What to do in Hikkadu...

‘What to do, madam?’ The infamous Sri Lankan phrase spoken by locals when they can’t (or won’t) help in a variety of situations: the shower isn’t working: ‘what to do’?; your dog’s barking kept me up all night: ‘it’s a problem - what to do?’; my transport hasn’t arrived: ‘driver is on Sri Lankan time, madam – what to do?’. You get my drift. It’s actually a great saying which I love to use myself, an understood and kindred phrase used by all Sri Lankans! 'What to do in Hikkadu' became a phrase used for nothing other than simple lazy rhyme as we travelled on our frequent trips to Hikkaduwa from our hectic city lives a couple of hours away. I lived near this wonderfully long stretch of beach for two years, and when I moved to the big smoke it became my retreat from city life.

Returning to Sri Lanka this time around wouldn’t have been complete without the obligatory Hikka trip. And the only real way to experience it was to get the bus from my old flat in Colombo’s Wellawatta suburb to travel the 100km south to Hikkaduwa. I went with friends on a Saturday, usually a good day for a bus journey – not so busy, less traffic, etc. However, there were very few buses which we soon found out was due to a national bus strike, only a handful were actually running. What to do?!

Bussing it
There are two types of bus to get in Sri Lanka: either a) an AC bus (privately run air conditioned mini buses, bloody freezing but easier to get a seat and usually faster); or b) a noisy smelly monster bus (big buses run by both private companies and the government - the only difference I can see between them is that the government buses are red). We got one of the big monsters – a white bus leaning at an extreme angle towards the left dangerously dragging over the wheels, it was as though there was a bulky elephant weighing down one side of the vehicle. I think this is some kind of long term damage from the amount of people on the buses each day, gradually the buses gain a slanting angle like a permanent limp. This bus disability is a leftwards lean where the front and back doors get jammed with passengers every day in rush hour - people clinging on with one hand and one foot (two if lucky) as they travel peacefully to work! It’s an experience where personal space can’t even be considered as you are squished by bags, busts, and butts, crotches and armpits, and are surrounded, of course, by smiling faces!

Hot, though strangely not bothered, I somehow managed to score a seat much to the chagrin of a nearby Muslim man with his family – two wives and a son. Wives and son were lovely, friendly and smartly dressed, while husband was scruffy and bossy trying to tell everyone his wives were sick so that they would give up their seats to his family. There’s no way I could give up my seat, even if I had wanted to, with my heavy bag weighed down by camera, lenses, laptop and a few clothes for the week balanced on my knees, and nowhere else it could possibly go. So for the entire journey I seemed to have camera bag and Muslim family in my lap. Though I think I fared better than my friends – Jan, who is a big framed German guy, spent most of the journey standing on one leg hanging onto the ceiling rail swinging his way south; David, of smaller frame, was standing completely squashed in the middle of the bus finding it hard to breathe; while Lisa was sandwiched at the back with her bright red t-shirt trying to avoid the SL boys taking advantage of the packed bus situation!

I still managed, with one eye towards the window looking through the transparent sleeve of one of the Muslim ladies, to enjoy my favourite scenery as we travelled south. Colour all along the roadside. I never tire of watching Sri Lankans get on with their daily lives selling all things from coconuts to plastic buckets, to roti to fish. Flashes of greens, yellows, oranges, reds, blues, purples – as we passed sarees, sarongs, shop fronts, houses, palm trees, bicycles, motorbikes, brightly coloured trucks and tuk tuks, rivers and the sea. This all accompanied by the familiar smells of spices, curries, fish and fumes - Sri Lanka! Scenes and scents dramatised by the loud and tinny sound track on the bus which blasted Hindi music through crackled speakers all the way to our destination.

Hanging out in Hikka
It is a wonderful feeling to arrive in Hikkaduwa, ignoring the horrendously noisy smelly Galle Road that leads to and through the middle of town, as to me it is a symbol of peace and tranquillity - a home from home. We hopped off the bus and took a 3-wheeler to our accommodation on the beach, and when we squeezed through the shops and guest houses that line Galle Road it was time for the big ‘sigh’ as we had finally arrived.

Hikkaduwa beach is about a mile long (that’s my calculation not an accurate description!), curving its way along the Indian Ocean with its warm shallow bays of dark reef, deep dappled blues and booming white surf. It’s a sea that demands respect for its strong currents as demonstrated by the way it pushes and pulls at the sand forming an ever changing beach which banks, flattens and curves its way along the coast. Across the sand this characterful beach is sheltered by the elongated shadows of coconut palms. These classically tropical trees hang over the beach as though they are giant daddy longlegs with orange coconuts tightly tucked into their branches like spider eggs. The trees are scattered in between Hikkaduwa’s higgledy piggledy guest houses with ramshackle tables, chairs and beach beds filling out onto the sand. This is an uncrowded paradise dotted with happy looking tourists enjoying much of the beach to themselves as numbers have still not recovered since the horrors of the tsunami, the fear of the war and the impact of the world’s economic crisis.

