Dharavi Slum

During the the four days we spent in Mumbai, we toyed with the idea of taking part in a tour of one of the local slums. On the one hand, we knew it would offer us insight and knowledge of a world we only know about from a distance - books, articles, TV programmes, films, etc. On the other hand, we were worried it would be invasive and almost a little patronising, walking through on a sort of novelty tour and oggling at the levels of poverty that these people live with everyday. What eventually swayed our decision was the fact that the tour company we'd looked into, Reality Tours, had a classroom set up within the slum and operated free computer literacy and English language classes for teenagers living within the slum. Part of the money we paid funded this initiative and the rest went towards a National Government Organisation. Photos were also forbidden, meaning you wouldn't be walking round next to the insensitive tourist with the enormous micro lens looking for the perfect shot.

Dharavi Slum is located 30 minutes outside central Mumbai in a place called Mahim. From the station, we crossed a footbridge and were almost immediately on the slum. Our guide, a young local guy who couldn't have been older than 18 and who lived in another local slum, took us first to the industrial area. Here we watched leather tanners, large scale bakeries producing reams of puff pastry which is then sold around the city and country, men and women producing terracotta pots in quick succession using manual pottery wheels and homemade clay ovens and suitcase and laptop case production.

Cardboard recycling courtesy of Reality Tours

In India, women do not traditionally work as, if they do, it shows that the man of the house is unable to amply provide for his family. In the slum, however, women are involved in many of the above areas, as well as poppadom production. They are paid 20 Rupees for every 1kg they produce and average 4kg per day, or the equivalent of 80 Rupees (around £1.10).

One of the key areas of business in Dharavi was the recycling of plastic. What is essentially the rubbish of other companies from around the world is delivered to the slum by train or lorry where it's sorted by colour and quality, washed, put through a machine which crushes it and, at the end of the lengthy process, is turned into reusable plastic pellets. The company who brings the plastic into the slum is essentially a middleman, buying the plastic, employing the slum workers for a small wage and then selling the results on to companies that require the plastic.

Recycling of oil cans and plastic courtesy of Reality Tours

Once through the industrial area, we (a group of 8 people) were taken onto the roof of a 3 storey building (complete with corrugated iron roof). As part of us worried about the possibility of the questionable roof collapsing, our guide started to impart some outrageous facts. 16.5 million people live in Mumbai and 55% of those live in a slum, in which you can either buy or rent a dwelling. The cost to buy what is essentially a semi-permanent concrete shell that sits almost on top of your neighbours is US$11,000. Dharavi itself is triangular in shape, located in between 2 major railway lines and 1 major road, measuring 1.75 square kilometres in size and houses 1 million people. Of the products of the above industries, some are exported, which, it is estimated, contributes US$665m to the Indian economy each year and the average weekly wage of someone living in the slum is 600 Rs (or just less than £9) per week. We also found out that it is pretty self sufficient, housing almost everything a resident could need - supermarkets, restaurant, mosques, temples, schools(private and public), health clinics, a doctors surgery and even a gym!

Lesson over, we were directed across the road, whilst being told that "Mumbai traffic will not bang you. If they bang you, everyone else will bang them". So if you get hit by a car here, members of the public will obligingly carry out physical assault on the offender on your behalf. Across the road was the residential area, which quickly went from an open, easily navigable area to a torrent of dark and narrow lanes (approximately 2ft across) where the residents essentially lived on top of one another. This helped to explain the sense of community that we saw from beginning to end of the tour. If you live in the lap of your neighbour and fail to get on with them, you'll have created a pretty hard time for yourself.

Residential area

We finished the tour in the centre that our money helped to fund, with a computer lesson taking place as we arrived. We were both incredibly glad we did the tour, despite the fact that at times we felt invasive, as though we were walking through peoples front rooms. The tour operator has its heart in the right place and does a good job of sensitively showcasing what life is like in the slum, helping to shake away some of the assumptions, as well as reinforce others.

For more information on the tour and the work they carry out, you can visit their website.

