One with the beautiful beaches in Sri Lanka- Recreating our moments 8.2 !!

Trincomalee East coast drive in Sri Lanka (26th-28th Dec 2021)

Here comes the long waited east coast drive of the Chooty Couple!! And the 1st time together of course!!

On our way, leaving about half an hour to the destination, after Anupa woke up from her beauty sleep, we all suddenly decided that we were going to have our lunch from the lodge. (We had reserved only half-board). So I called the Manager, and I was like, “can we get lunch from there”, he said “of course”, and asked, “how soon do you need it”. I replied saying “we will be there in half an hour”. At this point, I think I felt his pulse and I am sure it must have been, “you guys are coming this far and you couldn’t say a bit in advance that you are coming for lunch”, but instead he replied saying, “yes sure, will arrange something”.

We reached the lodge by around 1.30 pm, finding the place was not the easiest as it was not on the main road but in a small lane. We took the first entrance and then came back to the other. We were welcomed by the Manager. (I can’t remember the name actually, my bad 😞😞)

We spent some time in the lobby reading the books they had, and came across Sarinda’s Photography book as well. Made it a point to text him and ask whether he had any copies for Sachin, but unfortunately, all had been sold out long ago. He was the CEO of the company I worked for when I first joined.

As the sun started setting down, we walked around the beach and soon we were hungry again. So we gave our dinner options to the team. They had arranged a candle-lit dinner for us on the beach, and sweet of them for doing it even without requesting. I remember there was another big group by the side who was enjoying biriyani if I’m not mistaken.

As expected we woke up early the next day to catch the sunrise. We had a small tripod photo shoot of us here, but it didn’t turn out as expected.

We had quite a big visit list planned ahead. So we got ready and left soon after breakfast.

1st stop — Koneswaram Temple

Sachin had googled the location of the Koneswaram temple and this was added by him to the list. Hence was well prepared to go. We entered through the fortress entrance and was not a big walk up to the temple.

There was this point from which we can look down called “Ravana’s Gap” (2nd Image). As the legend goes, Ravana created this gap with his sword.

We visited the temple, spent some time there and came back. Although Sachin has visited the temple before, it was his first time inside the Kovila.

2nd stop — Marble Beach

Next was the hunt for Anupa’s favourites; beaches.

Would you believe that I changed in the car to better be prepared for a beach walk because morning we were at a temple and now at the beach? So obviously same attire would make it a bit difficult for either. So I quickly changed and went with high hopes.

The unique beauty of Marble Beach

The name “Marble Beach” is derived from the fact that when the sea is calm on a clear and bright day, the surface can be seen to be shining like marble. This calm and beautiful beach is relatively untouched and remains to be clean with pristine clear blue water. The sea here is also popular for snorkelling due to the existence of large schools of coloured fish.

This was one point we realized that as people who come to these nature-created beauties, why can’t we do our part? Beach is called “marble beach” for a reason.

But unfortunately, the coast was polluted pretty much with all that one could find. Yet the sea was a beauty as always.

3rd stop — Foul Point

This was the longest ride we did around Trinco which took us about 2 hours to get there. As we went in, the roads were getting narrower and lonelier. We stopped and thought for a moment as to if we were taking the right route as well.

So geared up with Google Maps active, here we go to see the Foul Point. And as you know our mini car had been all supportive of our unplanned off-road rides and this was another one as such. The road was bumpy and not properly paved.

We passed a Naval Base entrance and took that as an opportunity to double-check with the officers to make sure that we were on the right path. And after some time we got a glimpse of the lighthouse. We got down from the vehicle and ran towards the beach side.

For me, this is the best beach we’ve been to so far in Sri Lanka. The water was green in colour. If I say the view you get here is exactly similar to the iPhone default wallpaper screen you get (with a green water beach), I guess I am right. I’ll leave 2 photos here for you to let me know if I am wrong.

Beach was all ours. This is the best part of discovering places that are not busy throughout. The peace of mind you expect by visiting these places is at its highest when you can just sit and relax without any noise. Foul Point beach is one good example of that.

