Mirissa (again)

I've mentioned the north-south coastal road. There's also a north-south coastal railway, so we hopped on a train. You can picture it: 50p each for 2nd class seats (there is no 1st) in a boxy carriage so beloved of all the films about India (at least these days no one is hanging off the roofs from 3rd). Our destination was Mirissa because, although we had reached the harbour to visit the bloody whales, there was also a beach I wanted to check out. Unfortunately, after a worrying wait followed by a reversal back towards Hikkaduwa at the Galle station (we learned later it was just to circumvent Galle town), the train terminated in the south of Sri-Lanka at a very busy town called Matara, which was way past Mirsissa. But Matara had an old Dutch fort complete with a marching band made up of school kids all dressed in their best whites and a curiously over-designed suspension bridge leading to a Buddhist temple on an island (on closer inspection over the bridge we saw the remains of an old concrete pathway, possibly the victim of the tsunami -- Buddhist temples get a priority in tax-dollar recovery efforts here).

Luckily, Matara had a bus station so we hopped on a bus claiming to be heading back westwards to Mirissa. It was more like a Turkish dolmus in that it was stuffed, getting on and getting a seat was easy; getting up and getting off was impossible. There were so many women standing the aisle that getting two Westerners and a backpack through to the doors was like wading through treacle. Luckily, the driver had another near miss on the road, braked while overtaking on a hazardous bend, and the deceleration slithered me through five rows of standing passengers where there was just another few minutes of grunting and "sorries" before I could fall out the door. A few minutes later the bus spat out a red and dishevelled Linda. It was a good thing my tablet was tracking my location by GPS otherwise I'd have never had known when to make a break for the exit in the first place.

We had found somewhere to stay the night via Agoda.com so that wasn't a problem. Then it was two steps on to Mirissa Beach to see what we had arrived to. Here's a picture rom a little island on the corner of the bay to give an idea. I fell in love with the place immediately.

Mirissa Beach is a must if you fancy visiting Sri-Lanka. The best way of describing it is that it is an almost exact clone of Koh Samet in Thailand, but only Mike & Carolyn would understand that. Picture the above bay where, looking out to sea, the sun rises to the left, stays all day and sets to the right. All the bars and restaurants and guest houses are concentrated at the height of maximum tide, so much so that when the tide wins and your sunbed or table (and shoes) are frequently swamped.

Not a beach you can easily swin in, 'though ...

Accommodation was basic and relatively expensive but that's the cost of staying on the beach itself. Food and drink were relatively cheap and the place, like Koh Samet, is full of interesting characters of all nationalities. If (when) we come back to Sri-Lanka we'll stay here for longer.