Cave Country and the City Formerly Known as Bombay

This is a long one and you may not get to the end unless you're one of our parents. If you do though, leave a comment as our comment box is looking and feeling rather neglected. You don't have to be signed up or any of that nonsense. Go on. Do it. Also, Richard's not going to be able to get any of photos up before he gets back in July, at which point he'll be doing a mass upload to Facebook. In the meantime, Ashley's uploading hers to Facebook, which you should be able to see by clicking here and here. If you can't see them, add her as a friend. She wont mind.

An overnight train took us from Hyderabad and on to Aurangabad, where we arrived at 4.30am. One of the trains passengers, who we had spoken to earlier in the evening, had taken it upon himself to wake himself up (he wasn't getting down at our stop) in order to wake us up and kindly ensure that we didn't miss our stop. Thankfully, the hostel we were staying in offered a free pick-up service from the station and 24 hour check-in - and all for the reasonable price of £10 per night. We turned up to find the reception staff asleep on the floor, which was a bit of a surprise.

Aurangabad is cave country and over the next 3 days, we spent our time time exploring the incredible Aurangabad, Ajanta and Ellora caves.

Our first stop was the Aurangabad caves, a collection of 10 modest Buddhist caves carved out of part of the towns hillside in the 6th and 7th Century AD. There were more monkeys wandering around the temples and caves than there were people, making for a quiet atmosphere and allowing us to slowly make our way through each one. The next step up were the Ajanta caves, which we visited the following day as part of a group tour. As we arrived at the caves, our bus was immediately surrounded by touts bearing shiny minerals, postcards and other tourist toot and, once off, we each had one of our own salesman. Some had even gone to the trouble giving themselves english aliases, including Ross and Gary. Our guide for the day was incredibly militant, giving the tour the air of a school trip - "stand here", "come please", "closer sir. Sir?" - but he provided constant entertainment as well as the odd bit of insight. One factoid was that all of the colours used for the paintings within the caves were sourced locally, apart from blue which was sourced in Persia.

Ajanta Caves

The caves themselves were magnificent. Built in 200BC, the 30 caves consisted of Buddhist temples, monasteries and dining halls and assembly rooms and were carved completely by hand into the rock face. Many lay unfinished as during construction a nearby lake overflowed, flooding the area and forcing the buddhists to flee. They weren't discovered again until 1819, when the blandly named John Smith saw them from a hilltop whilst on a tiger hunting expedition. 

Ajanta Caves

Also on the tour with us were Jonny and Ali, an awesome couple from Manchester who'd spent the last 7 months travelling through South East Asia, Nepal and India. Over an amazing dinner of tandoor cooked chicken the following night, we tapped into their knowledge and picked up some excellent tips and recommendations for the next parts of our travels.

The final set of caves were Ellora, a collection of 34 hand carved caves that had been built over 5 centuries (AD 600 - 1000) and were categorised by religion - Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. The highlight was undoubtedly the Kailasa Temple. After creating 3 trenches in the rock face, 200 tonnes of rock were removed to create what looked like an ancient, long lost city worthy of an Indiana Jones film. We both walked round this ridiculous structure open-mouthed and shaking our heads - it was almost too much to take in!

Kailasa Temple

Whilst in Aurangabad, we also visited the hilltop fortress of Dalutabad, which had daunting doors covered in protruding spikes to prevent elephant attacks, and the Bibi-Qa-Maqbara, better known as 'The Poor Man's Taj' (ironically, this was built by the son of the builder of the actual Taj - King Aurangazab - after he had overthrown and imprisoned his father for the decadence and extravagance he had shown in building the original).

Poor Man's Taj

A 360km round trip also allowed us to take a walk around Lonar Crater, a 2km wide crater that is 170m deep and "the only hypervelocity natural impact crater in basaltic rock in the world". We can't help but feel as though that claim to fame is pretty niche. As we wandered around the lake, we came across various Hindu temples and, with no people around, it felt as though we were discovering them for the first time.

