Sri Lanka Awesomeness

I certainly thought Sri Lanka would be a nice holiday, but it was so much more than that.  Sri Lanka is lush and green and teaming with life – the people are colourful and you can’t avoid the wildlife (in a good way!) – especially the monkeys and the lizards.  We were there for just two weeks, and boy, did we have an adventure.

Colombo

We arrived on Sunday evening in Colombo, the huge capital city.  The owner of our guesthouse Dolce Casa was a super helpful and clever Italian lady called Florence.  She gave us loads of practical advice on Sri Lanka and Colombo.  Thanks to Florence’s ultra efficiency, along with the chilled vibes we instantly felt in Sri Lanka, I was feeling very much at home already.

The next day we were due to travel to Kandy at 3pm, and by following Florence’s very exact itinerary on the best local sights in Colombo, we fitted quite a bit into our day:

1. A quick visit to the Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple, which was kind of interesting, but if I’m honest was a bit too much of a tourist joint for me.
2. A papaya juice at the decadent Galle Face colonial hotel.
3. A ridiculously rushed (but tasty) lunch at the Ministry of Crab.

This hectic approach may not be the ideal way to experience Colombo – but we quite enjoyed it.  And being able to get tuk tuks for £1 a journey certainly helped.

Next up was our train to Kandy – which was just 2.5 hours and a rather nice experience.  By paying a bit more (all of £10) we ended up in the observation carriage which is air conditionned and reserved just for tourists.

Crab time, at Ministry of Crab

Kandy

Kandy is in Sri Lanka’s hill country – I wasn’t wowed by it but we still had a nice time there.  I found it an intense, slightly overwhelming city. But our guesthouse up on the hill had pretty views.

What was good about Kandy was that it was a great base to go to Sigiriya Rock – which is about a 2 hour drive away.

The stunning (if slightly misty!) view from our B&B in Kandy

Sigiriya Rock

Is an ancient rock fortress dating back to the 5th century.  Sometimes I’m not very interested in historical ‘stuff’, but this place is magical.  It’s quite a sweaty climb (it takes about an hour), but when you get to the top, you feel like you’ve entered a mystical land.

Sigiriya Rock

Kandy to Ella by Train

Our next destination was Ella, but this was a 7 hour train journey away, it is apparently one of the world’s most epic train journeys.  Ok, we travelled through some stunning tea plantation scenery on the train, which was quite something, but if I’m honest it didn’t live up to the hype for me.  7 hours on a train is still 7 hours on a train – a bit too long.

The famous Kandy to Ella train journey

Ella 

Initially I fell in love with hill country town Ella – it seemed hippy and chilled and the surrounding hills are jaw droppingly picturesque.  However my feelings soured quickly when I realised this tiny town was a backpacking mecca. Everywhere I turned there was some traveller boasting about their escapades – it was a little suffocating.

However what was spectacular about Ella, was our walk up to Ella Rock, which was a special and tingly experience. We met with our local guide at 6am (while it was still dark) and started our two hour journey up to this glorious peak.  We walked along a railway line, past waterfalls and up a really steep climb at the end.  And, best of all we were the only tourists up there because it was so early.  The views, and the atmosphere were breathtaking.  And our local guide Abi, was the sweetest guy – he really made the trip for me too.

Our trusty guide, Abi, at the top of Ella Rock

Udawale Safari

Having identified that I don’t like long journeys on public transport, we opted for an air conditioned taxi to our next destination, Udawale, which was 2 hours way.  It was gloriously easy.  On arrival we booked ourselves onto a safari jeep and headed off to the wildlife park. I was trying to keep my expectations in check, as I wasn’t sure if we’d see much.  But we were in luck, we must have seen about 30 elephants (and quite a few babies) and most were in spitting distance of the car.  They were so graceful and elegant to watch. We also saw eagles, pretty bright green bee-eater birds, water buffallos, alligators and peacocks. Brilliant.

