Day 163
We have a delicious Sri Lankan breakfast this morning of coconut sambal, so good and rice and dahl. I love it all. The heavens opened last night as we worryingly thought it would and it's still raining now so hopefully all the things we want to do today are inside. A car turns up, it's quite snazzy and we all jump in and set off. This area was quite badly hit by the 2004 Tsunami and I heard there was a photo museum you could see so I put a little detour into our day and we head there first.
The building is a little hut but it's really informative. It first explains about tectonic plates and how tsunamis happen, then what actually happens in Sri Lanka and specifically this area and then the back room is full of pictures of the aftermath and then the redevelopment. Karu tells is his story of the day and him and his family only survive by clinging to the stupa behind his house. He also tells us of the horrific train accident that killed nearly 1700 people as the wave hit it and they couldn't get out. We go and see a memorial for this and it's very humbling to think about.
After this we head to the turtle sanctuary which, although I'm not sure how ethical is it, I really enjoyed. We see a lot of babies and big ones, even getting to hold some though we are careful to not touch the shell as we've heard doing so can cause permenant damage. We also meet a huge albino one which was really cool and looked darn heavy. It's rained the whole time we've been out and it's put a really dampner on things (lol) and we aren't sure about staying the extra days here as there really isn't much to do. We decide to move on, even though we will lose money, and plan to head to Colombo in the morning.
Good job we did as about an hour before we are meant to eat dinner with Karu and his wife, a family member comes over to let us know he's been in an accident. The language barrier means we don't know how serious till his son comes over later and lets us know he was hit by a truck and in a bad way. We let him know that we are leaving early morning and although he protests, we are firm, they don't need us hanging around.
Day 164
Karu plays in my mind and I can't stay asleep so give up from 5.30 onwards. By 8am, we are both ready to leave and we grab our bags and head to the bus stop. One of Karu's neighbours stops and helps us flag a bus which is so kind of him,. It isn't long once we get on that the heavens one and I'm so glad we decided to leave early. The journey is its usual fun self, filled with bad Sri Lankan pop music and interesting scenery outside. We arrive in Colombo at 11 and go straight to the hostel we stayed at before. We haven't got a reservation due to the odd leaving of the last place but they luckily have room and they give us a room till the 2nd which is when we leave with Lee, Ben's Dad and his friend Angela who are meeting us with us for our last 10 days in Sri Lanka.
We are both starving so we drop our bags and then grab some yummy food from a small road side cafe and eat the yummiest roti parcels and prawns but man they are spicy! I've been warned Sri Lankan food is going to be hot but this is unreal. It looks like it's going to rain again so we head back to catch up with everyone after our internet free days. I've got a hideous craving for Burger King which Ben lets me fill for dinner and it's so bad but so good. We have a movie night tonight and watch the very funny 22 Jump Street, I would recommend.
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