Endless powdery beaches, secret coves, colonial architecture and the highlight… seeing the largest animal to ever have roamed the earth – yes Blue Whales are here – Mirissa was awesome and the greatest treat to end our Sri Lanka Adventure.
Ah the Indian Ocean. Mirissa is a favorite destination for beach lovers – and we quickly could see why – wide sandy beaches flanked with little resturants selling western style food and mildly spiced Sri Lankan fare. All catered to the tourists mainly from Europe. The water was really clean and with powerful surf which was great fun to play in. We settled in for an easy last week in Sri Lanka very happily.
Of course after one day lying on the beach we were restless!! – Lance and I heard about Secret Beach and decided to go and find it. A tuk tuk ride and scramble got us there. Crazy steep track down to the coast and a little bit of muscle needed to push a broken down vehicle off the path, and we were set for a day exploring.
Secret beach turned out to be a lovely little peninsular hugged by two beaches either side. Deliciously unspoilt, emerald waters and powdery sand. The bonus only a few folk to share with and of course the doggies one of which adopted us for the day. Lance enjoyed a spot of fishing and caught a fish but I wasn’t there with my camera to witness the landing!! – a tall tale maybe hehe.
Whale watching is one of the highlights of the area – Mirissa is one of the places in the world that you can see Blue Whales – well if you are lucky enough – This was a must try for us but finding a safe and reputable company to take us required some research – We finally went with “Raja and the Whales” the most expensive BUT the most responsible and safe. And we would recommend them.
The trip started very early in the morning and we set off along with many other fishing boats starting their work day.
The vast Indian Ocean stretched ahead of us no more land until Antartica – Just phenomenal to be on the water, the icing on the cake would be a whale, a dream come true would be a blue! First call for our attention from the skipper was group of dolphins and then a sea turtle – wow then to our excitment one of the crew said whale – we all strained to see and sure enough his eagle eyes had caught sight of a humpback and her calf – we gave them lots of room and watched for a while following at a respectable distance. – on we went maybe for 2 hours the captain said we would try for a little longer and then have to return – suddenly in the distance a great spray of water was visable. Blue whale blows can reach 12 metres, Is it a Blue? As we got closer, the skipper turned off the engine, keeping at some distance to ensure the whale didn’t feel disturbed. Everyone was jumping up and heading to the rail, as cameras and mobile phones were hastily pulled out. Yes amazing it was a blue whale with the engine off and quite other than the sound of the blow magical. The blue whale’s back, with its small dorsal fin, arced slowly out of the water, finally showing the beautiful fluke with its dark grey and white patterns. Truly incredible.
Galle
An insanely crazy, noisy, cramped, death defying bus ride got us to Galle the unesco world heritage site. The driving here is quite terrifying –
Galle is a colonial town layered by the conquerors of times past. The Dutch built the present fort in 1663. According to historians, Galle was the ancient seaport of Tarshish, from which King Solomon traded for ivory, peacocks and other valuables. Cinnamon was exported from Sri Lanka as early as 1400 BC, it is an old place.
We stumbled across a couple of seemly derelict churches – there were no locks. inside beautiful stained glass and green mold and in the vestry all manner of old furniture left to the elements. Echos of times past, rather haunting. Now a beautiful roost for the many pigeons who have take up residence in the rafters.
You can’t go too far without coming across beautiful veggies for sale or the fresh catch of the hour.
All along the coast from Weligama to Unawatuna you can see many wooden poles sticking out of the water – They belong to stilt fishermen – a practice that used to be very widespread but now only used by a few.
Our month in Sri Lanka challenged us. Not always an easy country to travel in but so worth it we were rewarded with spectacular adventures and great memories. So much fun traveling with Tony and Irene. Thanks for coming with us guys xxx.
1 thought on “Mirissa”
Thank you for sharing. What month were you there?