We both underestimated the amount of time it would take us to get to Arugam Bay. After all it’s only about 350 kilometres.
We made our first stop after about two hours in a small village to get two SIM cards. It took forever to activate them and we waited an hour in the shop for the local people to get them ready.

On the road again we asked our driver if he knew a nice place for us to have lunch. He stopped next to a small Sri Lankan roadhouse. No one spoke English and there was no menu. After about 5 minutes the boys working there brought out a plate with different fried bits and pieces on them.
It really was quite tasty and being very hungry Chris ate a bit more then me...

Within the next hour, we could both feel the effects of the food.
Chris had some bad stomach cramps and had to discover the “real” Sri Lankan squat toilets faster than we had expected.

We had to stop about 3 times and learnt that you can better avoid public toilets in tiny mountain villages but that supermarkets generally have nice and clean European toilets open for customers.

Chris also found that taking his pants and jocks off and hanging them over the door makes the squatting a lot easier.

I learnt that I can better not go and ask him how he is doing and to keep Imodium in the handbag and not inside the locked up backpack.

About 20 kilometres from the final destination, we saw 3 elephants walking in a lagoon. It was very special to me as it was the first time I’d seen elephants in the wild.

We finally arrived in Arugam Bay (A’bay) just before sunset. The 350 kilometres journey took us about 10hours... two very long days of travelling.

We hadn’t realised that A’Bay would be almost booked out.... so we had booked a “deluxe triple room” a minute walk from the beach that morning.

Unfortunately it wasn’t much of deluxe. For about $40 a night we had dirty room and stained sheets (the “blanket” was about the size of one bath towel). The “private seating area” was about 2 square metres and the room itself too small to fit our two backpacks and the surfboards... Oh well, I’ll stop winging, after all you’re not supposed to spend much time in there anyway :)