Off beaten track

Continued from here 4.30 dawned dark and bleary, as we hobbled down to congregate at various randomly decided locations before getting together in a loosely knit convoy for the 20 minute drive to Mirissa. Once we in a roundabout manner found Mirissa Water Sports , a stones throw from the harbour; the next step was to provide all our details, ID numbers, address, hair colour, when we last had a shave, etc for the Navy�s benefit. Actually I jest; it was just name and ID number. Fighting off the rather friendly dogs at the harbour we boarded the two storey boat, the Spirit of Dondra and were issued humongous life-jackets which I quickly discarded (I wouldn�t recommend this to the regular traveler but I have issues with bravado) as we moved out of the harbour. We gathered steam and headed out into the deep blue of the open ocean as Six Pence None the Richer still played in my head and Mirissa gleamed golden and newly minted in the early morning light.   (L-R): Boarding the boat, Miri...

It was a funny sense of D�j� vu that I felt, as the boat slipped out of the Mirissa fishing harbour as the sun rose on the southern edge of Sri Lanka. I had the Sixpence None the Richer song in my head again, There she goes , in some psychosomatic flashback to my California trip to see Blue Whales. This trip was totally different though, in more ways than geographical. While the California experience had been purely to see the biggest animal that had ever existed the Mirissa/Unawatune trip was a weekend away with sea, sand, food and good company in equal quantities. The venue for the weekend was Bishu�s (you can call the gentleman at 0777708880 right after reading this post�trust me it's the best budget place to stay in Una), cunningly disguised as the Unawatuna Bay hotel where a group of 20 of us (well mostly 20) crashed down for a weekend of chilling out and�wait�I already mentioned above what conspired for the weekend. But did I mention chilling out? After a long trafficky div...