Hello Sri Lanka! First stop Negombo : 2nd-4th October

We've landed!

Colombo is Sri Lanka's capital and airport of same name. However we decided to stay in the seaside town of Negombo which is much closer than starting a trip in the capital. We planned to get a public bus but the lure of a fiver for a taxi for the 7km north we needed to travel was just too strong after just 2 hours sleep on the flight. We arrived nice and early at 7am at Silver Sands Hotel which we'd booked for our first couple of nights in the country (Nervous insisted).

Formerly known as Ceylon, one thing you can get in Sri Lanka is a good cup of tea! Tastes different by the beach though, perhaps... more refreshing?!!

Negombo has a large Roman Catholic population (I know right?!) and we were treated to the most vibrant and noisy communion you could imagine. There are quite a few churches and statues of Jesus around town, all decorated with fairy lights and beautiful flowers.

Without a doubt, the highlight of our time here was a boat safari trip through the Mutharajawela Marshes, a mangrove wetland ecosystem set in a lagoon where sea and fresh water meet.Not only was the 2 hour trip on the boat pleasurable enough in itself, the place is teeming with wildlife. Mangrove roots filter the salt water which is why the area is protected.

I was all geared up to write my first amateur naturists blog post with original photos. So obviously our camera died 10 minutes in.

I decided to sketch the animals instead to share with you, but instead of turning this post into a game of 'is that a beak or a squirrel', I have decided to show you a selection of what we saw by plagiarising other people's photos from the net.

Water hen

A 'bee-eater' bird - migrants from India & China

When the coconut trees die, woodpeckers come along and make holes in them which the parrots then nab as free accommodation

A red-wattled lapwing

Cormorants - saw quite a few of these diving for fish and holding out their wings to dry

We spotted one of 6 types of Sri Lankan Kingfisher - the brown & blue

Saving the best until last, we saw three water monitor lizards, one around 1 and a half metres in length. Water monitors can grow up to 2m and have no predators in Sri Lanka. Herons will sometimes snatch and gobble a baby crocodile but absolutely nothing eats the water monitor as becteria in the body make it poisonous. They swim from the tail like snakes and watching one for a while was incredible - so prehistoric and impressive in size. I imagine the only lizard to rival it would be a komodo dragon.




Maybe by the time we next go on a wildlife safari I'll have charged the camera.