Sinhalaya Travels

No pictures on this trip. Just this video of one of us, flailing. 

From a distance, surfing has always epitomized freedom with its rapturous promise of the power to ride the ocean. In reality it is every bit as exhilarating, though not as easy, as it looks. If you want to learn, make sure you pick a good beginner’s surf spot, a skilled teacher, and keep at it; perseverance will pay off.

Having barely managed to stand up on my board for 3 seconds (on a cumulative basis, on two previous trips) I was a little skeptical of how I’d do on a third try. Sinhalaya Travels’ previous attempt at this confusing sport at Matara ended up with one of us getting stung by a sea urchin and spending the rest of the day facing the full horrors of needles, gruff government medical staff and general anesthesia; at Pottuvil Point I narrowly avoided crashing into big rocks and could barely stand up after two hours of negotiating the battering rams that pass for waves over there; surfing is not a sport for pansies.

You’ll need to know how to swim. The surfboard is always securely attached to your body, keeping you safe even in deep waters, but in rare cases the cord actually breaks; and then if drowning doesn’t kill you, sheer panic probably will.

And to the bright sparks thinking of avoiding this disaster by surfing with a life vest on; know that your surfboard will probably give you a concussion the first, and maybe last, time your fool ass wipes out (surfing jargon for falling off the board) into the foamy water. You will need to go under when you fall, and stay out of harm’s way.

But you needn’t worry about these things at Weligama Bay, located some 24km South of Galle on the Matara Road. Think of Weligama Bay as surfing pre-school. The gentle breakers feel like congratulatory pats on the back, the sand is clear and obstacle free and the water is so shallow drowning is only possible via suicide, or murder (or stupidity).

So after a short lesson on the basics (it went something like this), I strap on my longboard and walk to the ocean’s edge. December is just the beginning of the season, and the waves are not as frequent as we like, but this is how Weligama is for most of the year, a plus for beginners who’d like to avoid the crowded tourist season.

We wade in. At first, Priyal holds the board and pushes in order for me to catch a wave. I immediately beat my previous record of standing up for three seconds on a moving surfboard, significantly boosting my wounded confidence in the process.

Catching my own wave is something I must graduate to. Maneuvering the board exactly so that it points perpendicularly away from an approaching wave requires experience, and your paddle muscles must be in good order. I get hammered by the water and tip over the side repeatedly before I get it right once, and then I fall in again.

Things get even more challenging soon, as I graduate from breakers and move on to ‘green’ waves; these are waves reaching their highest swelling point, just before their tips betray the signs of white froth. We are in deeper waters now, and I need sharper timing and faster reaction speeds.

The board struggles like a living thing; and I crash into the water in wipeout after glorious wipeout before even getting the hang of how to balance on it. You need to be calm and relaxed. And as expected, it involves a lot of your core muscles. But balance is also about the eyes; you basically go where your eyes point to.

Experienced surfers can cross, go up, down and run circles around these waves. I of course manage no such thing, nose diving into the water as often as not, but two hours after I start, I feel like I’ve picked up the basics.

Shaka Sign Surf has been in the business for nearly 3 years. In 2010, 20 year old Priyal, fresh from his CIMA graduation party, decided to chuck a career in accounting and just, you know, surf instead. He has since converted this prudent career move into a successful business. Founded with his partner Akilah, the company is now going along ah, swimmingly.

They specialize in surf tours and camps. Packaged tours include accommodation, surf lessons at Weligama and, for more experienced surfers, tours of the island’s best surfing spots with the occasional excursion to Sinharaja or Yala.

For locals half day lessons taken over a series of weekends are probably a better option. Call Priyal on 0771806932 for an appointment, the season is usually booked out by tourists, but in Weligama you can find waves even in off peak months. Charges are very reasonable and they give discounts for bigger groups. You get a full morning or afternoon’s worth of training with personal attention. Quite worthwhile I think.

A version of this post was originally published for the good people over at Yamu, yeah we’ve been kind of lazy with the blog lately. We apologize. And to all those emails that went un-replied, please consider  the offer of a full course meal of egg hoppers and katta sambol with your choice of meat gravy as reparation. We really do believe in building relationships with our armies of readers.

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Greetings to all our persevering fans! We’re back! At least, we were a few weeks ago. The lot of us finally managed to cobble together enough time to go over to the Horton Plains and metaphorically plunder its many riches. Metaphorically. Now don’t go all PETA on us.