What the crater lacked in people, however, it more than made up for with langur monkeys. Our path became blocked a couple of times by groups of about 20 monkeys, which are normally un-intimidating as humans tend to massively outnumber them. Here though, we were hugely in the minority! Halfway around the river, having powered through a couple of groups of monkeys already, we heard a rustling in the trees up ahead before an enormous langur (were talking 3ft off the ground when still on its all-fours) jumped down and blocked our route. Our path was probably only about 2ft across, so there was little room to squeeze past, although as the big bastard showed us his teeth, any thought of trying to move past him quickly vanished. This was a fight or flight moment and, as our hearts and stomachs launched themselves into our mouths, we turned around and unashamedly flew! On the way back up to the top of the crater, we met a group of 3 schoolchildren who can't have been older than 10 that were visiting to do some research for a project. They spoke impeccable English as they told us how they "always enjoy speaking with foreigners". We bet they had the nuts to take on the enormous langur monkey. 

Lonar Crater

Just 3 hours by train from Aurangabad sits the beginning of India's wine revolution, which is being driven by Sula Vineyards. As a special treat, we booked ourselves into it's newly opened, immaculate and very plush Beyond Resort for the night. We felt unworthy pretty quickly as we turned up to the hotel in an auto, put-puting our way up the drive and, upon arrival, beginning to argue with the driver over the ridiculous price he was trying to charge us. The hotel staff quickly got involved in the negotiations and, after listening to his excuses - "we agreed a price at the station" (no we didn't) and "I won't pick up any passengers on the way back" (yes you will) - we emerged victorious, if not slightly embarrassed.

The hotel had water features running through its ground floor and each of it's rooms was named after a wine. We stayed in Malbec and savoured the warm water, immaculate bathroom and free toiletries, as well as the now unfamiliar sensation of sleeping whilst covered in a heavy duvet. A lunch, dinner and breakfast buffet was included in the price, serving up both Indian and Italian foods and which Richard happily went town on, as well as a tour of Sula's wine factory and a tasting session. We did this the following day, cycling to the factory (which produces 7 million litres a year using its 140 acres of vines) and being taken through the various stges of wine production before sampling 5 wines - 1 sparkling, 1 white (which tasted of lychee and peach - a particular highlight), 1 red, 1 rose and 1 dessert wine. Unfortunately, there was no way we were getting the bottles into our backpacks, but we took away a brochure and fully intend to order a few bottles at a later date.

Giant wine bottle at Sula Vineyard

Our time in the lap of luxury was over almost before it began and before we knew it, we were on the train to Mumbai, sitting opposite the incredibly English-ly named Alex George, who was proudly sporting double denim and was an Indian English teacher at a college in Mumbai. He quizzed us on all manner of topics, including religion. We enjoyed watching his face as Ashley told him she wasn't christened! Before he left, he gave us his card and kindly told us to contact him should we experience any problems whilst there.

Staying in Bentley's, a hostel based in an old, colonial-style building complete with red and white floor tiles, tall, Victorian staircases and an old, rickety lift, we quickly fell in love with Mumbai. Its architecture, most of which was the work of the British Raj, was astounding - the Gothic/Victorian spires and high, granite towers of CST Station (formerly known as Victoria), the huge arch of The Gateway of India looking out onto Mumbai harbour and the Islamic/Renaissance-style of the super luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.

Good food was everywhere, with Western food as easy (if not easier) to come by as Indian food. We found one place close to our hotel called Theobroma's, which we ended up eating breakfast at every day. The bakery, patisserie and chocolatier could provide you with anything from a chip butty or a fresh fruit and oat breakfast smoothie, to a bagel with cream cheese or an omlette. They also had a far-reaching selection of brownies which included peanut and toffee, marshmallow and double chocolate!

