Spent a wonderful couple of days relaxing by the pool at Trinco Blu. The sea was gorgeous to swim in. The beach was pretty dirty further down from our hotel with lots of litter lying around. Should have gone snorkelling at Pigeon island. Too late we found out it was stunning, we had thought it was overrated but spoke to an English guy who has snorkelled in lots of places in Asia and he said it was fantastic.
Found a few amazing restaurants in the streets around our hotel in an area called Alles gardens. The best coconut roti so far came from a Be Cool juice bar and was prepared for us despite there being no power all that day. More of a problem for the lack of fans than the food prep clearly. Ubay also had fantastic food and our last dinner, again a candle lit affair due to the power outage was at rice and curry. The children got to write on the walls to leave their mark. Most of the places we ate had no one or just one other table of punters, such is tourism at the moment. Our driver Elrik was duly there to meet us for the long drive south to arugum Bay. It did take us an hour to leave Trinco.... he seemed to be looking to send some money home. And a quick visit to a Hindu temple which was elaborately decorated. Trinco looked largely unremarkable other than the stunning temple. Quite big bustling port city. The area around Trinco is all very low lying. Easy to see why it was so badly affected by the tsunami. As we drove the land remained low lying. Rice paddies where irrigation was possible gave way to what looked like cashew trees. Cows and goats roaming aimlessly along the roads. People walking, some possibly miles to get to the next village. Clearly mostly Muslim as we came into Batticoloa all the shops were closed for Friday prayers. Good for us as we got through the towns very quickly otherwise the 5 hour journey would have been more like 6. Some great Hindu temples along the way and lots of colourfully painted Christian churches. Also many large mosques. And all the Muslim people at Friday prayers. Elrik very happy to be driving thru. The Sinhalese writing is small he doesn’t speak Tamil and the general sense is that he doesn’t feel at home here. Not spent heaps of time here either I don’t think. One particular area we drove through had a massive costal graveyard with graves dotted through the sand. Convinced it was from tsunami.
Arrived in Arugum Bay about 2.30. This is definitely more of a tourist town. These are the first shops we have seen where you can buy touristy stuff. Lots of good looking bars and restaurants, surf shops beachfront bars etc.