Beautiful Elephants

Tangalle Beach

A quick 1.5 hours in a taxi and we were in Tangalle. When the taxi driver dumped us by a lake with a pulley boat to get accross to our guesthouse, I started to get nervous about how remote this place was. As it happens, it was pretty remote, but that didn’t matter, because the beach was like paradise, and the guesthouse served exceptional food, so we didn’t need anything else for two days.  It was a lovely bit of time for relaxation and reading after all the hecticness of the previous week.

Beach idiotics at Tangalle

Mirissa Beach

We downgraded to a tuk tuk to get to our next destination – which took a couple of hours and was a lot of fun.  However when we arrived in Mirissa I was slightly horrified, it appeared we’d arrived in Sri Lanka’s version of Benidorm – the beach was rammed with burnt tourists. We were both really turned off.  But, as we settled in, we started to adjust to being in a busy environment (the beach at Tangalle had been empty and vast), and actually started to totally fall in the love with the surfy, yogic hippy vibe of Mirissa.

Chilled Mirissa

Galle

Galle was our final destination and what a beautiful one to end at.  It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site and an old trading port full of imposing Dutch-colonial buildings, ancient mosques and churches, grand mansions and museums.  Apparently it’s had a lot of money pumped into it since the 2004 tsunamai because a lot of charities based themselves in Galle. It was definitely our poshest stop off. I really enjoyed walking round the ancient city walls and looking at all the glamourous colonial buildings. And we had the BEST meal of our holiday at Lucky Galle Fort restaurant where we shared 10 curries for just £7.50.  These curries were exquisite – including banana flower, crispy fried aubergine, tamarind root, mango curry (basically stewed mango) and pumpkin curry.  Every mouthful was a taste sensation.

Lanka Galle

I felt sadder leaving Sri Lanka than I normally do at the end of a holiday – I was treated to a slice of paradise on this island – the scenery, the gentle people, the crazy monkeys and lizards, the tasty curries and rotis – and there was always so much colour and life going on around us. I’m glad I’ve got a lovely load of cherished memories and photos to hang on to.

More Sri Lanka Blog Posts

I will be writing some more blog posts on my Sri Lanka trip if you’re interested where I’ll be going into more details on the destinations we went to.  I’ll also write one on our Sri Lanka food experiences.

Cost

And for those thinkng about going to Sri Lanka you might be interested to know how much we spent in 2 weeks:

Our flights with Emirates cost about £500 each from Manchester (with a stop off in Dubai) – and our journey time in total was 14 hours.

Our accommodation in total was about £600, and each place ranged from £25 a night to £75 a night, but we mainly paid about £35 a night.  And you really get a lot for your money for that. We weren’t staying in particularly posh places, but they were all clean and really nice and we were treated like royalty by the staff.

And while we were out there we spent between us about £800, so £400 each – and that included several long distance taxis, a safari, entrance to Sigiriya Rock and lots of lovely meals and cocktails! If you’re thinking of going on a budget  you could easily do it cheaper and have a nice time.

Total Spend

Was about £2400, so £1200 each.

Why Puglia Was Not The Rustic Dream Holiday I Thought it Would be

I think sometimes I big up a destination in my head so much, that it can’t live up to expectation.

And I was very excited about my rustic holiday to Puglia (the heel of Italy).

I’d heard it was a less touristy region than many places in Italy, and it would be very rural and simple, and that I’d be able to eat amazing food for very little money.

So I was a bit grumpy at discovering on arrival, a lot of tourists and restaurants very much catering for them.  They were ruining my authentic experience of Southern Italy!  Damn you Justin Timberlake for getting married in Puglia and starting an influx of American visitors and unrusticking it.

We didn’t help ourselves by getting into the habit of eating croissants every morning.  Not sure what we were thinking as they are not bloody Italian.  Then for lunch, out of ease we started eating pucce (Puglian ciabatta) toasties with proscuitto and mozzarella every day – very nice, but it’s not exactly an enriching culinary experience. And in the evenings we weren’t faring much better, and frankly kept making crap, touristy, lazy choices.

