If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean Sri Lanka is the chunk that looks like it’s just been pooped out the arse end of India. It’s home to elephants, tea plantations, crazy bus drivers, three wheeled taxis powered by hairdryer motors known as ‘tuk tuks’ and until very recently a very messy civil war. The Tamil Tigers have waged a campaign for a separatist state in the north east of the country for over thirty years inventing along the way the suicide bomber belt and making good use of women and children to further their cause. Chuck in a bit of ethnic cleansing of the Muslims from Tamil areas and you can see why the whole country celebrated when the war was declared over on the 17th of May this year (shortly followed by the death of the Tamils leadership cadre on the 19th, so I guess they were still doing some mopping up with their rocket launchers).
The war and the 2005 Boxing Day tsunami has been an unbeatable combo when it comes to truly and utterly buggering the tourist trade on the island tagged by their tourist office as the ‘Small Miracle’. With the conflict officially ‘resolved’ the powers that be wasted no time in getting things back on track and within a mere month of the shooting stopping I was sat with Dave Reed and Editor Timmy J Nunn at Fistral having a short but good discussion- “So. You can’t go Tim?” said Dave. “Nope,” said Tim. “Can you go Sharpy?” “Oh go on then… twist my arm, it is safe isn’t it? And is there any food that’s not curry?”
Ten days later I’m at Heathrow ignoring the Foreign Office advice that anywhere in the north and east of the island is still to be avoided. Destination Aragum Bay on the east coast, a place that can’t seem to decide on how its spelt, some go for ‘Arugam’ others even bolt it together as one ‘Aragumbay’. Whatever. That’s where a good chunk of Britain’s finest were headed. I assumed I’d be the first one to Terminal 4 as I only had to get the tube across the Big Smoke rather than do the hell drive from Cornwall but I was wrong- Stoker, Mike Young, Feasty, Tony P and a brace of other surfers were already queuing. You’d think checking in thirty surfers with board bags and camera gear would be a right stress but Sri Lankan Airlines just blazed us right through without a hitch. We’ve all had way more trouble checking in with much smaller parties so I guess the airline sponsoring their big QS in the Maldives is having a good effect- they are most definitely surfer friendly.
Eleven hours later we were in Colombo, on a bus to the uber-swanky Mount Lavinia Hotel. The hotel is super pimp, it’s THE place to get married for Colomboinians (?) and even has doormen wearing old school Raj style helmets and shorts. It’s a classic old colonial building with an insane pool terrace looking back over the beach and downtown Colombo. They were treating us right, some Arak cocktails and nibbles and we were set. After a welcome sleep and hella good buffet breakfast the hard bit now needed negotiating- the 12-hour bus ride across the whole island to A-Bay. It’s only 200-miles but it’s a shitter of a trip; or so we’d been warned by previous visitors...
We all had two seats each on the coach so it wasn’t too bad but we were definitely jealous of Lamiroy who’d snagged the whole back row. Until, that is, just as we were about to set off two local dudes working for the holiday company looking after us got on and joined Sam at the back ruining his little ‘sleep the whole way in comfort’ ruse. It’s not that bad a trip, especially when you get to see elephants on the way, and it helps not to look forwards as then you’ll see all the near misses and lorries hanging off bridges and other driving based nightmares you’d rather not think about. Just pretend everything is fine and remember that a coach is the biggest thing on the road that everyone else has to avoid it and hence it’s cool. They are building a new road so by the time you see this it might even be finished and the journey time cut down heaps.
A-Bay, finally, there’s some grumbling from the surfers that their fan cooled rooms are hotter than Satan’s a-hole after a nuclear grade vindaloo. Us media scum are housed in the bigger, posher, air-conditioned rooms and can’t see the problem. We milk this for the entire trip. Complaining our rooms are ‘too cold’ most of the time just to get a rise. It works. They retaliate by propping our door open letting all the good cold air leave. They fail to appreciate that with air con turned up to 11 and the fan (which in a former life may well have held up a Russian helicopter) on max the room is back to pleasantly Antarctic conditions in no time.
First morning, it’s hot, damn hot. The water is 30˚C. We get served fish curry for brekkie. The point is on and we get involved. It’s the easiest paddle out in the world from the keyhole at the top of the point. From there the wave wraps along a ledge and then winds around the corner into A-Bay and on big swells just keeps on running. Pretty impressive stuff it’s just not a good wave to shoot when there are 30-people in the line up. No one wants to blow such a long wave and have to wait ages for another one so it was all about speed runs and just working the wave rather than photogenic craziness.
