One week by Tuk Tuk in Sri Lanka; Memories of the wave, animal ethics and a gropey chef

Apologies for the stereo silence. It’s not that i’ve not been travelling, far from it. Just a momentary blip in the flow of creative juices.Well am happy to declare that this trip got them flowing again. 

What started as a plan I had been hatching since last August, to join my good friend Diana and her family in Malaysia and to visit another good friend Roscoe in the Phillipines got reduced down to a one week window through a range of externally imposed factors which we won’t discuss here. 

Not being one to do what is expected of me and not being one to let limits constrain me,I decided to try and make long haul work still. 

The need to not be in the air at specific points in time shaped the direction of travel. To fully utilise the week’s space made travel in a westerly direction unviable as all flights would bring us back into the UK on the Friday morning, which is when I would be due to be delivering a webinar for a course I am teaching on. 

I decided that our week could be more effectively used travelling in an easterly direction. 

So what were our options? 

Of course there are many but it also needed to be balanced against the amount of time we'd get there versus the amount of time would spend traveling. And so it was neatly narrowed down to the west coast of India, specifically Goa or perhaps Cochin and with a total flight time that wasn't much greater than that, Sri Lanka. I've been to both before, ironically on my honeymoon and had spent most of my time in Sri Lanka confined to the toilet attempting to keep my head and my bum over it at the same time on the count of a dodgy prawn consumed in Madura before we had flown over to the island. 

What I had seen previously had certainly whet my appetite to return. But similarly Goa, having visited there a few times held a certain appeal to be able to have the freedom to reside in a beach bungalow in somewhere like Agonda or Palolem. With not much time to invest, I invested time in the pros and cons of each respective destination occasionally getting sidetracked by fluctuating flight prices down to Trivandrum or Kozikhode but only fleetingly. It was Sri Lanka or Goa that were the main contenders. 

The voices of others whirring inside my head made the intensity of Goa more of a factor than it really needed to be, although the flights with Virgin to Goa via Mumbai were coming in consistently cheaper. That wasn't until the flights to Sri Lanka dropped a little and overall the redeeming benefits of this beautiful island won the toss. One of the pretty tight parameters included needing to be at a place of stable internet connectivity on both Friday mornings . This meant that really without causing myself a lot of stress I needed to not be in transit, have arrived, and subsequently have arrived back home the following Friday. So again this narrowed the flight focus somewhat from what could have been an incredibly cheap 400 pound jobby with three changes from Birmingham in some rather random yet appealing places to either Qatar or Etihad with a stopover in Doha or Abu Dhabi correspondingly. Both were an appealing option and with very little variance in total flight time or stop over duration and so it was priced that drove it and we ended up with a mixture of the two, outbound with Qatar and return with Etihad and much to my delight part of that journey would be on an Airbus A380 (happy days indeed).

So the pre preparation was minimal as per. About a week in advance I had started to consider accommodation with major requirements for the first stop in Sri Lanka being somewhere we could access fairly easily after landing at three pm and get settled and enjoy the evening before the webinar that I needed to deliver the next morning. The vague plan was to try and tackle the South a little this time. The last time I had stayed at Bentota (mid west coast) at this absolutely mind blowing resort; the Villa Bentota. It was our honeymoon after all, but I was still shitting through the eye of a needle, or so the saying goes. But I figured we could get a little further South and try and see some of the places that haven't been seen previously. 

I was divided between the coastal towns of Hikkaduwa vs Unawatuna. With Unawatuna touted as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, I'm still glad I opted for Hikkaduwa in the end as it had more soul and was less luxury resort orientated. The normal booking.com filters of ‘in excess of 8 out of 10’, ‘pool’, which I'm really glad I stuck to because the sea was incredibly rough at that time of year with some strong riptides which meant that it wouldn't have been appealing or pleasant for August. That was too much to choose from. The range of accommodation on offer blows your mind and in the off season, which even though it's our summer holidays is now because of it being monsoon the prices were incredibly low. The standard of accommodation that you get for next to nothing was phenomenal. 

I opted for somewhere out of town; Lanka Villa Relax which had really good reviews, strong Wi-Fi and own independent small villa, trying for the beach bungalow style that would have been a characteristic of a Goa trip so opting for the best of both worlds, and most importantly, our doggy concierge, Rocky. Being off season there was a lot closed down in Hikkaduwa . Our friendly host Sanjeewa had arranged an airport taxi which considering the distance and driving time of two and a half hours was a snip at the price of about 25 pounds. Sanjeewa gave us some local advice including that a tuk tuk, which where everywhere much to August delights as one of his favourite things from the Thailand trip last year he was keen to replicate, should cost no more than 300 rupees to get into the center of Hikkaduwa. 