We didn’t miss climbing up the rocks, just for the fun of it.

On our way back we stopped for lunch. Pizza Hut has been our saviour throughout our journeys around the country, and I’m thankful that they have branches everywhere.

4th stop — Dutch Bay

Dutch Bay’s viewpoint is from the main road itself. We parked the car and had a little stroll in the beach. There was nothing special to write about it, but it was a nice little beach.

Next Stop — Coral Cove

Apparently Coral cove and some other stops that Sachin had planned to visit were accessible through Trinco naval base, which was closed for outside visitors due to the pandemic. So we went on our way in search of other sites.

The tired couple came back to the lodge and caught up on some much-needed rest and food.

The next morning was about walking on the beach and collecting some of Sachin’s favourites; sea shells. Like two kids, we collected sea shells that we thought looked different. While we were on this hunt, we met a lady who introduced herself to us as the owner of the place. She owns a couple of leading businesses in Sri Lanka. And for a moment we felt like we were caught by the principal of the school doing some notorious activity; collecting shells from the hotel beach.

More we chatted with her, we realised she knows one of my bosses from the company I work for and she showed us the shells that she was collecting as well. So we stopped worrying here and continued enjoying our time on the beach.

We had one key activity planned for the day, so we grabbed our breaky soon and got ready.

5th Stop- Pigeon Island

We got this arranged from the lodge, and we waited in the deck area for them to come and pick us up. There was a slight delay as the ticketing counter had not been opened and they were not sure whether it will open. On top of that, we didn’t have liquid cash in hand with us to pay them, so we asked them to add it to our hotel bill. (Not the 1st time us running into such problems, worst duo when it comes to having cash notes) With our fingers crossed, we stayed till about 9.30 am/10 am and ta daaaa, we got the news that we could go. We were picked up from the lodge and off we went on our boat ride to Pigeon Island. It was a bit of a shock for us at first coz we were on a boat after so long. But we settled pretty fast.

If my mother was on the trip, I could imagine what she would have said here…

As we got down, we noticed that the place was pretty crowded. There were benches to keep our bags and sit down. So we waited there till our guide was ready. Let’s call our guide Lahiru for the story’s sake as I don’t recall his name. Meantime we changed into our swimsuits.

We were given life jackets, goggles and that gadget to fix to breathe (Snorkels). As usual, the clumsy Anupa had a time trying to fix it, also it came off a couple of times underwater as well. Having kitted up, Lahiru held us with his two hands on either side and started walking to the water. Then he gave us instructions on how to keep holding his hands and not be scared.

I remember I was wearing my Gshock and was in self-doubt whether it was waterproof. And Sachin said it can go up to 100m deep, Lahiru said nothing to worry as we won’t be going very deep.

The next few minutes were a magical moment for us. We started going inside the water and floating through to see the wonderful creations of nature; fish. Lahiru took us around the water for about half an hour or so, and we saw so many fish of different colours.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a go pro to take any photos of them, but I guess you can picture them.

Among the few we spotted, the shark and the turtle were the best. There were many coloured fancy fish and living corals.

So we marked one of our bucket list items here; snorkelling. ✔️✔️

Lodge and the Friendly staff

We checked out from the hotel and spoke to everyone who worked there. I remember there was this boy who was coming to take orders who barely spoke Sinhala, and also I remember the Kenyan couple requesting brown rice and they were like we don’t have ‘brown’ we have ‘red’. So I told the guy taking the order that they were asking for is red rice only.

There was this very small boy helping the team around. The manager explained to us earlier that, all of them were vaccinated plus the small boy is not underage. Anyone would guess easily. I so badly wanted to give him one of Sachin’s T-shirts. But there were other ladies including the one in charge of the pantry. So we skipped it this time

C-Beyond Nilaveli was the home for us in Trinco this time and is highly recommended to anyone who needs some personal space with the beach and a customized service. (Only if you need it) Sachin found this place on Instagram, obviously from a profile he follows. 😎 😎 Owning a space or at least land in this area is one of his dreams.

Thank you for reading till the end.