Sri Lanka blog 1

The flight to Sri Lanka was fine: only 1 ½ hours. As I passed the pasport controll, Lilian was waiting for me and it was great to see her again. First I took some money out of the ATM and then we checked for a taxi. Lilian had already made friends with the men behind the counter and luckily there was another man that just arrived and needed a ride towards the south. So we shared a taxi (he 6000 rupees and we 7000 rupees :) ) and arrived at the guest house around 2am.

The next morning we got up at 6am for a surf. It was great to be in the ocean again - how I missed it! The surfing is not that easy though - it took me a while before I caught my first wave, but it was a nice one :) The waves are quite big and often steep - definitely little barrels!
After the 3 hour surfsession, we had a yoga session, breakfast and a long sleep. In the afternoon we went to Matara, which is only 10 minutes by bike away ( yes, i'm cycling again - missed that too!), to surf the internet, buy some fruits and other food. On the way over there we had a coconut. Weird thing: the coconuts in India are green and the ones here are yellow...
In the evening we watched a movie and went to bed quite early, because we had to get up at sunrise for our morning surf.

There's no need so set the alarm, because we do wake up around 5.30-6.00 am. Great thing here is that the water is warm, so surfing in bikini. We can only surf up to 9.30am max, because then the wind comes in and the wind is quite strong here. Good thing is that, although the temperature is high, because of the wind we can still chill at the beach without melting.
The following days are like the first one. I did skip the yogasession on Friday though, since it was full moon. The full moon was at 9.19pm, so we had a skinny dip in the ocean at that time (can cross that of my list ;) ).

We're staying in Madiha and the Guest House is called SABINE (thinking about you every day Sab!)We share a room - 2 single beds next to each other - and we use some cutlery and bowls from the owner, who is a sweet lady with two sons. Her husband died aboutt 3 years ago and she's running this little guest house by herself with the help of her sons. There are 4 other guest here - german I guess - 2 couples.

The first day, we had a lovely dinner prepared by Anusha (the lady): dhal with rice, papadums, salad andd veggies. Now we're making dinners ourselves (it's a bit cheaper): lots of fruits, veggies and coconuts - I'm so going to miss the coconuts when I'm back home.

The sunset here is beautiful: because we are in the south, the sun doesn't set in nor rise from the sea, but we can still see it and it's like paradise. The waves, the sun, the palm trees, the sand - it's hard to imagine that there has been a tsumami here only a couple of years ago...
At full moon, there were some kids surfing in the morning, which surprised me, since it was a Friday, so a schoolday. Later on, Lilian went to town to skype with her boyfriend Nils and she found out the internetcafe was closed, because of the full moon. Not only the cafe, but also all schools! How about that: 2 extra holidays (full and new moon) a month - doesn't sound too bad :)

Yesterday (easter) we went for a little surftrip - Lili and me in the tuktuk with our boards at 6am - first stop Mirissa - a reefbreak which was empty (and they said it was going to be crowded) but very very reefy. We both surfed a couple of waves (Lilian is still stoked!) and after an hour or so we decided to move on to Midigama. I put only 200 rupees in my leash (in case of emergency) and we thought we could take the bus there, but there wasn't a bus that stopped for us (prabably because of the boards). Lilian made friends with a tuktuk driver that took us to Midigama and would pick us up later on to bring us back home. There we would pay him.

There were a couple of surfers at midigama and the wave looked really nice. Unfortunately Lilian didn't manage to paddle through the waves, so I left her behind (not very nice, but she didn't mind - we had 2 hrs to spend before the driver would pick us up) and paddled out behind the surf. There were two girls from Israel and a guy from South Africa sitting there. The waves were quite full on, but not as steep as the ones in Madiha and, as I caught my first, they were really fun to ride!
Still very happy with my reefbooties though - getting out is 'hell' - lots of coral...
Back on the beach, we made friends with a guy from Israel - his leash broke and Lilian saved his board from the reef and I showed him the most sandy way out of the ocean. He gave us some water and bananas -we were só hungry that we were very happy he did.
Suddenly this Sri Lankan man came to us and tried to explain something, but we didn't understand him. Then he came back with a tiny little leatherlook turtle in his hand - the eggs came out and they were about to set heaps of them free - it was the cutest thing ever! We helped them getting the baby turtles out of the bucket and into the sand so they could walk to the ocean to go for a swim and find their mother. Hard to imagine that these tiny little baby turtles can grow so big.
During the surf here we sometimes see a turtle sticking his head out of the water. Hope i'll never hit his shield having a wipeout ;)
On the way back home we stopped for a coconut and back home we had out yogasession and an amazing fruity breakfast.
Today we had a great surf here :) Lilian caught the first wave of the day and it was a nice one. I only caught left waves - I'm goofy - which is funny, because there are mostly right handed waves here. Going left is easier though ;) So today, great session, yoga afterwards, brekky, internet and we'll do some food shopping and a coconut later. Unfortunately it is impossible with this computer to upload some pics - maybe I'll bring my laptop in and put the internet cable in there...
Next Friday will be new years even, what means that everything here will be closed on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday - very annoying... so I'll be out of touch for a bit.
Well, that's it for now - next week were planning to go to Kandy - a little trip to the mountains :) and I still hope we'll make it to Arugam bay as well,
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