Subject: Report # 79 Sailing Towards Hambantota, Sri Lanka March 19, 2016 Saturday Partly cloudy & 79 degrees
Life onboard remains busy as we continue our journey towards Sri Lanka. Having two days at sea has been nice, giving everyone a chance to recover and relax. At least every other person on the lower promenade deck was snoozing all afternoon on the comfortable teaks lounges. With the temperature dropping slightly, and the breeze blowing, it is the perfect place to read or listen to tunes with earphones.
Since we will be gone for seven days, we needed to tend to the garden plants. The pots of sunflowers needed a good soaking, and also needed some cleaning up, leaf-trimming, etc. Some of the other pots are bulbs that have bloomed already, and are now simply greens. They have no drainage, so need little or no water. Today, we separated the pots, putting only the sunflowers on the windowsill. The bulbs are on the little coffee table. Our room steward, Denny, has offered to water the plants for us, and now we made it easy for him. Will probably have to water them twice during the week. Some of the Asian lily blooms are about to open, and will probably do so when we are gone. Bet we are greeted with a fine aroma when we return.
We listened to Barbara H's talk on the port of Hambantota. She has never been there, which is almost unbelievable, since she has been everywhere. In fact, the Rotterdam recently stopped there for the first time. From what we understand, this port is all about the national parks, although there are some other sites to take in.
We were more concerned about the access to our car and driver, who will be picking us up tomorrow. Barbara informed us that it may be a mile to the port gate, but they have ordered three shuttles to take the passengers there to get taxis to town. Apparently, it is a 6 ½ mile drive to the center of town, but no free shuttle bus to take us that far. The taxi "union" is too powerful in Sri Lanka, so they cannot procure anything free. And she won't know until tomorrow if the tour buses or other private vehicles will be allowed past the pier gates.
Anyway, speaking of tours, there are a few offered here. One is a trip to a temple and painted caves….seven of them to be exact. They date back to 130BC and rise up 676 feet tall. This tour does come with a warning about the steep climb, and costs $90 per person. The shore excursion staff often tell the guests to really access their capabilities before booking these rigorous tours. They cannot say no to some folks, but they strongly advice against some tours for those with mobility limitations.
Then the tours are all about the parks……with Elephants of Udawalawe for 7 ½ hours. This is a 4 x 4 vehicle ride to see a variety of animal life, concentrating on a group of 40 elephants in a transit home. These are rescued orphans that are rehabilitated to be returned to the wild. This fun tour runs $165 per person and includes lunch at a hotel.
The second park is Bundala National Park, which is home to 149 different species of resident and migratory birds. The large flock of greater flamingos migrate here, as many as 2000 of them. This is a 4 hour tour for $120.
Yala National Park is one of the oldest and most famous National Park in Sri Lanka. It is located one hour from Hambantota, and is also where we will be spending five days at a safari camp on our own. Thirty-two species of animal reside there, but the most famous of them is the elusive leopard. This particular tour is 5 hours either by bus, or in a 4 x 4 vehicle. The bus costs $150 and the 4wheel drive is $135. Once again, these tours come with warnings for folks with back and neck problems.
Another HAL overnight tour is offered to this area with a drive back to Colombo via the city of Galle. That runs $849 per person, but may not operate, since they only have 7 takers at this point. They are looking for three more people in order to keep the tour. Martha, our tablemate, is booked on that, and will be so disappointed if it is cancelled.
Besides the lectures happening today, the biggest event appeared to be the Mongolian Stir Fry on the Lido deck. Not our cup of tea, we met Barb and Maureen for lunch again in the dining room. Our waiters are so nice in there, as we also have them at breakfast time every day. We ordered appetizers, salads, a mini-hamburger, and a panini with French fries. At 2pm, Barb was off to another World Wine Guys Wine Tasting in the Wajang Theater. These two fellows, Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, are travel writers, educators, and television presenters. We recognized them when they boarded, because they were also on the Tales of the South Pacific cruise last fall. Today they are featuring wines from the Old World. We hope they are better than yesterday's choices, because Barb did not care for them.
Between walks outside, we watched a movie, Aloha, with several good actors. Last night, we watched No Escape, really good about sudden violence in a foreign country involving traveling Americans. Sort of gave one of us nightmares, it was so real. That was how we felt while watching the movie about the tsunami that hit this area back in 2004. Evidence of that damage will be seen by some guests on a few of the tours.
The ship posted a "stay healthy & travel well" notice on the front page of the paper today, emphasizing the importance of hand washing with soap, and using the hand sanitizers. Hope this is just precautionary. Whatever the reason, more mini bottles of Purell were available for the asking at the front desk. We took two to have extra while we are away. Also picked up the port info in Dubai, and the contact numbers for the Amsterdam……just in case.
Most everything we liked was on the menu tonight. One of us had the turkey dinner, complete with dressing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. And someone, like me, had spaghetti and meatballs, always available in the Lido for lunch, but seldom at dinner. The Asian-style ribs looked really good, so we will have to try them the next time they re-appear on the menu. We are going to miss our dinners with our buddies, but they should have lots of things to share with us when we get back.
OK, so here's the plan for the following week for us. We drive to Yala National Park from Hambantota, and get settled in the lodge. Lunch will be served, then we will be ready for the late afternoon game drive. That should last until dark, when dinner will be served. The following day, we repeat the game drive in the early morning, followed by breakfast. There is free time until lunch, then off we go again on the PM drive. Dinner follows after the drive. We will repeat that for four days. Our main objective is to see the leopards, but there will be many more animals and birds to photograph as well.
The rest of the trip will take us from the lodge to the city of Galle, where we have a two night stay with tours both days. We will drive to Colombo, seeing some of the major sites there, then off to a hotel by the airport for one night. On Sunday, we will fly from Sri Lanka to Dubai, and join the ship on her first day there. Hope we have lots of adventures to share with everyone by then.
In case you don't hear from us for seven days, that means we did not bring the computer. We are not sure what kind of amenities the safari camp will have in the way of available internet, so we are undecided about bringing it. We promise that we will be back.
Stay tuned……..
Bill & Mary Ann
