We awoke to a lovely morning at Black Beauty Guesthouse.
The morning (as did all our mornings with this guest house) began with fruit and a pot of tea. The fruit was then followed by the more substantial part of breakfast, generally consisting of toast and the offer of eggs.
Not wanting to waste the beautiful morning we hopped into the guesthouse's swimming pool, before getting ready for a day of adventure.
This is the pathway leading into the property. The blue building on the left is a series of rooms, whilst the building just visible behind them is the four story building where we stay. Meals were taken on the top floor.
We made a short stop in Galle Fort to do buy some things were had looked at the day before, but which we needed time to think on first. We only had so much spending money and we didn't want to spend it willy-nilly. We wanted to be sure of our purchases.
In the fort we came across this lady who was making lace in the traditional way. It requires various strands on fabric on little rollers and a lot of pins. The pins hold the fabric in place whilst the rollers are flipped over each other. Then a pin or two gets moves and the process continues. It takes a long time, but the results are good.
Unfortunately for them, lace was not something we were looking to buy. This lady, however, did get some money off of us. It turns out people encourage you to take pictures of them and then ask you for money. A snake charmer tried to trick me the same way, but I refused to take out my camera for him.
Before leaving Galle Fort we retired to a small non-descript café for lunch. I think it's safe to say that the simple meal we had there was the best meal of our trip.
There was also an unfortunate incident of accidental theft. I took the time I had in our break from wandering around to write off a few letters and postcards. While packing up afterwards I ended up nicking three of the café's menus which happened to be under my pile of books, postcards and envelopes.
I discovered this back at the guesthouse and returned them the next day.
After leaving Galle we hopped on our hired scooter and took a trip east along the coastline to Mirissa. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving along the road, stopping at various spots and enjoying the beach.
I got my hand in... or rather my foot in at one spot along the beach. I began practicing my Mandarin Chinese.
Here's to all the other South Africans out there.
南非
We pulled over at one point so I could take a picture of a massive flock of birds that I saw flying around a canopy of trees. Sadly when we could pull over there were trees and buildings in the way and this was the best shot that I could get.
On further inspection it turns out that these weren't crows, as I had first suspected, but rather bats. It was odd that they were flying around during the day.
If you look carefully you can see hundreds of them as black dots in the trees.
A bit further south we came upon some of the traditional fishermen that Sri Lanka is famous for. These men pirch on stick frames that protrude from the ocean and cast their lines into the sea from there.
As you may have guessed, after taking this picture I was promptly set upon by a man who asked me for money for the. He wouldn't listen when I said I didn't have any on me (which was true - it was in my bag at the time) and I ended up just walking away from him.
Sri Lanka runs on tourism. Without it they have no economy. That means that many of them will do all they can to take you for a ride. It also means that everyone and their dog is trying to find some way to draw the tourists in.
It seems the beach we stopped at was politically aligned.
There was also wildlife everywhere.
This cat was from a small coffee shop that we stopped at on the way back from Mirissa. Run by (what I think was) a German lady and her Sri Lankan boyfriend, it was most charming, exuded a sense of relaxation.
On the morning of our fourth day my girlfriend slipped off down to the beach to catch a few final pictures before we finished packing our bags and began the trek inland to Ella, one of the many areas in Sri Lanka famous for tea.
Staying at Black Beauty Guest House was the best decision we made on this trip.
Taking their advice was the worst.
We made a decision on the morning of the fourth day that proved to be disasterous, but more on that in the next post.
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