‘Tissa the Season for Safari!

Hello one and all! Welcome to Tissa aka Tissamaharama if you can manage that! I know, I know… why so long between blog posts? Well, sitting on the beach all day can be pretty tiring, and I just couldn’t bring myself to draw my gaze down from the swell of the sea as the waves crashed onto the golden shore. Also moving my fingers any more than is absolutely necessary would have been out of the question. I’m writing this edition of Sunshine and Samosas from a beach lounger in Tangalle, with the shade of palm trees keeping me cool-ish and Billie lying next to me reading ‘How do you like me now?’ by Holly Bourne and giggling from time to time. It’s very peaceful. I’ll now have to exert myself horribly and cast my mind back 2 or 3 days to when we were in Tissamaharama, mostly known as Tissa.

Day 11, Tissa

We arrived at the River Side Cabanas in the early afternoon, but our accommodation was not some measly cabana like all the other measly guests. No, ours was the crowning jewel of the River Side Cabanas, the towering monolith also known as ‘The Deluxe Treehouse’. Now deluxe was a bit of a porky in a sense because it was the ONLY treehouse there, and it didn’t have AC or even a door, which I think probably is a requirement for anything called deluxe. However, it was extremely cool and beautifully made. There were 2 levels (three if you count the bathroom/shower on the ground). The first floor was a chill zone under the house itself containing a hammock (later, I would break this with my curry weight) and some benches/cushions. The second floor was the house proper. It had a bed, a fan and a balcony. The window holes quite cleverly had rotating slats to close away the breeze/sun as required and, I suppose, slightly limit insect entry, but the insects did have an open doorway through which to glide, cackling at our misfortune. We were very happy, but quite frankly wanted to get out and have a look around Tissa.

After lunch (prob the best food we had) at ‘Lady Chef Restaurant’ we decided to walk around Tissa Wewa, wewa meaning lake, so Lake Tissa. It’s a humungous lake with many trees and other vegetation growing in it; lilies and the like. It’s a bird haven and indeed we saw a few elderly folk being given bird tours round the edge. Interestingly, and perhaps disturbingly, I’ve become quite the bird guy during this hol, and Billie is inching towards being a bird gal. I’ll see a bird and quickly shout out its relatively complex name while pointing excitedly to Billie as she eagerly squints to find this winged beauty. In reality, it was often her doing the pointing… that girl has keen eyes. Anywho, we went around the lake, often following where the bird tourers went, trying to find the bird they’d all been pointing at a few minutes previously. We also got quite excited by taking macro pictures of insects. We almost got charged down by bufallos too, but luckily escaped. Some images of our findings below.

With evening came dinner with a nice but overbearing restaurant owner who sat with us the whole meal and kept ordering us arrack on the house to drink with him. When it was late, he ordered an underling of his to drive us all the way home, which was v nice. We fell, drunkenly, to bed in the treehouse.

Day 12, Yala National Park Safari

Getting drunk was an error, no doubt, because I had organised to go on safari in the infamous Yala National Park, and the jeep left at 04.30. I had to scale down the treehouse twice before then to pee on the ground floor. Twas a restless night, full of fear for the upcoming adventure. Billie, wisely, had decided to forego this safari, since we’d just done a 6 hourer 2 days before. I, however, wanted to put my camera to the test one last time. I also wanted to see a leopard, of which there are 35 or so in ‘Block 1’ (the safari block) of the park. The cabana owner told me I had a 75% chance to glimpse one.

I thought it would be a solo trip, just me and the driver, but I was going along with the other cabana guests who had booked. A couple of French guys who smoked hash in the back seats most of the time and an Egyptian girl who was also solo safari who I buddied up with for the trip. The jeep arrived at 4.45 (irritatingly late when you’ve had to get up for 4.30, let me tell you) and we zoomed off to Yala… only to arrive at 5.20 or so and wait 40 minutes in the cold night for the gates to open, and for the sun to poke its head. During this wait, our hash smoking hippie pals thought it apt to play some Bob Marley through their phone. It was actually quite pleasant, if a gross stereotype. I had been told Yala was busy, that it was a case of following other jeeps around in a line and basically the drivers boy racing it to get to reported sightings of animals first. Our first experience was horrifyingly similar to these reports as the jeep in front suddenly hit the gas and our driver followed suit. 5 mins later we found a massive jam of about 25 jeeps all struggling for a glimpse of an animal. They still hadn’t told us what it was so I gave a basic question ‘leopard?’ (their English is poor) and they excitedly turned around saying “Bear! Bear! Very rare!”. Indeed, there are 25 sloth bears in Block 1 and they’re much less ‘friendly’ than leopards, believe it or not. We saw, from a distance, the shaggy black bum of a sloth bear before park officials moved us along so the growing line could see it. Amid this our driver and his buddy riding shotgun assured we were so very, very lucky.

Thankfully, the rest of the 7 (but actually lasted 9) hour safari was not a traffic jam hell hole, but in fact fairly similar to Udawalawe, except the driver was a bit more of a nutter. We did, alas, not see a leopard, but saw plenty of lovely animals, some new from Udawalawe. Some pics below.

I returned home to find Billie on the (yet to be broken by me) hammock, Reading serenely, having slept rather well. I was a semi awake half-human, but decided to rally through the day and not try to day nap, something I struggle with. We tuk tuk’d out for lunch at ‘Smokey Kitchen’ then went for a boat tour round Tissa Wewa. The boat guy was very friendly and made us hats out of lily pads and Billie a necklace out of a lily flower. He pointed out all of the birds and their names to us. It was lovely and nice.

I couldn’t take much more, so we returned back to the deluxe treehouse and hung there till dins (this is when the fated hammock collapse occurred). I was relieved to find myself in bed in the evening, full of curry and without an alarm set. Tomorrow, we would travel to Tangalle, our final stop on our magical adventure. Soon we would have our first glimpse of a Sri Lankan beach (and I can tell you now, Sri Lanka do a mean beach). We will learn to surf, read books and beach hop on a moped, but more on that next time.