After breakfast, we had some sightseeing and souvenir shopping to do in Galle before getting to Kamburugamuwa. We also needed to get cash but the power was out in the Old Town so the ATM's didn't work.
We asked our hotel about the costs for a private driver, in the meantime we went to see the Main Gate and Moon Bastion of the Fort Walls. Unfortunately the clock tower was under scaffolding, as it's the common subject of pics of the fort.
We could see the train station just outside the walls, just a few minutes away, so walked over to check out the Sunday schedule. There was a train at 11am and 2pm. Maybe we could get our shopping done and catch the 11am?
First we hit the ATMs (power was good in the new town). We walked back and bought the souvenirs we had our eyes on - an acrylic-on-wood painting, and some incense oil. The power had just come back on in the old town so we could pay by credit card.
We also got the contact info for our favourite item we saw. It's enormous wooden fan blades from an old tea factory. They were used in the drying process, and are about 9' tall. They were pretty expensive and would have to be be shipped home. Definitely not a carry-on item! (I don't even know if I could lift it at all!)
It was 10:15am so we rushed to pack up and check out of the hotel, and took a tuktuk to the train station (we could have walked but we had our packs and it was only $1.50), with plenty of time to spare, enough to track down the station master and figure out how many stops we had to go (4 stops).
The train arrived on time, and was only half-full so we were able to get seats together. I tracked our progress on the cached Google Maps map, so even without knowing it was 4 stops, it was easy to see when to get off the train.
There was a (single) tuktuk driver at the station who asked Rs 150 ($1.50) to take us to our hotel (Imagine Hotel), so we piled in. Turns out our hotel is very close to the train station, and it probably took longer to get in and out of the tuktuk with our big packs, than the actual drive. Oh well.
Heather had found the hotel on tripadvisor, it was away from the bulk of hotels in Mirissa, with a long stretch of open beach. We checked in, freshened up, and had a quick lunch, which wasn't that special.
Walked down the street in Kamburugamuwa to buy some water, as well as to see whatever else was around. Not much. We'd have to head into Mirissa or Matara (10 minutes / $4 by tuktuk) if we wanted to go out. However this wasn't a problem as we had planned to mostly relax at the hotel, catch up on reading by the ocean, and have dinners at the hotel.
Walked down the beach a bit, it was really hot in the sun. The sunset was nice, although not as spectacular as Kawthoung in Myanmar.
We arranged for a whale watching excursion for the next day. Blue whales migrate around this part of the coast.
Dinner was excellent. We had pre-ordered the grilled seafood platter, and everything was fresh and grilled perfectly. Had shrimp, lobster, crab, squid, plus two kinds of fish, served with garlic rice, salad, and a butter sauce for dipping. Mmm good. We ate outside on the porch, with the ocean waves crashing just beyond. It was very nice.
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