Hot! Hot! Hot!

  Trincomalee, Sri Lanka Monday, July 21, 2014

Turquoise sea! White sand! Palm Trees! What more can we say? We arrived here quite late on Sunday and it was already past sunset (6:15pm) and with nowhere already booked, we relied on everybody's friend - our tuk tuk driver for help. Becki & Josh went off in their own tuk tuk to find their own accommodation too. He drove us up and down the coast looking for hotels and they were all full. In the end he took us to somewhere a bit more pricy than we would normally stay but by then we were pretty desperate to find somewhereBecki & Josh text us to say they were in a homestay and were fine too. The next day however we did move a hundred yards down the beach to the most beautiful apartment High Park Hotel and the wonderful owner - Joe - from Romford (half the year and the other half here). Amazingly this place was ruined in the tsunami and he has just had it rebuilt. All the bathroom fittings have been shipped from England and it is beautiful and only £30 a night including breakfast - can't get a travel lodge for that back home! On Wednesday we took a boat over to Pigeon Island (so named because is was inhabited by pigeons some time ago) where Bryan went scooby diving and Jody went for a snorkel. The diving was pretty rubbish he said so didn't bother with a second dive and Jody found the sea too rough to do much snorkelling in. However Bryan borrowed her snorkel and managed to see some black tipped sharks which was the highlight of his day. Jody got some snorkelling in a quieter pool on the other side of the island where she saw some amazing fish and corals but to be honest there were so many people there she got fed up of being kicked in the head by flippers she gave up and just read a bookActually there was a really funny sight of some Japanese ladies all wrapped up afraid of getting any sun on their skin - at one point they even had an umbrella up in the water whilst looking for fish! Watch out for the photo of them too and you will see what we mean. Bryan then ask the boatman if he could swim back. He spoke with the island security and lifeguards and they said they would not support me but he was free to do it if he wanted to at his own risk. So 30 minutes later he was back in with the sharks, this time for a long swim. The shore look quite a long way off and the sea was quite choppy, but he was up for it. Steady swim across, after about 15 minutes the boatman decided to swim with me but he could not cope with the choppy water and the boat had to go back for him while Bryan swam on. Bryan found it was a funny feeling swimming in waters that you know sharks are around. His mind started racing and thinking about JAWS! But that doesn't help so he just kept plodding along. He finally reached the shore of Sri Lanka in about 41 minutes, well done Bryan. Trincomalee is a little corner of Sri Lankan Paradise and we love it. The food here is definitely the best we have had in Sri Lanka and the people as always so warm, friendly and helpful I just want to put the little old man from our restaurant in my pocket and bring him home! [gallery columns="4" ids="7006,7007,7008,7009,7010,7011,7012,7013,7014,7015,7016,7017,7018,7019,7022,7023,7024,7026,7027,7029,7031,7032,7033"]