Skip to main content

A road-tripper’s recipe to beach-hopping: Sri Lanka south coast





Nay-sayers said it couldn’t be done. Well-wishers said it probably shouldn’t be done.
The fact that the mercury would rise to its zenith high in the peak summer didn’t stop us from travelling to the southern coast of Sri Lanka last month. After a rickety eight hour bus-ride that saw us descending into the plains from the hill country, we reached the bustling sea-board town of Weligama. If you are travelling along the same route, keeping a day in hand for the Yala National Park would seem like the most obvious choice. However, short of money and time – my fiancé and I headed straight for the holy trinity of sun, sea and sand.



It would be safe to say that any road trip involves the road (duh!), a pair of trusty-ish wheels and at least one companion (who you will most likely fall out with at least once a day. But regardless the offense these silly skirmishes that start with ‘let’s stop for a cola’ have a knack to smooth itself out soon enough). Like life, which’s about the journey and not the destination, beach-hopping (which isn’t the same as beach-bumming as described by me here) too is more about the ingredients than the recipe itself.

Find your crockpot

Like a hearty stew that needs to simmer and brew, a good crockpot can either make or break the process. You don’t want to keep switching off the heat to transfer the broth from pan to pan. No. What you need is a base that can contain your anticipation and improvisation. For us, Weligama was that crockpot. It was big enough to accommodate all the holiday ingredients together yet not too big to become a cumbersome mess.
Beating the humdrum of the main Weligama Beach at this small cove.

Just a five minute walk from our home-stay.They call it Weligama Cape
Weligama was conveniently located giving us access to all the beaches we wanted to hop to within a 50km radius. It had a quaint town centre with cheap juice shops and milk bars around the bus stand and easy conveniences like mood shopping or like in our case – bike rentals. Away from all the buzz of mid-town heat, we settled down for the four day jaunt at a budget home-stay called Month Villa (Airbnb home-stay), a ten minute rickshaw ride from the city centre.

Marinate the meat overnight 

For obvious reasons, it’s live homo sapien meat I’m talking about here. And the secret to the recipe is keeping this meat un-dead and fresh throughout the prep and cook time. After reaching the home-stay around four, we marinated the evening with some chilled beers from the local wine shop and yummy kothu paratha at the juice shop.



Sautéing on high flame

The trick to browning the meat adequately is to hold it down on a hot pan for about 4 min on each side till it acquires a shiny caramel-ly sheen. Of course when the meat intrinsically comes in shades darker than caramel, sautéing will only deepen the tan into burnt-like-sienna. But like any self respecting diplomat (the keyword here is non-racist)I would like to add that no matter the colour of the sauted skin, the flesh, whether it is chicken race or human race, must not be cooked through and instead only partially softened to a moist bright “pink” (substitute pink with sunburn).

No. That's not me. Yes. I love the hat
Cooking like life is bound in time. But ever had the feeling that time has a mind of its own? That it can stretch itself out when you least want it to and flies by at breakneck speed when you’re having fun? Actually, a clever dude called Murphy already had this feeling a long time ago and even made some asinine laws after his own name (what a brag!)
Anyhoo, we got a chance to experience the whimsies of time first hand, at Mirissa. As though clinched from a travel catalogue of exotic beaches, Mirissa falls under the proverbial postcard variety of palm-fringed white sand beaches. A crescent cove littered with quaint beach shanties with chipped wooden chairs and hammocks - serving beer and snacks, if Gokarna had an exotic foreign cousin – Mirissa would be her. So languorous is her charm that we remain blissfully unaware of how the ten hours evaporated, leaving only the briny salt on our skin to speak for our hours of inactivity in the 40 degree tropical heat.


Care for some fish kothu paratha?

Toss in the tension with a dash of hope

The urge to stir in too many places in way too less time can be overpowering. But like a slow-cooked broth that leaves room for improvisation, whisk in your sense of self-discovery and trust the road to improve the flavour. 


The view along the Galle Road
If the ingredients were Unawatuna, Jungle Beach, Galle and Hikkaduwa - it would be safe to say that we hadn’t quite mastered the recipe for slow-cooking yet. It was more like the elimination round of Masterchef where we sped against the clock trying to squeeze all the punch out of the lemon. To make things even worse – we started late (no surprise there).The result was a bit hard to swallow but so is learning to appreciate life and each precious day that we’re alive.

