Thursday, April 21st, 2022 – Kitulgala
May 2nd, 2022 by rallyadmin
Clemo had a bit of a time finding us a hotel in Rakwana. There aren’t a lot there and none of the ones that was able to contact had enough rooms or beds for the entire group. The best he could do was a place called the Sanctuary which is a lovely place but didn’t have enough beds so some of us ended up sleeping on mattresses placed on the floor. Whatever.
It isn’t as though we’ve been sleeping on feather beds on this trip anyway. The truly important questions were satisfied, though. Plenty of beer. A pool. Plenty of beer. And petrol for us delivered to the hotel. It turns out that the hotel owner also owns the petrol station I stopped at in town. And I can attest that sleeping on the on the mattress on the floor was just fine, thank you.
A not-so-good imitation of a British breakfast tasted great if not quite up to Trafalgar’s standards. Fuel up the tuktuks and the spare cans. Up the driveway and on to the next stop back up in the mountains, Kitulgala.
We’re closer to the big population centers of Sri Lanka and the that means more traffic. We’re used to dodging the buses, trucks, impatient SUV drivers, cows, dogs, pedestrians and the more than occasional pothole but the going slows in almost every town as the petrol shortage generates long lines of vehicles waiting patiently for their ration.
We have always tried to stop every hour or so for a break from the heat and humidity. As we climb back up into the mountains the heat is less of a problem but stopping helps keep weariness at this stage of the trip from causing issues. And the smokers will need the occasional smoke break.
We pull off the road at a small line of stores on the two line road and look for some soft drinks and snacks. There isn’t much and soon an old man corrals us and insists that we come through his shop to see the view off his back balcony. He proudly points to “all my farm” land. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Then he points to me and asks Clemo, “father?” Clemo chuckles, “Yes, father.” I’m not sure that my usual “I’m old, please help” schtick isn’t going to backfire here. He suddenly starts moving chairs out to the balcony, insisting that we sit.
Clemo asks if he has ice cream. “Ice cream? Yes!!” He yells something in Sinhalese and an older woman comes out with some small cups, some spoons, a small container of vanilla ice cream and a jar of honey. Before we can even protest, he’s scooping ice cream into the cups and the old woman (his wife?) is pouring honey on the ice cream and handing the cups to each of us, now about 6 of us.
He claims that he finds the honey and puts it in jars to sell in his shop. I guess although he starting to look more like pushy shop owner than a local farmer. Every time some finishes his ice cream, he grabs the cup and puts more ice cream and honey in it and hands it back.
Before we know it we’ve pretty much gone through two containers of ice cream and, as we try to leave, he tries to give us more. At the end, we finally escape after paying him 2,500 rupees (about $8 US). Not a bad con on a bunch of experienced tourists who were just browsing his shop. I do have to admit that the ice cream and honey was quite good.
Back on the road which has started to flatten out and starts generating some nice twisty bits. The traffic has died down and we’re having a good time driving the tuktuks along the road that follows a river. It twist back and forth and Clemo and I break into some really fun driving until we get to Kitulgala.
We’re looking for the Kitulgala Adventure Resort. And we’re having a bit of trouble finding it. Paul B has already gotten here and says that he has found a stairway that supposedly leads to the resort but he hasn’t found a road that goes to it.
OSMand (the offline mapping app that we have been using) and Google Maps both point us up a hill on a narrow and very rocky track. Up a few hundred meters and there is a fork in the tr5ack and a sign pointing us up the right side of the fork. We head up and the mapping apps seem to be moving the “resort” farther up the track as we move farther up the track. This occasionally happens but it almost never ends well.
We stop and decide to turn back. Clemo gets someone on the phone who he has been making arrangements with for us to do a zip line and some river rafting. The someone says that there isn’t any such Adventure Resort that is actually open. The one touted on the Web has been “closed for renovations.” But he has found us another place to stay that he knows we will like. As usual, “every day is an adventure.”
We meet up with the fixer at the bottom of the rocky track and head a kilometer up the road. Take a right into a hotel parking lot. Park the tuktuks. Clemo talks with the manager who says that he has just enough rooms and that they can make one room into a triple that will give us all a bed for the night. (After last night, we’re all a bit sensitive about what constitutes making a “triple.”)
Clemo and I (now being portrayed as the father who must be satisfied that rooms, beds and air con are adequate and working (especially the air con), are led off by a small contingent of hotel staff to examine the available rooms. They are very careful to demonstrate that everything is what we need and that the “father” is satisfied.
(John Alkema and I learned very quickly during our trip across Siberia that looking old and needy made people stop ignoring us and jump to help. Clemo picked up on that right away here and promptly brought along “father” to check out the rooms. Everything is art, even in Sri Lanka.)
The rooms turn out to be pretty good imitations of post colonial India chic and are fine for us. We park the tuktuks, move in our bags, beer stash and spare fuel containers to the slight horror of the staff. Three of the rooms are on a balcony overlooking a beautiful river and valley, the balcony soon filling up with rearranged lounge chairs, empty beer cans/bottles and fuel containers. We at home for the night.
The hotel is actually surprisingly nice. The view from the road doesn’t do it justice. They are having a big wedding tomorrow so the staff is cleaning everything and setting up parts of the hotel for the wedding. That means that we are moved to a covered outdoor dining area for dinner away from the area that will be used for the wedding.
The food is good with a good selection of western dishes for those of us burned out by the incessantly hot and spicy local cuisine. It’s a noisy affair and when we finish, it’s back to the balcony for gin & tonics and more beer. As the night goes on, the local “fixer”, who got us here, runs for cigs and beer a couple of times. The party goes on.
I finally have to call it a night. This was supposed to be a short day but the search for the non-existent Kitulgala Adenture Resort has made it into the usual long day. Tomorrow, the zip line, rafting the river and the last ride to Negombo and the return of the tuktuks to TukTuk Rental. Where did the time go?
Obi