We ended our Johannesburg elective by making the most of what South Africa had to offer…. by flying to the opposite end of the world and spending 2 weeks in Sri lanka! So, maybe geographically speaking, not the most efficient of choices, but I don’t think either of us have regretted it.
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After a fairly arduous (at least at the time it seemed arduous, I think both our relative interpretations of bad journeys has been some what shifted after this trip - please see later) few plane journeys we landed in Colombo and IT WAS HOT. The tropical temperatures gave both our bodies a bit of a shock given how we’d been freezing in a sub zero tent a few days earlier. 2 hours later and we were chilling with Sam, Rana, James and Tosh on Colombo’s best beach. One foot in the pleasantly warm sea and we were already pretty ecstatic that this was where we were going to learn to dive. I for one was not prepared for just how much sun exposure we would be getting on our first day and thanks to some fairly shoddy sun cream application on my part managed to burn my back - ironically in a shape that very much resembled Africa.
The others had to leave the next morning for their ‘rural placement’ where they had a very productive week of medicine chilling out at a hunting lodge, hiking, going to a cricket match and doing a safari. Turns out that public transport in Sri Lanka is a little bit of a waking nightmare - quite literally because the best times to travel are at night and there is very little chance that you will be sleeping. We took an overnight coach to the other side of the Island and while thankfully we avoided the Sri Lankan music videos that seem to play on most buses here, we did not escape a half an hour stop outside a shop blasting music at 2am - why? Nobody knows. After sleeping a good chunk of the day away we headed to the beach, organised our diving for the next few days and started making the most of the pretty cheap fruit juice and lassie prices.
Ready and raring to get in the water we headed to Poseidon dive school… and spent the entire day watching videos and answering questions. Whilst not the most exciting day of the course it did highlight to us how inadequate our previous night’s google of ‘how do you dive’ had been, so definitely worth doing… On day 2 we spent the entire day in the water practicing the skills you have to get ticked off and going on our first proper dive. What was really cool about this course was that we got to do all of the skills that people normally do in a pool in a secluded section of beach surrounded by fish and Jelly fish. Spending the entire day outside in the sun in a wetsuit did have it’s drawbacks though with both of us having pretty horrendous arm and leg tan lines by the evening. I'm not sure what kind of things we would have got to see if we had stuck to our original plan and dived in Cape Town but I’m sure it would have paled in comparison to the reefs and fish we got to see in Nilaveli. Highlights from the first few days included sting rays, lots and lots of clownfish and huge table top corals. Memorable mishaps included Riki deciding to practice the procedure for being out of air on me with no warning but messing up the hand signals so he was left waiting for my spare air supply for a while.
(Wo)man’s best friend?
After completing our PADI open water we definitely had the diving bug so were both very keen to carry on and do the advanced course which meant we got to do 5 more dives including a deep dive below a cliff top temple and a wreck dive where we got to swim between the rudder and the propeller of the sunken ship. On our final dive after 8 dives with great visibility we were finally going to be able to take some photos underwater - sod’s law that this was the only dive where visibility was down to about 4m - face palm.
Thanks Poseidon!
Diving finished we got up bright and early to start what we anticipated to be a hot and sweaty day of travelling down to the South of the Island to meet back up with James and Rana. Hot and sweaty was a slight understatement. Turns out that Sri Lankan public transport is not made for someone of European dimensions with my (hopefully, though maybe not after the amount of rice and curry I’ve eaten) slender build taking up at least 1 and a half seats meaning I spent most of the bus journey leaning forwards just so other people could fit. Riki had no such issues. 7 and half hours of sitting in a cramped tin can with no air con later and we arrived at Arugam bay, lovingly referred to as Abay for short by most. Abay is a really popular surfing destination but was a little bit of a let down for Riki and I. There was a really good beginners area that was packed and then there was a section of beach with huge waves for pros but no happy medium which we were spoiled with when we’d gone surfing in Cape Town. Despite the slight frustration with the waves we all had fun splashing about and thanks to some artistic sun cream application from my long suffering elective partner I attempted and partiallly succeeded in evening out the brown Africa shaped patch of tan on my back. Abay was full of great restaurants which made a nice change to the numerous back yard make shift places we’d become accustomed to in Nilavelli. On our first morning in Abay, James insisted on revisiting a vegan restaurant he had disliked the food at the previous day. Confused as to why it was so highly rated on trip advisor he had become determined to try one of their smoothie bowels. I went for a pomegranate smoothie thing which was the healthiest thing I’d had in a week and was delicious. They went for a banana cinnamon bowel of death which left them both feeling like this:
Who knew being a vegan could be quite so dangerous
Minus one slightly odd encounter with a guy running around the beach wielding what looked like a ceremonial sword (yeh it was a bit weird) we’d managed to get through our travels pretty unscathed and on our last day in Abay we hoped to relax next to the sea - who knew just how hazardous this could be. Rana was the first victim. Whilst valiantly battling the beginner waves she was cruelly and maliciously struck from above by her own surf board. She is convinced that she’s perforated her ear drum. On the bright side, she now can’t hear James as well as normal so gets annoyed at him significantly less. Later on in the evening we were all relaxing at a beach side bar watching the huge crashing waves below us when Riki decided he’d like to see what it would be like to try and surf on them using only his body:
Wave 1 - Riki 0. Thankfully his pride was hurt much worse than his face.
Rana dabbed at him with some serviettes to stop the bleeding - most active medicine she’s done all elective. Excitement done for the day we rushed to make our overnight bus which this time thankfully did not include a 2am rave stop.
Back in Colombo we’ve now got 2 days before we start our long journey back home and I intend on making the most of my beach tanning time to try and undo the self inflicted vitiligo on my back.
Our next post will be a summary for anyone thinking about doing an elective in South Africa. After thinking about elective for many years it feels very strange that it’s all coming to an end but it’s without a doubt been one of the most worthwhile Summer’s I’ve had and I would highly recommend others to do something similar. Thanks for reading!
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