Finding our new home in Mirissa

We left Colombo first thing Tuesday morning, and jumped on the local bus again. It was a hell of a long ride back to Mirissa but was worth it when we finally stepped back on to the beach.

We found a room to stay in, dumped our bags and went to look for a place we could call home for a month. We did have something in mind, a little green bungalow on stilts that sits on its own on the western side of the bay. We had seen it the last time we came and thought it would be amazing to stay there. We were not even sure if it was tourist accomodation, or if it was who even owned it. If we managed to find that out we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to afford it, but if you never ask you never know.

It sits next to a small restaurant and that seemed as good a place as any to ask. Turned out they did own it. Next came the price, normally Rs3000 a night, which is cheaper than we thought but still that is half a days budget for us, it is too much. We asked if they would give a discount as we wanted to stay long term. 'How long?' they asked, when we told them a month the guy looked surprised and then proceeded to think about it for a long time. Finally he said we could stay for the month for RS70000 or £350, less than £12 a day. We could not argue with that. We had to wait until Thursday for it to become unoccupied and we had not seen the inside yet but we left happy.

We past the remainder of Tuesday and Wednesday relaxing on the beach. Cheap, awesome Jumbo prawns were back on the menu and we went straight for them Tuesday night. Wednesday we headed to the local town of Weligama, a 10 minute and 10p bus ride away to restock on cash and supplies that we will need over the coming weeks. We were back by 1 pm and wasted no time crashing onto the beach, baking in the sun before cooling off in the sea.

We were out of our room early this morning, eager to see the inside of the bungalow, hoping it was as nice as the outside, or at least nice enough for us to live in for a month. We had to wait for the previous tenant to depart, and we passed the time with a terrible breakfast and a litre of tea. When we finally got chance to see inside we were more than happy. A four poster bed sits inside a basic but clean room with windows and glass doors that open on to the balcony, the bathroom is the only slight negative, just needs a bit of attention but it is clean and we have easily stayed in worse. There is plenty of storage and the first thing we did was unpack. We have not taken everything out of our bag since the safari in July, it is fair to say there is a certain smell to some of our clothes that have lived in the bottom of our bags for 3 months.

Our New home on the Beach

Chelsea on our Balcony

View from our balcony - look how close we are to the sea!