I don’t remember how I found out about the workaway, but it was thanks to this that we managed to fly to the island for 3 months with a budget of a 2-week tour. After paying 20 euros for a subscription, we began to look for hosts where we could stay from the very beginning of our trip. The first to answer (not everyone answers) was an elderly couple who owns a coconut farm in Kotadenyava. It is quite far from the ocean, closer to the center of the island, but it was only the first stop on the island. And according to the reviews of other workers, the place and especially the owners were good.
Writer Joanna from the Dutch burghers (on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after its conquest by Great Britain, the burghers (Burgher) were called the descendants of the Dutch and Portuguese who lived on the island) and her Sri Lankan husband Fazil were really good and interesting people. It seems that they were very wealthy in the past, but now, rather, they live on the remnants of their former luxury. A large farm, which is probably worth millions of dollars, but has not brought in tangible income for a long time. Several once cool, but now just old cars, one of which Fazil and his wife sometimes go to the city or to friends. An old beautiful mansion with several separate houses for servants.
Part of the farm was unused and overgrown with grass. A few years ago there was a beautiful garden with an old big tree in the center. Dozens of species of plants and flowers were planted from the tree in a spiral. The restoration of this garden was our main task. In addition, they helped collect coconuts. “IT skills” also came in handy - he helped Fazil to digitize the site plan. We worked in the garden in the morning and in the evening, but during the day it was very hot and we went to the river, slept, and surfed the Internet. In the second week, a girl from Mexico joined us. Work became more fun and interesting, listening to her stories.
The conditions of our stay could hardly be called comfortable. Barrack with 6 beds, windows without glass. A mosquito net above the bed is the only protection against the then not very well-known world of the inhabitants of the tropics. Outdoor shower and toilet.
But we always had breakfast, lunch and dinner at one big table with the owners of the estate. Delicious food, staff who looked after us just like the owners (although we tried to always help them with cleaning after). And most importantly - a lot of interesting stories that the owners told, made the stay in this place pleasant and memorable.
The farm itself, the way of life on it, its owners and their stories created the feeling that we were in the past, 100 years, when Sri Lanka was still Ceylon - a British colony.
And yet the work was difficult. Comfort was not enough and I already wanted to get out to the ocean. We have just finished work on the main central part of the garden - the flower spiral. So we started looking for a new host, and preferably somewhere on the coast.
We were answered by Angelina from the hostel in the very south, near the Yala National Park, in the village of Kirinda. This place will forever be in my memory. Perhaps this is where one of the locations of the Oasis will be.
Angelina - a girl from Russia, at that time planned to open a new hostel with Manju. Manju is a local "start-up", an entrepreneur with an interesting and controversial story that deserves a separate story. At that time, the hostel in Kirinda was a project of Manju, along with two other guys from Russia, who, like me now, having arrived on the island, wanted to stay there. But then they were not on the island, so it was Manju and Angelina who became our new hosts and the beginning of a new story, a new stage in my life. Oh yes, the hostel in Kirinda was already the second hostel, and the first and more successful one is in Katunayaka, near the airport. There has always been good occupancy, but mostly for 1-2 nights, because. We usually stay here upon arrival or before departure.
We spent two weeks on the farm and set off again. To the already long-awaited ocean. The road was long, but interesting, although I no longer remember the exact route. We traveled for a long time on several buses (about local buses, as a budget attraction not for the faint of heart, many stories have been written and videos have been shot) to Tissamaharama, it seems through Kurunegala and Katagarama. In Tisza we were met by car Manjou and Angelina.
The hostel (oddly enough I could find only one photo, which is at the beginning of the post) was an unusual building for Lanka. Half of the first floor was an open dining area with a seating area, while the other half had one large guest room, shared bathroom, kitchen and staff room. The hostel itself was on the second floor - a large room with walls on only two sides and a bathroom. 12 beds with mosquito nets and ceiling fans. But it was a great hostel!
From the second floor and roof, there was an excellent view of a small pool and a deserted piece of land with sparse vegetation. By the way, the views, humidity, plants here, in the very south, are significantly different from the rest of the island, more like steppes and savannahs than the tropics. On the shores of the bay, I observed flocks of flamingos several times, and several eagles circled in the sky very often.
On a small area of the hostel grew a huge cactus and a few more trees, between which a hammock was stretched. Minimalistic, modest, but very atmospheric. And the hostel itself and the whole village of Kirinda. I don’t know how to explain and describe it, but there is something special in this place, so I will come back here more than once.
The beach was a 15 minute walk. A small part of it is fenced with a breakwater for a few fishing boats, and here you can swim at any time. Behind the breakwater, there are usually quite strong waves and currents, and it was very dangerous to swim there. But it was going to infinity, or rather to Yala Park, completely empty, not a single soul except us)), a sandy beach. It was possible to walk along it for a very long time, and climbing up the hill to enjoy a stunning view of the same beach and the ocean on one side and a large lake and forest on the other. And you don't see people at all. Interestingly, there are many who share my enthusiasm about this?)
A little further, on the road to the center of the village, is the main object of the village - a Buddhist temple on a coastal cliff. This temple is of great importance throughout the south and is the end point of the parade of some religious festival. There is also a legend that thousands of years ago, a princess threw herself into the water from this rock to save the island from a tsunami. But the main thing that this temple has is an incredible view of the entire southern coast!
Naturally, we went on a safari to Yala Park. Not to say that it’s very exciting, but we saw a lot of animals in the wild and were even lucky to see a leopard (not everyone is lucky). The park itself, of course, is also very beautiful and deserves attention, so I recommend a safari.
We checked in Kirinda for about a month. The tiled roof of the hostel was dismantled and cleaned of branches, the walls were puttied and painted, and the site was cleaned. Unlike the previous place, there was little work, and most of the time we were alone. Only a local worker and a cook rolled into one and very rare guests of the hostel. To my great regret, this hostel was sold after a few years, there were too few guests, it was not possible to get a profit. Maybe someday I will buy it for myself, this place is too “sunk into the soul”.
Then we went to a villa closer to the center of the island. It was recently bought by a friend of Manzhu, a local deputy, and began to prepare for tourists. A very large and very beautiful 2-storey house, with only 3 bedrooms, a swimming pool, a separate gazebo for billiards - and everything just for us - so we didn’t feel like budget travelers at all. We were invited to live there and play the role of quality inspectors, so that the workers would prepare the villa properly for receiving tourists. In addition, I made a website for the villa. But still, sitting in a villa without much entertainment and the ocean is boring, and after 2 weeks we went on an independent trip around the island.
You can describe trips around the island for a long time and beautifully, but I don’t know how to write like that, and even this would be a strong deviation from the topic of the story. Moreover, a lot of this has been written, and it is better to travel on your own than to read stories.
We completed our journey by returning to Kirinda. And before returning home, we spent a few more days in a hostel in Katunayaka.
During this time, I learned how Manju opened his hostels and together with the Russian guys. And this, like moving to the island for a long time, turned out to be much more real than I had previously thought. So I had a new goal - to move to the island, if not forever, then for a long time. The goal became a plan for the near future after Manjou's offer to collaborate with him in creating websites for local companies.