Egga

Great names for dives around here! Shortly after the Muli Out dive, we headed back inside the atoll and headed to another pinnacle, this one surrounded by soft coral and pretty coloured fish, though not in such vast quantities.

As we spiralled around the pinnacle, we were signalled into a hollow in the side of the pinnacle, as apparently there was a lobster hiding inside:

Such beautiful colours, but damned hard to capture!

Swimming over this reef though had a totally different feel to it – not so many fish, but often standing out from the background more because of it. We had no surge here at all, so it really was just buoyancy control and then gently fin around.

Some of the corals themselves were beautiful too, with ledges and fans as well as huge groups of multi-coloured ones all sat together

and all throughout the dive, we had very obliging clown fish who simply won’t leave their anemone unattended, so meant you could hang in the water by them until they appeared to give you your photo:

after nearly 45 minutes of circling  the pinnacle, we were ready to ascend (the top being only 4 or so metres down), when Paul spotted something under an overhang on a rock:

a gorgeous scorpion fish! Amazing!

Muli Out

I’ve got no idea why the reef I dived is called this, it’s a reef on the outside of the atoll with the current washing in towards the centre, and is apparently great for viewing huge fish, if they are obliging!

We jumped in and checked the current and the surge, as this was fun washing into and then away from the reef face, something to get to grips with whilst I snapped away a million photos!

Paul, my Glaswegian dive buddy, pointed to a large bit of brown reef, and whilst I was wondering what he was pointing to, it moved:

a really nice big octopus that was a bit paparazzi shy, so shortly after I took this, it crawled into a cranny, no bigger that your fist, amazing!

The whole of the reef was covered in all sorts of different flavours of fish though, and some of the trigger fish weren’t shy about coming up to you to see what you were about:

As we drifted along the reef our guide pointed out into the blue, and there in the distance we could see a couple of eagle rays effortlessly flying past, but they didn’t get too close. Shortly after out of the gloom a black tip shark came by, but again at a distance.

Back on the reef though, we soon found our next attraction:

quietly munching away on the coral, totally oblivious to us sailing by like this:

Lion-oh!

This morning when we woke up, Suzie checked the floor of the bungalow (as you do).

The tide first thing this morning was really low, and as calm as a millpond, so directly under the bungalow Suzie snapped these photos though the glass floor!

How cool is that to wake up to? A big lion fish! And auspicious for my two dives that I’m doing this morning!

2000 leagues under the sea

The dive school here on Chaaya, ‘Dive & Sail’, kitted me up with a standard set of equipment, bar a wet suit, as the water temperature here means you can skin dive with no issues, and Tony the instructor took another diver and myself out to an underwater pinnacle called Ashaa as our dive this afternoon.

What can I say? Having only dived the UK previously I had no real idea what I would find under the surface, but it was amazing. The water was so clear you could see about 10 metres in all directions, and the top of the pinnacle was covered in so many different kinds of coral and fish as to be impossible to focus on any one thing! I spent the first 10 minutes or so sorting out my buoyancy and the camera and trying not to get too close to the coral and all manner of other things until I had it all under control and relaxed.

The pinnacle had everything you could want on a first dive here: it was clear, the water at the deepest point (23 metres) was still 29 degrees centigrade, which was lovely! And the fish...

Moray Eel

All obligingly happy to pose whilst you drifted past. Of course I didn’t and was happy trying to make sure I didn’t sink or float too fast past them, but you get the picture (as hopefully did I!)

Clown Fish

I took way too many photos, and have posted only a few of the better ones here, but you can see the variety…

Lion Fish

I need to adjust the camera to use the flash I think, as there’s way too much blue in these, but I had so much fun taking them…

Parrot Fish

Suz meanwhile was topside reading and enjoying the view of the turtle that we’d gone down to try and find/follow! I’m hooked though, so I’ve signed up for two more trips tomorrow morning! Let’s see if tomorrow brings some Manta Rays!

Of dolphins & hermits

Another glorious day in the Maldives, and Suz and I went snorkelling first thing, as I wanted to show her all the little fishies! We weren’t disappointed either, so pushing it a little we swam over to the neighbouring island, blissfully unaware that there was a big notice telling us not to as it was a private island! Oops!

