I left Anuradhapura and was lucky enough to get on an express bus to Puttalam which didn’t stop every couple of meters. In Puttalam, I changed to a local bus – a very slow one. So the journey up the peninsula to Kalpitiya which looks so close, ended up taking quite a while. When I arrived at Mama’s Here, all the pain of the long trip was forgotten though! I was welcomed by the yet friendliest staff in Sri Lanka, got to choose between 2 rooms (for myself!! Been a while!) and from the terrace on the first floor you were able to see the ocean. The village itself was quiet, very local and low key. The houses were simple, most roads were sandy dirt roads and there were loads of cows roaming around freely. And crows, thousands of crows! It had a bit of a Hitchcock feel to it when they’d suddenly all fly off at once. It’s difficult to describe, and the few pictures I took don’t do it justice cause they don’t show the whole picture. You’ll just have to go there yourself to see what it’s like!

And go now, before the tourists go! Right now, only few backpackers and – in kite season – a group of kite surfers make it here, but the place has big potential so it’s only a matter of time before it will become another Mirissa. If you check on the map how the region looks like, it will probably be clearer what I mean: Kilometres of beaches, lagoons, sand dunes,… I spent quite some time on these beaches in the next few days, soaking up the sun and going for long walks. You’ll mostly have it all to yourself, only some local fishermen here and there. I must say though that there’s quite some waste on some parts of the beaches, natural (think dead fish, I even saw a dead sea turtle getting eaten by a dog) and sadly as always lots of plastics. I guess that’s one good thing tourist development usually brings to areas like these: beach clean-ups. Still – it’s more than worth it if you wanna spend some days enjoying quiet beach life.

The area is also good for renting a scooter and cruising around, something I didn’t do unfortunately though since on my first day I got a free ride to the beach and on my second day I took it very slow as I was feeling a bit sick. Mama’s Here was a good place to relax, get some things organized and just sleep a lot! With this, my „real“ time in Sri Lanka came to an end – I was gonna return for one day on my way back from the Maldives, but just as a stopover. One last delicious Sri Lankan breakfast and off I was on another long bus journey to the airport…