Trincomalee - Days 108-110

Introducing guest author: Tyler Mielke!

After a restless few days of travel from Chicago to Colombo, I was anxiously awaiting my first full night of sleep on our eight hour overnight train to Trincomalee, or Trinco for short. When researching the Sri Lankan railway system, I was happy to know that we would be in the 2nd class, air conditioned, reserved seats. However, after boarding the train we discovered that the "air conditioning" was merely a few small, rotating fans on the ceiling that reminded me of the same fan I had clipped to my lofted bed in my college dorm room. A couple other Sri Lankan passengers on the train agreed that this wouldn't suffice for a cooling system, so they began opening the windows in our train car, and we followed suit. This made for a refreshing breeze in the 80 degree evening heat as we pulled away from the station.

As we departed, we soon realized that having the windows open meant we exposed ourselves to the sound of loud, clanking metal on metal from a very dated train and railway infrastructure. Even with a solid pair of ear plugs, it was loud enough that it was difficult for any of us to sleep more than 30 minutes at a time (Ben even thinks 30 minutes is a steep estimate). While reminiscing on the raucous ride, we pulled together the following list of descriptors: jostling, inhospitable, inhumane, deafening. We finally made it to Trinco at sunrise and had mix of tuk tuk, hiking, and bus ride to get us to our hotel in the small village of Nilaveli.

It may have been a long journey, but Trinco was a must-see on our Sri Lankan tour because of its diving. The next day and a half we dove multiple spots around Pigeon Island National Park, a couple of islands just 15 minutes off the coast of Nilaveli beach in the Indian Ocean. Our dive leaders, Roy and Pany, navigated us through a few of the dozen or so dive sites that they frequented: Parrot Rock, Ypselon, and Eric's Point. These guys clearly knew the best places around the park. Roy has been diving Pigeon Island for 17 years and could barely keep himself in the boat, and Pany was able to pet a stingray's tail - yes, just like you'd pet a dog - after claiming to have befriended the young ray over the last few months of diving Eric's Point. Needless to say, they knew what they were doing and we quickly found out why Trinco is a diving hot spot.

Pigeon Island is home to a variety of coral reefs and dozens of tropical fish. The highlights from the dive were clown fish, cuddle fish, rays, turtles, and a few blacktip sharks. Believe it or not, we saw our first shark while taking a break from diving and snorkeling in the shallow water near the island. Yep, that's right, all of the sharks were hanging out in the shallows! Ben and Meg didn't seem to think twice about this, but I was definitely nervous being that it was my first dive.

After a few hours of snorkeling/diving, we worked up an appetite and were ready to check out the Trinco food scene. We headed down to Uppaveli beach, a slightly more touristy area which meant more restaurant options. We tasked Ben the night before with finding a restaurant close to the beach, and he came through strong with a place called "Rice & Curry". Can you guess what we ate?! If you guessed "rice and curry", you're wrong. Meg got a seafood noodle dish, Ben had Kottu (a classic Sri Lankan dish with mixture of veggies, egg, and roti/bread), and I had seafood mixed rice dish. All were delicious, and we found they had a dinner buffet that included eight different types of curry, so we came back the next night and got our fix of rice and curry... so if you guessed "rice and curry" before, you were kind of were right... anyways, this proved to be our favorite dining spot in Trinco.

For our final day in Trinco, we rented a couple mopeds and drove up the eastern coast on highway B424 (calling it a "highway" seems a bit aggressive considering we shared the road with bicycles and dozens of cows, and a couple calfs were even feeding in the middle of the road). Exploring the coast on mopeds was a great way to see some of the remote fishing villages, untouched beaches, temples, and the small town of Pulmadi. Also, for $10 per moped per day, it's a pretty inexpensive method to get around. We finished off the day by hitting up a beach bar, Fernandos, with a round (or two) of large Sri Lankan lagers.

All in all, Trinco ended up being a fairly remote destination in Sri Lanka, with less tourists than our other stops in Colombo and Arugam Bay (see next post!). It was a great spot for my first time diving as well as some relaxing on the beach before gearing up for our trekking in Nepal.

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