Diving in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka

[J.] We were planning to do some dives while being in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka before starting to explore the culture and national parks inland. We chose to do the dives with the Poseidon dive station, mainly because of all the good online reviews and their convenient location directly at the beach. The crew and divemasters were very nice and helpful and put a lot of emphasis on standard diving procedures, for example checking on us in detail while we were busy asembling the dive equipment.
The first two dives were wrack dives and fairly relaxed. The underwater life is not as rich and diverse as for example in Thailand, but there is still plenty to see.
The two dives the next day were fairly similar, but I could not believe how unlucky we were after having finished the second dive. It was a fairly shallow dive, not deeper than 14 meters. I was back at the boat for maybe 20 seconds, just got my equipment off and was watching two other divers getting out of the water when someone on the boat shouted "Whale shark, whale shark"! My head was spinning around, trying to get an idea about the direction where to watch and at the same time looking for my fins and mask. The whale shark was directly next to the boat (apparently) and all I managed to see was a blurry, undefined shadow in the water, not more. They could have told me anything, I would have not been able to identify what water creature it has been. Aaaaaargh! The whale shark disappeared quickly, no chances for me of getting back into the water (mask still out of reach). My husband actually jumped back into the water but could not see it as well. .. Our divemaster was the only one from our group seeing the whale shark and he told me later that on average they see them once a month and then generally in deeper water. Nooooooo!
I mean, we were diving in Mosambique to see the whale sharks without any luck (but were rewarded with manta rays and a big turtle) only to miss one here in Sri Lanka by maybe a minute. I could not believe it... One day later, another diver was telling me that she has also seen the whale shark and my first impulsive thought was "Bleah, I dont like you", but she was actually very nice ;)

We started the rescue diver certification the next day which meant back to the class room for a full day and then two consequent practical diving days thereafter.
The first practical lessons were in very shallow water where everyone could still stand. The most difficult situations are around panicking divers and during one of my exercises the simulating panicked divemaster pushed out my regulator when I came too close. They told us later that during another rescue diver course, one divemaster was pushing out the regulator of a student, taking off his mask as well and climbed onto him holding him under water for quite some time. This student was feeling sick for 2 days afterwards! Shjoe... thats learning the really hard way!
The second day of practical lessons included a surface rescue of a tired/panicked diver as well as a search for a lost diver, finding him unconscious under water, surfacing him and providing rescue breaths every 5 seconds while taking off his and your own equipment and swimming to the boat at the same time. We were fairly unlucky with the weather conditions, quite high waves (approx. 1.5 to 2 meters?) and poor underwater visibility (< 5 meters).
I was swallowing so much water during the first lesson, I almost felt like asking for help myself ;)
The second exercise does not sound that difficult, but providing the rescue breaths while counting loudly to 5 in between, making sure no water is getting onto the victims face and doing all the other things is actually more difficult than I expected. I got the counting mixed up (1, 3, 4,...) or could not find the strap releases I normal know exactly where they are. It was a mission, haha!
Three of us students (out of four) were fighting sea sickness or the first signs of it, so I guess in the end the course instructor was feeling a bit for us, and overlooking some small errors we made during these exercises ;)
We were also watched by a turtle who stuck her head out of the water for quite some time. For me, that made up for the bad luck with the whale shark to a large extent.

We all passed the course and with that, husband and I can successfully tick off one more point that was on our list for 2015 (getting the rescue diver certificate). We made it just in time...

Tsunami museum, Telwatta, Sri Lanka

[J.] On 24 December, we went to the tsunami museum in Telwatta, just about 4km north of Hikkaduwa.

The museum is a collection of photographs taken by various people from that day on 26 December 2004, and run by a local lady who lived in that place before the tsunami hit her home, destroying it to the grounds and having been rebuilt afterwards. The entry is free, but visitors can leave a donation if they like.

Some things that I did not know before include that the tsunami here in Sri Lanka came in two waves: the first comparably low, flooding the coastal area after which the water went back to the sea to a large extent leaving the people behind wondering what just happened,  taking photographs and even catching fish from the shore. The second wave was reported to be a 10 meter high wave having the disastrous effect everyone knows about.
The second thing I did not know was that after Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the country with the second highest number of death casualties. And the third is that during that event a train with hundreds of people on board was hit resulting in approx. 1700 deaths (people drowing while trapped in the coaches or smashed while hiding from the waters behind or on top of the train when it was hit by the second wave, as far as I understand). This is reportedly the train accident with the highest number of death casualties ever. There is also a memorial (Buddha statue) at the place where the train was hit by the waves.