Having both read Gregory David Robert's Shantaram, as well as other things on Mumbai, we were a little apprehensive before arriving as much of what you read describes a hectic, fast-paced place that is an enormous shock. It's certainly a little crazier than your average high street, but compared to other places we've been through it was very manageable - the vehicles stay within the road markings, there are traffic lights and pedestrian crossings which drivers respond to, the stall holders are less pushy and, overall, it's clean. This is, however, the place in India where we've really experienced the extreme levels of poverty and wealth that exist side by side with one another. As well as the nearby Dharavi Slum (and others like it), which deserves its own post, scenes such as that which we saw 2 minutes walk from the decedent Taj Mahal Palace - a naked teenage boy washing himself in the middle of the road using a a jug and water from a hydrant - are all too common.

One of Mumbai's signature dishes is Bhel Puri. Made from thin fried rounds of dough with rice, lentils, lemon juice, tomato, onion, herbs and chutney, it's like a sexed up Bombay Mix and a dish you can pick up in abundance down at Chowpatty Beach for 20 Rupees (about 25 pence). An enjoyable evening walk along the seafront promenade of Marine Drive took us there, as we watched power walkers and runners pass us by and local couples sitting on the seawall. One passerby, a 60-odd year old man, stopped us at the traffic lights asking us the usual "which country?", "are you students?", "what is your good name?", "where are you staying?", directing almost all of the conversation at Richard. Harish, as he finally introduced himself as, then asked us whether we'd like to join him as his guests for drinks at his local cricket club, of which he was member. Itbalso had a pool and so we were welcome to bring swimming attire. We said we'd love to, but we were meeting friends. They were more than welcome to come along too, offered Harish. We eventually took his number, knowing full well that we wouldn't go. He seemed a well meaning, genuine guy, but we had other things to do, including meeting our friends Sally and Neale...

View over Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai

By sheer luck, it happened that they were flying into Mumbai for a short break travelling around India and, for about 24 hours, we were in the same city. We spent the night in the now infamous Leopolds Bar and Restaurant, ordering pitcher after pitcher of Kingfisher beer, catching up and getting progressively merry.

At 08.05 the following morning, our telephone, which sat on the bedside table directly to Richards right, began to ring. He picked up, saying nothing and waiting to hear if anyone was on the other end of the line. The line was silent and so and so he hung up and rolled over. Moments later the phone rang again: "Hello?".

A voice came back; "Hello, Richard? It's Harish. Do you remember me? I invited you and your friends for drinks at my cricket club." Richard's throat was dry and both of our heads felt heavy from the previous nights beers. "Are you free today?", asked Harish. We felt awful having to let him down, but we were looking forward to spending some more time with Sally an Neale. Richard therefore did the noble thing; he outright lied. "I'm sorry Harish, we actually leave Mumbai this morning". He sounded disappointed as we said our goodbyes. We're bad people!

We met Sally and Neale in Theobroma's, where the latter was mourning the loss of his camera in the back of a taxi, and spent the majority of the day trying to find Chor Bazaar (literally translated as 'Thieves Market', so-called because apparently when Queen Victoria visited Mumbai by steam ship in the 1800s, she found that various possessions had gone missing - a purse, a violin, jewellery - when they were being unloaded from the boat. Apparently, all the items were later found for sale at this market). We also went in search of Crawford Market (the place to go for fruit and veg). After wandering through Mumbai's many small lanes for over two hours, we admitted we were lost hopped into a taxi for Chor bazaar. Lonely Planet had highly recommended it as a place to source unusual antiques when, in fact, it was more like a street of garages, proffering no mor than stripped down car engines, door handles, nuts and bolts with the occasional wandering goat or cow thrown in!

We admitted defeat and went for chai and lime sodas in a cafe called Gaylord's (we know it's childish, but we only went in because of the name and couldn't help but laugh...and take copious amounts of photos of signs, menus and napkins) before saying our goodbyes. It was great to see a couple of familiar faces, catch up, have a few drinks and share a small chunk of our travels with the two of them. We had an excellent time in the city formerly known as Bombay and were pleasantly surprised by how much we loved it (although we resisted buying the t-shirt that would have acted as evidence). One to go back to and highly recommended.

x

Namaste India

Courtesy of Kingfisher, within an hour and a half we were 675km away from Sri Lanka and in a new country - India. This short flight was in stark contrast to the budget airlines at home, where you're not even given a complimentary packet of peanuts. As wells a full meal, we were given lemon juice, water and kingfisher beer, although the man in front of Ashley, who already stank of alcohol, managed to squeeze in 3 in quick succession. He will be the guy who will ruin it for the rest of the Indian population!


