Our journey home took around 20 hours.
We left Velassaru at 7.30 am on the speedboat. The ride back to Male was far less comfortable than the ride out. It felt like we were on a roller coaster, the way the boat kept shooting over the top of big waves and slamming back down on the water. The elderly Italian lady we were sharing the boat with looked very unwell indeed!
At Male we had some bad luck. We arrived at the check in desk all ready to request the emergency exit seats on our onward flight from Colombo to Heathrow. Just as we were about to approach the desk, another British couple push in front of us from the queue next to us. We couldn't believe how rude they were. We saw them thanking the check in lady, smiling in a smug way. Amber said 'They better not have taken our emeency exit seats!'. I reassured her that we would have to have been extremely unlucky for this to be the case.
Our take off was delayed by an hour and a half while the engineers at Male tried to fix the dashboard dials on the plane! Always reassuring when the 'small technical glitch' is something so fundamental to the successful operation of the aircraft. On the other hand, better to give them as much time as they need to fix the problem than rush them and risk the dials failing at 35,000 ft.
Once we left Male, our journey to Colombo was otherwise uneventful. We only had half an hour to catch our connecting flight, but luckily the gate was right next to where we emergedfrom after leaving the plane from Male and we boarded in no time.
I should have held my tongue.
When we boarded the plane we realised we were allotted the seats behind the emergency exit seats. And who should be sat in front of us? You guessed it, our friends the queue jumpers. Nice. Amber was seething.
Thankfully the flight was rather empty and there was space available on the front row, where they usually put parents with small babies. I asked a steward if we could move seats to take advantage of the better leg room (and to prevent Amber from thottling the people in the emergency seats). He had no problem with it. We moved. Mission accomplished.
The flight took forever. First of all we left behind schedule. Then we were in the air for 11.5 hours. It would have been fine if the plane had been one of the newer ones with movies on demand, but sadly it wasn't, so we had to fit sleep between the films we wanted to watch. Saw some good ones though: 'Total Recall', 'Hope Springs' and 'Premium Rush'.
We were half dead by the time we arrived at Heathrow! Then we had the whole ordeal of waiting for the bus to ate us to the car park to rescue the car.
I have no idea how Amber stayed awake long enough to drive us back home!
For all the problems we had - the driver, the hotels and the blasted weather - I have to say that I really enjoyed our honeymoon. Sri Lanka is such an interesting country that no amount of bad experiences could really affect your perception of it as such; and the Maldives, well, we had truly rotten luck with the weather, but I couldn't fault the food or the level of service and even in the rain there is something special about being on such a small island. I'm not sure if we could ever justify a return trip to Velassaru, but I hope we will find time to return to Sri Lanka, as there is so much more I would like to see.
Did someone say leopards?
Saturday, 29 December 2012
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Velassaru, Day 4
I think we were both hoping for a gloriously sunny day on this, the final day of our honeymoon.
Sadly it was not to be. We awoke to the same grey sky, howling winds and heavy rain.
We donned our raincoats and made for the shelter of the gym. Amber worked out a simple circuit: leg raises, dive bombers, walking lunges, chin ups and burpees. Nearly killed me! Amazing steak and hash browns at breakfast made up for it though.
After breakfast we returned to the room and watched 'The Three Musketeers'. It was actually much better than I was expecting, despite the excessive use of CGI.
Amber would have quite happily stayed in the room, sheltering from the miserable weather, but I was feeling cooped up, so we went for a walk around the island in the rain! I went for a refreshing swim in the sea and then we walked along the jetty to the spa (Amber was desperate to find out if there had been a last minute cancellation in the spa). We wandered over to the water villas too, just to take a look at what we could have been staying in if we'd forked out a bit more!
From the jetty we saw several sharks moseying through the water. They look so peaceful gliding through the shallows.
Walking back to the room along the beach we saw a huge stingray. I had to take a closer look, so I put on my snorkel and made my way over to it. I was expecting it to hang around, but it took one look at me and headed in the opposite direction. Charming.
We bumped into anther couple who were taking photos of a particularly aggressive triggerfish. I was intrigued, albeit sceptical at first, so swam over to it. My scepticism rapidly vanished as the fish came charging over to warn me off! I made a hasty exit.
Back at the room we did a bit of packing before visiting the library to use the computers, or rather I did, Amber made herself comfortable in one of the daybeds with a book.
We took a final lap of the island - a farewell lap - and then went over to Fen Bar to have a couple of cocktails. I ordered a Vampiro, which was essentially a tall Bloody Mary made using tequila instead of vodka. Not bad, but I definitely prefer the original.
Our final meal on Velassaru was supposed to be the 'candlelit' dinner on the beach we had been promised by KUONI, another 'perk' of being a honeymoon customer. The hotel had already informed us that our dinner wouldn't be on the beach on account of the threat of rain. As a result we ended up having a very unromantic meal sat at a table right in the middle of Turquoise surrounded by Japanese couples in beachwear! To make matters worse it didn't rain, so we could have had a private table on the beach after all. They didn't even offer us anything to make the night special, so the meal was no different to eating there any other night. A shame to end the trip on a low note. Oh well, more fuel for our complaints letter to KUONI. I'm not sure how we always seem to have rotten luck with companies famous for customer service, but we really do. There's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere!
Amber would have quite happily stayed in the room, sheltering from the miserable weather, but I was feeling cooped up, so we went for a walk around the island in the rain! I went for a refreshing swim in the sea and then we walked along the jetty to the spa (Amber was desperate to find out if there had been a last minute cancellation in the spa). We wandered over to the water villas too, just to take a look at what we could have been staying in if we'd forked out a bit more!
From the jetty we saw several sharks moseying through the water. They look so peaceful gliding through the shallows.
Walking back to the room along the beach we saw a huge stingray. I had to take a closer look, so I put on my snorkel and made my way over to it. I was expecting it to hang around, but it took one look at me and headed in the opposite direction. Charming.
We bumped into anther couple who were taking photos of a particularly aggressive triggerfish. I was intrigued, albeit sceptical at first, so swam over to it. My scepticism rapidly vanished as the fish came charging over to warn me off! I made a hasty exit.
Back at the room we did a bit of packing before visiting the library to use the computers, or rather I did, Amber made herself comfortable in one of the daybeds with a book.
