Trincomalee (Part 2)

Woke up at 7am and had breakfast at the guest house! The owner told us the previous night that we can order anything that we want for breakfast and he will prepare it for us. I ordered red string hoppers with curry and dhal curry and coconut sambol. Haha, I was a bit disappointed that the curry was plain without any dhal in it! I Ate it anyway since there’s nothing else to eat for breakfast.

String hoppers

We caught a bus from outside our guest house to Marble Beach! The guest house is in a really convenient location as the bus stop is right outside. When we alighted from the bus stop, we had to walk about 2km through the village. The village life there is what I have always imagined when I played Harvest Moon on the playstation when I was young! Haha, I was addicted to Harvest Moon for a period of time and I always envisioned living in a village, where I would be able to tend to my farm and go to the village shops and river and mountains etc! Haha, I enjoyed the walk in as I feel that it was quite interesting to see the houses and all!

Haha I look ridiculous. Wearing cap + shades and c arrying umbrella because I'm trying to protect myself from the sun! Hahahahaha

When we got to the Marble Beach Checkpoint, we were shocked to find out that we aren’t allowed to walk in. Only vehicles are allowed in. I’m not too sure what’s the reason, but I think it’s because the area is managed by the Air Force and they don’t want people to wander around into the small paths and all. The air force personnel then helped us to call for a tuktuk to drive us in. While waiting for the tuktuk to arrive, we saw a couple from Poland who walked in as well. Haha, we decided to all share one tuktuk! Haha, I didn’t know 4 people can squeeze into 1 tuktuk lol. The girl sat on the guy’s lap while Waihan and I squeeze on the other half of the seat. The total cost of the tuktuk is only 150 rupees so it’s like around 40 rupees per person for the ride! Cheapest tuktuk ride ever!

Checkpoint

When we got to the beach, it was scorching hot. We decided to stay in the shade like 99% of the time because it was just toooooo hot!!! The sand was burning hot as well! Haha, the tourists from Poland wanted to go into the water but weren’t allowed to because the air force personnel mentioned something about jelly fish in the water. After an hour or two, the four of us decided to share a tuktuk out to the bus stop. Haha, this time, there were a total of 6 of us on the tuktuk (including the driver!) Our driver was a little kid and his dad was sitting beside him and guiding him. Hahaha…

From the bus stop, we wanted to go to Seruwila Rajamaha Viharaya which is further down south. To get there, we need to first take a bus to Muthur and then take another bus to Palatoppu Junction. We took a bus to Muthur and had lunch near the bus station! The veg was superrrrrrrr oily but I ate it anyways (but not the brinjal cause it was literally soaking in oil).

When we got to Palatoppu Junction, we found out that a tuktuk ride to the temple would cost us 1000 rupees. Haha, we refused to pay for the tuktuk, mostly because we are really quite bored of visiting temples around Sri Lanka. We have visited so many Buddhist Temples, Tamil Kovils and Churches around in Sri Lanka! With that, we headed back to Trincomalee where we ended up sitting in a restaurant for 4 hours to wait for our train which is at 7pm.

The train was burning hot when we got in. I felt like I was sleeping in an oven! And so, I thought of a brilliant idea, which is to open the outer window for some ventilation but close the shutters (so that people can’t look in). However, the windows and shutters are so freaking rusty. When I opened the outer window, a thousand red ants began to fly in and started biting my legs!!! I panicked cause it was completely dark and I couldn’t see what was biting me. I thought it was some other insects that flew in. (I HAVE NO IDEA HOW AND WHY RED ANTS WOULD FLY IN). After some help from Waihan who was at the upper deck of the bed, we managed to close the shutter and I used the light from my phone to check what was biting me. Saw like so many red ants on me!!!! Killed them all haha and luckily we opened that outer window because the ventilation was a lot better and our cabin got cooler after awhile!!! Only managed to fall asleep 2 hours after the train left Trinco because I couldn’t stop perspiring in the first 2 hours.

#SriLanka #Trincomalee