On our fourth day, I broke my croissant fix and chose an Italian chocolate cake for breakfast.  And omg it was so stale.  It was the last straw.  I had a massive grumble to Jamie and said I wasn’t having the authentic Italian experience I wanted. Poor Jamie, I really moaned.  I banged on about all the amazing, cheap mind blowing meals I’d had in Italy on my 7 previous trips, and that I was disappointed.  In hindsight though, I was lumping together all the food highlights from each trip, leaving my perspective a bit skewed.

So we got a bit more organised and started scrutinising reviews on TripAdvisor before making restaurant choices, and just generally being a bit more fussy, and I also conceded that we might have to pay for quality (gasp!).

And guess what? Things got better.

Highlights included the chewiest chocolatiest torte, a divine carrot and orange cake, a very melty piece of lamb, two phenomenal octopus sandwiches (so fresh), a super crispy lasagne made with spinach lasagne sheets and lamb, a beautiful aubergine and cheese ravioli, oh yes and lets not forget cannoli – deep fried pastry tubes filled with sweet ricotta.

Deep fried Octopus in a bun – heaven!

Aubergine and cheese ravioli

Possibly the best lamb I’ve ever eaten

Breakfast at a proper old fashioned Italian cake shop – a culinary success this time!

And do you know what, despite a bit of whinging on my part, we had a really nice holiday, Puglia is beautiful, and most of it is rustic.  In particular I fell in love with the remote and rugged beaches, with the bluest, clearest seas.  And the ancient towns and villages at the top of hills like Lecce and Ostuni are gorgeous.  And in terms of taking photos, it’s pure Instagram gold. Lovely light, beautiful crumbly old buildings, colourful doors, blue seas – it was iPhone photo ecstasy!

This was an olive oil tasting at a fabulous olive farm visited

Beautiful Punta Proscuitto beach

 

 

 

Go to Goa – go on!

On 3rd November Jamie and I boarded a plane in freezing cold Manchester and eight and a half hours later arrived in sunny Goa at seven in the morning.

From Dabolim airport it was a hairy, cow dodging taxi ride to Patnem, but an hour later we were at the beach.

As we dragged our wheely suitcases along the sand to our accommodation at Sea Front Beach Huts, I eagerly stared around trying to soak up the atmosphere of the place.  And I spied relaxed, hippy looking types, supping on lassis and masalas teas.  They looked happy – this was a postive sign – I sensed we were going to have a very good time.

In the weeks leading up to the holiday, I had made lots of plans as to how we’d spend our fortnight – day trips, local markets and perhaps an outing to a spice farm.

Then when we got there, reality hit.  It was so damn hot and nice.   I literally couldn’t arsed to move much.  Forget day trips, I wanted to do nothing.

Patnem Beach

It was a very long 14 days, filled with competitive scrabble playing, book reading and watching the world go by on the beach.  The Goans are delightful people – charming, happy and friendly and this was a big part of why we enjoyed Patnem so much.

We started out literally having curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner – which I thoroughly enjoyed.  But after a few days I was starting crave fresh fruit and veg, and eating paratha (Indian layered bread) three times a day was leaving me feeling bloated.  So we moved on to amazing smoothie bowls with fresh fruit at ‘Zest’ health cafe for breakfast, and tasty salads for lunch at ‘Home’, a peaceful and pretty beach front restaurant.  We stayed committed to curries in the evenings though when we’d jump in a rickshaw and drive a mile down the road to lively Palolem for dinner and drinks.