We took a final lap of the island - a farewell lap - and then went over to Fen Bar to have a couple of cocktails. I ordered a Vampiro, which was essentially a tall Bloody Mary made using tequila instead of vodka. Not bad, but I definitely prefer the original.
Our final meal on Velassaru was supposed to be the 'candlelit' dinner on the beach we had been promised by KUONI, another 'perk' of being a honeymoon customer. The hotel had already informed us that our dinner wouldn't be on the beach on account of the threat of rain. As a result we ended up having a very unromantic meal sat at a table right in the middle of Turquoise surrounded by Japanese couples in beachwear! To make matters worse it didn't rain, so we could have had a private table on the beach after all. They didn't even offer us anything to make the night special, so the meal was no different to eating there any other night. A shame to end the trip on a low note. Oh well, more fuel for our complaints letter to KUONI. I'm not sure how we always seem to have rotten luck with companies famous for customer service, but we really do. There's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere!
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Velassaru, Day 3
We watched 'Chronicle' on the iPad before heading to the breakfast buffet at 9 am. It's a film that went straight to DVD, but for the life of me I can't see why. It's about three American college guys who gain telekinetic powers after coming into contact with, for want of a better term, an alien meteor. All three are college stereotypes: a jock, a stoner and an outcast (the stoner's cousin) and ass they learn how to control their powers they have some serious fun. Sadly, the outcast is a seriously troubled kid who feels like the whole world hates him. As the three teenagers become more and more powerful, outcast kid 'loses his shit' and kills two people, one of which is the jock (is that the sounds of legions of ostracized kids going wild?). Stoner guy saves the day by harpooning outcast kid with a massive stone spear. It all sounds corny as anything, but believe me it's done very well indeed and makes all the big blockbuster superhero movies of recent times look overworked in comparison. Plus it has a script. One to check out.
At breakfast we made a list of all the issues we've experienced during our KUONI trip, so we could relay them to Sam (the KUONI rep) and have him pass them on to head office. The list only underlined the fact that we should definitely be lodging a formal complaint to KUONI. The difference between the expectations set by KUONI and the reality of our honeymoon experience is striking.
We got in touch with Sam at reception (I think he had only just woken up at 10 am) and he was keen to meet up sooner rather than later to get this sorted as soon as possible. He turned up in reception at 10.15 am and we went thought everything. In the end we decided it would be easiest if we just sent our list to head office alongside the various bits of paperwork we had to sign and a covering email from Sam. I imagine we will still need to send a follow up letter to provide additional detail about each point on the list. For example, one of the points says simply 'Tea factory fiasco'!
Having dealt with this unsavoury task, we investigated the sea kayaking situation. Our package includes free use of the sea kayaks for an hour a day. We booked a kayak for a bit later on and went back to our water bungalow to get showered.
By the time we were ready to go kayaking, the weather had worsened and to cap it all it was raining. Given the choppy waves, the wind and the rain we decided to give kayaking a miss and went for a snorkel off the beach by Chill Bar instead. Visibility wasn't great, but we did see plenty of fish. These were mostly damselfish, with the odd wrasse, goby or parrotfish thrown in for good measure. Most spectacular were these huge orange triggerfish (Titan triggerfish), which we had been warned about by other snorkelers. Apparently the larger triggerfish get very aggressive in defense of their eggs, and are known to bite snorkelers. Judging by the size of the fish we saw, I'm not surprised people give them a wide berth. Seemed pretty chilled to me as I swam within a couple of feet of a few of them, but there are YouTube videos of them looking decidedly more aggressive. Amber was using me as a human shield every time one swam by!
Here's a YouTube vid I found of a Titan triggerfish 'attacking' a snorkeler.. Beautiful fish!
We couldn't believe the weather. Dark clouds, rain hammering down, rough sea, howling wind. It might as well have been the Peak District. We had a hot bath to get the circulation going and strolled over to Turquoise restaurant to have a big fat burger (and the obligatory sequence of cocktails - we had 10 drinks each!).
It rained buckets whilst we were eating. So much so that the staff had to deploy the floor-to-ceiling splash screens across the open front of the restaurant. Everyone was turning up for lunch either sporting the rather fetching Velassaru raincoat provided in all rooms, or at the very least cowering under one of the bright blue umbrellas. We'd managed to get to Turquoise before thee downpour, so we felt quite smug sipping our cocktails, watching everyone arrive looking somewhat bedraggled.
As the rain wasn't looking like it would stop any time soon, we spent a little while in the two boutique shops. One was full of the usual souvenir tat, with a few nice but seriously overpriced kaftans; the other full of very expensive, very ugly jewellery. The only piece worth looking at was a stunning sapphire and gold necklace priced at a laughable $12,000. Needless to say, Amber didn't walk out of the shop wearing said item.
The rain continued to hammer down for the rest of the day. We killed some time watching 'Wrath of the Titans', not the worst film I have ever seen, but certainly not one I will be watching again in a hurry.
Thankfully one of the TV channels is Nat Geo Wild. Thanks to the dire weather I am now rather addicted to the shows 'Gator Boys' and 'Python Hunters'. My kind of job: Getting paid to wrestle with alligators and humongous snakes.
We were lucky enough to succeed in booking an over-water table at the Sands restaurant for dinner. This was a private table sitting over the water on a platform with a thatched roof, accessed via a wooden jetty jutting out from the beach, where the main restaurant is located. In theory a very romantic setting. However, it was more like being marooned on a tiny island in the middle of a hurricane! At first we had wondered if they would even let us eat at the table, but when we arrived they had lowered splash screens on two side of the platform and we were given the green light to proceed with caution along the jetty (wearing our raincoats) to our table.
Amazingly the staff were more than happy to brave the elements, scurrying back and forth with menus, food and wine (which they eventually left with us to finish off). The Japanese lady who was serving us even brought us a replacement table light after the original one ran out of batteries, plunging us into darkness! Hilarious!
Apart from the wonderful comedy of it all, the best thing about the meal was that I was able to order half a dozen Pacific rock oysters as part of our Indulgence package. This usually requires a $30 supplement. I was slightly worried as to how fresh they might be, but they were fabulous, as was the rest of the meal. A great ending to an otherwise quite uneventful day.
