Missing the beach yesterday made me more intent on hitting the beach today. Lucky for me, the weather was much more corporative today then it was yesterday. I hired a driver to take me up to Galle, because I've heard they have INCREDIBLE beaches up there. And they did, but before I get into that I made a few little pit stops along the way.
First, we stopped on the side of the road to watch this guy harvest coconut alcohol from a coconut tree. I was having a hard time understanding everything with the accent of this driver but to the best of my understanding it was that coconut trees either have the ability to produce or have something in them that can be turned into coconut alcohol. It was surprising to see him have a harness-- usually you just seen them shimmy up on their own. I was glad he had a harness though-especially because he kept leaping from tree to tree.
Lowering the "juice"
The little bootlegger saw I was taking pics and so nicely posed for one of them.
We drove a little ways more and stopped at a gem mine. This was super interesting to me where I work with different stones when making jewelry. I have seen the cutting and polishing parts before, but I have never actually seen any of the mining process so that was all new to me. They had a shop at the end which was way too expensive for me, but it was worth the stop anyway. They also had plants and herbs, most places around here seem to have those things. I was able to get some fresh cinnamon which I am stoked about because that means I can now make cinnamon and sugar toast. Mmmmmmmmmm.
This is how they talk to the workers in the mine and it actually works-I talked to them. It was all very Swiss Family Robinson like.
Here is a quick side note: there are a lot of cemeteries here-for sure more then what I have seen in India. This island actually kind of reminds me quiet a bit of Samoa. My friend described Sri Lanka to me as Hawaii and India had a baby-but I think Samoa could just as easily be the father.
The first beach I went to was this one:
The water and sand were nice but the waves and current were strong and there was no coral close by so after a few mins of being here I asked around and had my driver take me to another place further up the road. I had to walk into that beach a little but it had a shallow pool with lots of coral all around it so I was able to snorkel some. I think I was spoiled with my first snorkeling experiences being in Honduras, Samoa and Fiji-but it was still cool. I also think I may have seen a stone fish while snorkeling today-which was kind of a rush because they are extremely hard to find and super poisonous.
Next stop was Galle Fort. I didn't go inside the fort but I walked around the edge of some of it. It was first built in 1588 by the Portuguese, then extensively remodeled and refortified by the Dutch from 1649 onward. So basically it is a good 420-ish years old fort. It reminded me of old castle ruins you would see in Europe, but on a beach in Sri Lanka instead.
If you look closely you can see some of those traditional fishing stands that people sit/balance on-look it up on National Geographic, its pretty cool.
On the way to and from Galle we past remains left by the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. I think people forget (and I know that I am guilty of) only associating that Tsunami with Thailand, when really if affected numerous countries such as India and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was hit pretty bad too- just as hard if not harder then Thailand. It was kind of eerie to see the tranquil looking ocean knowing that its rage was the very thing that caused the remains of lives, families and the houses I was looking at. Ironically, I watched the movie "Impossible" just before coming to Sri Lanka so the Tsunami thing was already on my mind. I have seen it before, but I love it so I was more then happy to watch it again. The movie is done so tastefully and realistically. I recommend it to anyone.
After returning to Bentota, Manoj took me to one of his friend's jewelry store. This place was actually decently prices, but I still only got two loose stones. It was cool to see the creativity and different designs of the jewelry in this place. This part of the world defiantly has its own unique design. It is a little Tibetan, Nepali and Indian, fancy yet simple and a lot of times a little antiqued like. I love it. As I was getting ready to leave the shop's owner started pulling out this huge gemstones from his safe. I am not sure why he felt the need to show them to me-but he was very enthusiastic about it. I don't remember all the prices but I do remember that the the light blue aquamarine stone was worth 3 million US dollars. He could of totally been lying about a ton of stuff and no one would have a use for these ginormous stone other then their value, but they pretty and really sparkly and interesting so whatever, it was cool. I did feel a little Indiana Jones like though, being shown these huge precious stones in the jungle of some far off place in the world.
Back at the hotel I enjoyed another long hot stand up shower, ate some amazing chicken kabobs, took a pic of them and the amazing sunset and then went fishing with Manoj and his friends.
There was a group of us that went, but there were only three of us that spent the night sitting on the beach, watching crabs, just chilling, fishing and talking. The whole set up was quiet amusing to me. It could of been the starting line of an awesome joke; "A Muslim, a Mormon and a Buddhist were sitting on the beach......."
It really is too bad the night didn't lead to any good punchlines though.
There was another guest from the hotel that was fishing and he was a bit of a die hard, where I was just hanging out. Of course you always hope to catch something and it's exciting if you do, but I was more loving the fact that I was night fishing in the ocean, off some beach in Sri Lanka with a bunch of locals. And wouldn't you know it, I caught two fish and he caught zero. The pull is a lot different on a long sea fishing pole then the fishing poles Im use too, so I actually didn't even notice I had caught either fish until we pulled in the line in to check. They weren't big fish but still. Oops! Sorry dude!
After catching the first fish one of the Buddhist buddies informed me I was going to hell since I took the life of another living thing. Ironically though, it was a Buddhist that invited me fishing, baited my hook and took my fish off the line. I told the guy who declared I was going to hell that I wasn't Buddhist so I would be fine. The boys were cooking the fish on a grill and I almost wanted to try some where I had caught them and all, but in the end I just couldn't do it. Of course, them shoving the entire grilled fish head in my face while they were offering me some kind of killed any chance of that happening for me.
Today was my last day in Sri Lanka. I can't believe how fast it has gone by! I had two travel days out of the five days I was here, so considering that I packed a ton of stuff into 3 days. I still could of used another day or two of good weather just to relax on the beach though. The only regret I have is not going scuba diving. I have had a bit of a cold and I was trying not to spend tons of money but now that I look back on it I wish I would have just done it. Who knows if I will ever get the chance to scuba dive in Sri Lanka again. Either way, it was an amazing experience and one that I am really grateful I was able to take-no scuba diving and all.
Thank you for temporarily kicking me out of your country, India. If we could arrange for you to do that again before I leave, and give me the opportunity to scuba dive--that would be most excellent.
