At the beginning of this year I decided to try and escape the U.K for warmer climates and Sri Lanka was top of my list. Plenty of wildlife, beaches and jungles. A lovely climate and good waves to surf made it a perfect destination for me.
Midigama was the first stop, I went to see my friend Nick who was staying at a place called Asanka’s Surf House. Situated right off the beach behind a train line in the jungle. It was the perfect spot to start my trip.
At Asanka’s there is loads to do in the surrounding area. A few breaks over the road to surf and a load more after a short ride in a tuk tuk. There’s a couple of bars on the beach with a pretty good music scene, a local shop and a spa where you can get a relaxing massage.
Literally within five minutes of being shown to my room by Asanka himself, I spotted this water monitor in the river below my balcony.
For the first night I relaxed, had a few local beers and watched the waves and sunset from the balcony.
The train comes past really early in the morning and wakes you up at the perfect time (5.30 am!) for a walk along across the train tracks for a dawny surf. The waves are quiet in the morning but get busier as the day goes on. The wind in the middle of the day picks up so most people surf in the morning or late afternoon. After surfing we’d go back to Asanka’s for a plate of fruit, then I’d sneek off to look for wildlife to photograph 🙂
All it took was a short walk across the bridge from Asanka’s, over the river to the beach, and I saw all this. The perks of living next to a jungle!
Later that day we decided to take a tuktuk to Galle. Galle is a town with an old Dutch fort now occupied by tourists, shops and restaurants. I took a few pics, I will show you the sunset from the fort 🙂
The tuktutk ride back was fun, dodging and weaving through crowds of traffic! Similar to Thailand, nothing like the U.K with our strict rules, here it almost seems lawless!
The next day we went for another surf after the train woke us again!
It turns out that staying at Asanka’s is pretty good for spotting all sorts of birds and insects from the balcony, you can hide behind the wall and observe them on the palm trees which grow right up past the third floor! There are troops of monkeys which swoop through the palms trying to steal things, but are generally scared off pretty quickly!
After a small siesta it was time to stretch out with some Yoga! Asanka’s has a small but lovely shala, called the spirit shack!
Midigama is teaming with life! In between surfing, snorkeling, siestas and having a few beers at the local bar I saw an incredible amount of wildlife! Here is a little gallery of what I saw before we moved onto the next stop of my little Sri Lankan tour – Hiriketiya.
I highly recommend this area! It’s brilliant for surfing and hasn’t quite caught on to other tourists yet, although there is signs of development. The wildlife was pretty cool too. Asanka’s place is basic but good value for money, and Asanka will sort you out with taxis, drinks and whatever you need whenever you ask.
I’ll leave you with a picture of one of my boards I took, it looked cool in the light of the balcony.
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