The Coral Bay Hotel was a great place to stay. I have to go out on a limb and say Nilaveli was the best beach the Ajayi's have ever holidayed at. Big statement 'cos we've been to a lot of beaches. The water was really clear - you could see your toes and little, silver fish swimming by.
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| Pool and beach - Coral Bay Resort,Nilaveli Beach! |
The sea was only waist deep for quite a long way and then was only neck high! The surf was just a gentle roll. I expect it would be a surfers' nightmare but for us it was paradise. Add to that a gentle breeze, no mosquitoes and very, very few people - beach heaven. Just to make it even better, the hotel had a pool, which we used to wash off the sea water.
Richie and I have never spent so much time in the ocean. We had a swim every morning before breaky, instead of a shower (I always thought soap was over rated anyway).
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| Heaven, I'm in heaven! |
The only down side to Coral Bay hotel was the food. It ranged from awful to lame - depending on what you ordered, and not cheap by SL standards either. The even bigger crime was that they ran out of beer!!
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| Coral Bay Resort |
However, the boys serving us were very sweet and the coffee was good. We got around the food problem by being inventive - we went to Trinco for a big lunch one day, and bought short eats home for the following nights dinner; we ate next door at the White Sands on one night (okay) and had a big lunch at Uppuveli Beach on another day. A big bottle of Arrak got us by, in place of beer.
Our journey from Nilaveli to Trinco was eventful. The cost of a tuk tuk is about 800 rupees ($7), so we decided to catch the local bus, which was 50 rupees (0.50).
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| What a handsome driver! |
We met a Sri Lankan lady and her baby at the bus stop and asked her if she was waiting for the bus and how much did it cost. She didn't speak English and as we are sooooo fluent in Tamil, she scratched the bus fare into the sand.
We waited a while for the bus and after a while a tuk tuk came along. The driver had his 4 year old son, along for the ride, in the back of the tuk. The driver had a quick discussion with the Sri Lankan lady and said he'd take us all into Trinco for 250 rupees. As often is with travel, we had no idea what was going on but we piled into the tuk tuk, the woman, her baby, me, Rich and the drivers' son, for the 30 minute ride into Trinco. It was a tight squeeze but we both felt like locals!
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| Trincomalee |
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| Graveyard, Trincomalee. |
Our visit to Trinco was short and productive. We visited the bus station and found out the bus to Jaffna departs every day
at 1130am, cost 450 rupees and takes 6 hours. You can't pre-book, just turn up on the day. By comparison car and driver was going to cost about $180 or 19 000 rupees and still take about 5 hours. So we are catching the bus, but to be honest, it's also for the experience and to show ourselves we still can (we're not completely soft and middle aged yet).
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| Shiva, Gokana Temple. |
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| The Dutch Fort, Trincomalee. |
After the bus station, we visited the Gokana temple and the big statue of Shiva, at the Fort. Very interesting, but I wasn't to keen on having to take off my shoes - the ground was bloody roasting! The endless parade of schools children found Richie fascinating. I think I might rename him Q.F. - quite fascinating!
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| Q.F. at Gokana Temple. |
We had lunch at Anna Pooram, a little vegetarian restaurant next to the temple. Apparently, any restaurant located near a temple, is only allowed to serve vegetarian meals. This is where we stocked up on short eats (stuffed rotis, fried chick pea things and funny sweet things).
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| Salubrious drinking den, Trincomalee. |
Last stop was the liquor shop for our big bottle of medicinal Arrack (thanks to Roney introducing us to the good stuff when we were in Kandy).
Our visit to Uppuveli beach was a pleasant interlude. Our first stop was Chaaya Blu Resort. Very pretty, very resort like and popular with expat Sri Lankans. If we had seen Uppuveli beach first I think we would have stayed there instead of Nilaveli, as it was livelier and had more eating and drinking options.
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| Chaaya Blu resort, Uppuveli Beach. |
Uppuveli beach is a bit more scenic because it is a bay and it's also closer to Trinco. However, the water wasn't as clear as Nilaveli (sea weed and a few rocks, no big deal) it was quite busy and it didn't have the lost island, dream like quality of Nilaveli.
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| Uppuveli Beach, Trincomalee. |
We also spent a lot of time watching the wild life. You know you're really chilled out when you spent 40 minutes watching a chameleon change colour and another 30 minutes discussing it!
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| Watching the wild life. |
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| Beach strolling wildlife. |
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| Surfing wildife. |
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| Chillin' wildlife. |
Oh we also had a few afternoon storms - which we enjoyed whilst having coffee, cake and Arrak on our verandah, overlooking the ocean/beach.
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| More tea Vicar? |
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| It's a hard life. |
So we finally bid farewell to the Coral Bay Hotel, and the manager who had a crush on Richard. He'd tried to woo him with gifts of plastic beads, but my beloved is not that cheaply bought! He told Richard, he didn't like his white beard 'cos it made him look like an old man - but so far Richie has shown no signs of shaving!
He'd previously had a crush on Sasha, but if you can't be with the one you Iove................
(Laura said when he asked for a picture of them both - he'd tell people this was his German boyfriend and his boyfriends' sister!).
And now we are on the dusty road to Jaffna. We booked an extra seat so we could spread out a bit but the bus isn't really over crowded. They did pick up a lot of people for short rides through Trinco but they seem to have all left us now we reached the middle of nowhere! Only an hour into the ride so far and all seems well - lets see how the next 6 hours go!
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