One of my favourite Hikka pastimes is a morning stroll along this stretch of soft orange sand – striding through the shallows from the guest house to the village of Dodanduwa at the far end of the beach. Early morning is a wonderful time in Hikkaduwa – a time when the party goers have gone to bed, the beach boys have not yet arisen and real community life surrounds you. I love to walk and feel the morning sun as it sneaks out over the palm trees to the east before the day becomes stiflingly hot. It’s a time to encounter genuine Sri Lankan lives watching the fishing boats return from their night out at sea and the fishermen pull in their nets. This is no easy task – heavy boats and heavy nets have to be dragged up the beach by tiny, agile Sri Lankan men with weather beaten skin enveloping wiry muscles working hard to pull in their catch. A task that needs help, which soon arrives as villagers emerge through the trees to add to the line of men pulling the ropes that drag the fish filled nets onto the beach. From the distance this looks like a giant tug-of-war game with up to 10 men, bare chested wearing hitched-up sarongs, pulling at a huge rope that leads into the sea - the hidden fish their underwater opponents. Once the pulling and heaving is done the locals are rewarded for their work by heading home with the catch of the day, and the fishermen set to selling their fish or transporting them up to restaurants in Colombo.

For me this is a blissfully wandering hour or so, soaking up local life before turning back to the guest house for my morning cup of tea. A time when I never cease to be amazed at just how lucky I’ve been to have this on my back door step for so many years.

Beach life
Back at the ranch the others were slowly emerging - time to get ready for a busy beach day! This was a new kind of Hikka for me – in the past the beach was a weekend retreat where I disappeared, often alone, to hang out by the sea, read, walk, swim and catch up with the locals from the nearby village I worked in. But having left my life in Sri Lanka to only return for a few precious weeks it became a different experience for me. This time I guess I went more as a tourist as I travelled with a group of expats - friends from Germany, Switzerland, UK, France. I even stayed in a different guest house, a first for this creature of habit! It was nice to share my past haunts with old and new friends and it also felt like I was passing them on to the next group who had come to make Sri Lanka their home. The new accommodation (Vernon’s) was much cheaper than my habitual Drifters, not so nice but perfectly adequate – a single bed with mosquito net, fan and ensuite shower – can’t ask for more at £4 a night.

Being back on the beach also meant being back amongst the familiar creatures - I looked out of my door and watched a crab sizing me up with its big eyes, leaning backwards, folding its claws in front of it as if deciding whether to scuttle past or attack. I left the curious crustacean to its indecisions and ducked inside for a quick freshen up. It’s always tough to return to cold showers, I lived this way for two years and still find it excruciating to get under one but always refreshing after the first few seconds. In fact I’ve realised that when you shower in Sri Lanka the cold water becomes warm as it reaches your feet and hits the floor. (But when I returned to the freezing cold UK to my horror I noticed the opposite – hot water became cold after passing down my shivering body leaving barely tepidly water to reach my feet and hit the floor. Not pleasant!)

Apart from the familiar things, Vernon’s had a different view to where I usually stay – rather than the middle of the beach it is situated on the corner where the main surf rolls in and is placed on a high bank of sand with the waves lapping below. Tables and chairs were placed under the ubiquitous Sri Lankan corrugated iron roof which was held up by vertical wooden pillars - these functioned rather like windows to the surf as they broke up the panoramic view. A fantastic place to have a cuppa whilst watching the surfers bobbing up and down in the distance to vie for their morning wave.

Surf is Hikkaduwa’s main attraction for most visitors so Lisa decided to plunge into areas new as she took her inaugural surf lesson with Neil from Wales – yes we even hooked up with tourists, another new experience! Three lovely lads from Wales – Neil, James and Fish who were thoroughly enjoying their surf trip to Sri Lanka and seemed quite happy to learn a little about the history of the island as well. It was so refreshing to have people interested in what’s going on but bringing an optimism that is so much needed. Sri Lanka needs more visitors who are willing to understand what the people have gone through, and not be scared to explore and see the island for the wonderful place it is. Though with the wonder also came the more challenging side to Sri Lankan life... Lisa’s surf lesson ended in a stormy tale.

Beach deterrents
Those of you that know me are aware of my irrational (?) fear of storms as I cower like a frightened animal when the big tropical mothers come though. To be fair this is partly due to my house being struck by lightning and burning down when I was a wee lass, but that’s another story. So when the heavy rains fall in Sri Lanka I know that it is time for me to find a place to hide as it’s almost inevitable that a massive storm will follow the floods falling from the sky. This time there were five of us sitting on a couple of beach beds when the rains rapidly descended. These beds are more like mini huts – mattresses placed on waist high platforms sitting on stilts buried into the sand, topped with flimsy roofs made of woven palms that tend to leak when overly challenged with monsoonal weather! As the heavy waters dropped at terrific speed I was caught between my fear of the coming storm and the importance of protecting my camera gear - to dash for cover would have meant total drenching and ruination of my equipment. The others laughed at me trembling on the mattress, cuddling my bag and wishing the storm away. However, the mockery soon stopped as there was an almighty crash accompanied by a huge flash and terrified screams from all!