This equates to $1 to note for a distance of about three kilometers. Again the prices and value for money were absolutely second to none. We had so many delicious meals, particularly Sri lankan style Currys and seafood, fresh from the sea, and nothing cost more than about 15 pounds for the two of us including drinks. The next day I had to do some work and August had opted for a pool day so after finishing my responsibilities we enjoyed the amazing pool totally to ourselves and August perfected his dives and handstands. 

The accommodation was set in Thirangama, which is actually a village outside of Hikkaduwa, and it was really nice to be located in amongst normal village life. Everyone we met spoke, said hello and greeted us with friendly smiles wanting to engage us in conversation. Never before had I felt so welcome and that people had a genuine interest and authenticity about them. 

Being in Sri Lanka for only one week meant that we wanted to try and make the most of every minute and opportunity to see as much as we could but also striking that balance between not wanting to overdo it for Augs and have some chill time baked in, so we’d agreed that the next day would be a trip day and hired a tuk tuk to take us to a range of places that ticked our interested boxes that included a boat ride on the Madhu River at the Blue lagoon (which wasn’t blue at all), the opportunity to hold baby crocodiles, visit to a cinnamon farm, a temple, and then onwards to a sea turtle conservation project and the tsunami memorial. 

The problem with having such a limited amount of time is that it inevitably forces you to only skim the surface and for convenience, arrange those things that are most accessible, which aren't necessarily the most authentic experiences, and so this was an opportune platform to talk to August about the concept of staged authenticity, as encountered a ever-ready monk at the temple ready to bless us and give us a piece of string essentially attached around our wrist as a token of our visit whilst simultaneously presenting us with a donation book that we had no apparent option to decline. 

It also presented the opportunity to talk about wildlife tourism and the ethics of such and this caused a tension in me because ultimately I knew that these baby crocodiles that were being presented as being cared for until the age of one when they would be released back into the wild was simply not gonna happen, their passiveness at being handled might likely be because they were drugged as part of a money-making scheme. So I'm not particularly proud of myself for that move but it offered a unique experience for both myself and August and an educational one for the little dude. 

The most impactful part of the day for me was inevitably the tsunami memorial and specifically one of many photographic museums that had sprung up along the coastline of Sri Lanka. This is something I was very happy to make a generous donation towards, although again you're always questioning the authenticity of claims but I would really sincerely like to hope that such a tragic event would not be being exploited for money making purposes, however I'm a realist and this happens the world over. 

The images in this humble man's front room brought everything flooding back and a whole range of unexpected emotions. The Asian tsunami of December 2004 has played a big role in my life. It has occupied almost a quarter century of my identity. Most specifically in this context my cousin Ryan had been living in Sri Lanka for a while and was actually in Hikkaduwa on 26th December 2004 although very fortunately for him and for us all he had already been out surfing and gone back to his hotel to get showered and therefore avoided the devastation that many had encountered. But secondly my career has been shaped by this tragic event, being the focus of my doctoral research considering the impact of the tsunami on Koh Phi Phi  island in Thailand which commenced in 2005. It just goes to show that when something painful happens, our human coping mechanisms to put things in a box and I know I'm a bugger for this as a strategy to deal with trauma in a number of aspects of my life, but it was like that box had been opened looking at the images that were all too familiar adorning the walls of this man's house and they became more and more graphic. I grappled with the appropriateness of Augs viewing those scenes and that vivid imagery, but my approach to parenting has always been to be honest and open, not to shock or to upset but to expose August to the reality of life be that good or tragic. 

As with all sites of dark heritage that I have visited, a similar atmosphere was present, one of respectful silence and August was clearly impacted by the atmosphere who adopted the same respectful silence. Tears wellled up in my eyes and overflowed and we talked about it in hushed tones and I offered an explanation of some of the images, some of the issues, some of the geography, some of the reality surrounding this tragic event. I felt fortunate to be in a position to share this knowledge with him. 

The things I was able to share with August this trip were particularly important. I'm not going to say I'm an advocate of taking children out of school during term time, so long as you are not taking the piss, but in the last two days when it's literally play time, and we received an email to say as much, I think its wrong to penalise parents when it might be their parental wisdom that is exposing their child to arguably something more educational and impactful. August isn't an academic child, but he's considerate, deep thinking, inquisitive and thoughtful and it's easy to explain quite complex ideas to him and so it was a joy to see his curiosity fed through some of the experiences that we had on this trip.