The jungle before the Jungle Beach
I’m not going to elaborate much on Unawatuna or Jungle Beach. Only that Jungle beach, roughly 2km after Unawatuna (on the Galle – Colombo road) is tucked behind a dense forest only to open into the sea-face quite suddenly - it once must’ve been a beautiful private paradise. But then came things like commercialisation and sand-encroaching construction. In fact we knew this beforehand but well, even Alice B. Toklas knew what she was cooking (don’t ask).
On the other hand Hikkaduwa was quite the pleasant surprise. Earlier we had decided to give this one a skip till a fellow traveller we met in Kandy convinced us otherwise. And he was right! After a grueling day of hopping around dehydrated under the midday heat, we chased down the sunset at Hikkaduwa.


This thin stretch of beach runs for nearly five kilometres - out of which only one has been commercialised. It is so long that it leaves room for all kinds of taste. Whether you want to shake it in a trance bar or sip a beer and brew over beautiful horizon or just want to be left alone with nothing but the sound of bids and the surf for company – just keep walking and you’ll find your pleasures.




Quiet evenings at Ranjith''s Rest and Bar., Hikkaduwa.

Or you could try the crab at the Moon Beam Restaurant

But when working with too many ingredients, it’s easy to miss something. And some time it turns out to be a very big miss. For us, this was Galle. Scalded and parched as we were crossing the city, we thought, ‘it’s Ok, we’ll come back here in the evening’. Turns out we were just way toooo deadbeat. I truly regret this one. I’m sure anybody who’s been there is probably murmuring – how could you... you were so close.

Season with a sense of adventure

The fun part about cooking or for that matter road- tripping is that some time you can just act on your instinct. Just as we were about to reach Tangalle, we came across this tiny board marking the way for the Blowhole. We took the right without a thought and followed the signs to wherever this Hole is. Turns out it’s quiet the cool phenomenon.
Apparently the Hummanaya Blowhole (named after the ‘hoo’ sound that comes from within it) in a small fishing village called Kudawella is the second largest in the world. The cliff facing the sea has a narrow fracture 20m deep. As waves crash into the rocks the pressure pushes the water up like a natural fountain - often blowing up to about 30m with a loud whoosh sound. With a breathtaking view of the ocean it was an exhilarating experience.


Hummanaya Blowhole




On your way to the Blowhole, you will see women selling all sorts of fried and dried fish. It’s where I also had my first taste Soursop juice. The texture of the fruit is a lot like guava that leaves this tingling sweet aftertaste. But here's a random picture because I was too busy eating and ogling at all the fish

Umami: The mysterious taste of Tangalle

Pronounced ‘ooh-mummy’ the Japanese call it the ‘mystic flavour’ or like the famous chef Raymon Blanc describes it as ‘layer upon layer of velvet and silkiness’, Tangalle for us was umami. Picture indigo blue ocean, white soapy surf, moss covered rocky promontories that make for natural Jacuzzis and tropical fruits – the only thing missing was a glass of champagne. And James Bond (I’m thinking Pierce Brosnan). Tangalle could easily be one of those unheard-of exotic beaches where multimillionaire Russian spies parading their porcelain girls meet to plan their next heist.






Screwpines. Or what we Indians call Kewra. The distilled water extracted from this tropical fruit is a key ingredient in our Biriyanis





Moss covered rocks. Watch your step now!
Slightly delirious from the heat and the blinding blue of the Indian Ocean, we walked down the sandy beach, awed by everything. Even if there were certain faults, we completely missed them because clearly love is blind. Like for instance, Tangalle despite being the paragon of peace and tranquillity, the ocean was anything but. The undercurrents are extremely strong and make swimming almost impossible. Of course you could sun-bathe but that’s not my thing (since I’m naturally tan-coloured). Instead we settled into that Jacuzzi I was talking about (no, it wasn’t a figment of my James Bond imagination).


Did I say Jacuzzi? Yea, right there behind that rock is a 3 feet tub-like dent in the rock

Beach finds
We had tasted Tangalle and our brains were unanimously going ‘mmmm’ – we were floored – we were umamied.


