Hey there folks, based on the date, I bet you were expecting something more exciting for Day 12 in Sri Lanka, but before you get too disappointed, you should also remember that a key reason why I chose to stay in Negombo my last two full days here was because I wanted to just get in some relaxation, and also to start getting caught up on the backlog of blog entries which had accumulated over the previous few months. Thus, the good news is that there was plenty of relaxation and catching up with the blog, but the bad news is that you probably won’t find it very exciting to read. However, there was still a bit of an interesting cultural snapshot which happened in the early evening, so if you feel like pushing yourself to read, you still might find something of interest.
Many of you will recall that I had gone to bed rather late the previous day, so I guess it isn’t that surprising that I didn’t get up, shower and head out more or less across the street to get the first meal of the day until 12:40 PM. Having noted that most of these places along the beach seemed similar, just like in Mirissa, I decided to just go into a place which was very close by, in this case, Oasis Fish & Lobster. In defense of many of these coastal places, especially with one that has the name “lobster” in the name, I’m highly allergic to crustaceans, so I didn’t really give them much of a chance to show off their skills with shrimp or lobster. Honestly, I don’t even remember exactly what I ate, but it was something with pork. The food was “perfectly adequate” yet uninspiring, with a cost of 4290 LKR ($14.49 USD). The one saving grace was that at least it was fast, and at 1:19 PM I had already finished eating.
I made a very minimal attempt to walk around a bit in the immediate area, but I wasn’t really into it, so at 1:47 PM I was already back in the room working on my travel blog. This became a bit of a marathon session, and I continued writing up until 5:21 PM. I felt good with that, since I finished an incomplete entry from earlier on, got it posted, and completely finished another entry which I would then be able to post later on. Some might argue that this seemed like it was turning into an unpaid job, but lots of people read or play games for several hours while on vacation, so why couldn’t I work on a personal travel blog?
Still, I WAS at a beach town, and even though I am not particularly fond of actually hanging out there for extended periods of time, those of you who have been following along have probably guessed that given the hour, there was a good chance that I was about to head back to the beach. Sure enough, at 5:30 PM I left the room to watch the sunset on the ocean, arriving at 5:42 PM. Today’s experience was a bit different from the previous days I had done this, since there was a quite a carnival atmosphere. At least in Negombo, the beach is clearly the place to be on Christmas day.
At 5:57 PM I once again caught the sun just as it disappeared, and once again I reconfirmed that this could easily become a peaceful, daily routine.
Now that I was there, I figured that I may as well make a bit of an effort to see if there was anything else of note, and there actually was! Check out some of the pics of this rather large, abandoned water park! I wondered what had happened here. Did people just lose interest? Was there some problem with the water supply? Had there been some horrible tragedy?! It looked like it might have been a rather fun place, but its new function seemed to be an informal gathering spot for young men to drink . . . but that may have just been for today.
At 6:10 PM, probably because it was a lot cooler now than during the day, I felt a bit more inspired to leave the beach area and go out walking for a bit.
However, simply walking up and down the street lost its charm after a short time, and at 7:23 PM I stopped in at some random restaurant to order fish curry coconut with rice, a tomato salad and a beer. Just as I was starting to get frustrated with the mosquitos despite using my repellant, the server came and put a mosquito coil next to me, and that mostly dealt with the problem. Unfortunately, it turned out that the “tomato” salad was at least 50% raw onion, which I really do not like, but as they had not specified that, I felt no compunction about returning it to the kitchen. But then while reading some news while I was eating, at 8:16 PM I read that just five days earlier the central government of India had reimposed the requirement to have a Protected Area Permit (PAP) to visit Manipur, effective immediately. So, it looked like my trip to Manipur the following week was most likely no longer going to happen . . . being preoccupied with this latest bit of news, I didn’t note down exactly when I left, but the bill was 2500 LKR ($8.50 USD).
I didn’t want to let a potential upcoming trip cancellation sour the end of my current vacation. So, on my way back to the room at 9:03 PM, I made sure to get a prepackaged ice-cream cone along with 100 grams of peanuts and my daily bottle of drinking water for a total of 760 LKR ($2.53 USD). At least I could have ice-cream! Back in the room at 9:16 PM, and still feeling a bit tired from yesterday, I was already in bed at 9:35 PM.
What more can I say? Not a lot happened on Day 12. Sometimes it happens that way, and sometimes that’s not really a bad thing. Your thoughts?
Travels with Jay 