On the 10th Our driver Ashan -pronounced Hey-sian - picked us up from our hostel about 9ish and we started the long drive down to Unawatuna. We paid him 20,000 rupees (about £100) for the next 10 days to drive us on our route and make recommendations for things to do and see.
This first trip took us until about 4ish and we made a few stops along the way. The first stop was in Bentota for a river safari.
The river safari cost us about $15 and took us to cinamon island, stopping on the way to look at monkeys, birds and a big fat monitor lizard. When we got to cinnamon island we saw cinamon being grown, carved and dried: I didn't know that cinnamon is actually the bark of a tree. Katie bought some cinnamon oil as apparently it's pretty good to use as a mosquito repellant, not sure how much she's used but she hasn't been bitten much so it must be working. It's also apparently quite good for relieving pain from arthritis, so check it out mother. Cinnamon island also houses a fish spa like the Appy Feet chain that we had in festival place. The fish looked pretty hungry but none of us went for it because they got banned in the UK for spreading hepatitis, probably not worth the risk. Although I do have super dry feet so maybe I should have.
The second stop was at a turtle conservation place. It all seemed pretty questionable ethically because they had 3 or 4 turtles in a pool about the size of 3 baths but they did have baby turtles that he practically forced us to hold. I wasn't complaining they were adorable.
The last stop before the hotel was in Galle. Galle was really pretty but we didn't get long there. We had lunch there and then moved (I had calamari rings which were super nice but also pretty spicy and Katie had a prawn salad). We then went to the hotel and had dinner on the beach. The hotel was called surf city and was pretty nice really. Only issue is that the shower ran out of water pretty fast so I didn't get to shower for the two days I was there as I was the last in the queue (I did wash my hair in the sink though mum don't worry).
The next day we got up really early to go whale watching in Mirissa. We left the hotel around half 5 and the boat left about 7. We managed to see a few blue whales and lots of dolphins though so it was probably worth it. At one point there were 3 whales pretty close to our boat. Although as soon as one was spotted about 7 boats come sailing over which kind of ruins the atmosphere and must scare the whales. Still pretty cool though.
We then spent the afternoon dozing on the beach which was very necessary and very nice. We then had dinner on the beach - we all had rotti and Dahl - which was by far the best meal I've had here.
Tomorrow we're moving onto Tissamaharama, staying in la safari Inn. I'll update soon, I tried to add this yesterday but the internet dropped out!