At breakfast we made a list of all the issues we've experienced during our KUONI trip, so we could relay them to Sam (the KUONI rep) and have him pass them on to head office. The list only underlined the fact that we should definitely be lodging a formal complaint to KUONI. The difference between the expectations set by KUONI and the reality of our honeymoon experience is striking.
We got in touch with Sam at reception (I think he had only just woken up at 10 am) and he was keen to meet up sooner rather than later to get this sorted as soon as possible. He turned up in reception at 10.15 am and we went thought everything. In the end we decided it would be easiest if we just sent our list to head office alongside the various bits of paperwork we had to sign and a covering email from Sam. I imagine we will still need to send a follow up letter to provide additional detail about each point on the list. For example, one of the points says simply 'Tea factory fiasco'!
Having dealt with this unsavoury task, we investigated the sea kayaking situation. Our package includes free use of the sea kayaks for an hour a day. We booked a kayak for a bit later on and went back to our water bungalow to get showered.
By the time we were ready to go kayaking, the weather had worsened and to cap it all it was raining. Given the choppy waves, the wind and the rain we decided to give kayaking a miss and went for a snorkel off the beach by Chill Bar instead. Visibility wasn't great, but we did see plenty of fish. These were mostly damselfish, with the odd wrasse, goby or parrotfish thrown in for good measure. Most spectacular were these huge orange triggerfish (Titan triggerfish), which we had been warned about by other snorkelers. Apparently the larger triggerfish get very aggressive in defense of their eggs, and are known to bite snorkelers. Judging by the size of the fish we saw, I'm not surprised people give them a wide berth. Seemed pretty chilled to me as I swam within a couple of feet of a few of them, but there are YouTube videos of them looking decidedly more aggressive. Amber was using me as a human shield every time one swam by!
Here's a YouTube vid I found of a Titan triggerfish 'attacking' a snorkeler.. Beautiful fish!
We couldn't believe the weather. Dark clouds, rain hammering down, rough sea, howling wind. It might as well have been the Peak District. We had a hot bath to get the circulation going and strolled over to Turquoise restaurant to have a big fat burger (and the obligatory sequence of cocktails - we had 10 drinks each!).
It rained buckets whilst we were eating. So much so that the staff had to deploy the floor-to-ceiling splash screens across the open front of the restaurant. Everyone was turning up for lunch either sporting the rather fetching Velassaru raincoat provided in all rooms, or at the very least cowering under one of the bright blue umbrellas. We'd managed to get to Turquoise before thee downpour, so we felt quite smug sipping our cocktails, watching everyone arrive looking somewhat bedraggled.
As the rain wasn't looking like it would stop any time soon, we spent a little while in the two boutique shops. One was full of the usual souvenir tat, with a few nice but seriously overpriced kaftans; the other full of very expensive, very ugly jewellery. The only piece worth looking at was a stunning sapphire and gold necklace priced at a laughable $12,000. Needless to say, Amber didn't walk out of the shop wearing said item.
The rain continued to hammer down for the rest of the day. We killed some time watching 'Wrath of the Titans', not the worst film I have ever seen, but certainly not one I will be watching again in a hurry.
Thankfully one of the TV channels is Nat Geo Wild. Thanks to the dire weather I am now rather addicted to the shows 'Gator Boys' and 'Python Hunters'. My kind of job: Getting paid to wrestle with alligators and humongous snakes.
We were lucky enough to succeed in booking an over-water table at the Sands restaurant for dinner. This was a private table sitting over the water on a platform with a thatched roof, accessed via a wooden jetty jutting out from the beach, where the main restaurant is located. In theory a very romantic setting. However, it was more like being marooned on a tiny island in the middle of a hurricane! At first we had wondered if they would even let us eat at the table, but when we arrived they had lowered splash screens on two side of the platform and we were given the green light to proceed with caution along the jetty (wearing our raincoats) to our table.
Amazingly the staff were more than happy to brave the elements, scurrying back and forth with menus, food and wine (which they eventually left with us to finish off). The Japanese lady who was serving us even brought us a replacement table light after the original one ran out of batteries, plunging us into darkness! Hilarious!
Apart from the wonderful comedy of it all, the best thing about the meal was that I was able to order half a dozen Pacific rock oysters as part of our Indulgence package. This usually requires a $30 supplement. I was slightly worried as to how fresh they might be, but they were fabulous, as was the rest of the meal. A great ending to an otherwise quite uneventful day.
Monday, 17 December 2012
Velassaru, Day 2
TV alarm at 7.30 am again. 'Dancing with the Stars'. Must work out how to turn it off!
Because it was a grey morning, we decided to start our day off with a session in the Velassaru gym. It's the best equipped gym we've come across this trip. I spent most of the time running on a treadmill.
After breakfast I headed to the library to catch up on this blog. They have a couple of iMacs in there and a PC. I had only intended to spend an hour working on the blog, but in the end I got carried away and took much longer. Amber didn't mind, she was happily reading out on the sun deck despite the cloudy weather.
We gave up on the sunbathing and took the camera to the library to have a look through the photos from Sri Lanka. There are some great shots in there, even if I do say so myself. We borrowed the Cameron Diaz film 'Bad Teacher' from the library as we left, just in case the weather stayed rubbish.
The weather wasn't improving any, so we went for a tapas lunch at the Chill Bar, cuddled up in the safety of one of their lounge pods to protect ourselves from the strong wind. The croquetas de jamon were excellent.
We decided to give up hope of there being any more sunshine and confined ourselves to our room to watch the final episode of 'Californication' (what a brilliant show that is) followed by 'Bad Teacher'.
After our TV session I decided we needed some fresh air, so we went for a sunset dip in the lovely infinity pool. The water was perfect and the sun even made a brief appearance.
It was quite funny because we saw a woman who, with sunglasses on, was the spitting image of our friend Carolyn. She even had a tattoo in the same location on her right shoulder blade.
We'd reserved a table at Teppanyaki for 7.45 pm. This time we sat inside, right in front of one of the chefs, who had just returned from holidaying back home in Sri Lanka. He was in good spirits and produced a wonderful dinner for us: an amazing sushi platter followed by teriyaki chicken for Amber and spiny lobster for me. Outstanding!
