I read about Hikkaduwa and it sounded like a great holiday destination, unfortunately I was not really impressed by the place. The streets and beaches are dirty and the water is dark blue with a hint of brown. If you would put a filter on your images and cut the rubbish out, it could look quiet nice. A Sri Lankan lady that I met in the Hangover Hostel, her name was Vajira, told me a lot about places to see in Sri Lanka but her opinion from Hikkaduwa was also not very promising. It is dirty and I couldn’t really see why people like it that much and recommend it. So many signs were printed in russian, not even english or any other language, nope just russian. Maybe we have been there to the wrong time or been unlucky, but we decided to just stay for one day and focus on the places we really want to see.
We stayed near to the train station in a place that is called the Happy Tuna Guesthouse (cost for 4 people/night was 3500 Rupee – after negotiation and in low season). It had a ok view from the top floor but that was about it. One of Hakans friends (who said that Hikkaduwa is his favourite city) recommended a few places to us, so we decided to have dinner and then check out “Top Secret Bar”. The food in the restaurant we picked was average and totally overpriced but the bar we went to afterwards, was very entertaining. Top Secret is a beach bar with nice interior and obviously sand everywhere. We saw a group of girls walking in after us, not really sure where they were from, but there was this one girl that was just off her face drunk. She was fine but obviously at that stage where coordination, sitting and standing just get very complicated especially in sand. She walk up to her friends and smiled and giggled but they recommended to her to sit down on one of the many plastic chairs around. Because walking on sand must have been really hard, she sat down with such enthusiasm, that she fell right backwards and landed in the sand with her feet up and a very loud and surprised squeek followed by laughing. Her friends helped her up but the same procedure repeated itself over and over again. The amount of energy she used to sit down, flipped her right over backwards… every single time. I stopped feeling sorry for her after the 3rd time and stopped counting by 7, I was just happily entertained by it.
The next stop was Unawatuna. We took the train Chris was already in, coming from Colombo, informing us that this train, like ours yesterday, was already full with people. Because the train does not stop in Unawatuna we had to get off in Galle and take the bus to Unawatuna. Every Station is a bit of a challenge because you have straight away 3 or more Taxi or TukTuk drivers around you that would like to offer you their service for 10 times the price you pay with a local bus. Our hostel was up a hill and we unfortunately missed the right stop and went off a bit to late. With 5 people we decided to hire one tuk tuk for all the luggage and one lucky person gets to drive and the others walk. Even without luggage the walk up the hill was still exhausting but worth the effort. Our Hostel was called the Jungle B+B and absolutely nice to look at, all green around and in the middle of nature. The guys went back to the city to organized two scooters and we girls walk down the other side of the hill to the Jungle Beach. On the walk down we spotted some monkeys and this beach was already much better then the one in Hikkaduwa.
Unawatuna has also a nice beach area and a few great spots with beach bars and cafes. Great to just hang out and have dinner, drinks and a shisha. The next day I went out exploring with chris and drove to the peace pagoda, the view point and back to the beach to join the others and talk about our departure the same day to Weligama.
On the way to the beach I bought some Soursop, I love love love this fruit so much and recommend anyone to try it. The flavor of the fruit is a combination of strawberry and pineapple, with a note of sour citrus combined with the creamy taste of coconut & banana. So yummy :D.
Things to do in Hikkaduwa:
- Beachwalk
- Top Secret Bar
- Explore
Things to do in Unawatuna:
- Jungle beach
- Peach Pagoda
- View point near the peace Pagoda
- Beach bars at Unawatuna beach
- Try some local fruit
- Secret Beach (not that spectacular)