December 13
Story and Pics (iPad specials!) by Maggie + 1 photo by Dave
(Please note that this was written two weeks before posting, but we've had similar situations since, finding refuge in our guesthouses.)
The towns we’ve visited in Sri Lanka are little more than villages, with tourism being the main event. Mirissa would have been a fishing beach before foreigners came in droves. The hill country town of Ella I imagine as a crossroads between tea factories, a hometown for plantation workers with a couple of holy sites thrown in.
Now Mirissa is almost nothing but the beach (lined with restaurant shacks) and dozens of guesthouses that service its visitors, and Ella is a strip along the one road through town, chock-a-block with restaurants serving western fare alongside their rotis, the back lanes signposted with more guesthouses than could possibly be filled, it would seem.
In both towns, the beach or the strip are about as far from South Asia as you can get and still be in South Asia. The buzz is fun for a bit, but it gets old. We didn’t come here to be swamped with other tourists.
Our refuge has been our guesthouses. In Mirissa, we were a 10 minute walk from the beach, and once we got off the main road we were in a leafy neighbourhood filled with the songs of birds. Families went about their business, stopping in the local hut for fruits and vegetables, hanging their laundry, seeing their kids off to school. Behind the high gate of our house, we had a neatly tended garden with papayas, bananas and coconuts growing, and a porch to chill on, utterly peaceful.
We have the same thing in Ella. Five minutes from the crowded cafés and revving tuk-tuks, we have a terrace and a garden, no sounds but those of the living jungle and the occasional train arriving from Kandy or Badulla, sounding its horn from across the hill.
We didn’t pay much for these havens. Both Ranjith Guest House in Mirissa and Eeshani Guest House in Ella came in at less than 35 CAD a night. Most places cost more, but few offer more peace and quiet. If you travel on the slow side, this is exactly what you need.
Story and Pics (iPad specials!) by Maggie + 1 photo by Dave
(Please note that this was written two weeks before posting, but we've had similar situations since, finding refuge in our guesthouses.)
The towns we’ve visited in Sri Lanka are little more than villages, with tourism being the main event. Mirissa would have been a fishing beach before foreigners came in droves. The hill country town of Ella I imagine as a crossroads between tea factories, a hometown for plantation workers with a couple of holy sites thrown in.
 |
| Mirissa beach (not complaining) |
Now Mirissa is almost nothing but the beach (lined with restaurant shacks) and dozens of guesthouses that service its visitors, and Ella is a strip along the one road through town, chock-a-block with restaurants serving western fare alongside their rotis, the back lanes signposted with more guesthouses than could possibly be filled, it would seem.
 |
| Mirissa Beach, lined with shack restaurants |
In both towns, the beach or the strip are about as far from South Asia as you can get and still be in South Asia. The buzz is fun for a bit, but it gets old. We didn’t come here to be swamped with other tourists.
Our refuge has been our guesthouses. In Mirissa, we were a 10 minute walk from the beach, and once we got off the main road we were in a leafy neighbourhood filled with the songs of birds. Families went about their business, stopping in the local hut for fruits and vegetables, hanging their laundry, seeing their kids off to school. Behind the high gate of our house, we had a neatly tended garden with papayas, bananas and coconuts growing, and a porch to chill on, utterly peaceful.
 |
| Porch and garden in Mirissa, all to ourselves (photo by Dave) |
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| The Ella strip, minus the noise. |
We have the same thing in Ella. Five minutes from the crowded cafés and revving tuk-tuks, we have a terrace and a garden, no sounds but those of the living jungle and the occasional train arriving from Kandy or Badulla, sounding its horn from across the hill.
We didn’t pay much for these havens. Both Ranjith Guest House in Mirissa and Eeshani Guest House in Ella came in at less than 35 CAD a night. Most places cost more, but few offer more peace and quiet. If you travel on the slow side, this is exactly what you need.
 |
| See that veranda? All ours! Eeshani Guest, Ella |
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