Today is a week since we arrived in Sri Lanka and settled in a Czech house at Surf-trip. As a start to our journey, it’s ideal, as we were able to acclimatize peacefully and draw on the experience of people who have been living here for some time and know how things work. In this week, I managed to do a lot, worked about 30 hours, flew the drone for over an hour, surfed for several hours, walked over 100 kilometers, saw many sights and also already visited their hospital.
To Dubai once and that’s enough
To start with, everything began on Sunday when I woke up a little hung over in the morning. After 7 pm, after moving out of our Prague apartment, we headed to the airport, from where we flew to Dubai. We had connecting flights, so we spent 12 hours there, but during that time we managed to visit the local pharmacy and walk more than 15 km in Dubai Mall. In retrospect, that seems completely crazy to me… But that’s just Dubai, there’s not much else there. If we didn’t have a stopover there on the way back, I would calmly say that I never want to go there again. That also applies to you, if you are not supporters of spending your vacation in a luxury hotel, but also want to experience something. After the strenuous stopover in Dubai, we moved to Sri Lanka on a completely packed plane, which after such a long journey and my height is something you really don’t want. Around 2 am we landed in Colombo, where we were picked up and driven to Sea You House, where we arrived at 4:20 am.
Surfing Lanka?
On Tuesday, we were waking up sometime before lunch, because we needed to sleep off the journey and adjust to the jet lag. After waking up, we listened to how things work around here, and went to Matara to exchange money and buy a SIM card with their data. If you don’t want to deal with local SIM cards, you can use Airalo, where you get $3 off your first order with the code ANDRE5430. After returning, I immediately took a board and went surfing. Since I had done it before, I just needed to refresh it and let’s be honest, it’s like riding a bike. You just don’t forget it, except for some minor details… On Tuesday, we went to bed quite early, because we just weren’t completely fresh yet.
On Wednesday, I got up at 7 to be able to go to the water for surfing as soon as possible – in the south of Sri Lanka, you can surf either in the morning from around 6:00 to 10:30, or in the afternoon from around 16:00 to 18:00, when the sun sets. And those sunsets are worth it here! After a hearty breakfast, dealing with emails and a bit of rest, Terka and I decided to take a walk around the area. In the end, we got all the way to the southernmost point of Sri Lanka and visited the lighthouse there. Putting aside that we were first kicked out of some sacred place – although we were just walking around and not even entering where people pray – and a kilometer further a local wanted to beat us up just for passing through, it was a very nice walk. The way back was worse because neither of us had any drinks and we didn’t come across anything to buy along the way. So a beautiful 12 km without a drop of water. Lesson learned? Whenever you go anywhere, take drinks with you! 😀 When we returned to the house, I took out the drone I bought for the first time so I wouldn’t get bored here. I have to say it was a great investment, because the views from above or the photos of the surfers are really worth it! And most importantly, I enjoy just flying it around the area…
Incident with the ear and the hospital
On Friday morning we went snorkeling with turtles, so we got up at 6 am and were in the water by 7 am and saw the first turtles. It was an absolutely wonderful experience, we saw lots of turtles from babies to older specimens, lots of fish and Terka was even bitten by one while feeding. After an hour in the water, we moved back to the house, where Adam was waiting for me to have a surfing lesson to refresh the basics. Adam reminded me of a few key things, like looking ahead and holding my hands. Then it went much better and I enjoyed it much more – especially since I had a shorter board, so there’s progress! Then I returned to the house to work, fly the drone, and in the evening we moved to Smoke & Bitters for drinks – absolutely great drinks and food and good service. The only thing is they don’t have to be so surprised that we want a menu on the table, given the varied drink selection. This is also where my ear started to hurt a lot, which got me to the mentioned hospital on Saturday. Dinner with drinks and the way home cost us around 42,000 rupees, which may seem a lot by local standards, but when converted it’s just a weaker evening in Prague.
On Saturday, I woke up to my surprise without a hangover, but with an extremely painful ear. The drops and peroxide from the night didn’t work, so I tried again and decided that if it didn’t go away, I would visit the local hospital in case it was an infection or something worse. We went for a walk, had a meal, and in the afternoon we went to the hospital because the ear didn’t subside and I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. We spent about 30 minutes in the hospital, although it looked like it was bursting at the seams, but we “whites” have priority here. After all, it wasn’t a state hospital, where I probably wouldn’t set foot in my life. 😀 They flushed my ear because I had a mess from surfing and water, examined it and found I had some kind of infection. So they gave me three pills + drops and sent me home saying it should be fine in 2 days. Well, when I look at it all around, after 4 days on the road I spent about 1,500 CZK on doctors and medicine and I have a pretty good collection of pills now. In the evening, we wrote down what else we want to see in Sri Lanka, and then went to the “neighbor’s” bar for a beer and shisha, got to know the other residents of the house and the whole crew a bit more.
Ear is good, at least it’s not raining…
When I woke up around 10 am on Sunday, after getting up at 3 and 7 for drops and pills, I felt that my ear was already better. After breakfast and a fun improv scene from the crew in the form of hanging Christmas ornaments, I worked and we planned the itinerary for our further travels here. After a walk to the local markets, which are huge on Wednesdays and Sundays compared to other days, we returned to the house and went to bed relatively early.
On Monday, I had my second surfing lesson, this time already on the line up, and I found that I really don’t have the endurance and it totally wiped me out… Anyway, this time it was with video coaching, so I know what and how and next time it will only get better. After the video coaching, I had to work again, because my copywriter decided not to work from Wednesday, which I of course understand, but it messed up my plans a bit and I had to rush some things. After work, we chilled and then went to the beach to take some photos and create content for Husky.cz and Trenyrkarna.cz, who equipped us with products for the trip. I just managed to land the drone and we were hit by a brutal downpour, so we quickly hid the camera and drone and ran back to the house, where we had our clothes completely soaked.
Turtle counts
On Tuesday morning I went to the beach again with the drone, because it was really nice – unfortunately, after yesterday’s getting wet, the drone is a bit humid and I have a “steamed” spot on the lens, so the quality is not great. After breakfast, we headed to Koggala, where there is a turtle reserve. We decided that despite the “distance” we would go by bus. The bus transport here is really an experience, because on the road here the bigger one has the right of way. After about an hour’s drive, we arrived in Koggala and went to find the turtle farm, which we found after a few minutes’ walk along the empty beach. We got a lecture on the turtles they have there and the ones that appear in Sri Lanka. We also contributed to a good cause by the entrance, as they release about 400 turtles back into the ocean annually, with about 75% of them surviving. That’s a decent number, as in Sri Lanka only about 2% of the turtles hatched in nature survive. From the farm, we went to Galle, where we walked through the historic center and the nearby area, and decided to take the train back. Well, we’ve been waiting for it for an hour now, so feels like home.
And the rest we’ll save for next time. Tomorrow we have our first move, so we’ll see how it goes. If you’re interested in more, be sure to follow me on Instagram.