Whilst I was posting yesterdays blog post afterwards, we saw a huge ray just cruise under the walkway right by the beach, I think Suz wanted to jump right in then!

Our dolphin watching trip was this afternoon though, so we duly varnished ourselves in factor 50 and headed out to the jetty to catch our dhoni (traditional Maldivian boat)

Our keen eyed guide headed up top whilst the rest of us kept a sharp eye out from down below, and it wasn’t long before Suz shouted out that there was something off the starb’rd side (all right, she shouted ‘What’s that over there?’, but you get my nautical reference), and it turned out to be a huge turtle taking a breath at the surface before diving under before anyone had a chance to train their cameras on it.

We motored further out towards the next atoll, and after about an hour, eagle eyed Suz shouted out ‘flying fish!’, but again they disappeared sharpish.

We thought we’d had a fruitless trip, and that our cetacean friends were being shy, but just before we were about to give up, they showed up out of the blue (literally)

but didn’t hang around to play for very long, though clearly some of them, further out were having a ball:

Dolphin executes a perfect triple salko loop with pike and is awarded 6.0 by the judges.

after that we motored back through the heat, though at least being out on the water meant we had a breeze, and went back to the bungalow to deal with the inevitable sun burn, though not before trying to relocate every hermit crab that I came across on the path home – some of them are so tiny and cute, in a crab-like way!

I’m off diving tomorrow! Wheee!

Wow.

This morning was a bit of an early start, but we left Ranweli and headed back to Colombo airport to catch our flight out at 7.30am. I was intrigued though, as we began our descent, and looking out the window I couldn’t see anything at all. As it happens Malè is actually a small atoll island whilst it’s airport is actually on it’s neighbouring island with a extension reclaimed from the sea. Male itself seems to have grown upwards as it’s unable to grow outwards, but looks fascinating, however, we didn’t get a chance to go there, as as soon as our pilot had bounced our aircraft to a rather jumpy stop, we headed out to our water taxi seaplane!

I think I was looking forward to this bit! We duly climbed in to a little Twin Otter and the pilots took us around several of the resorts, dropping off guests as we went. Going up and down in these things is so much better than a roller coaster!

Anyway, the third stop was us, at Chaaya Lagoon. What do you think:

I honestly can’t describe how beautiful the Maldives are. We flew over atolls with lenses the lightest colour of turquoise, whilst the surrounding sea was a deep royal blue – I can now see why people rave about this place, it should be on everyone's bucket list just to come here and see the colours. And when we got to Chaaya, it has the longest walkway in the Maldives (allowing the air taxi to pull right up to it) and walking back to the resort, our host casually pointed out the huge stingray drifting over the coral sand, along with a large number of other fish chasing each other. Amazing!

Chaaya sits on  it’s own piece of heaven, with bright white coral beach, and palms and other trees growing  sheltering the main buildings on the island. All of the water bungalows extend out from this island 100 metres into the sea (which at best is about a metre deep), and have their own glass bottom floor to look at all the fishes, and other assorted aquatic life…

no comments about a whale please!

and the view from our own private deck..

not bad eh? I of course immediately jumped in for a swim around, and under our bungalow have so far spotted a Zebra Lionfish, Damson fish, loads of Reef Triggerfish and assorted jacks and others (my ‘guide to the reef fish of the Indian Ocean’ isn’t as comprehensive as it needs to be!)

So tomorrow Suz and I have already booked ourselves onto a dolphin watching (aka dolphin bothering) tour, then I’m hitting the dive centre with the underwater camera!

Good bye!

We’ve reached the end of our stay here in Ranweli, Sri Lanka, and we’ve got to get up at 2.50 in the morning ready to catch our next flight off to Malè in the Maldives before a seaplane to our resort! I can’t wait!

Here then as a final posting from Sri Lanka is a brief map of where we’re stayed:

It’s been really good here, if little weird at times (I’m looking at you Mr Shirley!) but I think both Suz and I will be glad to move onto the Maldives, where I’m hoping everything will be really special.

Au Revoir!