Other random enlightenings that wouldn't have occurred had we not taken this trip was something rather simple really, we went for lunch in a lovely little restaurant, Coco Bella, and August asked for tuna sandwich. One of the specialities in Sri Lanka is of course the fresh seafood and so when sandwich arrived and he peeled back the bread, a look of shock on his face, as it wasn't the tuna that he was used to and so this prompted a discussion about the fact that tuna does not originate from a tin 

The sad socio-economic reality also was a talking points and a point of education for August. Why do most houses not have a dooor and windows mummy, why is the person that is sat on the side of the road asking for money got legs that are a different shape. Given that I know this instinctively from my education background the August is an experiential learner these learnings would sink in more than learning from the internet or from books, the importance of real experience and he's already started to re-present these nuggets of new insights in conversations he's having with other people. Although I concluded the trip not feeling like it had an impact and part of me questioning why did I even bother on account of his urgency to get back to the games and every day life but these things are clearly a slow burner and that leaves me feeling rather fulfilled 

The next stop on our trip was a turtle conservation project, and I'm always a bit dubious about those that are part of a guided itinerary, are they truly ethical and authentic in their purpose? The answer is I don't truly know because I didn't have long enough to find out and I wish I did, but some insistence around connecting by the proprietor who told me about his use of volunteers from the UK and his dissatisfaction associated with the company that they were currently using, encouraged me to think about this as a direction of personal travel. I was desperate at the start of this year to reconnect with my tourism rooots and maybe this is an opportunity to ensure that these tourism projects that are intended to do good actually have the desired impact and people engaging in them have the right motivations other than something ‘for the ‘gram’. So I'm gonna let that idea crystallize a little and hopefully pick it up when time permits (ha!). 

I revert to the prices in Sri Lanka, not only is a compelling reason to visit the island in the monsoon season the cost of accommodation and the value for money that it represents, but I think generally the destination is incredibly good value for money. If you're willing to eat in local shops, bakeries fruit stalls, I was able to cater for us both, very fully for breakfast and lunch on one day, for one dollar fifty. It was at this point that August developed his love for juicy ripe mango, a shared affection, and I discovered the utility of sharp nails in the absence of a knife. 

August had made the conscious decision that he wanted the remainder of our travel on Sri Lanka to be via TUK TUK. I hadn't fully appreciated the distances involved, but hey ho Tuk Tuks are definitely a more fun way to travel, and we negotiated the next leg of our journey down to a place inland of Weligama that I had booked the night before, the Hillcrest. Another phenomenal proposition accommodation-wise which I'll elaborate on momentarily. The journey to Weligama via tuktuk had been negotiated at 6,000 rupees, again phenomenal value for money. I’d asked to incorporate the stilt fishermen and also a trip to the town of Galle as breaks during our long journey. Galle was somewhere that I'd wanted to visit previously but not had the opportunity to do so. 

The whole stilt fishermen thing made me laugh out loud and again prompted an opportune conversation about the commodification of culture in tourism destinations. A small collection of poll bellied men sitting around a table laughing and drinking tea swiftly donned their turbans and lungis when they saw the arrival of our tuk-tuk. They tried to encourage August to get on some of the stilts above the rough ocean (eeeek said my tummy!) but he wasn't having any of it. They stood there for five minutes wiggling a bit of line around and one by one emerged with a small fish except for the third. Then they proceeded to demand 5,000 rupees for the experience. Considering that the comparative cost for the three hour trip to Weligama in a TUK TUK I wasn't playing ball, but settled on 1000 rupees each. It was a shame though because about 10 minutes down the road there appeared to be an entire group of traditional fisher people authentically demonstrating their craft in the absence of demands for money or the tourist gaze.

Oh my God, Galle is one of the most beautiful places I've ever had the pleasure and privilege to visit. I will go back there in a heartbeat. The colonial style buildings from the Dutch invasion were beautiful even in some of their dilapidated form of glory. We roamed around, had breakfast from a TUK TUK bakery, discussed the horrors of colonialism and met our driver again after an hour and a half to continue our journey. 

