You must really feel for us sometimes. It's been a hectic couple of weeks in Sri Lanka - climbing mountains for spectacular vistas, chasing animals around Jungle Book conjuring national parks and traipsing through tea plantations. Never fear, we decided to kick back on the Sri Lankan coastline for a while to recharge the batteries. First stop: Marakolliya Beach.
Awaiting us was the smartest beach bungalow we've stayed in complete with a bathroom trap door, a showerhead made of a shell, polished wood everything and a massive, super comfortable four poster bed.
The nice bungalow came at a cost though - the sWANK dial was turned right up.
The staff had been carefully moulded into droids devoid of anything that resembled a personality, other guests would do absolutely everything within their power to avoid eye contact and communication (f*cking fancy office workers on holiday hey...) and even the dogs were grumpy and ignored our affection enticing whistles, clicks and every other noise that a dog has ever responded to.
The staff had been carefully moulded into droids devoid of anything that resembled a personality, other guests would do absolutely everything within their power to avoid eye contact and communication (f*cking fancy office workers on holiday hey...) and even the dogs were grumpy and ignored our affection enticing whistles, clicks and every other noise that a dog has ever responded to.
We then undertook the gruelling 300m hike to our next accommodation that would be set on a lagoon rich with bird life.
The lagoon left a bit to be desired, as you can see.
The lagoon left a bit to be desired, as you can see.
It was a fair trade off. Sitting on our balcony we watched this skittish little part rodent, part Chihuahua Mouse Deer creeping around in the garden along with the veritable bird park flying in and out of the trees in front of us.
Spent our nights being watched over by two guard frogs who would scuttle up the wall nightmare inducing Exorcist-style.
And were awoken one morning by an elusive Jungle Fowl crowing (if you can call it that) at the top of his lungs. That awesome little bird has skyrocketed to the top of my favourite birds list and the top of both of our favourite bird noises list.
Next up was Mirissa, a beach that gets a bad rap from being too touristed and crowded and not worth a visit by any real 'travellers'. However, we quite enjoyed it. Happy Hour beer prices were cheaper than anywhere we've found and that's for a beer with your toes in the sand and the waves literally lapping at your feet.
The free entertainment was world class too watching foreigner upon foreigner who were clearly very inexperienced when it comes to rough seas getting ploughed over and over by massive waves. 'Nix! Look.. Look..', BAMM!
However the key factor that allowed us to look past the recommendation of people we'd met to avoid Mirissa was the potential to see one of Mother Nature's most impressive feats - a Blue Whale. Growing up most kids loved dinosaurs, amazed by the idea of these massive blood thirsty creatures that once roamed the earth. I thought dinosaurs were cool but as far as I was concerned they hadn't existed for millions of years and the closest you would ever come to them was a pile of old bones in a museum. The Blue Whale on the other hand still lurked in the depths of the ocean and seeing an animal that is bigger than a bus, and any dinosaur for that matter, is what truly piqued my interest - I even constructed my thoughts using the word 'piqued' when I was seven years old.
So we signed up for a tour and by 630am set off in search for that serious creature of the deep.
The boat took an easterly direction along the coast and a few hours passed in which we saw a pod of dolphins (nature's contribution to the sea when it couldn't be bothered making whales any longer) and a handful of flying fish. By this point the entire boat's sea sickness tablets had kicked in and everyone was a drooling, drowsy mess and the boat turned around for home.
The crew then went into overdrive trying to spot one but we saw nothing more than the odd crashing wave give off what looked like a spurt from a whale's blowhole.
The crew announced that you could get half your money back or go for free again tomorrow. The thought of another seven hours at sea, drugged up to her eyeballs, didn't really appeal to Nix so she took the following morning off but my belief that patience and persistence are rewarded meant that I felt I had try again.
Going solo for one of the rare occasions of the past 18 months I headed off, egg rotis in hand, prepared for another fruitless seven hours at sea. The boat headed straight out into the depths with the crew desperately hoping that it would get paid today. We pushed through rougher seas than the day before and one bloke spent the whole time bringing up his dinner and breakfast as I chowed down on my roti but despite seeing those effing dolphins again we had no success until we'd almost made it back to the port.
A group of boats were huddled around something and were very excitedly pointing and snapping photos and I thought this was my big moment. We edged closer, trying to keep a reasonable distance between us and whatever had been spotted, to finally lay our eyes on...........a Whale Shark. Oh come on... Really? Are you taking the p*ss now ocean?
All of these people leaning out of the boat to see a Whale Shark. Haven't you been to that still unnamed island in the Philippines where they congregate in a group of 20? Sheesh. I received the whale booby prize.
And that was it, I arrived back at the port having spent 14 hours at sea to no avail.
The consolation was Nix's refund went towards a Red Snapper for dinner that blew our socks off. Cooked and spiced to perfection it made the Blue Whale nonevent much easier to swallow.
After a week and a half at the beach I felt it was my obligation to take Nix back to one of her favourite places.
