Thursday 4 Feb 2016
We are having a late start today from Batticaloa. It was a late finish last night. Therefore the morning was more relaxed. Charles needed to see a doctor as he had swollen feet. He was taken to see one after breakfast. The rest of us just lazed around until about 11:30am. We all had a big breakfast and therefore decided to drive straight to Arugam Bay and skip lunch.
Batticaloa hosts the Eastern University. The town is made up mainly Tamil speaking people of Hindu and Muslim background. The Sinhalese were here at some stage but they left probably during the war years. Batticaloa is set back from the sea by a lagoon. I would not say the town is pretty. It has plenty of small shops.
Batticaloa to Arugam Bay is about a 2 hour drive along the coastal. It should be picturesque. We got to our hotel at Arugam Bay about 3pm. The view from our hotel was spectacular. We all had ground floor rooms. The rooms were smaller but adequate.
Arugam Bay was badly affected by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. It almost in a direct line of sight to Aceh in Indonesia where the Tsunami orginated. 15 to 20m waves hit the coast and reportedly travelled up to 3km inland. Apparently, at first the waters receded towards the ocean and then the waves hit. This happened multiple times. The 3rd instalment was the biggest and most damaging. The owner of the hotel next door said he ran for his life after the sea receded the first time. He felt it was eerily unusual and that he should not hang around. The sad part is that none of the aid money or government money filtered here. The owner of the hotel next door had to take out a bank loan to repair his hotel.
That evening we went to a ‘speakeasy’ to have a few beers. Today is Sri Lanka’s National Day. Shops are not meant to serve alcohol. We then went down the road to a restaurant by the road. It was a basic restaurant and floor was just beach sand. Logan took control and ordered items that were not listed on the menu. The owner aimed to please us and put on quite a good spread.