Despite never leaving the two neighbouring beaches of Patnem and Palolem for a fortnight, it still felt like such an adventure.  Just the interactions we were having with local waiters, shop owners and rickshaw drivers felt exciting and interesting.  And the atmosphere of Patnem itself, which is known for its many yoga schools, felt exotic – not only because of the melting pot of nationalities hanging out there: Israelis, Germans, Russians, Brits and even Indians on holiday, but the yoga vibe of the resort was very different to any holiday I’ve ever been on. Watching people do classes on the beach was fascinating – admittedly sometimes the chanting got on my nerves, but largely I loved watching the focus, dedication and grace of these people learning their skill.

When it was time to go back to the UK, Jamie and I were both really sad.  It had been a magical experience.  It wasn’t a hard core immersion into Indian culture – Jamie described it as ‘India light’ – a gentle introduction to the country without the chaos and hassle you might receive in other Indian tourist spots.  Two weeks of beautiful beach with my excellent boyfriend in gorgeous hot sunshine, surrounded by lovely Goans – I couldn’t have asked for more.

 

Smoothie bowl at Zest Cafe

Soaking in local life on one of my evening beach walks (they are dipping a little kid in the water if you are wondering what’s happening!)

Rickshaw ride to Palolem beach whilst dodging the cows in the road

At Home, our favourite lunchtime restaurant

I couldn’t get enough of the curries in Goa (or the banana lassis!)

Boast fest! My last 3 months since leaving the BBC. Ok a few shit things have happened too but it’s mainly been good.

I took voluntary redundancy at the end of April, and apart from a brief stint of working in June, I’ve not been doing paid work since and I intend to keep it that way for a few months more so I can properly chill out and lay the ground work for the foodie career I want to build.  I’ve experienced highs and lows since April.  I would say mainly highs, but I want to tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been doing, how I’ve spent my time, what’s gone well and what’s been shit!

Random stuff I’ve been up to

1. I’ve kind of abandoned housework! You’d think with more time on my hands I might do more?  But I’ve figured I just wanted to get out and about and meet people and get some momentum going.  So housework has been an even lower priority than during my working life! I do look at our front garden which is knee-high in weeds a little regretfully but not enough to spur me into action.

   

   Skanky neglected front garden

2. Insanity.  One of my resolutions on leaving my job was that I’d like to try some new types of exercise.  For the last ten years pretty much all I’ve done exercise-wise is run, walk and cycle.  Which is fine.  But I was bored of it.  So in July  I embarked on a sweaty form of hell called Insanity for a month.  It’s a 40-60 minute high intensity work out (downloaded) that you do nearly every day.  I’m proud that I stuck it out for a month, but when I realised that I was dreading the 5pm work out every day and I couldn’t actually see any difference in the shape of my body, I thought stuff this and packed it in. I find running boring but I never dread it! So I’m back to running for now – but I might give yoga a whirl! But that is the beauty of having some time out – the space to try  new things and then discard them if they don’t work.

   

   Dripping with sweat after an Insanity work out

3. Watching loads of documentaries on the refugee crisis.  When I worked 9-5 I wanted to watch cheery things in my free time to rejuvenate myself from the toil of my job. But with time on my hands I’ve found myself curious and drawn to watch the many brilliant documentaries on iPlayer about the staggering number of people leaving their countries to flee wars and seek safety in Europe.  I usually end up crying as I watch them, but apart from helping me understand what is happening, I’m absolutely inspired by the spirit and bravery of the refugees.  Is it me or are Syrians a particularly lovely, kind and heroic nationality?  Sorry Brits but I can’t imagine us being quite as resilient, smiley and noble in the face of civil war.

   

   BBC Two Documentary ‘Exodus: Our Journey to Europe’

4.  I’ve gone very feminist in my reading and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the following:
   • Letters to my Fanny – Cherry Healy
   • What would Beyonce Do – Luisa Omelian
   • Moranifesto – Caitlin Moran

Moranifesto, Caitlin Moran

Letters to my Fanny, Cherry Healy

What Would Beyonce Do?, Luisa Omielan

5. Cooking! I’ve done a shedload of it and it’s been therapeutic and joyful and fun.

Suprisingly delicious low sugar date muffins

The bad stuff

1. Taking on a job that was a long term contract that really wasn’t right for me and getting stressed.  I now realise that I was probably a bit panicky having left the corporate world and the security and structure of a job seemed appealing.  I didn’t really scope it out properly and leapt straight in.  When my whole ‘thing’ about taking redundancy was that I wanted to feel out my new career path independently.  Jumping straight into a full-time job was not the best way of letting the new ‘career me’ evolve.  I stuck it out for a month, but I’m so relieved to have my freedom back.

