After concluding our trip to Munnar, we headed off to Sri Lanka for the 2nd leg of our vacation. The flight to Colombo from Kochi takes less than 45 minutes. The Colombo airport is relatively modern (compared to India's international airports). We cleared customs, met our driver and were soon speeding off to Colombo to meet with our travel agent who had organized a 4 point tour of Sri Lanka, starting with a couple of beach resorts, New Years's at Colombo and a last stop at the Heritance Ahungalla resort up in the hills near Kandy (ancient capital of Sri Lanka). We paid the travel agent, picked up our travel itinerary and began the drive down the coastline to our hotel Heritance Kandalama. We drove down one of Sri Lanka's primary arteries that links the capital Colombo to the international port town of Galle in the South West. We stopped on the way at the Pinnewala elephant orphanage at lunchtime when the elephants come to bathe in the river.
It was quite a sight to see hundreds of adult and baby pachyderms cavorting and snorting water on each other playfully. The orphanage was initially set up to rescue elephants who are old, injured or rejected by their tribes. Over the years, the it's population has grown and now there are close to 650 elephants at the orphanage. Tourism helps pay for the upkeep of the orphanage.
As we continued down the coastline, we could see evidence of the damage caused by the Tsunami in the area. We finally arrived at our hotel where we spent the next couple of days. Its on a beach front property with very nice views of the sunset. The food was quite average and the hotel didn't leave me much to remember. We hung out by the pool a bit and strolled on the beach but there wasn't much going on outside the resort. The neighborhood was pretty dead for a beach town. We went to a neighboring town called Hikkaduwa, which was supposed to be a bit more lively. However, there wasn't much going on there at least during dinner time.
After a couple of days, we drove up the coastline (back towards Colombo) and checked into Taj Exotica on Bentota Beach. This is a great hotel with fantastic views of the beach and some nice facilities. I found a common friend there who was a manager of one of the divisions at the hotel. We had a couple of drinks with him and his wife. The couple had spent more than a decade in Goa and were dying to go back. They just couldn't see themselves fitting in there for long. I can see why. While I was in Sri Lanka, I found the locals to be quite nice and friendly but they seemed to be missing the zest for life. For an island so beautiful, it had a fairly low energy level. Maybe, its the war with the Tamil Tigers or the sluggish local economy, but the island didn't have a happy vibe like Goa or many island communities do. There were some highlights on the trip though that deserve mention. I loved to see the sunsets where the fiery red sun slowly sinks into the ocean, lighting up the sky with reddish orange colors. It's breathtaking spectacle. I met an old friend at the Bolgota Yacht Club, outside Colombo. The club is on the banks of Sri Lanka's backwaters and he had a jet ski parked there. I spent a good one hour racing and exploring the water canals till we had to go back to town for New Year's eve. It was interesting to find a bunch of Brit expats playing cricket on the grounds of the yacht club. The club dates back to the British Raj days and you could see it's old colonial culture was very much alive.
I really enjoyed my stay at the Heritance Ahungalla. It's a beautiful luxury resort up in Ahungalla, near the town of Kandy. The food was also pretty decent. If you are going to go to Sri Lanka for a trip, then do visit this resort. Its a 5 start resort but priced rather economically, due to the Tamil Tiger problem. I would advise anyone planning to go now to keep an eye on the travel alerts being issued against travel to Sri Lanka. The peace treaty between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government ended in February and the fight between rebel and government forces has been escalating. Pity, isn't it!
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