Sweeny Todd

It’s hot here. Hot and humid. And I forgot to get a second hair cut right before we left home. So, my hair has been too long for out here, and it’s been annoying me. Well, I’d brought my electric razor along, so thought ‘what the heck’ and asked Suz to give me a hair cut, after all, my hair does grow at a ridiculous rate.

She reluctantly agreed.

Hahahahahah!

Grease me up!

So yesterday, Suz and I decided to take advantage of the ‘freebie’ you get here at Ranwelli, a half hour foot massage at the Ayurveda massage centre. When we walked in there though it was so calm and serene that we actually decided to go for a full on head, face, back & shoulders massage instead. Well, they wheeled us into separate rooms and I was asked to undress (eek!)

They started with my head massage by liberally applying a pool of oil onto my scalp and then patting it like you would a mud pie! Very odd, but the actual massage was lovely!

I next had to lay face up on a table and they started the face massage, again with liberal amounts of scented oil, but this treatment was the best – very nearly fell asleep during it!

Lastly came the back massage, which was very nice, but my shoulders hurt a bit afterwards, as they took quite a pummelling.

I met Suz back out in the lobby as we were both having a nice cup of herbal tea, and we really did look like we’d both been dragged through a tank of olive oil!

Greasy, but happy!

Bird watching by boat

It’s Saturday today (for anyone keeping tabs) and we had decided to book ourselves on a boat trip today, as Ranweli sits on a canal with plenty of wildlife to view, so at 10.00 we duly went down to the boat house and were met by another really friendly guide who was more than happy to point out the mullet and black crab in the water, as well as the Pied Kingfisher that was perched on the telephone wire running across the canal, which then obligingly plummeted into the water to snatch a fish (the Kingfisher, not the guide. Although we would’ve paid good money to see that!)).

I went one better though as a tiny Common Kingfisher buzzed right past us and sat neatly on a nearby twig. I’m monstrously proud of this shot:

We then jumped into the boat (it had brilliant swingy chairs!) and our guide chugged us up the canal a ways to the entrance where the sea had breached during the tsunami. The wildlife here is spectacular though, within throwing distance of the boat house we spotted a Water Monitor drowsing away the morning on a tree limb (these things are huge!) and then a Green Heron, Sandpipers and an Egret (of which I now know there are three types here, the Small, Intermediate and Great!)

Our guide managed to drive the boat to within meters of a Pied Kingfisher, allowing me to get some great shots of it:

We also saw a White Throated Kingfisher, but only at a distance. We then motored further up the canal with our guide pointing out all sorts of different species to us, which was great, we even managed to spot a couple of Brahminy Kites soaring happily on the thermals. We had a couple of close encounters with Water Monitors swimming through the water, which was great to see up close.

On the way back to the boat house, our guide stopped and plucked a flower for Suz, so she gurned and stuck it in her hat :)

our last sighting of the trip was of a parakeet which was sitting silently in a green tree being harassed by chipmunks, it was really hard to spot against the emerald of the leaves:

After we got back we lazed by the pool, only to discover we’d actually been incinerated by the sun here despite wearing factor 50 slathered all over us! God bless our English complexions!!

Rainbow wood!

Day two of our tour to Kandy and we awoke to the most perfect dawn over the city. The Mahaweli Reach Hotel is amazing – really pretty and set just back from the Mahaweli river, a beautiful hotel with chipmunks chasing each other across the lawn and views like this:

Today’s pace would be less frenetic we were told, so Anton drove us to see local arts and crafts first.

Batik is a process where paraffin wax is applied to drawings made on cotton, before then being dyed several different colours. Where the wax has been applied, no dyes take, so applying wax after different colours have been applied can achieve different effects. It was interesting and looked very labour intensive, but by now Suz and I weren’t that interested in buying any large expensive pieces.

The next craft though was amazing to watch. Local craftsmen carving wood into any number of things. A vast amount of their time was spent carving wood for the tourist trade (masks and such) but there were craftsmen there carving large pieces on commission which was fascinating.