Stopping over Chennai for just the one night, we spent the day wondering around The Government Museum - the city's equivalent to The Natural History Museum in London. Apart from the fact that the stuffed animals could've done with a dust, it made for an interesting day and helped pass the time until our evening sleeper train to Hyderabad. The couple sleeping opposite us were on their way home after visiting their son's fiancée's parents to organise their wedding. As well as asking us why we marry so late and how we were able to go travelling, the wife gave an insight into our star signs as she was rather into her astrology. Apparently, Richard is a loyal and reliable friend and his birthday suggests that he will be rich when he is of middle age. Ashley is organised and her birthday dictates a talkative personality (pretty spot on)!

On the sleeper trains

Hyderabad is a busy, predominantly Muslim city with burqas, muezzin (call to mosque) and mosques. It was therefore fitting that we went to visit one of the world's largest mosques.  A few of the bricks at the Mecca Masjid were made using soil from Mecca (hence the name) and it had room for up to 10,000 worshipers. Before heading over to the Laad Bazaar (which contained literally hundreds of thousands of bangles), we went to the Charminar which was built to celebrate the founding of Hyderabad and is a little like the Arc De Triomphe.


We thought the roads in Sri Lanka were crazy, but the cliches of India ring true - nowhere quite compares.  There's no such thing as a one way road as there is always a stray vehicle driving the opposite way, people drive horizontally across 5,6,7 lanes of traffic and do u-turns whenever the feelings takes them. As well as cars, motorbikes and auto rickshaws, the roads contain cattle, goat and human traffic, as the latter look to avoid the pavements - home of the homeless and all round public toilet. We were no exception and, along with 100s of Hyderabadians, walked alongside the traffic. As we did, a motorbike drove past carrying two ladies wearing burqas (one of whom was carrying a microwave) and sandwiched between them was a young child. Lacking in spacial awareness, the left handlebar of the motorbike hit into Ashley's left arm knocking her sideways and leaving her with a nasty bruise. The knock unbalanced the bike and so it swerved from side to side for a few long seconds before, thankfully, righting itself.


Looking for a quieter day, we headed a few kilometres from the centre of Hyderabad to visit Golconda Fort and the Tombs of Qutb Shahi Kings. Whilst at the fort, we encountered the phenomenon of what we'll call 'gora snapping', that is local people asking for our photos. We felt like celebrities as we were asked to pose with locals young and old. In return, we asked for a photo with them and so we're slowly starting to build a catalogue of photos filled with strangers.


Whilst walking from the fort to the tombs, 2 of the guys who had asked for a photo with us earlier pulled up in auto and asked if we wanted a lift there. We don't make a habit of jumping in a taxi with everyone that offers, but their genuine nature convinced us to squeeze 4 people (plus the driver) into the tiny vehicle. Once at the tombs, Shams as Sakir Kahn (pronounced similarly to Chaka-Khan, the artist famed for the song 'I'm Every Woman') did their best to explain each one despite the obvious language barrier and also arranged for someone at the tombs to demonstrate a muezzin, placing his palms over each of his cheeks and making what can only be described as a very nasal sound. It sounded as if every warbles note was emanating from his nostrils.  The way in which one of the tombs had been designed was to act like a PA System and so this call to prayer could be heard throughout the site.

