Day 3 – 23 January 2019

Sri Lanka – Mirissa

Mirissa Beach Inn

Total Spent 17,000 LKR ($126)

We’re sleeping surprisingly well considering our last hotel was a mattress on a concrete block and this one was a thin piece of foam. I’m glad we’re not too fussy, our lack of expectations means we’re never disappointed. We decided to go for breakfast at an Aussie owned cafe, I’m not proud of it, but we really wanted coffee. It was a short 12 minute walk and the local coffee was good. 

Even with a tight schedule in place we managed to be late to the train station which meant there was no time to go to the reservation office to pre-book tickets for future journeys. We got our 2nd class tickets for Matara and went to the platform. It was pretty packed and there’s no reserved seats so when the train arrives it’s a case of piling on and hoping for the best. We were somewhat fortunate that we got space in the aisle of a carriage (which was better that being face to armpit with people in the doorway) where we stood with our bags for the first hour of the journey. Eventually people started getting off at stops along the line and we had enough room to sit on the floor, an hour after that we bagged some seats. The last two hours of the train were spent looking out the window at the jungle scenery and doing a bit more planning for the rest of the trip.

A guy came over and told us that if we were going to Mirissa, there was a train leaving Matara station which would stop at Mirissa station. We bought new tickets and jumped back on the train as he instructed, arriving in Mirissa to find it was a station in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road. Both luckily and unluckily, there was one tuktuk driver there. He must make a small fortune waiting there for clueless tourists. 

We have splashed out (and by splashed out, I mean not chosen the cheapest hotel available on booking.com) on a nicer hotel and arrived to a comfortable bed with a great mosquito net (very important in Sri Lanka). We headed along the edge of a river to the No.1 Diwimi Roti Shop to get lunch since it was almost 3pm. Along the walk we encountered a huge lizard thing that looked like an alligator and a bunch of non-violent monkeys. The roti shop has good veggie options and we both got roti with egg, cheese and vegetables with a spicy sauce. I also tried papaya (or papaw, as they pronounce it) juice which was tasty. This place was pretty busy, it has great reviews and turns out it’s a little restaurant they run out of their home.

The rest of the evening was spent doing a painful amount of planning and organising. We were looking forward to taking this trip as it comes and moving where we wanted, when we wanted, but that just isn’t going to work here. We only have three weeks and there’s plenty of places we want to see. Also public transport books up fast, and so unless you want to sit on the floor for 5-7 hour train journeys, you need to plan your itinerary and book your tickets. So with the amazing help of our Sri Lankan friends, we put together a plan and booked all our accommodation and trains.