Trincomalee and Upuvelli

Our last major stop on the great Sri Lankan adventure took us through the town of Trincomalee and to the beach at Upuvelli in the Northeast part of the country.  Due to jellyfish season and changing monsoons, this was our best chance at sunshine and swimming.  Here, we bid Shane a rather emotional (on his part!) farewell and got ready for some serious beach time. 

On our drive through Trincomalee the differences between the rest of the country was palpable.  A newly paved road took us into the city where cows dotted the landscape--on the side of the road, in the middle of the roundabout. 

The majority of people in the north are of Tamil descent and during the long, bloody Sri Lankan civil war, Trinco was a stronghold of the Tamil Tigers. The (relatively) newly paved road was a post-war rebuilding project; land mines and roadside explosives were a thing of the very recent past. The war started in 1983 and peace was only established in 2009. Shane was open and forthcoming with his analysis of events and there were a lot of them. World powers came in between the warring factions, only compounding issues happening on the ground. 

On top of the atrocities that took place on both sides of the war, the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand, Indonesia and the rest of Oceania also found its way to the Sri Lankan coast. Though not the hardest hit part of the country, 800 lives were still lost in the Trinco area alone. 

On our trip, that all seemed a distant past.  The denizens of the town were going about their daily lives, shopping and selling down the dust lined streets.  Tsunami evacuation route signs stood as a stark reminder of the possibility of destruction but once on the beach, even that seemed a world away:

Tourism has touched this coast but in a modest, sleepy kind of way.  There's no big, ugly blocks of hotels, no neon lights. Instead a handful of 'resorts', a term I use loosely, dot the coastline at least 50 meters from the shore.  They ranged from bungalow rooms built by tacking on aluminum siding together to slightly more upscale ventures with fans and the occasional air conditioning.  We stayed in both, though Lonely Planet's 'our pick' accommodation was a major, major disappointment.

We also opted against the Aqua Hotel's 'backpacker caves', essentially carved out logs with space for only a bed and a small handheld fan. 

 At midday, a very small smattering of people took to the sun. Everyone else, like us, took to shady vantage points with cold beverages:

Except for maybe this guy:

 

The tourists who did line the beach seemed keen to maintain the tranquility of the place.  We got lucky too--apparently the beach is popular with French families; school for the French was still a week away from finishing so we got this little slice of heaven with a quieter crowd.

 By night, all the chairs and umbrellas were whisked away and the strip was transformed into a series of restaurants.  Most of them required advance reservation if you wanted the curry of the day.  But fresh fish, crab and prawns all featured on menus at cut rate prices.

On our second night, we met the owner of the French Garden hotel, restaurant and dive school. After the best dinner of the trip, he invited us to finish the day with their staff and a bottle of Sri Lankan spirits, something Shane warned us against.  We're a bit more savvy than he gave us credit for so we opted for conversation and spirits and made our way home after a few drinks and conversation about life on the beach.

 Three days later, we took our business to their dive outfit and made our way to Swamee Rock where we had various sea life sightings.  No disappointment there.