Mirissa-Galle: Packed Beaches and a Weaving Mill

Unbelievably, I awoke this morning with a huge bite on the outer edge of the sole of my left foot! Another bite! There’s a hard, dark patch and it”s quite sore, and it bothered me all day. A spider – an ant – an alien laying eggs – I have no idea.

Our last delicious Sri Lankan breakfast by the pool, with the rain falling an arm’s length away – yes, it’s raining today, sadly for Mehtoo, one of the guys here who is having his wedding photos taken at the hotel. But it didn’t last long. We paid our bill, checked out , gave Kamahl hugs and thanks, and weren’t long on our way to Mirissa before the sky cleared.

About an hour a half, some of it along the tollway, and we were at our next accommodation, Mizuma Mirissa, a place in a side street with short walks to the beach. We checked in, then went for a walk over a hill to the nearby so-called ‘Secret Beach’, and there got our first taste of what Mirissa has sadly become since the guidebooks and blogs were written. This little cove is hidden away and requires you to negotiate some steep little tracks, but when we got there it was a little cove absolutely covered in beach loungers full of tourists who obviously had no idea what a real beach was. It was horrible; you had to pick your way through them. We’ve seen lots of really weird middle-aged Russians – fat, aggressive-looking men and bizarre looking women with way too much plastic surgery trying to look like 20-year olds. When you get tourists packed together in a bunch like this they look like a group of circus freaks – the most unhealthy, overweight white fish out of water imaginable.

We high-tailed it out of there immediately and walked for some time along the ugly main street, which didn’t seem to have any access to the man beach, until we found a path to it next to what looked like a sewer outlet. The beach was very average by Australian standards and packed with tourists. Whomever wrote the entry in the Rough Guide must have been on drugs – or more likely, just copied it from earlier years without checking. It’s been some time seen since l’ve seen such an unattractive parade of fat white flesh crammed unto inappropriate swimwear.

We found an bearable beachfront place to have a drink and some bland sweet potato nachos, then headed back to the hotel. There I had a swim in the small pool, and a very nice chat with a Lithuanian couple who had been travelling for about the same time as us, though they’d got around by driving themselves in a hired tuk tuk. Later, at 7pm we headed out again by tuk tuk to a good little streetfront upstairs place for kottu (for Carol) and prawn curry (for me).

11th March

We had breakfast at the hotel then organised a car to take us to Galle  for 10,000, with a stop at Sooriya Weaving Mills. It was pouring with rain as we drove past some of the other places along the coast, and while they were were a bit better than Mirissa, I really don’t see what all the fuss is about when it comes to the southern coast of Sri Lanka. Again, when you come from the Australian coast, you’re spoilt when it comes to beaches.

It was still raining when we reached the large shack of the weaving mill, so much so that it was hard to hear the guy talking us through the process of dying and weaving the cotton over the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. I brilliantly managed to lightly brush a loom with my bag and get one of the fasteners caught in the thread, which took a few anxious minutes to undo!

After the tour, we were of course ushered into the little shop room, then there was a large room, then another, and finally a huge store that looked like it belonged in a modern mall, which was hilarious after the very rustic space where the weaving was going on.

We both tried on some things and I got a shirt and a pair of pants, and we also got some cushion covers and serviettes.

Continuing on our way, we made the short trip to Galle and our hotel, which is a family-run place within the walls of the old Portuguese-Dutch-English fort. We headed out for a walk along the old walls closest to us, where tourists and locals mingled, but the skies went dark again and it began raining. Grabbing our umbrellas from our room, we walked a few streets in the rain to a very nice place within one of the many old Colonial-era buildings for a drink and some french fries – it was still to early for dinner.

Unfortunately, I was starting to feel off, and decided I should get back to the hotel. I had a lie down, but it got worse and worse, and eventually I was sitting on the toilet projectile vomiting into a wastepaper basket, and immediately realising the basket was one of those patterned plastic ones full of holes and the plastic bag in it was not going to be up to the job. So l huddled naked in the shower stall while poor Carol mopped up my mess. What a night.

Thankfully, l wasn’t up all night – I collapsed in the bed and slept all night. ALMOST got through the whole holiday without being sick – ALMOST. I’m blaming the prawns or the breakfast in Mirissa.