The hotel had arranged a showing of 'Water for Elephants' on a big screen right on the beach. Amazing to watch a film under the stars, with the sea lapping at the shore. The staff even brought round little bowls of popcorn. Definitely an experience to remember. The film was pretty good too!
Because it was a grey morning, we decided to start our day off with a session in the Velassaru gym. It's the best equipped gym we've come across this trip. I spent most of the time running on a treadmill.
After breakfast I headed to the library to catch up on this blog. They have a couple of iMacs in there and a PC. I had only intended to spend an hour working on the blog, but in the end I got carried away and took much longer. Amber didn't mind, she was happily reading out on the sun deck despite the cloudy weather.
We gave up on the sunbathing and took the camera to the library to have a look through the photos from Sri Lanka. There are some great shots in there, even if I do say so myself. We borrowed the Cameron Diaz film 'Bad Teacher' from the library as we left, just in case the weather stayed rubbish.
The weather wasn't improving any, so we went for a tapas lunch at the Chill Bar, cuddled up in the safety of one of their lounge pods to protect ourselves from the strong wind. The croquetas de jamon were excellent.
We decided to give up hope of there being any more sunshine and confined ourselves to our room to watch the final episode of 'Californication' (what a brilliant show that is) followed by 'Bad Teacher'.
After our TV session I decided we needed some fresh air, so we went for a sunset dip in the lovely infinity pool. The water was perfect and the sun even made a brief appearance.
It was quite funny because we saw a woman who, with sunglasses on, was the spitting image of our friend Carolyn. She even had a tattoo in the same location on her right shoulder blade.
We'd reserved a table at Teppanyaki for 7.45 pm. This time we sat inside, right in front of one of the chefs, who had just returned from holidaying back home in Sri Lanka. He was in good spirits and produced a wonderful dinner for us: an amazing sushi platter followed by teriyaki chicken for Amber and spiny lobster for me. Outstanding!
The hotel had arranged a showing of 'Water for Elephants' on a big screen right on the beach. Amazing to watch a film under the stars, with the sea lapping at the shore. The staff even brought round little bowls of popcorn. Definitely an experience to remember. The film was pretty good too!
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Velassaru, Day 1
For some reason the TV in our room is set to turn itself on at 7.30 am. 'American Idol'...great.
The breakfast buffet was pretty good. Plenty to choose from, the highlights being maki rolls and fresh honeycomb.
After breakfast we lay out on our private sun deck reading. I went for a cheeky snorkel in the sea below our bungalow. So many fish! I can see why people rave about the snorkeling here.
At lunch time we went for a wander (you can walk around the island in 15 minutes) and stopped in the chill-out area to sit on Fat Boy bean bags and eat pizza. The pizza bases were more like Jacob's crackers, but the toppings were nice. Not as nice as the all-inclusive cocktails though!
After lunch we had a swim in the sea before grabbing our snorkels and snorkeling off the end of the jetty from which the water bungalows protrude. Again there were tons of colourful fish everywhere. I was looking at a couple of long thin fish with huge eyes and tiny mouths when I heard Amber making excited noises through her snorkel. She looked worried, so I made the thumbs up signal at her to indicate that we should stick our heads out of the water for a chat. Our conversation went something like this:
Amber: 'Did you see it?'
Me: 'See what, those freaky long fish?'
Amber: 'No, the MASSIVE sting ray! Isn't that what killed Steve Irwin?'
Me: 'What sting ray?'
Amber: 'You didn't see it?! Oh crap...'
...at which point Amber set off swimming to the jetty at great speed. I thought I'd better follow along to calm her down, but in her panic Amber kicked out and caught me full in the snorkeling mask with her foot. Ouch. Luckily nothing was broken. I couldn't help but laugh at the idea that, faced with potentially dangerous sea creatures, my wife had effectively kicked me in the face and left me to die. Thanks love! Glad it wasn't a big shark, put it that way.
Amber got the heebie-jeebies about the ray incident, so we decided to change location and snorkel in the shallow water off the beach in front of Chill Bar. In the open water there were plenty of large - mostly silver - fish and the patches of coral were teeming with damselfish, trigger fish, tangs, butterfly fish and more. I loved watching pairs of gobies interacting with each other by the mouth of their sand burrows. By this time it was getting cloudy, so visibility was okay, but not great.
We were booked in to do our 'sunset cruise' at 5.15 pm, so headed over to reception at 5 pm. Sadly the weather wasn't quite right for a beautiful sunset, but we did enjoy our trip on the traditional Dhoni boat. We shared the hour long cruise with another couple, who were friendly enough and also on their honeymoon. Oddly they had elected to spend a week in the Maldives and then finish their honeymoon with two days in Kuala Lumpur. Personally I would have done it the other way around, as really there is nothing to do in KL but eat and shop.
We borrowed 'The Big Year' DVD from the library to watch before dinner. Nice film about three American twitchers (played by Owen Wildon, Jack Black and Steve Martin) competing to see the most birds in a single year. It reminded me of my ornithologist colleague and his obsession with small brown birds.
We had another excellent dinner, this time at Etesian. Lovely food, plenty of booze. All good. We staggered back to our room, whereupon Amber went straight to bed. I stayed up watching National Geographic Wild.
The breakfast buffet was pretty good. Plenty to choose from, the highlights being maki rolls and fresh honeycomb.
After breakfast we lay out on our private sun deck reading. I went for a cheeky snorkel in the sea below our bungalow. So many fish! I can see why people rave about the snorkeling here.
At lunch time we went for a wander (you can walk around the island in 15 minutes) and stopped in the chill-out area to sit on Fat Boy bean bags and eat pizza. The pizza bases were more like Jacob's crackers, but the toppings were nice. Not as nice as the all-inclusive cocktails though!
After lunch we had a swim in the sea before grabbing our snorkels and snorkeling off the end of the jetty from which the water bungalows protrude. Again there were tons of colourful fish everywhere. I was looking at a couple of long thin fish with huge eyes and tiny mouths when I heard Amber making excited noises through her snorkel. She looked worried, so I made the thumbs up signal at her to indicate that we should stick our heads out of the water for a chat. Our conversation went something like this:
Amber: 'Did you see it?'
Me: 'See what, those freaky long fish?'