I was facing the sea huddled up with my jaw slowly dropping as I watched lightning fork the shallows right in front of us, James was facing the land and saw the lighting flashing on the other side of us – so it basically forked either side of our little hut like a hat of electricity being placed over our heads. We realised our lucky escape when we saw the faces of people about 20 feet away staring dumbfounded after witnessing whatever we had narrowly escaped. In addition to being terrified by the deafening bang and the blinding flash, Lisa and Fish got zapped! Both had their feet on the beach and both were wearing metal (rings on fingers and toes) and both felt an electric shock as the lightning struck. Nothing serious but enough to make us all dash for cover, giggle nervously, tremble a lot and order comforting cups of tea and bottles of beer. When the storm rumbled off southwards we remained in the safety of the café watching people slowly emerge back on to the beach and the boats slide off the sand back into the water. The most amazing sight for us was watching a fishing boat circle the exact spot where the lighting had struck – our theory was that they were looking for dead fish and again we realised just how lucky we had been!

However, we weren’t so lucky in escaping the vermin of the beach – the dirty old massage men who hunch over the beds smelling strongly of weed and grinning cruel toothless grins. They tried to sell us pineapples for ten times the normal price and attempted to offer us overpriced massages. When we asked them to go away in Sinhala they would hobble off leaving an echo of Faganesque laughter as if we were the freaks. This may sound a little mean but they are old men who are sadly drugged up to their eyeballs, were probably good looking beach boys 30 years ago but somewhere along the way they became mean, hardened, grizzled and ready to cheat any foreigner out of a buck or ten. Sadly they also seemed to be teaching their youngsters a trick or two - I was accosted twice by a trainee beach boy who must have been no older than 14!

Beach boys and the old men are a pest – they walk in parallel to you along the beach from 10 metres away and gradually angle themselves a path that ‘accidentally’ collides with yours. Then they offer you something like a very expensive lagoon boat ride (if you’re lucky) or weed, brown sugar or even a young boy or girl to keep you company. This trainee beach boy was pushed towards me by some of the twisted older men and as he approached I told him to leave me alone, I wasn’t interested. He was not deterred. He kept asking my name, my country, whether I was married (common Sri Lankan questions) so in Sinhala I politely told him where to go. Then he nervously called me ‘sexy?’, putting the one word to me as though it was a question, as he clearly didn’t know how to cope with this difficult foreigner and knew no more words. Who knows what he was trying to achieve but I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or give him a whack around the ear and tell him to bugger off home to his parents!

There are people who visit here, or temporarily volunteer here, that would say I’m being cruel about these beach vermin, after all it’s their country they are only trying to make some dosh. However, I don’t condone old men who cheat you, men who push drugs (probably bad quality and highly over priced), or men who sell boys and girls. They bring shame to their country. The local community could start up a tourist friendly service vetting those that patrol the beach so sellers that are genuine and actually take the money back to their families are the ones that benefit from the tourist dollar. Sadly I don’t see this problem as being top priority with the tourism promoters in Sri Lanka who boost the big hotels and festivals but tend to ignore the local communities leaving the beaches to the guest houses. But someone needs to take responsibility - maybe they’ll read this and finally decide to do something about the problems of the beach boys and their impact on communities and on tourists. (Rant over!)

Reminisced and relaxed
Aside from nearly being struck by lightning and getting a little animated by the hassle on the beach it was yet another lovely trip to Hikkaduwa. This is no five star destination (there are plenty of those across Sri Lanka) and is often dissed by guide books as an unhealthy concrete jungle attracting drop outs and soft drug users (in places they have a point!) but to me it is still a great area to visit. You can get as involved as you like in the tourist shenanigans or keep to yourself; it’s up to you how much you have to see of the party scene, the hippy hangouts, or the surf dudes.

Our trip reminded us of what a diverse and fun island Sri Lanka is, not to mention beautiful and unpredictable. Our days were filled with beach breakfasts, tasty teas and sunset snacks, whilst scrutinising the surf and soaking up the local life. We feasted on spicy curries, quick fix rotis or dinner at the best pizza joint in the country – Fabio and Paula’s Spaghetti House. Our nights were topped with drink, chat and chill at Saman’s Top Secret bar where we nattered and joked over arrack and coke until 4 or 5 in the morning. These long relaxing days ended with us wandering back along the beach to Vernons guided by the moonlight, feet dipping in and out of the warm sea getting ready for another eventful sun and surf day on Sri Lanka’s beautiful coast.

A few photos.