Days 8-12

After seeing our Leopard, we took the bus south to the town of Tangalle, only a couple of hours away. No flashing disco lights or music on the bus this time unfortunately. We arrived in a busy market place and wondered where the beach was. Even more so when our tuk tuk dropped us off at the end of a dirt track as the road was being repaired and he couldn’t drive down.

As we lugged our backpacks past a digger and signs for various lagoon guest houses, we both wondered if our hotel was really next to the beach or just a swamp. Then we turned the corner and found the Lonely Beach Resort, which proved true to it’s name.

One of only four rooms, we had a huge balcony overlooking what felt like a private beach with hammocks (the reason we picked this place).

A nice little restaurant was perched above the lagoon where we enjoyed Leisurely Breakfasts with pots of coffee and plates heaped high with fruit.

We did attempt to be active by taking the free Canoes out on the lagoon.

When we actually managed to get in them that is, which our fellow diners found very amusing!

There were a few downsides to Lonely Beach:

1 – at night it’s a bit too Lonely as the restaurant shuts mid afternoon and the tide comes in. I wasn’t brave enough to wade through the lagoon in pitch black so we used our trusty head torches to wander the back roads until we found a woman willing to cook us vegetable fried rice.

2 – there is something weird about the sand. At first I thought we were just unfit but it’s so heavy that you get a sweat on immediately.

3 – the bully boy beach dogs guarding their patches! Helen went for an Early Morning Walk and came back 5 mins later having been chased off by a pack for dogs, of which the ring leader had her sarong in his teeth and was calling for dog backup – she managed to get away over the weird sand but I can’t print her choice of words 🙊

4 – the red flag for danger was raised so no swimming here… a fact which was in the book if we had bothered to read it.

5 – no photo evidence for this one but we arrived during a power cut so the only way to shower was to crouch on the floor under a tap in the corner of the darkened room Gollum style… 🤔

Looking for a slightly less lonely beach we continued West via tuk tuk to the similarly named Tallala, and our Sunshine Guest House run by a lovely Sri Lankan lady.

We were only a few steps from the beach and a iguana shuffling around the shrubbery.

Here we spent another two days mostly lounging around the beach. Although we did lie on the sand being attacked by flies for hours until Helen had one of her Bright Ideas and noticed there were actually sunbeds reserved for our guest house 😎

We left the guest house to walk to the ATM, a pleasant enough walk down the main road avoiding tuk tuks until that familiar sound of a dog barking. It’s important to note that we are animal lovers and not usually scared of dogs, but this one was barking and snarling at us with bared teeth. Being the strong independent women that we are, we walked/ran over to some nearby tuk tuk drivers who helpfully threw a stone at the dogs, which did the trick. Being an animal loving vegan, I thanked him and we continued on our way.

On the way back, the same two dogs saw us and perhaps they can smell fear or they really don’t like tourists, but we were forced to join some people at a bus stop. Yes we cowered behind some lovely Sri Lankan ladies who were laughing at us, essentially using them as a human shield until their bus pulled up. I was this close to getting on the bus regardless of where it went but another Sri Lankan man with stone was on hand. ‘I hope they get run over’ said Helen. And I agreed.

I retracted this statement when a lovely friendly dog came over to my sunbed and rested his head on me and I just had to pet him – my faith in dogs was restored!

Nice dog

And that almost concludes Sri Lanka… one more stop in Galle coming up!