Sri Lanka - Step 6: surf, strays and party

I was looking forward arriving in Sri Lanka as many friends continuesly told me how nice it is there. Especially after India I was happy to be in a more calming enviroment.

As soon as landed in Colombo I took a ride to Galle, where I could appreciate the calming enviroment, embracing the green nature, palmtree jungles and the turquise ocean.

I decided to volunteer in a hostel in Unawatuna for the first 2 weeks of my stay. As I arrived there I was happy to find out that there was another german girl (of course) that stayed for 1 more week of volunteering.

After my last surf like 2 months ago in J-Bay I knew that I was a bit nervous and scared to go again. One of the first days in Unawatuna the other german girl asked me if I want to join her for a surf in Weligama. So it was time to overcome that “trauma” and just go.

As soon as I was in the water and could catch some waves, I was so happy to be back. At the same time my cold that I carried since India was gone after that surfed.

So my daily life in that volunteering was beach, surf, gym, exploring around that place, driving the scooter, having sri lankan food and chilling - as it was low season in that part of the island, there weren´t a lot of guests.

To me Sri Lanka is a really beautiful place, I love that there are palmtrees everywhere and compared to india it was calm and clean.

What I love the most is the fruit stands the have everywhere and I could get a huge Papaya for like 1-2 EUR. So everyday I did a porridge with tons of papaya which is by the way the best one you can get. Also daily coconuts for like 30 cents each were part of my daily routine.

The volunteering ended after two weeks. I was a bit sad to leave - alone for the fact, that the cook in that hostel was one of the sweetest most caring people I met. Not only he cooked the best food, also he treated me so caring and I felt very safe.

Anyways I took two buses and a TukTuk to arrive in Arugam Bay where it was high season at this time. So coming from totally low season to high season - I experienced a huge difference. The hostel was completely booked. Which was the reason I wanted to go to that area, because after not meeting a lot of people in the south, this was what I was seeking for.

Besides the packed hostel and even more packed surf beaches, the whole place hat tons of nice restaurants and everything was 3x the price than in the south. I just needed to reach the point of acceptance for spending more money there. Because besides that I liked the vibe. Everyone is in the surf bubble and I needed to adapt to that because the surf beaches were very different then the ones I´ve been in the south.

The dynamics in that hostel were like a big family as a lot of people stayed more than 1-2 weeks and go surf, eat and party together. After two days another young german girl arrived and we got along fast with each other. So after spending most of the time alone in India, I finally had a new travel buddy. Meaning she booked her next flight on the same day as mine, so we could share travel plans in Sri Lanka.

In the end we spend like 10 days in that hostel in Arugam Bay. I didn´t knew what I signed up for with that as literally every evening there is another beach party. Unexpectedly I after 3 days party in a row I could find out that I enjoyed it. I found a way to not really drink too much alcohol, dance and still go to the gym in the mornings.

After these 10 days that I really enjoyed in Arugam Bay, we were ready to leave to Ella. Which is a really nice and green place between mountains, waterfalls and jungle. There are a lot of activities and hikes around Ella and unfortunately we only had 2 days. So we just did one hike and the Secret Waterfall which was really nice.

As everyone does while traveling in Sri Lanka, we took the famous train from Ella to Kandy. Appears that we had really bad luck and picked the worst day to go, as it was a monday after a holiday in Sri Lanka. Meaning the train was more than overfilled and were pressed in that wagon for 7 hours to Kandy and 10 hours to Colombo.

From Kandy I did a daytrip to Sigiriya to go on the top of that Rock that is known in that place.

My stay in Sri Lanka was coming to an end and the I was really excited because after that I went back to germany to surprise my family and friends.

The time on the island included: endless greenery, surf spots, coconuts, crazy bus rides, papayas, monkeys, dreamy beaches, amazing parties, morning gym sessions, iced latte at the beach, incredible curries at mamas, an ice-bath experience, friendship, dancing, tons of cute stray-dogs, hand poke tattoos in the hostel, cuddling with strangers in a train and vegan ice-cream.

I changed my travel plans to make a break in germany and Barcelona and then continue with my travels in november.