Amber: 'No, the MASSIVE sting ray! Isn't that what killed Steve Irwin?'
Me: 'What sting ray?'
Amber: 'You didn't see it?! Oh crap...'
...at which point Amber set off swimming to the jetty at great speed. I thought I'd better follow along to calm her down, but in her panic Amber kicked out and caught me full in the snorkeling mask with her foot. Ouch. Luckily nothing was broken. I couldn't help but laugh at the idea that, faced with potentially dangerous sea creatures, my wife had effectively kicked me in the face and left me to die. Thanks love! Glad it wasn't a big shark, put it that way.
Amber got the heebie-jeebies about the ray incident, so we decided to change location and snorkel in the shallow water off the beach in front of Chill Bar. In the open water there were plenty of large - mostly silver - fish and the patches of coral were teeming with damselfish, trigger fish, tangs, butterfly fish and more. I loved watching pairs of gobies interacting with each other by the mouth of their sand burrows. By this time it was getting cloudy, so visibility was okay, but not great.
We were booked in to do our 'sunset cruise' at 5.15 pm, so headed over to reception at 5 pm. Sadly the weather wasn't quite right for a beautiful sunset, but we did enjoy our trip on the traditional Dhoni boat. We shared the hour long cruise with another couple, who were friendly enough and also on their honeymoon. Oddly they had elected to spend a week in the Maldives and then finish their honeymoon with two days in Kuala Lumpur. Personally I would have done it the other way around, as really there is nothing to do in KL but eat and shop.
We borrowed 'The Big Year' DVD from the library to watch before dinner. Nice film about three American twitchers (played by Owen Wildon, Jack Black and Steve Martin) competing to see the most birds in a single year. It reminded me of my ornithologist colleague and his obsession with small brown birds.
We had another excellent dinner, this time at Etesian. Lovely food, plenty of booze. All good. We staggered back to our room, whereupon Amber went straight to bed. I stayed up watching National Geographic Wild.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Maldives here we come
This morning I woke up and looked around our incredible room at Aditya. I looked up at the ornately carved, wooden headboard that looks like it was stolen from some ancient temple doorway; I looked out of the large glass doors in front of me at our private jacuzzi plunge pool; I looked up at the now bare ceiling that had been so spectacular last night with it's projected display of the night sky; I looked across the bed at my peacefully sleeping wife, in her element; and I thought, 'Bollocks. Now we have to leave.'
I feel sure that we will be returning to this hotel one day. There's something about it that makes it truly special.
Anyway, enough of that. Back to business...
Keen to make sure he fucked up at least one more time before we got rid of him, Stanley met us at 8 am to inform us that, yes, we were indeed supposed to be saying goodbye to him yesterday, as Kuoni in their infinite wisdom managed to arrange another driver to come and take us to the airport. Poor old Stanley, he really is quite useless! Apparently not his fault, however, as his handler had told him he was taking us to the airport. In any case, we filled in his survey form, said our very sincere thanks and tipped him 7,000 Rs (more to avoid any bad blood than becasue we felt he really deserved it). He seemed happy enough.
We left the hotel around 8.15 am with the aim of getting to the airport by 12 pm. Our new driver had obviously been to the same driving school as Stan the Man, and we slid through the traffic like an eel on Red Bull. That is, until we hit the Christmas shopping rush.
With today being a Saturday, hundreds of Sri Lankans were out trying to buy last minute gifts for family and friends. Amazingly, given that 70% of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, they still go all out for celebrating Christmas (presumably the corporate version of things, as opposed to the newborn baby surrounded by livestock version...). This meant that our driver ended up taking as many backroads as possible to avoid getting stuck - unfortunately, he wasn't the only one with this idea, so we kept getting stuck.
This would have been fine if both Amber and I hadn't both been in increasingly desperate need of a pee! It was Catch 22. We couldn't afford to stop becasue it was entirely feasible we might not be able to catch our flight to Malé, but on the other hand, no-one wants to arrive at an international airport having peed their pants.
Thankfully, after three and a half hours of careening around Sri Lankan backroads, feeling every single bump in our bladders and trying desperately not to laugh and make matters worse, we arrived at the airport at 12.15 pm, bid our driver farewell and made our way straight to the toilets. To any onlooker we must have looked hilarious, me pushing the trolley laden with bags and Amber hobbling beside me like a zombie - too afraid to run in case there was an accident!
Longest wee ever.
Colombo airport isnt very big, so we were through to departures in no time. Amber was keen to try our luck at getting into some of the executive lounges, but despite our best smiles and cunning use of the honeymoon card we were turned away from all of them. Amber has decided this means that she's a pleb. Maybe they have a 'no Essex girls' policy when it comes to airport lounges and business class upgrades in Sri Lanka...
We didn't have long to wait at our gate before boarding in any case, so before we knew it we had already boarded the plane and taken off to start the second phase of our honeymoon. We were both sad to leave Sri Lanka. It really does have so much going for it as a travel destination. Next time we will back-pack and dig a little bit deeper under the surface. Looking out of the plane window it felt like Sri Lanka was sad to see us go: The first truly overcast day since we arrived eleven days ago.
The flight to Malé took just on hour and fifteen minutes. Long enough for me to watch most of a terrible movie called 'This Means War'. It was already abridged for showing on airplanes, but the plot was so weak that I managed to skip through about half an hour of footage and still get the gist: Two CIA agent buddies compete to date Reese Witherspoon; much hilarity ensues (or not); they fall out; they team up to beat the bad guys; one of them ends up with Reese Witherspoon; THE END. This movie has lowered the bar significantly in terms of how I will rate movies in the future. You would have to work really hard to make a worse one.
Touch down! The plane landed before we'd even realised we were anywhere near the ground. Immigration went very smoothly and we were greeted by a chap with a Kuoni placard, who passed us onto another guy, who took us to our awesome speedboat.
We had the speed boat to ourselves, which was lovely, and as we shot off towards Velassaru I thought to myself, 'This is how it should be'.
