Savages Asia Adventure: Wildlife & Surfing

15th to 20th August - Arugam Bay

With the arrival of a few new people at the dorms we had a streak of motivation to move us away from the beach and finally head to Yala National Park, something we had been planning to do for over a week, but we had just been far too relaxed, like i said, bean bags and beaches, its hard to be torn away from. I’m horribly woken up by my alarm at 4:00AM to jump into this jeep and reach the park for sunrise, whilst falling asleep on the incredibly bumpy road to our destination or driver slams on the breaks and starts pointing and shouting “Elephant, elephant!”, there it was just stood roaming on its own and i’m kicking myself that its still dark and i’m lacking the iconic photograph of this creature. Onwards we drove seeing the odd bit of wild life until we reached the park and headed in, straight away we were met by loads of wildlife like deer that came straight up to the jeep and we began feeding them crackers, apparently they’re rather fond of them! This was followed by monkeys, wild boar, crocodiles, millions of birds and finally a few elephants, but once again miles away from me which gave me a total of zero photo opportunities. I’m sure within the next four months i’ll finally get my chance. The national park itself was beautiful, i’d love to of spent more time just photographing the landscapes there but in a group, you’ve got to keep moving. Overall i’m so glad we did it and especially for the price, it rounded off at around £15 for six hours and being picked up.

The next couple of days nothing of huge interest happened, we relaxed with some of the best company we’ve had so far, must of been a group of 12+ in total most nights, a few quick drinks and swapping stories of travel. We also finally got to try surfing thanks to Leonard and Friedl, the two german guys we had been with for over a week. They were great teachers and showed us through the basics including all the safety before heading out into the deep blue. I absolutely loved it, i managed to get use to the balance and stood up around 4 times, even if it was just for a split second, catching a wave is a whole new experience and then to just drop into the warm water was amazing. With my board hitting my face whilst underwater and my skin becoming red raw on my chest from scratching on the board i think it was reasonably successful. On our last day we decided to get the whole gang together and go to Whisky Point, a known surf spot just 20 minutes out of the bay, with four tuk tug’s and our boards on top we convoyed across and jumped in the water. Unfortunately this time the wind was so strong none of us had the strength to battle the current and surfing definitely failed that time, none the less though, we all had a great laugh and got some group photographs. The next morning was difficult to say the least. Saying goodbye to a huge amount of people that we almost saw like family, even Lukeyta who had been with us from Colombo was splitting off from us. Both Leonard and Friedl had planned to drive over to Ella and meet up so we knew at least we will catch up with these guys! Two members of staff at YMCA had also become good friends of ours, firstly Nehal, the DJ who was possibly the most relaxed guy in Sri Lanka, he was always friendly and couldn’t do enough to help. Secondly there was Sarai who we had originally met on our first day when he invited us in to sleep on the sofas, he is an incredibly interesting man with stories that draw you in as you wait patiently for each word. He came up to me one evening and said “I know things about you that you don’t know, i know you don’t have a bad bone in your body”, It’s most likely the best compliment i’ve ever had! On the sly he apparently told a woman at the bar about me, really making me sound great! Unfortunately i had already gone to bed haha. But he really seemed happy with all of us at the hostel, when leaving he said we made the place great and we will be sorely missed. Us three will genuinely miss him and story time as well!

Our journey out of Arugam bay was not without its problems, firstly i lost my wallet which was a huge panic but after 20 minutes we discovered it down the side of Ben’s bed, i placed it there the night before but after half a bottle of gin, how am i to remember? Disaster everted we got our tuk tuk to the bus station only to find Ben’s had now disappeared, after over an hour of going back and fourth to the hostel it was found between two mattresses stacked against the wall, very odd if you ask me, i’m doubtful it was accidently put there but nothing missing and we heading to get our bus along with Steve who would be separating from us at the next big town. After the ‘traditional’ pestering whilst waiting for our bus we got on and set sail to the next destination Ella, we arrived for 7:30PM at our bus change however it turns out we had missed the final one. We should of known with our luck, but with a bit of bartering we got a tuk tuk for the rest of the journey, two hours in a tin can heading up mountain sides, nerve racking at times but actually really fun! We arrived late at night and threw our heads down for some well deserved sleep.