Entries about hikkaduwa

Unbelievably today marks exactly one year since we left the UK on our long, long flight to Singapore. It has been one of the best years of our lives. Anyone that knows us will know just how much fun we have had. We have had some incredible experiences and met new friends from all over the world.

Before we left the UK we read a lot of articles about how much travelling long term changes you. We don’t think we have changed majorly but there are small things that we think differently about. We have travelled living out of a backpack for 365 days and neither of us has missed anything we left behind. We purposefully did not bring our phones with us, and we are so glad, the amount of time you see friends and couples sat out for dinner, all heads down into their iPhones, is ridiculous.

The most immediate change we have recognised is our perception of how people live. A lot of people may criticise our choice to travel and ask us why we are running away from settling down and a stable normal life. The answer is, we are not running away from anything, we are running towards things we want and embracing life. Some people may accept it now but expect us to settle down in the future. We have learned that we do not have to; we can do anything we please. Success in life in our opinion can never be measured in a job, a house, a marriage or in money. To be successful is to be happy no matter what that is. We would never criticise anyone for wanting these things, it is just not important to us. If this trip has taught us anything it is that life is precious and flies by in a flash, people should do what makes them happy while they can. Why live your life working in a job you hate in order to fund a house you don’t really want, just so by the time you have retired you can have the stability and luxury to do what you actually want to do….. do it now.

This is our last blog post for Powered by Noodles. Tomorrow is our last day and Thursday is took up entirely with travelling back home. Sri Lanka has been a perfect final destination for us, the right mix of things to see and do as well as the beautiful beaches to laze on. We have seen the most of the country and it has been one of our favourite places of the whole trip.

It is not the end though, we have definitely caught the bug and intend to see a lot more. Neither of us are happy going back to the 9-5, living for the weekend mentality. We are looking forward to going home, spending time with the people we have missed, but we are already itching to hit the road again and see somewhere new….

Sorry to disappoint our adoring fans (mainly just our mums, dads and grandparents) but our time in Hikkaduwa has been spent doing nothing at all. We have been spending time at the beach everyday, laying in the sunshine, drinking and eating. One day we rented a surf board as Liam fancied some practice but he wasn't that successful.

The only other thing we have done is go diving one last time. We went diving with Poseidon, a PADI resort up the beach about a kilometre. It cost us 45 euros each for two dives. There was a lot of people and they separated us into advanced divers and open water divers. There was only four of us who were still beginners so we had a nice small group. A catamaran took us ten minutes off the coast for the first dive.

It was a rocky area around 19m deep. There were huge rocks underwater with fish hiding amongst them. In the centre there is a tall rock, like a huge pinnacle where most of the life culminated. Around the rock was a huge school of small fish, with other species hovering around them. We slowly swam through the school of fish and it was amazing. The rest of the dive was up and down, swimming around big rocks and looking at the fish. There was not much colourful coral but we saw a lot of things, huge parrot fish, lion fish and banner fish.

We then had to wait in the boat at the surface for an hour until we could go on our second dive but we enjoyed jumping off the boat and swimming. The second dive was at a rocky outcrop a little closer to shore. Here huge boulders came out of the sea and we swam around them under water. The best part was an underwater cave that we swam through. There was less life on the second dive but we still saw a lot of fish. Hikkaduwa had a coral national park as its underwater scene used to be brimming with life. However as we swam it was clear that a lot of it has died off. A lot of the coral is now white and broken and in some parts the sea bed looked barren. This is due to many things, dive groups not taking care, overfishing as well as natural incidents like the tsunami.

Never the less even with the lack of coral there was still a lot of fish of all shapes, sizes and colours. Some were beautiful and bright and we saw some fish that were around a metre long. Apart from this we are a lot more comfortable under the water and are getting better at controlling our buoyancy. Liam still has some problems equalising his ears when he first starts to descend but he manages to sort it out. Chelsea enjoyed doing rollypollys under the water and it is fun because you feel like your in space.