As Sri Lanka found itself in a civil war when the tsunami hit, which effected something like two thirds or three quarters of its coastline. After the tsunami, a temporarily ceasefire was agreed on. The cicil war ended in 2009.

[Pics will follow]

Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka

[J.] We travelled from Nepal via Thailand to Sri Lanka on Friday, 18 December. After more than 5 weeks of wearing long (India) and warm clothes (Nepal) we were longing for sunny beach weather and I was keen to trade the fleeze and hoodies in for skirts and shirts which were packed away in my luggage since the beginning of our trip.

Arriving in Bangkok, Thailand more then 4 years after our first holiday in Asia was exciting as we saw the airport with such different eyes after having been to so many other countries since. Years ago, we only noticed how different this airport looks compared to european airports; now we were stunned by the sheer size and modern look of it.

We arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka very late that night. The owner of the guesthouse we had booked in advance had been so friendly to pick us up and we were glad after a full travel day to not having to deal with transport or taxi drivers.
It is not allowed to import cigarettes to Sri Lanka, and as my bucket list for this year 2015 still unsuccessfully states "stop smoking", well...I thought, that it might be a great idea to just stop exactly that day. What a failure! - being tired and stressed after queueing up and waiting so many times that day, the first thing I did after stepping out of the airport was asking our driver where I could buy cigarettes. He was walking with us to such a hidden shop directly outside of the dark airport, I would have not guessed it there. Funnily enough, he mentioned that he was glad about this smoking break as he was also craving one and does not smoke at home... I like to think, we went along pretty well for the one day stay at his place... ;)

We moved on south to Hikkaduwa taking the train along the west coast. The train was super crowded and we knew that our train ride was about to last more then 2 hours with obviously no chances to catch a seat or at least sitting on the floor. Uuuurgh... The doors to both side of the train were wide open at least and we were thankful for the fresh brize of air cooling us down. But beside all this, the almost constant view onto the ocean was the bomb and compensated easily for having to stand the whole ride. When we arrived in Hikkaduwa, the train stopped but there was no platform to get off the train. So we waited, believing that the platform would appear after the road the train had to cross. Well, it did not and we made the whole trip down to Galle, about 25km further south. Oh, no!!... the train had simply been too long so that our coach did not stop somewhere with a platform close to it. We had no idea if there would be another train departing that late afternoon back from Gaule to Colombo via Hikkaduwa and the thought of having to spent money on a taxi ride for nothing was not adding to our not-so-great mood. But we were lucky, arriving in Galle we could catch a train back departing only 10 minutes later. By then, the idea was to jump off the train in Hikkaduwa regardless of having a platform or not and I was prepared to even through my bag and myself off a slowly moving train, just wanting to arrive and stop travelling for this day.
Finally after arriving in Hikkaduwa (with the coach stopping next to a platform), we were rewarded with a front beach bungalow and seldom has a beer tasted so good... Cheers!

We spent two absolutely lazy days without doing anything more then spending time at the beach, beach bars, playing frisbee (I so struggled throwing the frisbee straight instead of in all other directions, this classic girl style was worth quite some laughs... oh oh.) and watching the sun set with palm trees, the sound of waves and perfect sand being such a cliché, it almost hurt. The surfing scene and all the other tourists add to a very relaxed vibe, not too crowded, tourists of mixed age and a laid back atmosphere.

The next day, we hired a scooter to explore the coast further south, visiting Galle and Mirissa. Driving on the road is more or less safe; generally, bigger vehicles clearly have the right of way. Although the general driving speed is around 40 to 50 km per hour, buses drive like crazy and it is a good idea to stay as clear of them as you can. We had two instances with us being directly involved, one as a pedestrian and one on the scooter where I thought, this is totally crazy and a seriously dangerous behaviour (buses going at high speed when passing us).
The streets in the fort of Galle are beautiful, with an old colonial style and we were wandering down the alleys for some time and hunting down a breakfast. In Merissa, we stayed only for an afternoon coffee somewhere at the beach and the tourists seemed younger here compared to Hikkaduwa. After one day on the road, my cheeks and chin were slightly covered in black oily dust, which did not even wanted to go properly off after a long swim in the sea. Yikes!
Overall, I so enjoyed the ride along the coast and its beautiful scenery. It seems like new buildings and resorts are being built everywhere but still not giving the impression of an over touristy place. Along the road, there were still signs and ruins caused by the 2004 tsunami, even one modern hotel being built around the facade of a destroyed previous building. And the lonely beaches invite for a break, picnic or just to relax.

We moved our guesthouse on 23 December to a diving centre just up the road. The next days will be dedicated to diving and maybe doing the rescue diver qualification. Sooooo looking forward to it!

[Pics will follow]