Bus Day

I 

Any good transit day starts with a healthy breakfast.  The standard Sri Lankan brekkie includes rotti, egg roti, hoppers and daal.   Roti and egg roti are a sort of wonderful multilayered crepe made from rice flour with or without egg.  Sometimes other flour makes it into the batter as well. Hoppers, as opposed to string hoppers, are bowl shaped crepes t are perfect for curry scooping.  All of this is washed down with milk tea, thick with sugar. 

We left Galle Fort on foot under a hot morning sun.  Past the cricket stadium lies the main bus station. Within minutes and 70 rupees lighter each, we were lurching towards Matara. 

The more gods the better when careening through the chaos of a Sri Lankan roadway.  While not As wild as India, bus travel here is not for the faint of heart. 

There is no smooth approach to a road obstacle.  Nor is there any restraint, memory or sense of the basic laws of physics. Just because a terribly overloaded and underpowered Ashok Leyland bus has never successfully passed a dump truck uphill and on a blind turn is no reason not to try it repeatedly today.  This might be the one time it works.  Or we might all take the next step in the cycle of existence. Who knows. 

We lurched and squealed and rolled our way from Galle to Matara and, after a quick bus change, from Matara to Tangalle.  No more buses for today!

Bus travel is hungry work and so it was snack time in Tangalle. 

Mmmmmmm, mystery samosa and other snacks with ginger beer!!

Tangalle was our jump off for the Lonely Beach, our destination for today. Next up on the transit schedule was a Tuk-yuk ride.  Negotiations complete, we piled into the tiny three-wheeler and set out. 

Tuk-tukking out of town. 

And a little further out of town. 

And really far out of town. 

Tomorrow:  Lonely Beach!