We have really enjoyed our time at hikkaduwa. The beach is lovely and clean and we have tried lots of different bars and restaurants.

We have enjoyed beautiful sunsets every night and staying up to watch the fireworks.

We have five more days left before our journey home and we will be doing more of the same. Enjoying the sun and sea, the sunsets and a beer.

We thoroughly enjoyed cycling around and experiencing Jaffna and had one more day to explore. We decided to go for a walk and ventured into town on foot. The weather in Jaffna has been scorching and we arrived hot and bothered and ducked into a local eatery, a man welcoming us at the door. We were taken to a family area around the back as in a lot of places in Jaffna women eat in a separate area to the groups of men. We yet again had an excellent meal, spicy chicken thighs, Dahl, a coconut sauce and a spicy chicken gravy, served with rotis to eat it with and fizzy drinks. It was delicious and we were looked after by the staff.

After this we walked the streets, found an ATM and then just became too hot and full of curry to walk anymore. We got a tuk tuk back to our hotel and enquired about the buses to Colombo. On the normal local day bus it takes 11 hours to travel from Jaffna to Colombo and we really didn't fancy such a long journey so soon after our bus ride to Jaffna. The other option was to get a night coach. We hate night buses but the benefit of air conditioning, a seat that reclines and three hours taken off the journey appealed to us so we decided to go for it. We got the bus that night rather than waiting around for a whole day. Our guest house arranged a tuk tuk to the private bus station.

It was really busy with vendors and dark and we were the only western faces so attracted a lot of attention. We went to a few vendors, bought some snacks, biscuits and fruit and waited for the bus. It was late which coupled with a few Sri-Lankan people telling us we should call the number on the ticket as it might already have gone panicked us as the transport in Sri-Lanka is always on time. Eventually it turned up and we were pleasantly surprised. We had to put our jumpers on as it was a bit cold but it was quite comfortable. It left around 8pm and we didn't get much sleep as it had a TV blasting out but we managed a few hours with our ear plugs in. We arrived in Colombo at 5am and we were no sure where he bus stopped. It went through the city centre and went further and further into the suburbs. When we got about 6km out of the centre Chelsea asked the conductor where it finished and everyone was a little confused and began to ask us where we wanted to go. We told him we just wanted to be somewhere we could get a bus heading towards Galle and he said he would drop us off at the bus stop.

A few minutes later however a public bus to Galle overtook our bus and the conductor jumped off and stopped the bus. We frantically collected our bags and ran straight onto the bus. It took a few hours and we had reached Hikkaduwa, absolutely shattered. We checked into Why Not guesthouse for a reasonable 2000Rs a night and went to bed.

Hikkaduwa is a beach town in the west coast. It's not got particularly good reviews but we wanted to go somewhere new and somewhere on the coast for our final few weeks.

After recooperating we went for an explore. Our part of the beach is narrow with lovely blue sea. Our guesthouse has a restaurant right on the beach with beautiful views and we had a late breakfast of bread, curry and sambal and a nice strong brew.

We walked down the beach. It gets wider towards the centre but a lot busier. At the end the beach is empty, just a wide stretch of golden sand and blue sea. We walked around the cove, watching the surfers and enjoyed a cold beer in the sunshine. The beach is busier than we would normally like but it is really big, clean and beautiful so it doesn't seem crowded. Bars have their own sunbeds you can use for free and we have enjoyed laying in the sunshine, swimming in the sea and talking to the many vendors, trying to sell, massages, textiles, jewellery and spices.

We had a walk down the main road which runs parallel to the beach, browsing the shops and treated ourselves to a posh iced coffee mocha.

As we are on the west coast we had read the sunsets were spectacular and were not disappointed by our first one. Hopefully it will be one of many we can sit and enjoy over and evening drink.

We are staying here for our final few weeks to enjoy a last few weeks of relaxation and sunshine and think Hikkaduwa will be perfect. We can swim, and our guesthouse is right n the beach. We may go diving one last time as we are in season on the west coast and Liam is talking about some more surfing.