Let’s go cycling

And that’s it! This is the abridged (and very amateurish 🤣 ) version of our circuit- 24 days in a country we really love and will hopefully visit again!

Day 21- heading back up the coast

Stopped enroute at one of several tsunami museums for a very sombre wander through the many pictorial records of the 2004 devastation.  Sri Lanka was severely impacted. Almost its entire coastline was affected, the tsunami running kilometres inland in places. Over 30000 casualties and 500’000 homes destroyed. A bit of a quiet reflective ride for some time after that.

Traffic on the Galle-Colombo road was busy from the outset and became increasingly hectic as we worked out way up the coast.

Started looking for accommodation at about the 70km mark but the promised beachside resorts were non existent,  with the relentless monsoon weather rendering the small (affordable) ones unliveable and the large resort style ones,  well… just a tad out of our planned budget.

So it was 85km before we stopped at a little set of villas near the beach: we were obviously the first guests for quite some time, greeted by a set of fellas who could have been mistaken for the three stooges and who didn’t fill us with confidence for a comfortable night’s stay.  With some misgivings we duly ordered dinner from the proffered menu (oh and beer was a thing, yay!!).  They set a table for us under the cover of the little verandah as it was by now pelting down (and continued to do so for the next 12 hours!).  And turned up with one of the best meals we’ve had in Sri Lanka.  Just shows…don’t judge too hastily…

Day 22 -Just a short cycle to Colombo.

When we visited Sri Lanka in 2019 we stayed at the historic Galle Face Hotel and both loved it,  so we had a bit of a hankering to see if we could have a night there again.  A price reduction popped up a few days before we planned to be in Colombo so we locked in a memory lane stay.

Turning up on bicycles to the Galle Face is clearly not something they are used to seeing. A few surprised looks from the very elegant and manicured staff, assumedly for our mode of travel and also probably the scruffy, hot and disheveled appearance of the riders…

A shower and a change of clothes made us a little more respectable and we thoroughly enjoyed wining and dining at this prestigious, historic establishment.

Day 23

Another short day with a 40km ride to Negombo.
The Colombo traffic was surprisingly easy to navigate (thankfully!)

A very late lunch turned into a very early dinner with the biggest “prawns” I’ve ever seen. A cheap and cheerful homestay near the beach made it a relaxed day as we come to the end of our Sri Lanka adventure

Day 24- August 19th

A skip and a hop back to Bethany’s Homestay to collect the bike boxes and pack up the bikes.

An early start in the morning so an early dinner (and a secret beer as it’s apparently a religious holiday here…but they stuck us in a corner and were quite happy to ply us with illicit grog…

And that’s Sri Lanka… a few of our takeaways..

• Somewhere around 1300 km travelled, with almost 10000 m elevation
• We didn’t see another cycle tourist in the whole 24 days. Quite a few locals on bikes though!
• The Sri Lankan traffic was pretty easy to navigate on bikes. There’s a general kind of courtesy extended to all other road users, albeit with much honking of horns and a little crazy driving. Even the buses gave us room and at no time did we feel unsafe on the roads
• Sri Lankans are a cheerful and friendly lot! We did hear quite a few stories and many complaints about how the government is handling the Sri Lankan economy. Unlike other developing countries where government criticism can result in serious repercussions, the conversations here seemed to be quite free flowing and unafraid to criticise.
• The food is incredible… Not sure if Neil decided on the best Dahl in the country but there were certainly plenty of excellent contenders. Amazing seafood, fresh and tasty curries…and both of us feeling fatter than when we started! The best value meals, and usually the tastiest, were from the little roadside stalls where they were cooked on the spot and cost us next to nothing.
• On our last visit to Sri Lanka we ate mainly at tourist establishments and both managed to fall ill-  this time, a little astonishingly neither of us succumbed to any sort of tummy bug.  Hopefully we’ve hardened our constitutions enough to tackle India!
• Water- surprisingly not too many places offered bottled water. We purchased an  “steripen” ultraviolet water steriliser before we left home (thanks for the intel Suse!) and this has proved to be an invaluable little tool- we reckon we’ve avoided using dozens and dozens of plastic bottles and the water’s been fine to drink everywhere except Trincomalee.

And now…with just a little trepidation we catch the short flight over to India for the next adventure…