Ritas Hotel Hikkaduwa

Hier soir avons mange au Hard Rock restaurant, rien a voir avec la fameuse chaine... Ai pris des noddles au poulet, excellents. Puis sommes alles dans un bar ou on est allonges sur des coussins a ecouter du reggae et boire des mojitos, mes premiers au Sri Lanka!
Rentre vers 23h30, lecture et dodo.
Reveil ce matin vers 9h, sous le soleil, prends direct un bus local a 9 roupies ( 6centimes) pour aller a Galle tirer de l'argent, acheter des timbres et poster mes cartes ...

Reveil difficile vers 9 h, me leve vers 10h. Dehors il fait super beau c'est cool. Donne mes fringues a laver car elles puent du lavage a Tangalla, puis vais rejoindre Andreas au bar de la veille au soir. Bien sur il se remet a pleuvoir. ***** jsuis vert. Commande un lassi banane et un chicken curry, a l'abri, et le soleil repointe le bout de son nez. Direct vais me baigner ...

... that is not yet, and if I have learned anything in life, it is that things can change from one day to the next, one minute to the next. And so I close the chapter on Sri Lanka for the moment, but stick around--there's more adventure in India coming right up! This little "time out" has refreshed me, and I do think I'm ready once again to face the chaos of India again. Maybe with a slightly better mindset this next time round.

... with a little more experience, stand up for a few seconds as the break turns into "white water." Problem is, though when at this point in one's surfing career, the only direction one can go in is straight. "Turn" comes later, and "stop" is simply to fall off the board, so that when one of the hotshots catches a wave, they provide a nice near-death experience for the poor novice, paddle in front or behind you to "steal" a wave you have been waiting for, and generally ...

... tend to be a bit recession proof since I have not been in finance or real estate playing with money that was never mine to begin with. Hell, I move pianos. Moving money is for sissies, it just isn't that heavy to begin with, and you never have to carry it up to the fifth floor with no elevator. And so the general screwed-up-ness of government comes between people meeting each other, even in their home territories. Also the small tourist-driven economy ...

Hello again to everyone, and a special hello to everybody in Jacob's school who might be reading this - you'll be pleased to know there's more of Tom dancing in this entry!! So here we are in Sri Lanka , although we nearly never made it. Our rickshaw to Chennai airport was scary enough - the driver told us that the hour/hour and a half journey to the airport we'd been warned about was wrong, and it was only half an hour. This turned out to ...

... with cushions. It was (and they were) really lovely (most comfortable "public" transport I've had in a long time...). That night the owner a restaurant near our guest house caught us trying to hitch a ride into town to celebrate the New Year with the local folks. He was so kind as to drive us around, for quite some time, looking for a party. Alas, as we arrived at a community celebration just as it was shutting down. It turned out to be quite a ...

... I never saw any pictures of the tsunami actually happening (though I have now seen photos of the water piling into a café in Hikkaduwa) and people never seem to actually describe the wave itself coming in, just the destruction, so it surprised me when these people, one of whom was surfing at the time and throughout, that they didn't even notice the tsunami until one of their bags started floating away in the rising water! They said there was no noticeable wave as ...

... violence and riots in the streets. As the realisation that it would be impossible for me to get my hands on a cold beer for at least another three days sank in the idea of violence on the street began to sound quite appealing. On the plus the food in Pondicherry is a very welcome change from the masala for breakfast, lunch and dinner you have no choice but to eat in the rest of Tamil Nadu. However the fact remains that the temperature and the ...

... For lunch, I treated myself to a grilled sear fish. It was a useful exercise as the waiter decided to short change me by Rs.100/- only to look very embarrassed when I pointed this out to him. I realised that this is how dishonest Sri Lankan's decided to line their pockets a bit more and left me very cautious about handling money for the rest of my journey. Leaving the next day from the fantastic hotel I was staying in was painful. Mosquitoes had eaten away at my ...