In no time at all we were disembarking onto the jetty at Velassaru, where we met Sam Willems, our Kuoni rep. He was extremely polite, helpful and full of information about the island, which we lapped up, sitting in the Fen Bar sipping on fresh juice. We're booked onto the all-inclusive Indulgence Package, which entitles us to the breakfast buffet, a three-course lunch with drinks in any of the smaller eateries on the island (Turquoise and Chill Bar) and dinner in any of the restaurants in the evening (Teppanyaki, Vela, Etesian and Sand). As Sam described the quality of the food, we were both salivating!
We were shown to our water bungalow. These are the over-water bungalows that you always see in promotional material for the Maldives - wooden huts with thatched roofs suspended over the sea on metal beams and connected to the island by means of a wooden jetty. Tropical paradise eat your heart out. As expected, the sea is crystal clear and teaming with marine life.
As far as I could tell, our room was perfect. Nice bathroom with bath tub and shower looking out to sea at the neighbouring island; huge bed; Bose home theatre system connected to large plasma screen telly; private sun deck and ladder down to the water. Sweet.
Amber was less convinced, but then her standards when it comes to anything meeting expectations are (in)famously high - a fact which makes me feel quite proud of myself every day! It all boiled down to the fact that the bathroom was a little bit scuzzy: mould around the base of the shower, growing in the grouting between the tiles and around the base of the sink; and a nasty stain around the plu hole in the sink itself. For the amount of money you pay to come to the Maldives, Amber's right, you should be blown away by the levels of cleanliness in the room, and we weren't.
Despite being halfway through our complimentary bottle of champagne, I put a call in to Sam to see if we could look at another room. He went to check with reception for us. The response was that there was another room available, but that hotel policy dictated that guests weren't allowed to see rooms until they had been cleaned. The room wouldn't be ready until 8 pm. All we wanted to do was have a shower, unpack and get ready for dinner, so we decided against hanging around until 8 pm. Sam handled the situation perfectly.
For dinner we thought we'd try our luck at getting into Teppanyaki, as it's supposed to be the best restaurant on the island and has pride of place over the water at the end of a long jetty. We got lucky, they had availability at 8.45 pm. We headed to Fen Bar to kill some time and had a nice chat with the very friendly bar man, who it turns out is from Sri Lanka. He also makes an excellent caipirinha!
Dinner was very good. We were given a very romantic corner table, so we could watch the big fish swimming around beneath us. They clearly throw the offcuts of fish from the food prep over the side, so the fish beneath us were all playing the waiting game.
The food is Japanese themed, so we had sushi, followed by excellent wagyu beef to share (the waiter also brought me a plate full of sake-marinated grilled prawns becasue he didn't want me to miss out on the seafood!). We ordered two different desserts. Amber's was very good, mine was VERY odd - grapefruit-flavoured curd with wasabi icecream anyone?! The wonderful food was accompanied by an equally wonderful pinot noir.
I feel sure that we will be returning to this hotel one day. There's something about it that makes it truly special.
Anyway, enough of that. Back to business...
Keen to make sure he fucked up at least one more time before we got rid of him, Stanley met us at 8 am to inform us that, yes, we were indeed supposed to be saying goodbye to him yesterday, as Kuoni in their infinite wisdom managed to arrange another driver to come and take us to the airport. Poor old Stanley, he really is quite useless! Apparently not his fault, however, as his handler had told him he was taking us to the airport. In any case, we filled in his survey form, said our very sincere thanks and tipped him 7,000 Rs (more to avoid any bad blood than becasue we felt he really deserved it). He seemed happy enough.
We left the hotel around 8.15 am with the aim of getting to the airport by 12 pm. Our new driver had obviously been to the same driving school as Stan the Man, and we slid through the traffic like an eel on Red Bull. That is, until we hit the Christmas shopping rush.
With today being a Saturday, hundreds of Sri Lankans were out trying to buy last minute gifts for family and friends. Amazingly, given that 70% of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, they still go all out for celebrating Christmas (presumably the corporate version of things, as opposed to the newborn baby surrounded by livestock version...). This meant that our driver ended up taking as many backroads as possible to avoid getting stuck - unfortunately, he wasn't the only one with this idea, so we kept getting stuck.
This would have been fine if both Amber and I hadn't both been in increasingly desperate need of a pee! It was Catch 22. We couldn't afford to stop becasue it was entirely feasible we might not be able to catch our flight to Malé, but on the other hand, no-one wants to arrive at an international airport having peed their pants.
Thankfully, after three and a half hours of careening around Sri Lankan backroads, feeling every single bump in our bladders and trying desperately not to laugh and make matters worse, we arrived at the airport at 12.15 pm, bid our driver farewell and made our way straight to the toilets. To any onlooker we must have looked hilarious, me pushing the trolley laden with bags and Amber hobbling beside me like a zombie - too afraid to run in case there was an accident!
Longest wee ever.
Colombo airport isnt very big, so we were through to departures in no time. Amber was keen to try our luck at getting into some of the executive lounges, but despite our best smiles and cunning use of the honeymoon card we were turned away from all of them. Amber has decided this means that she's a pleb. Maybe they have a 'no Essex girls' policy when it comes to airport lounges and business class upgrades in Sri Lanka...
We didn't have long to wait at our gate before boarding in any case, so before we knew it we had already boarded the plane and taken off to start the second phase of our honeymoon. We were both sad to leave Sri Lanka. It really does have so much going for it as a travel destination. Next time we will back-pack and dig a little bit deeper under the surface. Looking out of the plane window it felt like Sri Lanka was sad to see us go: The first truly overcast day since we arrived eleven days ago.
The flight to Malé took just on hour and fifteen minutes. Long enough for me to watch most of a terrible movie called 'This Means War'. It was already abridged for showing on airplanes, but the plot was so weak that I managed to skip through about half an hour of footage and still get the gist: Two CIA agent buddies compete to date Reese Witherspoon; much hilarity ensues (or not); they fall out; they team up to beat the bad guys; one of them ends up with Reese Witherspoon; THE END. This movie has lowered the bar significantly in terms of how I will rate movies in the future. You would have to work really hard to make a worse one.
Touch down! The plane landed before we'd even realised we were anywhere near the ground. Immigration went very smoothly and we were greeted by a chap with a Kuoni placard, who passed us onto another guy, who took us to our awesome speedboat.
We had the speed boat to ourselves, which was lovely, and as we shot off towards Velassaru I thought to myself, 'This is how it should be'.