One of the 7 tombs of the Shahi Kings

We headed back into Hyderabad and Shams insisted on paying for both our bus and mini taxi fares despite our insistence - a mini taxi being like an auto on steroids, about the size of a Daihatsu Hijet and able to sit 12 people. "You are guests in my city and so I pay", he said, which would become his catchphrase for the evening. We went for a drink, Richard sampling a beer called 'Knock Out', a 7.5% strong beer and Ashley sensibly sticking to the milder Kingfisher, and 1 quickly turned into 6 plus dinner. Despite only earning a salary of 6000Rs per month (less than £100), Shams insisted on paying for the majority of the drinks and dinner. He must have spent a third of his months salary in one night and we literally could not give him the cash. We eventually managed to pick up one bill, but physically couldn't give him anymore.


We had agreed to meet Shams the following day at 12.30 at the clothes shop that he worked at, MTS Collection, but mildly hungover we were a little late and couldn't find him. One shop claimed they were MTS and even pointed at a random man claiming he was Shams. He definitely was not and so we decided that we would text him to say thanks for the previous night and sorry that we missed him. We spent the day wandering round the Birla Mandir, a Hindu temple constructed from white Rhajistani marble and in pristine condition as it was only constructed in 1976. As we walked around with our shoes off, the floors were incredibly hot due to the sun and, whilst it was great chatting to some of the locals looking to practice their English and pose for the odd Gora snap, it was difficult to stay in one spot for too long for fear of the soles of our feet melting.


A short walk amongst the traffic took us to Lumbini Park, where we caught a boat to the Buddha statue, which sits in the middle of the Hussain Sagar. It was incredible to look at and, weighing 350 tonnes, getting it into the middle of the lake wasn't without its difficulties. As they were transporting it o it's spot in 1990, the barge it sat on sank and the Buddha went down to the bottom of the lake with it, staying there for 2 years before it was retrieved in perfect condition. The lady we were speaking to on the train to Hyderabad told us about the Hindu tradition, which involves dropping a statue of Ganesh into water each year and then buying a new one. At the time, the news was apparently speculating about the conversations the Hindu and Buddhist icons were having with one another. Lumbini Park itself was lovely and very well kept, but we didn't stick around for long as various bystanders were unsubtly taking photos of us on their mobiles from a distance and without asking.

Carved from one piece of rock

The same night, as we were heading back from an incredible mutton byriani at the renowned Hotel Shadab, we passed a familiar face. It was Shams and it turned out that when he returned to work, his colleagues had told him we been looking for him. He therefore took the afternoon off and had been hanging around the road to our hostel since 3 - it was now 8pm! We took him for a couple of beers where we were able to say goodbye properly. After a couple of beers (which we managed to pay for!), he walked us back to our hostel, telling us that "this has been a very, very nice meeting" and that he would "miss us very, very much". We were "2 of his best friends", he told us, and, pointing to the 3 of us, said "this friendship is love". He wasn't drunk, but looked ready to well up. After a hug, we said our goodbyes to what was a really nice guy.

Sun, Sea and Safari

On our way down to the coast, we stopped in Tissa for a couple of nights and arranged an early morning Safari to nearby Yala National Park. We were sat in an open-backed jeep for the 6 hour safari, with Peter and Julie-Anne, a Canadian couple who will also be travelling around India for 6 weeks at the beginning of March.

Our guide said that the best time to spot a leopard (no pun intended - HA!) was first thing and so we spent our first hour in the park searching for the illusive feline. As we were beginning to give up hope, the driver suddenly shouted, "Leopard! Leopard!", pointing to one basking in the morning sun on top of a large rock - it was amazing. We sat and watched it for the 20 minutes before it got bored and slinked off down the other side of the rock. 

"Leopard! Leopard!"

As well as seeing a second, more camouflaged, leopard, we were able to see various birds (including the prehistoric looking hornbill and beautiful peacock), water buffalo, wild boars, alligators and wild elephants. Although we'd already seen elephants at the elephant orphanage at the beginning of our trip, they were still one of our favourites as it was much more satisfying being able to watch them in their natural habitat. According to the guide, the elephants consume 250kg of food, 150 litres of water and walk 25km each day

We can't get enough of the elephants

Built by the Dutch during their colonial reign in Sri Lanka, the Fort town of Galle was a 4 hour bus journey from Tissa. We spent 1 night here, wandering round the ramparts - reminiscent of St Malo - and having a nose in the small, kitsch, boutique-y shops. We could have stayed for longer (as well as spent a small fortune in some of the shops), but the fact that we could see the sea but not swim in it was too much to bear and so we left for Hikkaduwa the following morning.