The Hillcrest was on a Hillcrest quite literally. The most beautiful place and I'm so glad that we chose to stay there as it was out of the madding crowds and again aside from a few other guests felt like we had the place to ourselves with a beautiful infinity pool, relaxed authentic and friendly atmosphere, superb food and the most amazing tree houses that had an outdoor bathtub on the balcony. Definitely a huge appeal to me who likes the quirkiest style of accommodation and that's one of the filters I've been using to make our choices during the stay. All for the princely sum of 22 pounds per night I couldn't quite believe it,  although subsequent discussions with the manager was that this was an introductory price. It was a new resort to try to stimulate initial demand. Again another lovely connection here as he was seeking help and support in terms of his digital marketing and again another opportunity to keep in contact and hopefully be able to give something back to this amazing place. 

On August's Sri Lanka shopping list had been crocodiles and snakes. We've done the crocodiles, albeit debatably. Now it was time for the snakes, something I felt rather uncomfortable about but was part of the reason why we chose Weligama as a base for that night because there were a number of snake farms close by. The accommodation sorted us a TUK TUK who then proceeded to be our TUK TUK driver for the journey of three hours up to Udawadale the next day so we got to know him very well and he got to know our craziness generally. Despite his insistence otherwise he took us to the snake farm that I'd identified on Google. I think he was opting for a more sophisticated alternative, but I'm so glad that we went for this one because the experience was amazing, I pushed my limits and August was in his absolute element. wWe were the only visitors and one by one the owner of the place preceded to bring out a range of venomous and non venomous snakes for us to either avoid and run like the wind or actually have an opportunity to hold. Augs was absolutely over the moon, and they didn't rip us off and were incredibly grateful for the substantial tip we were able to give because they hadn't ripped us off. 

Pretty severe storms that night meant a power cut at the resort but that didn't dampen spirits and although not quite as romantic as it potentially could have been, me in August bathed in the bathtub on the balcony in our bathers, until he got bored and went inside and I was able to enjoy some precious moments of chill accompanied by fireflies in the night sky above me listening to the sound of the crickets.  This was pure bliss. 

The trip up to Udawadale national park was rather rainy, and bumpy as the driver was attempting to avoid the highway, a decision I think he bitterly regretted . We arrived at the resort mid afternoon. I’m holding off naming the resort on account of what follows and my indecisivedness over what I should still do if anything. Another resort that had been chosen on the basis of course location, slightly priceier than we had been to previously (at £30pn including breakfast), but had the most beautiful pool with, again A-frame two-story bungalows as accommodation with outside bathroom, where outside bathrooms are one of my most loved things. 

I had some work related commitments so needed to work in and around that for the safari that have been the focal point of the visit to Udawadale. We could either book a sunrise or a sunset safari and were advised that sunrise would give us the better chance to see more animals. We had eaten lunch in the restaurant and found the food phenomenal and did the same in the evening. The chef was a very friendly fellow and visited each table chatting to the guests making sure that they were happy with the food. He seem to labour a little longer our table, something that I didn't initially think on too much, but in hushed tones when we told him we were taking an early morning Safari he said if you meet me here in the restaurant at 5:15 then, I am not supposed to do this, but I'll make up a packed breakfast, even though we were able to take breakfast upon our return of approximately half in the morning. Oh that's nice I thought. 

We slept and at 5 a.m. the next day there was a knock at our door. It was the chef. He entered our room and proceeded to shake both of our hands enthusiastically and then give a cuddle to August and then to me. As he exited the cuddle there was a very definite hand placed on my right breast and a very purposeful squeeze. My face must have registered a sense of shock and recoil. I couldn't quite believe what had happened and was of course immediately questioning myself as to whether I had imagined it or not, but no. We got our shoes on ready and I thought there's no way I'm going to go and sit in the restaurant now so we tried to bypass it but unfortunately the restaurant was overlooking the entrance to our room and also quite worryingly the outside bathroom. We had almost got past the restaurant when he appeared and called us back into the back of the restaurant which was in darkness. No I said firmly. My face must have still registered some sense of shock and he said what's wrong and I said you touch my breast. Immediately rather than saying, if it had been an honest mistake, ‘i’m very sorry it was a mistake’ he proceeded to deny it and then vehemently claimed that ‘I have a wife and children, I am a married man!’. Well its not like that's ever f****** stopped anybody has it? (said my head).

Look… i know the girls are big… i know they hang like spaniels ears… or sleeve of wizard (as our esteemed Borat would describe them) but that morning they were very well scaffolded and i would place money on the fact that it was nigh on impossible to confuse a 32G with a hip, even in the dark. 