NOTES


Rekawa Beach (close to Tangalle) – a 3km long protected beach where depending on the season turtles come to lay eggs almost every day. There’s a famous BBC documentary on the turtles – chances are most of us have seen it
Polhenna Beach (another detour from the Matara - Tangalle road): Nice spot for snorkelling and I hear turtles come to say hi
Weligama Cape: This is the secret cove I was talking about behind our home-stay. It’s roughly 3 km down along the Galle Road from Weligama bus stand. You will need to make a left into one of the side lanes
I heard Bentota is a nice quiet beach from the same source who changed my mind about Hikkaduwa. It was on our go-to list on the same day we went to Hikkaduwa (evil laugh at past self)
While I understand that the east coast is more famous among surfers, I still saw a lot of people carrying surf-boards in the south and not one person surfing. Weird, right?
On the right side of the Blowhole, like literally if you are facing the mouth of the hole from the centre. After you go about fifteen metres to the right, the path thins out into a narrow pagdandi that runs into the undergrowth. While we really wanted to explore ahead, we didn’t have time and we were dressed for the beach and not a trek. May be if you’ve been there or planning to go soon, let me know what I missed.
All the beaches mentioned above have some crazy good sea-food joints (Hikkaduwa especially). Because my love for food supersedes my love for documenting things - usually the thought of taking pictures strikes me on a full stomach. With no proof to the pudding here, it’s going to be a bit hard to believe when I say how good it was.
To be fair, if you prefer more happening places to quiet deserted beaches, Unawatuna might just be your umami. Only, not my kind of thing.
Having a camera is handy but holding onto a rocking boat in the middle of the sea with five different lenses and light diffusers and whatnots is a whole different story. Keep things light; trust a 50mm to do the job.



Popular posts from this blog

When Joan Didion said, ‘we tell ourselves stories in order to live’, I think she meant - the stories we delude ourselves with.

I used to think that if I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer through the noon and end it with a Thud! Whack! Clanggg! before I hit the sack. But once I had a hammer, I realised I wasn’t hammering as much I said I would.
Read more

Other Names #3: Brojesh

The best way to describe Brojesh is to think of him as an old, inhospitable house at a part of town that had seen its peak more than half a century ago. It has no claim to architectural beauty yet remarkable in its thickness of walls and the fewness of windows, most of which has been grated over time. It was built to last. Without talents. Without arrogance. Read about Project Other Names  here .
Read more

Other Names #10: Mrs. Ghosh

She sat on a wooden bench facing an empty communal pool, contemplating its green chlorinated waters, with her hand resting on the silver handle of her cane and thinking about death. The first time Mrs. Ghosh had visited Dolphin Square, she was no more than five herself. Her father, a district magistrate in the Calcutta high court and a skilled swimmer himself had unceremoniously doused her in the pool. It was the first of many days that would become her entire adolescent years. The pool was emptied and cleaned once every year in the winter. There had been numerous deaths at the bottom of the diving board but all of Calcutta’s best swimmers frolicked to the murky green pools to compete with children from nearby slums who inevitably turned out to be stronger and swifter in the district championships. Every second Sunday of the month, young people who couldn’t afford the membership fee of the government run swim club, competed against each other to earn their place by merit. It afforded t...
Read more

Other Names #12: Kaamkar Das

The rain pelted incessantly for six years and five months and twenty-two days over the city of Someplace. There were periods of drizzle when people stepped out but soon, they began to realise that the respite was only a forecast for more rain. At first life came to a standstill and then boredom set in. People stopped going out altogether so establishments had no reason to stay open. The public gardens were flooded and turned into veritable marshlands with crocodiles and snakes which put an end to walking. A thick layer of moss covered the asphalt under the waterlogged streets that made cars and motorbikes skid off their paths and often into death. People received their weekly supplies of grains from a government helicopter that came twice a week to drop sealed packets onto the terraces. Time stretched into infinite seconds over Someplace and its people came to be characterised by their glassy eyes, wet yellowish skin and a perennial dry crust around their mouths. Kaamkar Das was one of...
Read more