   

   Panic!

2. Britain voting to leave the EU freaked me out.  Political instability and the prospect of a recession felt like a weird place to be when you are starting your brand new freelancing career.  However the country doesn’t seemed to have imploded and things seem to be ploughing forward in a business as usual kind of way for now, so I’m being as confident and positive as I can be.

   

   Brexit (Guardian photo)

3. Putting way too much pressure on myself generally to be ‘productive’.  I’m a girl that likes to feel she’s ticked a few tangible things off her to do list at the end of the day. So I’d get up in the morning and write myself a list and try and tick things off.  If I’m honest it was a bit joyless!  I was getting increasingly wired and tired. Despite it appearing to be a luxury to not be at work I was weirdly more exhausted than when I had a 9-5 job.  Yes stressed about exciting foodie projects but I literally wore myself out by being on my computer and phone 24/7. I have since had to give myself a talking to and I’m deliberately forcing myself to regularly chill out and not think about/do research for my career!  It seems to be working.

Chillax!

The good stuff

1. Eating out a lot.  This counts as foodie research.  It’s been a lot of fun testing out cafes, restaurants and supper clubs – I feel like I’ve got a really good feel of some of the best restaurants in the city and it’s given me a lot of creative inspiration.  This could also explain why I lost NO weight doing Insanity.

   

   Lovely Art Deco Hawksmoor Restaurant

2. The best 40th birthday party ever.  I don’t normally enjoy the limelight. But I wanted to go big for my 40th! I’m extremely happy with where my life is right now and I wanted to celebrate big style.  I loved filling my house with friends new and old and putting on a big Spanish feast of food.  It was a glorious way of celebrating my next decade and starting this new chapter of my life.

   

   Fortieth!

3. Freelance friday.  First of all I discovered Ziferblat.  A magical and very chilled out freelancing space in the Northern Quarter where you pay 6p a minute to use the space (and eat their unlimited cake).  Then I found out that freelancers sit together every friday afternoon and pretend to work on their laptops but in fact just chat.  I can’t tell you what a delightful find this has been.  I’ve met a group of like-minded, bright and inspiring freelancers who have given me advice and direction throughout my at times wobbly first few months of going it alone.  Every friday I go home buzzing with ideas and excited to have got to know my new interesting friends better.

   

   Freelance Friday Buddies!

4. I’ve booked a holiday to Goa.  Jamie and I have been talking about this for months.  And finally last week we committed to booking flights in November.  It felt decadent, but it felt good.  Jamie and I haven’t been on a big adventure together and it felt like something we’d really enjoy.

   

   Goa

5. I’ve signed up to a four day food writing course in France in December.  Again this felt highly extravagant, especially in the same week as booking my holiday to Goa.  I saw the course and it just felt like it had my name written on it! An immersive writing course run by two successful food writers and four days of stuffing my face with amazing french food, going to french markets and truffle hunting then figuring out how to write about it. Definitely ‘write’ up my street!

   

   Hotel Diderot, Chinon

What now then? Well I’m about to go on holiday for two and a half weeks (Italy, Brecon Beacons and London). So during my holiday I’m officially going to give myself a break from career thoughts and just bloody chill out and enjoy myself.  I’m hoping to return to Manchester in September with gusto.  I’ve got some foodie projects bubbling away which I can pursue on my return when I refreshed and brimming with post holiday creativity.  The past few months have been quite an adventure so I’m curious to see what other exciting things happen in my life in autumn!