Much cow towing, or grovelling ensued using the medium of sweet treats, but it wasn't an authentic sort of groveling, more an ‘i know what I have done but you can’t proved it’ style, something that unnnerved me quite a bit. Do I just leave, What do I say? Do I complain? Do I raise it with a manager? But in my head and my heart, all I could think is if I do he's gonna get the sack and then his wife and children are going to suffer. So I'm still sitting on the fence not really knowing what to do about that one.

The whole experience was really sad because it eroded my trust, created a sense of vulnerability and unease and made me distrust everyone that I encountered from that moment onwards until our final stop outside of Negombo with the lovely Mr Bernard and also, as I relaxed a little, our tuk tuk driver Chiranga who took us on the mega tour from Udawadale up to Negombo. We then had to get into a Jeep for our Safari on our own in the dark.  It's crazy because if anybody had laid any sort of hand on August I'd have blugeoned  them to death with whatever was available, in an instant, but with me I just simply froze and I'm still to a certain extent frozen from acting by it all.

I tried to shake the feeling and not let it ruin our day but inevitably it did and I was uneasy for the remainder of the trip although the safari was amazing and our skilled driver that had managed to overtake hundreds of other jeeps got us into the national park and to an area whereby we could see the elephants as the sun rose before they got scared off by the hordes that followed. An important consideration in any form of safari or wildlife tourism. Totally understandable that if you'd arrive half an hour later you wouldn't see a thing because of the sheer amount of vehicles that were entering the park.

Returning to the resort I felt a sense of anger as well as vulnerability and it consumed me although I tried my very hardest not to disclose this to August even though I did have to share some of it because I was visibly upset. It connected I guess to the conversations that they've been having at school about your body in terms of privacy and inappropriate behaviour. I still shouldn't have had to have that conversation at this stage.

We went to visit an elephant orphan conservancy and watched the baby elephants be fed their afternoon tea, which re-injected some joy into the proceedings. I just loved the awkward  scampering of the baby elephants as they ran for their ‘mulk’.

So being absolute crazy we opted for a tuk-tuk to take us to the hotel in Negombo which we were going to stay in advance of our early morning flight the next day. The Steps Garden resort was again a really positive choice and the warm hospitality extended by Bernard and his staff, the food, the flexibility and the opportunity to sleep in a treehouse, one of the new additions to his vision was out of this world. 

We had inquired about taking a taxi for what ended up being a four hour journey from Udawadala to Negombo but this was going to be rather pricey. I really hadnt planned this very well at all and anticipated the sheer distances involved. I managed August’s  expectations for the fact that we might not be taking a Tuk Tuk for this leg of the journey. That wasn't till we met the TUK TUK driver that took us to the elephant conservancy and he offered a price of 13,000 rupees, approximately 60 pounds to take us on this four to five hour journey. It was epic but again who's gonna ever complain about travelling by Tuk Tuk. It was amazing. If only we had been introduced to the Pick Me app on Day 1 (Sri Lanka’s version of Uber) it would have cost us half that!

I could see he was super tired and by the time we arrived at the steps garden I think we were a big source of amusement for everyone we met during the trip. We popped into Negombo to get some souvenirs because we really haven't been anywhere that touristy up until that point to be an position to get souvenirs. I've been wary of Negombo knowing it to be the first beach resort to be developed on the island and consequently would be rather more commercialized than anywhere else that we had visited. I was right and the feeling of the place just wasn't for me really. Beach hawkers, touts and chancers applying pressure rudeness and rip-offs ensued, something that we haven't experienced this far and so we headed back to the beautiful haven of the Steps Garden Resort to start our journey home at half nine the following morning.

Unbelieveably after just one week, which felt like a month, I felt ready for home.

The journey home was bumpy. We flew with Etihad via Abu Dhabi.The turbulence increased as we left India mainland and headed over the ocean. 

Biting my hand so hard to avoid Augs seeing me trying to control a panic attack, I drew blood. I’d been a fear of flying warrior until this point, and so not I felt rather ashamed. It was similarly bumpy. But I know me. When I feel vulnerable, I get scared. I act irrantionally. So that was it, that's all. The crew had been seated part way through the meal service but resumed briefly.Planning not to drink but the potential soothing powers of a vino tinto won me over and proved the perfect potion to wash down a few more Propanolol….. Heart rate slowing to that of something resembling an amoeba I finally chilled the fuck out. And then we were home. 

Oh, How I enjoy sharing the world with you Augs.