Other Names #4 and #5: Ahana and Asha

Other Names #4 Ahana belonged to an aristocratic family. But as a rule, Bengalis think more of influential friends, than birth. Ahana was lucky to be esteemed and even loved by people of consequence in society, whose example was followed by others of lesser means. It seem hardly necessary to remark that her family worries and anxiety had little or no foundation, or that her imagination increased them to an absurd degree. But if you had a wart on your nose or forehead, you imagine the whole world is looking at it, sniggering behind your back. Because you can’t see past the puss-filled elephant sitting on your face. Doubtless, Ahana was considered ‘eccentric’ in society, but she was nonetheless esteemed; the pity was that she was ceasing to believe in that esteem. Other Names #5 “I’m going through a phase. And I’m awfully glad it’ll all be over in a couple of days”, Asha whispered to herself. For a fleeting moment the weight slid off her shoulders and she felt a breath of fresh ...
Read more

Footnotes from college and my holiday in Istanbul that has nothing to do with the former

The following is best enjoyed with food or beverage that's a tad bit sour, bitter or whatever seasoning that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Besides teaching me calculus and semi-conductors that have been of no future consequence, the four years at an engineering college furnished me with an elementary knowledge of scientific thinking. I was glad to learn that the minds of people (themselves a product of natural causes) was a function of the brain subject to the laws of cause and effect, like any other part of their body. And that these laws were the same as those that governed the movements of star and atom. I exulted at the thought that the universe was no more than a vast machine in which every event was determined by a preceding event so that nothing could be other than what it was. These conceptions not only appealed to my dramatic instinct; they filled me with a sense of liberation. It gave me such satisfaction to learn that the Earth was a speck of mud whir...
Read more

Other Names #14: Girija

  Girija was a woman. It was a condition she suffered from birth. The ailment limited her to talk a certain way, dress a specific way and behave in a manner that did not draw negative attention to herself. The slightest aberrations tended to anger or at least annoy people with inevitable ease. It was especially tough for Girija because she did not see herself as a woman much. The condition for her was purely physical. It did not dominate her thoughts or passions every waking minute. If she had to put a gender to her inner world – she would’ve said that she felt like a mixture of all kinds of people and sexes we don’t even know about and she liked it that way. Eventually she came to the conclusion that it was more than the condition of being a woman that plagued her – she was also a feminist which came with a daunting side-effect in her twenties of self-awareness. It made her head pound and her stomach churn at harmless words like ‘pretty’ and ‘feisty’. But Girija rarely discussed t...
Read more

Other Names #15: Balwan

  Settling into a chair for coffee with his friend, Balwan felt his heart race and tension creep into the tops of his shoulder, pulling the nerves at the base of his neck into tight knots. Anger vibrated in his solar plexus. But he was not upset. His friend sitting across from him was. Balwan soaked up other people’s moods like a sponge. If you’ve met Balwan, chances are you’ve already made him cry. He often described himself as someone with an exposed nerve, fine-tuned to every little flutter in his environment like an emotional weather vane. Sometimes these moods were pleasant but even those moved him to such overwhelming awe that he was often reduced to tears. A glimpse of a bird’s nest or a half-furled leaf filled Balwan with inarticulate joy. An unexpected compliment could send his mood soaring and fill him with unbridled enthusiasm. Balwan noticed details that most people missed – a heightened sense of smell and touch and sight. It was like he felt the world around him with f...
Read more

Three salad dressings with a side of honesty

Salads. The healthy-and-mighty of all meals. The snooty accompaniment to a glass of rosé. The veritable rainbow on your plate. In Fran Lebowitz’s words, a salad is not a meal – it is a style. Well, as long as ‘style’ includes a fair amount of mud under one’s fingernails – I couldn’t agree more with Fran. Sure, it’s fashionable to eat a salad – but there’s a certain panache to going down on all fours in wet mud, rummaging through fresh lettuce pods every morning and wondering what you’re going to dress them in. While it’s far from the fashion statement that salad has come to symbolise, growing your own food definitely is a style of its own. There are many categories of salad snobs – the ingredient minimalist, the chop-it-right evangelists and the brigade of dressing-goes-first, but the only consensus between the salad factions is that you don’t actually need packaged dressing. A homemade vinaigrette made from basic ingredients lives just as happily on your refrigerator door, not to ...
Read more