seats in front of us were being held by two bags and when the people arrived I asked with a hundred rupee note in my hand if they wanted to switch. The wife didn't notice the money and indicated no, she wanted the window, the husband saw the note and couldn't pick her or the bags up quick enough. So we switched and I added another 100 to make them even happier. The ticket (2nd class - no 1st on this route) cost 93 Rupees so they got a free ride plus some money for snacks and we got our seat. One US dollar is about 101 rupees to give you an idea of the money I was throwing around like Rockafellar... Our room was 1500R including breakfast. The ride in a three-wheeler from the train station to the hotel was 150R, all in all a fairly cheap trip. Oh, I took a local bus to the train station from in front of my flat to the train station for 6R too...

All in all a great trip for about 30$ total! Can't beat it! Post your comments or email me, I have a feeling nobody reads my posts as they are too long... sorry. With the poor connectivity I tend to post less frequently but longer posts....

Today is a HUGE rally here in Colombo, they expect a million people. Should be interesting even if they get half than many people together!

Take care... Rob