Wandering back along the picture postcard bay I witnessed my first fisherman boat stack- the fishermen’s boats live on the flat bit on top of the steep beach. To get them there they crank up the outboard and gun it in at top speed and try and slide up the beach up the bank and on to the top. It rarely works. This dude looked like he’d done it properly coming in on the back of a wave at speed, his beach slide was flawless, he ramped the bank well, only downside was not holding on and propelling himself forward in a YouTube worthy crash where he snapped a couple of spars with his head. The older fisho’s didn’t half laugh.
I was surprised at how small and undeveloped A-Bay is, but compared to Poo Point to the north it’s a metropolis. Poo Point is a fabled righthand wave and there’s nothing there apart from granite rocks, sand, a massive bright red curry based poo and what looks like a doomed attempt at a surf camp. It wasn’t quite working but we had a giggle anyway, the potential was there for all to see. The funnest part of checking out other spots is the tuktuk ride. Tuktuks are small three wheeled taxi things. They are super shit but highly entertaining. Especially when the drivers are racing on sand tracks and drifting the tail. They are powered by recycled hairdryer engines or so it seems. Stokesy found out that tickling the driver is not a good idea as he nearly rolled our tuktuk and the roll cages on those babies ain’t exactly gonna pass the Euro NCAP test. If you ask nicely they even let you drive.
Poo Point isn’t the only mythical wave in the area. Kerrzy’s left now known as Mitch’s Mistake is the killer. If you’ve seen the perfect left barrel in the Rusty flick ScissorsPaperRock that JK surfs then you’ll know what it is to have seen perfection. It’s in A-Bay, it’s easy to find (it’s just out to sea in front of the south end of the road bridge near the Stardust hotel) it also needs a massive swell to work. Mitch saw a good set, came back to get us, we whizzed up there in tuktuks jumped in and sat for nearly an hour. It wasn’t happening. Mitch insists and still does he saw a proper good set. As it is we sat there bobbing wondering about the rumoured saltwater crocs that live in the nearby lagoon. Not like it was dusk or anything either. Funny thing is the swell got big enough to wash away some fishermen’s huts and they moved all the boats to the S end of the bay and the left still didn’t work?
There’s an expression that goes something like ‘it’s like a friggin zoo in there’. In Sri Lanka it is actually true. We had elephants on the way over, monkeys living in the trees of our hotel, squirrels fighting on our bungalows roof, bats dive bombing the pool every evening, frogs laying spawn in the pool, water buffalo and goats roam the streets, not to mention the mahoosive scorpion the Grifter found in his bathroom one night. Apparently a couple in another hotel had snakes in theirs… All this and no mozzies. I saw one the whole week and it was so slow and lazy I squished it with my fingers without it trying to runaway. On the downside there are photog hating ants. Alex Williams and Tony Plant both had ant nests in their boardies on the way home, which hatched en route. Apologies to the other hotel in Colombo we stayed in on the way back which now probably has a severe infestation… The most dangerous creature however lived in the pool- the Sucky Pipe Fish. It got many. In essence it was an intake pipe that hoovered on to your back with shocking pace if you got too near. It felt like being bitten by a big fish. Leading to a thrashing of arms and slicing of elbows on the pool side. I did both. But then I never learn.
There were also some jellyfish on a few days (in the sea not the pool), certain people got stung on their faces and those self same people put their own wee on their faces to remedy it. According to the interweb this isn’t effective, pervy yes, effective no. Vinegar is the way forward but A-Bay lacks a chip shop so this wasn’t an option.
At some point the contest started. I’m not sure when. A local event was held for the local guys and the top-16 from that would get a start in the main event. The main event followed and over a few days of hot hacks, a few tubes and much sweat the field was narrowed. The surf delivered every day, which was nice.
The last day of the trip saw the finals and the best surf of the week. Someone somewhere wants the world to know that A-Bay is back in business. Richie Sills was also back trading. The South African that now calls Newcastle home was one of the form surfers of the week and pipped a super tight final with Stoker, Sam and Egor. Stoker needed an 8 or so his last wave, he got the score to draw the thing so it went to a countback, it was that tight. General feeling was it was the right call. Stokers last turn on his last wave was one of the biggest and best of the event but the rest of the wave didn’t quite put in the 8+ category…
What seemed like a long week at the start flew by before we knew it. Sri Lanka was a blast. I’d never been before cos I’m scared of curry. I wish I’d been a long time ago. It was a good trip. It’s a great place. You’ll dig it. The people need your help, they’ve been dealt a super shitty hand for too long, A-Bay is safe as, the waves sweet and if you go you won’t want to leave…
Big thanks to: Dave and JO at the UKPST, Sri Lanka airlines (www.srilankan.aero), Crystal Holidays (www.holidays-srilanka.com), Sri Lanka Tourism (www.srilankatourism.org), the crew at the TriStar and Mount Lavinia Hotels and Basil the bus driver for not killing anyone.
More pics here
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