A view from Galle's ramparts - you can click to enlarge

As we didn't have anywhere booked to stay in Hikkaduwa, our first task was to find a hostel. We viewed everything from the opulent (way out of our price range), to the dark and dank rooms situated between a nightclub and a kitchen. After about an hour of looking, we came across the New Imperial which offered a happy medium. 

We stayed in Hikkaduwa  for a total of 5 nights, giving us a chance to explore what was on offer, as well as indulge in the luxury of not having to put our backpack on for an extended period of time. We took a couple of yoga with a really friendly guy who originally hailed from Salisbury and who, at 57, was the most flexible person we have ever seen. He managed to get himself into some outrageous position, one of which included 'The Scorpion'. This essentially involved him getting into the handstand position and then curving his spine so that, whilst his head and eyes pointed towards the sky, his feet dangled in front of his face. He also had an excellent repetoire of hippy phrases, including "come along to the class and we can find out a little bit more about you" and referring to the class as "a ballet of the body". Throughout the class, he continually repeated "relax the face and you'll relax the booo-dy", lingering on the 'o' for a couple of seconds to drag out every bit of sound he could. 

We also tried out surfing for the first time, which is pretty shameful given the fact that we come from Jersey, taking an hour lesson each and hiring out a board for the afternoon. Whilst Richard was more successful than Ashley when standing up, we both thoroughly enjoyed it.  

The beach was renowned for snorkeling and diving and so we did both. We took ourselves snorkeling with a rented pair of fins and swam the 1km out to the coral to see the tropical fish. The swim out was challenging as we had waves crashing into us from both ends of the bay. Not only that, but the coral was less than a metre away with lots of sea anemones attached. We powered through, doing our best not to touch them, and made it there and back. It was tiring but well worth it as we saw a number of incredibly coloured fish (not that we know what any of them were called) - vivid blues, pinks and yellows - ranging from a centimetre to a good 1 foot in length.

Sunset views from Funky de Bar

We went scuba diving to a 125 year old oil ship - the first to leave Sri Lanka, but crashed against the rocks just a few kilometres from the bay. The wreckage was 21 metres down (it was still warm down there at 27 degrees) and we swam through one of its windows so that we were inside the boat with schools of brightly coloured fish. Admittedly it was a little eerie, but incredible all the same. Ashley was pretty low on air from the moment we hit the sea bed and, by the time we were making the ascent to the surface 35 minutes later, she said it felt it was as of she was breathing through a straw. This was hardly surprising as her air tank was completely empty, her air gauge reading '0'.

Other than the activities, Hikkaduwa offered beautiful beaches, with fantastic sunsets and atmosphere. We loved the fact that you could lie on a sun lounger on the beach with a large beer for only 2 pound or a fresh pineapple - cut up before your very eyes - for one pound fifty. If you didn't fancy a pineapple, you could always have a fresh coconut for 50p. It also had some excellent restaurants, from traditional Sri Lankan at the chilled out Top Secret or the more lively Funky de Bar, to the amazing and authentic Italian food at Spaghetti & Co. 

You can see the lady who sold them in the background (left)

Our final night in Sri Lanka was a slight splurge at the Icebear Guesthouse in Negombo, - just 20 minutes from the airport. The guesthouse is a Swiss owned, colonial themed gem with beautiful rooms and seafood caught fresh each day by the staff (including shark). It was the perfec end what felt like a very quick visit to Sri Lanka. 

We will miss the people, the indigenous curries, the breakfasts, the sambol (a shredded coconut mixed with lime and chilli that accompanies most meals), the thin and thick roti (think naan meets crepe), the buses and the beach...but there's plenty more to come in India.