Hikkaduwa by government bus

My view for the day.

Hikkaduwa Beach is another coastal town known for their surfing and cheap bungalows for tourists. North of Hikkaduwa is where you find many of the expensive Ayeurvedic Resorts and Medical Spas, along with pricier accommodations. Hikkaduwa is where someone like me stays :-) Plus, there's a night life in Hikkaduwa and cheap rotti stands with more delicious (and of course cheap) curry.


The unfortunate thing about Hikkaduwa is the uncontrolled development that has taken place here since the tsunami of 2004. There was so much regulation focused on the major coastal cities and expensive resort areas that places like Hikkaduwa built themselves with a sort of competition to get closest to the shore. Basically, the development has eaten into the beach and polluted the shore. Many of the small hotels or bungalows have built literally on top of the water and so they've had to place sandbags to help keep the surf out of their beach-front restaurants and to prevent the establishment from sinking with the beach erosion.

Even so, Hikkaduwa offers a lot of options for the low-budget traveler. There are abundant diving centers and certification courses, glass-bottomed boats that take you to the Coral Sanctuary for snorkeling as well as surfing schools for board rentals or beginning surf lessons. And of course, there are plenty of cheap eats, drinks and cabanas for the sun bathers.

Sunbathers and surfers.

To get to Hikkaduwa, Molly and I decided that we wanted to explore the public bus. Yes, that's right. We OPTED to take the bus. After being overpowered on the road by so many buses, we figured we'd be safer if we were the ones actually on the bus. Right?

To get to Hikkaduwa we had to take 2 different buses. One transfer. Simple. Well, we made the transfer all right, but getting on and off is a whole other story. Buses here don't actually stop to let people on or off. They slow to a roll. So we watched several people leap for their lives to get off at their stop, or at least near their stop. I was a bit nervous to jump from a moving bus for many safety reasons, however, I also had my hands full with my beach gear and a liter of water. I had no way to even hold on to the handles while stepping down the stairs to my exit. Lucky for us, the driver took pity on the suddahs (have I defined that term for you yet? I will in just a minute.). He slowed down to a full stop for us! I was very pleased and turned and yelled "Istuti!!!!" to him ("thank you" in Sinhalese) but the moment my feet were on the ground, he had already taken off.

Just your everyday Sri Lankan Naval
ship cruising by with their guns pointed
towards the beach. No. Big. Deal. 

We took off towards the beach. Mollie and I found a set of lounge chairs in a cabana that had our name all over it. It was such a great spot to sit and watch the surf lessons going on. The weather was perfect. The breeze was great. The shade of our cabanas was nice when we were done with the direct sun. Everything on this beach was great... until we saw the boat with guns!!! We were both staring and I had to take pictures with my zoom to verify that we were in fact seeing guns on this boat. We were told that it was the Sri Lanka Navy. They patrol the beach. I couldn't help wondering what it is that happens on this beach that they need this type of heavy machinery to patrol a tourist beach. Hmmm. The boat moved on and we relaxed. The surfers continued until the sun set. We walked up and down the beach, people watching and checking out the small restaurants and bungalows.

WIth the sun setting, we decided to find ourselves a nice rotty stand for some dinner. We made our way to a little rotty shop and had another delicious rice and curry meal and a dessert rotty afterwards, all for less than $3 USD. Love it.

My rice and curry in Hikkaduwa. Less than $3 USD! 

Rotty man! Forget the curry, he made me a
delish pineapple and chocolate rotty for dessert. 

The bus ride home was a bit more challenging in the dark. Finding the bus stop in the first place was tricky. The stops are hard to see with just a marking on the road and so it took us a little ways of walking to find one. In the mean time tuk tuk drivers keep asking "where are you going madame? I take you." It gets really old having to repeatedly say no to tuk tuk drivers who won't stop harassing you to let them take you back. My argument was always, "If you can take me back to Galle for 50 rupees a piece, we'll get in. Otherwise we're taking the bus." The tuk tuk driver would say, "Ok, ok, 400." I would say, "no, 50 rupees each. That's 100 rupees or we're taking the bus." Usually they'd walk away when they realized I was serious about taking the bus. But one man did not give in. After repeating the same lines at least 4 times and him walking away, coming back, he looked at me and said, "Why can't you pay for tuk tuk? What are you? A beggar in your country?" I laughed and said, "close, I'm a grad student and I live off loans." I don't think that translated since he lives in a country where education, including graduate or medical school, is free. And there are no other tourists on the bus. All tourists are in tuk tuks. I was very confusing to this man. So we flagged down a bus.

Taking a bus in a foreign land is quite hilarious. You just have to laugh. You're going to a place you've never been. Have no idea what your stop actually looks like. Can't read most of the signs (if any) to determine where you're going. You can't talk to the bus driver to ask where to get off. It becomes a game of me trying to pronounce my destination and them trying to understand my improper pronunciation. In trying to get back home to Galle... I would say Galle (pronounced like Gall-stone). They would say ???? I would try again. Someone would say "Gall-lay" and I'd say "Gall?" then add "Fort" for good measure. Eventually, our name game would end with some local who would take pity on me and tell me when I needed to get off. 

Fisherman stilt at Hikkaduwa.

At the Galle bus station, where we'd wait for Dinesh to pick us up in the tuk tuk, we'd always have random people come talk to us. People here are so friendly and they're so curious about foreigners, especially white people. It was strange at first, but then it was kind of nice because it would keep the harassing tuk tuk drivers away. This particular weekend, we ran into the same couple with their toddler at the bus station back to back nights. It was like they were waiting for us. They didn't have much to say. Just hello and where did we come from. Then they'd just stand there and stare at us. They wanted us to say hi to their baby and then wanted to just stand with us and be our friend until our ride came. It's quite the odd experience. It's like being a celebrity, but not for any reason in particular.



*Suddah= a Sri Lankan slang term with negative connotations, meaning white person. Furthermore, they call anyone a 'suddah' if you show up early or on-time for something. A meeting, a class, you name it, the Sri Lankans run late for everything!