In no time at all we were disembarking onto the jetty at Velassaru, where we met Sam Willems, our Kuoni rep. He was extremely polite, helpful and full of information about the island, which we lapped up, sitting in the Fen Bar sipping on fresh juice. We're booked onto the all-inclusive Indulgence Package, which entitles us to the breakfast buffet, a three-course lunch with drinks in any of the smaller eateries on the island (Turquoise and Chill Bar) and dinner in any of the restaurants in the evening (Teppanyaki, Vela, Etesian and Sand). As Sam described the quality of the food, we were both salivating!
We were shown to our water bungalow. These are the over-water bungalows that you always see in promotional material for the Maldives - wooden huts with thatched roofs suspended over the sea on metal beams and connected to the island by means of a wooden jetty. Tropical paradise eat your heart out. As expected, the sea is crystal clear and teaming with marine life.
As far as I could tell, our room was perfect. Nice bathroom with bath tub and shower looking out to sea at the neighbouring island; huge bed; Bose home theatre system connected to large plasma screen telly; private sun deck and ladder down to the water. Sweet.
Amber was less convinced, but then her standards when it comes to anything meeting expectations are (in)famously high - a fact which makes me feel quite proud of myself every day! It all boiled down to the fact that the bathroom was a little bit scuzzy: mould around the base of the shower, growing in the grouting between the tiles and around the base of the sink; and a nasty stain around the plu hole in the sink itself. For the amount of money you pay to come to the Maldives, Amber's right, you should be blown away by the levels of cleanliness in the room, and we weren't.
Despite being halfway through our complimentary bottle of champagne, I put a call in to Sam to see if we could look at another room. He went to check with reception for us. The response was that there was another room available, but that hotel policy dictated that guests weren't allowed to see rooms until they had been cleaned. The room wouldn't be ready until 8 pm. All we wanted to do was have a shower, unpack and get ready for dinner, so we decided against hanging around until 8 pm. Sam handled the situation perfectly.
For dinner we thought we'd try our luck at getting into Teppanyaki, as it's supposed to be the best restaurant on the island and has pride of place over the water at the end of a long jetty. We got lucky, they had availability at 8.45 pm. We headed to Fen Bar to kill some time and had a nice chat with the very friendly bar man, who it turns out is from Sri Lanka. He also makes an excellent caipirinha!
Dinner was very good. We were given a very romantic corner table, so we could watch the big fish swimming around beneath us. They clearly throw the offcuts of fish from the food prep over the side, so the fish beneath us were all playing the waiting game.
The food is Japanese themed, so we had sushi, followed by excellent wagyu beef to share (the waiter also brought me a plate full of sake-marinated grilled prawns becasue he didn't want me to miss out on the seafood!). We ordered two different desserts. Amber's was very good, mine was VERY odd - grapefruit-flavoured curd with wasabi icecream anyone?! The wonderful food was accompanied by an equally wonderful pinot noir.
Friday, 14 December 2012
Monkeys on the roof!
We woke early this morning to the not-so-subtle sounds of Hanuman langurs leaping around on the roof of our chalet! A nice goodbye from Yala.
Stanley picked us up at 8:30 am after breakfast and we set off for Galle. Stanley was on strict instructions that we didn't want to do anything en route to Galle. We were keen to make the most of the boutique hotel at the end of our journey, as friends who've stayed there praise it very highly indeed.
Thankfully, once away from the Yala area, the roads returned to normal and, other than the obligatory swerving and near-missing that constitutes Sri Lankan driving, the journey was very smooth. We stopped briefly, by Tangalle beach, for a pee stop and to let Stanley fortify his lungs with more tar.
I managed to get a photo of a dead, dessicated fruit bat hanging from overhead wires, across the road from the gift shop. I'd been planning to get a photo of this for most of the trip, as we've seen so many dead bats hanging from wires, but hadn't had the opportunity until now. Fruit bats are widespread throughout Sri Lanka and forms colonies hundreds strong. Fruit bats don't use echolocation, relying instead on their eyes to navigate. Because the bats are mostly active at night, the black phone cables are all but invisible to them. As a result, it is not uncommon for bats to fly into the wire, get tangled up, and die. It's tragic, but very much a part of the scenery here in Sri Lanka and I was keen to get a picture to capture this fact.
A few hours later we arrived in Galle. Stanley was keen to impress upon us that Galle was a very interesting place and insisted that we should stop and have a look at a few things before heading to our hotel. He's not wrong about it being interesting: Galle has some fascinating history, having been a Portuguese colony from the 16th century and a Dutch colony in the 18th century. The architecture very much reflects this.
Galle fort is a World Heritage Site and, according to Wikipedia, the largest remaining fortress in Asia built by European occupiers. Galle is also home to a cricket ground, the Galle International Stadium, which was rebuilt after the 2004 tsunami.
Galle was surprisingly nice, reminding me a lot of Granada in Nicaragua, thanks to the lovely colonial buildings and chilled out vibe. We were keen to get to our hotel, so we ended up on a whistle-stop tour, taking in a Dutch church, the wall around the old town and the lighthouse. Definitely a place to revisit and appreciate in a more leisurely fashion on a future visit.
Happy that we had given Galle the respect it was due, Stanley drove us to our final hotel, Aditya, which is situated part way between Galle and Hikkaduwa. We arrived around 2 pm.
The Aditya hotel is situated between Gaqlle and Hikkaduwa and is totally hidden down a narrow alley with apparently very little to advertise its existence from the main road. It's a hidden gem. A fact which became very apparent when we arrived and were greeted by smiling faces and garlands made from frangipani flowers. We were then sat down and offered cold, lemon-scented towels and fresh pineapple juice.
What a hotel! Our room (Daksa) is the lowest tier room room they offer and it was still beyond belief. Intricately carved wooden head board over a spacious bed, open air bathroom complete with his and her sinks, huge mirror and rain-shower, private jacuzzi pool, big plasma screen with Bose surround sound playing relaxing music. All artfully decorated. Absolutely stunning. We even got a congratulatory honeymoon chocolate mousse cake and a selection of petits-fours. To cap it all they had a pillow menu, so you could order exactly the type of pillow you'd like to sleep on! On the bedside cabinet was a copy of the Kama Sutra. They are obviously used to providing for honeymooners: This is certainly the first hotel I've ever stayed in that provides condoms (with added benzocaine for endurance, no less) in the vanity kit!