Horton Plains is a national park, located in the Nuwara Eliya area, full of wildlife(allegedly) and beautiful scenery(confirmed). We decided to have a look around world’s end and also make a quick journey over to Kirigalpoththa, the second highest peak in Sri Lanka.

Preparation

As far as preparation goes, you don’t really need much to tackle the Horton Plains. If you can go the length of Horton Place without breaking a sweat, you should be alright for this.(See what we did there?). Seriously though, it is little more than a five kilometer walk in the park, literally. And families comprising of old ladies and little girls manage it with ease. Not that we consider old ladies or little girls to be especially negative stereotypes of human physical fitness, don’t go all women’s lib on us.

It will be very cold. Take warm clothing, a raincoat and, if this is during the rainy season, you can take leech socks; unless of course you’re feeling generous with the haemoglobin and want to spread the love a bit. There were no leeches when we went but we’re guessing it’ll be infested during the rainy season. All seasonal info and technical aspects of the trails can be found over at the ever-useful Lakdasun.

It is also useful to book a cabin in the park, if you plan to stay more than one day. Technically, you could just drive over, climb Kirigalpoththa and drive back, but I doubt it’d be very enjoyable. A cabin was Rs. 7000, had four(or five) spacious rooms and was, overall, well worth the money. Cabins come with a cook, though you’ll have to haul up rations like rice and chocolate(what?). Calling it a “cabin” is a slight injustice though, as by all rights it’s a full-fledged house, just in the middle of a wildlife-reserve. And actually everyone calls it a bungalow, which is more apt. You can book bungalows from the Wildlife Department [Department of Wildlife - 0112888585 (Baththaramulla)]. Usually bookings need to be made a month in advance when the season is on. There is excess demand in the bungalow market then.

Getting There

There are a handful of ways to get to the park. You can take the train, hop on a bus or drive. We decided to take the train. Taking a bus will take you roughly 5 hours to get all the way to Badulla. We’re not sure if there are buses to the park from there, but your ever willing tuk tuk will haul you up a skyscraper for the right fee. Taking the train means spending approximately 9 hours on the train till you get to Ohiya station. You’ll know you’re close when you feel the need to start pulling on extra layers of clothing. Or if you don’t have any, when your nose begins to feel numb.

From Ohiya, it’ll be an uphill climb for about 14 kilometers till you get to the entrance of the park. Before embarking on the climb, we enjoyed some hot tea and coffee from a shop near the station. You will get varying accounts of the time it takes to climb this stretch from different people. We got estimates ranging from 20 minutes to an hour. Alternatively, you can take a van or three wheeler from the base, and it will get you up the hill in a few terrifying minutes.

We started walking. Of course we could have sprinted up the mountain and slaughtered that stretch in a matter of minutes, but we had a few weak and infirm people among us so we decided to pile into a passing van for hire.

The geography of the park is such that you pass the cabins, or at least the one we stayed at, on the way to the Horton Plains Visitor Centre from Ohiya. In order of appearance, you first get Ohiya, and about 15 KM from there you get the entrance to the park(This is just a large concrete portal kind of thing, where you have to pay the entrance fee. People are relatively cheap, vehicles are a few hundred rupees), after about a kilometer will get you to the cabin we stayed at, and yet another three kilometers or so will get you to the visitor centre, a bunch of buildings sitting atop a hill, where all the actual trails start.

You might feel slightly let down after hiking the distance to find the place surrounded by vans filled with families having picnics. The visitor centre has a few useful things, like a shop or two and a Museum of sorts chronicling the history of the park.

The Circular Trail

First up on the list was, of course, the regular Horton Plains – World’s End trail. You won’t need food for the world’s end circular trail. Just make sure to take water. There will be places to refill along the way.

This trail is pretty straightforward, and apparently dozens of people do the circuit daily. It has a few sights like a medium sized waterfall, world’s end and mini world’s end. All of these points on interest have little concrete viewing platforms built on them, and feel very much like a walk in the park. The landscape is beautiful, and world’s end is good for a few minutes of taking photos at weird angles. You can’t miss the trail as it’s paved most of the way and constantly has people going up and down the thing.

Just make sure to take a raincoat or something in case it starts raining. It can get pretty chilly up there. The whole thing can be completed in about 3-4 hours, and Lakdasun has the exact details if you need them.

Kirigalpoththa

The much more fun route in the Horton Plains sanctuary, though, is Kirigalpoththa. You can read all about it in our next post. Make sure you bate your breath for it.

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