They use a number of different woods to carve from, some of which are native to Sri Lanka, one of which is the miracle known here as ‘rainbow wood’. Our guide took shavings from a small piece of this wood and added hot water to it – instant red! If you reduce this you can use it as red paint. But then he carried on! If you dunk a piece of iron in it – instant black paint! If you took this and added a squeeze of fresh lime it turned an instant yellow! If you then added chalk you got instant purple! It was amazing! We don’t get out much…

After purchasing a couple of bits and pieces from here, we moved on, our next port of call being the Royal Botanical Gardens, which was very nice to spend a couple of hours wandering through groves of different palms, bamboos and pines that you didn’t know about. As with almost every botanical garden I’ve been to, this one had the large querulous seed pods hanging from almost every tall tree, other wise known as ‘fruit bats’, and they constantly bicker. Still, a really nice place to walk:

After this we were ready to head back to our resort, a good three and a half hours of mental travel through insane traffic! Good job I wasn’t driving or it would have been days! Anton did a really good job though, and even stopped twice for us to sample the promised red banana and then the king coconut.

When we got back to Ranweli, we were both ready to collapse and sleep for a week! Fortunately the resort has a lovely pool with sun loungers around it…

Elephants!!!

So we had just a single night in our beach hut before having to wake up at ridiculous o’clock to meet out guide for our overnight tour of Kandy, Sri Lanka’s second city and spiritual home to its 90% Buddhist population.

Once we poled out back across the river on the ferry though, we were met by Anton, a really nice driver and guide, who whisked us away in his fantastically air conditioned car on our tour. He was brilliant though, filling us in on all of the sights as we drove past them and explaining some of the traditions and customs. The man was a one stop whistle stop tour of Sri Lanka!

He explained to us that we were actually going to go to the elephant orphanage first, ending up in Kandy this evening, but our first stop of the day was at a pineapple estate. Anton guided us around, showing us the papaya trees, the mangoes, and the pineapple, which when I got a bit too enthusiastic, bit me with its spines!

We even got to taste a freshly picked pineapple which was delicious! But there was no rest as we then raced on to our next stop, a little way further down the road, a rubber tree plantation:

The workers cut groves into the bark each day and a small trickle of the rubber seeps out overnight to be collected in a half coconut stapled to the bottom of the tree. It’s just like PVA glue, and you can pick up a string of it and play! Apparently natural rubber is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest exports.

No time to stop too long though, we’re on a schedule to get to Pinnawela in time for the elephant feed, so off we shoot again, stopping briefly to allow a photo opportunity of a 200 year old Buddhist temple at Galagedara:

As we followed the Maha Oya river we drove more and more into rural Sri Lanka, which was amazing - paddy fields with ibis stalking frogs in them watched by idly chewing cows and water buffalo; groves of coconut palms shading the smaller banana trees, all of which were laden with fruits. Anton explained to us that there are green coconuts and ‘king’ coconuts, the milk of which is meant to be great for hangovers! There were also red bananas as well as the native small yellow ones, which apparently have as distinctive taste, so we vowed to try these at a later point.

When we reached Pinnawela, we’d actually made really good time, so we decided to visit a local tea plantation first, the makers of Glenloch Tea. The guide there showed us around the factory and the process from the drying to the ovens and sorting, which was fascinating and a process (and machinery) that hasn’t changed for a hundred years. They even gave Suz a tea leaf all of her own!

But then the important bit (bear in mind that we’d been on the road since 6.30) we then got to sample the produce! Ceylon tea is lovely! Several cups later and we were on our way over to the orphanage as it was feeding time!

The orphanage at Pinnawela is really well set up, with amazing amounts of space for them to roam around in and are all looked after by the keepers (who are all on the make!). At feeding time though the little ones at the ones that need care are brought into an open shed to be fed, some by bottle, some by branch, and up close and personal these guys are cute! We were even allowed to scritch one behind the ear as he was having a munch and a hose down!

These guys are wonderful and you can see the intelligence in their eyes, so beautiful. They even had a teeny tiny little 3 week old calf there:

and a great big hulking beast who was being kept in solitary as he  kept breaking out and doing toes!

After walking around wide eyed here though, we then got to go and see them being bathed as the orphanage is right next to a river, which you can imaging is a tourist draw!

They looked to be having such fun though! 