Once we finished gawping at our room, we walked down to the relatively deserted beach and strolled along the sea front for a bit. A beautiful slice of coconut-palm-lined tropical paradise. Interestingly, the sand was covered in hundreds of tiny trails made by baby turtles that had hatched the night before, desperately trying to find their way to the waters edge. Shame we didn't get to see any, there are several small turtle conservation centres set up along the coast here with concrete holding pools.
After the beach we headed back to the hotel to make the most of the lovely swimming pool, until the sun dipped below the horizon. There was a pair of
A few more episodes of 'Californication' before dinner, which was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately for Amber I decided to order Singapore crab, which was wonderful, but took me a very long time to eat. I didn't want to waste anything. The sauce was fantastic. The chef obviously knew what he was doing. He even came out and did the rounds of the tables. We heaped on the praise, but he did rather overstay his welcome, loitering by our table longer than was comfortable.
We had a big surprise when we returned to our room. The lights were off and the staff had laid out a total of 25 tea lights around the room. They had also turned on three black-light strip lights to illuminate an incredible diorama of the night sky, painted onto the ceiling in fluorescent paint (totally invisible under natural light). Amazing! They certainly know how to create the mood in this place. Amber was awestruck. Certainly the most impressive turn-down service I've ever seen.
We watched Al Pacino do his thing in 'Simone' before calling it a night around midnight. A wonderful end to the Sri Lankan leg of our trip.
Stanley picked us up at 8:30 am after breakfast and we set off for Galle. Stanley was on strict instructions that we didn't want to do anything en route to Galle. We were keen to make the most of the boutique hotel at the end of our journey, as friends who've stayed there praise it very highly indeed.
Thankfully, once away from the Yala area, the roads returned to normal and, other than the obligatory swerving and near-missing that constitutes Sri Lankan driving, the journey was very smooth. We stopped briefly, by Tangalle beach, for a pee stop and to let Stanley fortify his lungs with more tar.
I managed to get a photo of a dead, dessicated fruit bat hanging from overhead wires, across the road from the gift shop. I'd been planning to get a photo of this for most of the trip, as we've seen so many dead bats hanging from wires, but hadn't had the opportunity until now. Fruit bats are widespread throughout Sri Lanka and forms colonies hundreds strong. Fruit bats don't use echolocation, relying instead on their eyes to navigate. Because the bats are mostly active at night, the black phone cables are all but invisible to them. As a result, it is not uncommon for bats to fly into the wire, get tangled up, and die. It's tragic, but very much a part of the scenery here in Sri Lanka and I was keen to get a picture to capture this fact.
A few hours later we arrived in Galle. Stanley was keen to impress upon us that Galle was a very interesting place and insisted that we should stop and have a look at a few things before heading to our hotel. He's not wrong about it being interesting: Galle has some fascinating history, having been a Portuguese colony from the 16th century and a Dutch colony in the 18th century. The architecture very much reflects this.
Galle fort is a World Heritage Site and, according to Wikipedia, the largest remaining fortress in Asia built by European occupiers. Galle is also home to a cricket ground, the Galle International Stadium, which was rebuilt after the 2004 tsunami.
Galle was surprisingly nice, reminding me a lot of Granada in Nicaragua, thanks to the lovely colonial buildings and chilled out vibe. We were keen to get to our hotel, so we ended up on a whistle-stop tour, taking in a Dutch church, the wall around the old town and the lighthouse. Definitely a place to revisit and appreciate in a more leisurely fashion on a future visit.
Happy that we had given Galle the respect it was due, Stanley drove us to our final hotel, Aditya, which is situated part way between Galle and Hikkaduwa. We arrived around 2 pm.
The Aditya hotel is situated between Gaqlle and Hikkaduwa and is totally hidden down a narrow alley with apparently very little to advertise its existence from the main road. It's a hidden gem. A fact which became very apparent when we arrived and were greeted by smiling faces and garlands made from frangipani flowers. We were then sat down and offered cold, lemon-scented towels and fresh pineapple juice.
What a hotel! Our room (Daksa) is the lowest tier room room they offer and it was still beyond belief. Intricately carved wooden head board over a spacious bed, open air bathroom complete with his and her sinks, huge mirror and rain-shower, private jacuzzi pool, big plasma screen with Bose surround sound playing relaxing music. All artfully decorated. Absolutely stunning. We even got a congratulatory honeymoon chocolate mousse cake and a selection of petits-fours. To cap it all they had a pillow menu, so you could order exactly the type of pillow you'd like to sleep on! On the bedside cabinet was a copy of the Kama Sutra. They are obviously used to providing for honeymooners: This is certainly the first hotel I've ever stayed in that provides condoms (with added benzocaine for endurance, no less) in the vanity kit!
Once we finished gawping at our room, we walked down to the relatively deserted beach and strolled along the sea front for a bit. A beautiful slice of coconut-palm-lined tropical paradise. Interestingly, the sand was covered in hundreds of tiny trails made by baby turtles that had hatched the night before, desperately trying to find their way to the waters edge. Shame we didn't get to see any, there are several small turtle conservation centres set up along the coast here with concrete holding pools.
After the beach we headed back to the hotel to make the most of the lovely swimming pool, until the sun dipped below the horizon. There was a pair of
A few more episodes of 'Californication' before dinner, which was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately for Amber I decided to order Singapore crab, which was wonderful, but took me a very long time to eat. I didn't want to waste anything. The sauce was fantastic. The chef obviously knew what he was doing. He even came out and did the rounds of the tables. We heaped on the praise, but he did rather overstay his welcome, loitering by our table longer than was comfortable.
We had a big surprise when we returned to our room. The lights were off and the staff had laid out a total of 25 tea lights around the room. They had also turned on three black-light strip lights to illuminate an incredible diorama of the night sky, painted onto the ceiling in fluorescent paint (totally invisible under natural light). Amazing! They certainly know how to create the mood in this place. Amber was awestruck. Certainly the most impressive turn-down service I've ever seen.
We watched Al Pacino do his thing in 'Simone' before calling it a night around midnight. A wonderful end to the Sri Lankan leg of our trip.
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