Food, drink and sunsets

Having appalled Silent Reader 2 yesterday with nautical tales of woe, I thought I'd revert to a more dignified report of life in Sri Lanka. Those of you who like their postcards more akin to a road crash report can look away now.

This is definitely one of the cheapest places in to world to bum around: a large beer will cost you around £1.50; a very large local g & t around £2.50; a plate of devilled (i.e. chillie sauced) tuna/calamari/prawns around £4. In fact, our first week here cost us about the same in food and drink as the bloody whale trip did; around £150. The only thing we have really spluged on is the hotel which comes to around £80 a night.

Our favourite watering hole remains the afore-reported Mamas Bar & Restaurant, a couple of buildings up the beach. The view from our table (which I think is made from a 1950's iron sign advertising Anchor butter) really says it all . . .

Last night our favourite table (think: "Sheldon's Spot") was under threat from a group of Russian luvvies who had the staff move the other three Anchor Butters together and set up a barbeque on the sand. The pressure was on us to move to give ours up but, of course, we resisted in the true Blitz spirit and sat back to watch the wannabe models and their mums cavourt and posture for photos in the orange glow of the sunset. Things started to get interesting when a local man walked by towing a Macaque monkey on a lead. Of course, he saw a money opportunity and the women saw a photo opportunity. Cue much squealing and tearing of hair and Linda muttering in the background, "Go on, pee on their heads". Once the furore was over the Russians lost interest in both man and monkey who were trying to extract the equivalent of £10 off them. The rest of the evening settled down when the Russians sat down to eat and a couple of talented local boys played the bongos for them (and the rest of us) for an hour while the sun disappeared. And just to put you in the mood, here's another obligatory sunset view from Lampen's Location . . .

Everybody say "Ahh!"