After a relaxing watching the elephants have a bath, we were once more underway, the next stop on our marathon to Kandy was the Spice Garden. Perched on the side of a hill, they have created a list of spices for which Sri Lanka is known, from the vanilla orchid, to cinnamon trees, all growing right there, ready to be shown. It was a fascinating tour showing all the various spice plants, and the smell was amazing.

green peppercorns

After being shown around  we were then treated to a demonstration of the benefits of some of these spices with massages, and bizarrely, hair removal (I now have a completely bald patch on my leg!). Whilst relaxing under the ceiling fan, a huge butterfly flew in meandered around and got hit by a fan blade. It sounded like a massive thwack, but when our guide went to look for it, the butterfly was simply dazed, so they let him rest on a leaf before flying off. Bullet-proof butterfly!

Carrying on towards Kandy, we climbed ever upwards, the road still surrounded by merchants on both sides, with huge numbers of fruit vendors everywhere. We stopped briefly at a nice viewpoint overlooking a valley towards the mountains at Kadugannawa, a flat-topped mountain with flat-topped monkeys which made me chuckle:

flat-topped monkey!

After that we hit Kandy proper which made a welcome relief as, in the space of one street, the hawkers disappeared giving way to the order of the city. The driving was still manic though! 

Our next stop after a brief lunch overlooking the river was at another of Sri Lanka’s famous exports, gems and semi-precious stones, as the best quality sapphires are found here. We were taken around a cutters and shown the trade, including a video of how these gems are mined, which looks like hard, dangerous work. The smiths themselves though were really skilful, and showed us how they cut the facets on a diamond grinder:

They then took us around the showroom which had a lot of beautiful things in it, and seemed strangely disappointed that Suz couldn’t wear jewellery, so didn’t want to buy anything!

As if we hadn’t done enough things for one day, we still had the second highlight of the trip to come today, the centre of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. we duly removed our shoes at the entrance and then a guide took us around. This place was amazing and so serene. Parts of the temple had been decimated a number of years ago when two Tamul Tigers committed suicide here, blowing up a large fraction of the entrance hall. All the damage has been erased now, and thankfully the troubles have eased, but the whole temple and story of Buddha and the Sacred (left) Tooth was fascinating with some of the decoration and carvings being very intricate and lovely:

We toured around the whole temple and the ancient meeting hall as well as the new hall dedicated to the last elephant to wear the title of ‘Raj’. The middle  elephant in the picture above is the one that leads the whole celebratory procession with a replica of the Sacred Tooth on its back.

After this tour, Suz and I were flagging, but we weren’t finished yet, as the last stop for today was to see native dancing in the Red Cross hall followed by firewalking. The hall was dark and hot, but it wasn’t long before the drumming and piping and dancing woke us up a little.  As did watching the very bored-looking finger cymbal player!

The firewalking followed straight after, and made the whole place stink of paraffin and smoke:

Come the end of the day, we were dying to get to our hotel for the night when Anton, our guide, took us through a series of back alleys to  The Mahaweli Reach, a really beautiful place with palatial rooms and comfy beds to sink into…

Just one more thing, Sir…..

First impressions as we flew over Sri Lanka & Colombo were that the land is mostly green dotted with really red roofed houses with brown rivers snaking through everywhere, but today appeared to be particularly cloudy and overcast, so not the tropical paradise that I had in my minds eye. Once we landed we were met by our really nice driver who was going to take us to Ranweli (in a thankfully air conditioned car! Not hot, but humid here).

The roads were a bit manic with mental tuk-tuk drivers everywhere driving with abandon

Add that to the fact that there are load of people driving agricultural furrowers as cars makes for a fun ride! The roadsides were jammed with half bit houses / shops etc, but seemed to be fully functioning!

Ranweli though is a nice little holiday village complex that can only be reached by ferry

hand poled by friendly staff. Saw a kingfisher perched high on a wire as we went across, and after signing in were taken to our villa, situated right on the beach

All very nice and quaint. We had a brief look around and met the natives

look close, there’s a chipmunk!

After crashing out for a little while due to time difference and lack of sleep on the airplane, we went for a little walk up the beach which was fun

and shows how storm wracked the beach is today. Hopefully the sun will be out tomorrow, just in time for our tour of the city of Kandy and then on to the Pinnawela elephant orphanage! Can’t wait!