Hiriketiya

It was very hot afternoon when I arrived in Colombo and we were loading the cumbersome suitcases in the colossal van. This flight was the shortest international flight I have ever taken. Can you guess how long it was?? It was only one hour! Though the drive from Colombo to Hiriketiya was very long! How odd!

We drove through beautiful beaches and finally reached the villa, which is going to be our home for 10 days. It was called Ronaya Surf Waves. We did not realise that we had to walk up steep slope to go to the villa! It was like a trek. But it became easy to climb and we kids got to carry heavy water cans up the slope and our parents were impressed! Everyone kept saying that is was worth walking up this slope as the villa was beautiful. And it was! When we reached I wanted to explore at once. There were images of Buddha and many wall mounts made of deer heads.

We munched on some chocolates from the Duty free store in the airport. We strolled by the beach to beach to figure out the locality and the beach that we are going to surf in. We had dinner in a very peppy place called Dots By The Bay and we got to meet our coaches there who had also come to have dinner with their friends. Then we relaxed as the next day was going to be hectic as we were going to start our surfing lessons! Yay!!

The waves were the perfect for surfing. The waves were calm and gentle. We went for a walk around the beach. The beach was like a cute little bay with small hills on one side and a lot of shacks with refreshments and food on the shore. I noticed that it was super clean beach. The waves were big and ideal for surfing. There was no crowd, so it felt more like a private beach. Our coach was the surf champion of Sri Lanka. He taught me how to correct my posture and make a perfect turn. In the evening we used to go bodyboarding. It is just like surfing. So I practice my paddling and try to identify on the bodyboard. Later I like to just relax in the water and play games. I had the same routine each day and always learnt something new. On the last day, I finally caught my own wave! Best time ever.. it felt extremely good!!

One day we went for whale watching in Mirissa. We boarded the catamaran in the fishing harbour. The catamaran was huge. It was called The Emerald. First there was nothing to see except the ocean, turtles and fish. Soon there was a cry “Dolphins”. We all ran up and held on to the rail and saw many bottlenose dolphins leaping in a row. The catamaran was shaking so we were getting splashed by the icy water. We saw two turtles mating. It looked like a rock then I realised that they were two turtles!! We waited and waited then we finally found a few whales. They were so big and scary. It was a lovely experience. We had our breakfast and lunch in the catamaran.

We went snorkelling in Aga Surf View in Thangalle. The beach is also a little bay but it has a natural reef. Even in the shallow parts we could see the corals. There were lot of fish. It was really fun telling each other what all fishes we saw. I was so scared that a sea urchin might sting me.

We tried different types of food. We have breakfast in the beach right after surfing. We drink a refreshing tender coconut, then order a English Breakfast which includes sausage, an omelette and bread, butter and jam. They give us pineapple jam. It was scrumptious. They gave us a fruit platter which had bananas, pineapples, watermelons and passion fruit. We had some fine Kothu Parota and Papaya Salad in the Garlic Cafe near the beach. One of my favourite restaurant is Malu Poke. We can choose the ingredients for our poke bowl. You can choose one protein, one base like rice or noodles, five veggies, one sauce one of my favourite was Ponzu , one crunch like appalams and some add ons. Your very own unique Poke Bowl always tastes awesome!! I also had a frozen chocolate banana there. We went to a restaurant called Smoke & Britters where we celebrated my coach’s birthday. I had also made him a card in Procreate. The restaurant was under the coconut trees by the beach. We ate some dinner and then cut a cake or should I say a chocolate tart. Another restaurant that I liked was Verse. There was a skate ramp there. I loved the creamy and lemony lemon tart there. It was so good that I had two! Duni’s hoppers served some fancy appams in white, green(spinach) and pink(beetroot) with spinach, dal and coconut sambal. We went to a Mexican restaurant called the Salty Pelican where we had some yummy tacos and played games like chess and Tic Tac Toe. We went to a restaurant named Mont which is on a cliff. I had some delicious rose water, lime and mint lemonade which was pink in colour. We went to Smerelda where they allowed us to use their pool. It was super fun. On our way back from surfing or after dinner we have some ice cream from the Mini Mart. That was a little shop with some essentials and srilankan snacks and ice creams. They had woodapple duet with woodapple sorbet over the vanilla icecream and caramel chocolate ice cream in a bar like a chocolate instead of an ice cream that usually comes in a stick.

There were many monkeys, dogs and humongous crab that we had to deal with on our way up and down to the beach from our villa. We got used to it and though there was no pool to chill, in we learnt how to keep ourselves occupied and have fun.

Thus is the best surf trip I have gone on.. the beauty of the place was surreal, learnt how to catch my own wave, which is my dream and had good company!