Matara by Tuk Tuk

Saturday 4/3/17

Woke this morning to find D sitting on the balcony watching the rain. SL is having some unseasonal weather but forecast for today is a mixture of showers and sunshine with cloudy intervals. Not too bothered as we need to give our skin time to recover from too much sun yesterday

The hotel put on a nice Sri Lankan rice and curry buffet last night in the courtyard garden lit with fairy lights. We sat with a nice british couple who we'd been chatting to earlier. They are well travelled so interesting to hear about their holiday adventures. I could see the signs of Parkinsons in the husband who was probably about 60 so I guess they are making the most of opportunities to travel while they can. Made we think of Mum...shame she wasn't able to do that.

This morning we thought we should do something even though we are getting a bit jaded and it's so relaxing here...
So we took another death defying tuk tuk ride to Matara. Busy big commercial centre 10 minutes to the east. Looked round the little Star Fort an old dutch stronghold. Ugly looking ramparts with a green moat but nice entrance with working drawbridge and liitle museum with some interesting artifacts. Then over a bridge over the river that has been rebuilt after the tsunami to the other dutch fort which just has some ramparts and a British built white clock tower. Stalls along the way seem to sell a huge number of flip flops plus the usual market quality clothing, fake watches and other very resistable wares.

Some big cricket match going on. We'd not seen girls playing until today but it seemed to be some kind of corporate event with workers from local businesses having a friendly match day.

A little island accessed by a suspension footbridge was not mentioned in our rough guide but it may have yet another temple there. If in doubt it's probably a temple..lots of them.

Very humid so found a traditional style sea front hotel going under the very common name of The Rest House...every town seems to have at least one hotel with this name. ..not homes for the elderly...and had a cold soda water while we waited for our now favourite tuk tuk to collect us..well he has got us to two destinations alive.

On our map it shows a harbour so as it was just too sweaty hot to walk there we asked him to take us there before returning to the hotel. Taking us via some strange back road route we smelt the fish stalls before we could see them. Large selection of fish...but in this heat and no refrigeration we weren't tempted to buy even if we had somewhere to cook it. The harbour was just a small collection of fishing boats at the point where the river meets the sea.

Tuk tuk driver took us back to the hotel via the back beach road..but got lost a few times before finding the right road. His three point turns and u-turns all added to the experience. It did give us a nice view of the coast and we passed Polehena beach which is supposed to be good for snorkelling...but the currents around this coast are more scary than the tuk tuks so not for me. Driver suggested he took us to Galle tomorrow. I would actually like to visit the Fort area there but an hour each way in a tuk tuk is more than my nerves can stand. We said we'd think about it...

So back to some downtime at the hotel. Sun is out but it's shaded with a little sea breeze here on the balcony. Nice cold drink and my audio book is excitement enough for this afternoon. Wonder what chef is planning for tonight...? The Belgian house rules means the menu is put up on the blackboard in the afternoon and we have to preorder by 4.30! Food has been very good so far so we don't mind conforming.