Travel Bog #3: River Trek Through Ingiriya & The Best Pol Rotti

Revisiting the blog after almost a month cause it's curfew again, been indoors for a whole week and my 'List of things to do' includes...... Nothing... Taaadaaaaaaaa... So here we go people... HERE WE GO! WooOOh!

Remember that one time you thought of being super adventurous and planned out a whole day trip to a place you read about for 2 minutes? How did that go? Turned out well? Limbs still intact? Or are you like us...? Walking into water snakes and all that cobra kai shiznit? Ok, that was a lot of questions...

Since mother nature loves us, she sent two water snakes our way. Fun 🙂 But look who survived to write about it! Us! Ha! That's right! Still aliveeeee... *echo continues* alive alive alive... Oui!

The snakes are alive too. Although they were 2-3ft long; what freaked us out like a banana living in a jar was the tiny board in a corner saying 'snake bite treatment center" with an arrow pointing 'this way'. Like man, put that shit up in front and on a bigger board so that we all know whats up.

Also, this is how a blog should start off if there's some life threatening creature lurking around. Uh huh. Information people, give out proper information, not pictures of people swimming in their undies... we need them details... ok.. anyway... *deep breaths*

*** Back after two days cause I took a nap ***

Hhmmm wonder if 5 paragraphs about snakes were really necessary... moving on....

Finding Nachchimale 🐠

*Been writing bits and pieces on my phone for a week now. Trying to finish this blog today .... Procrastination be gone...*

Just googled "Procrastination be gone" and there is actually a book about it by Paul somebody. It's available on Amazon, but sadly they don't ship to Sri Lanka. You can download it on your kindle for $0.99 it says ...

Also, don't have a kindle. Googled 'where to get a Kindle in Sri Lanka', it's available on a site called Urban something... But, there's nothing like a black and white hard copy man... and the satisfying scent of a new book. Mmmh!

Finding Nachchimale Take #2

Gosh... Ok... Getting straight to the point now... Here's what you can do if you're looking for a quick break from Colombo for just a day.

Step:

1. Call a bunch of friends and see if they are free.

2. Pack some munchies, change of clothes & aqua shoes, if you got it already.

3. Leave Colombo early to avoid traffic and also the crowd if its the weekend or a public holiday. If you leave Colombo by 6am, its about a hour and a half drive.

4. Enter "Nachchimale" on to google maps - not Ingiriya cause we did that and drove somewhere far far away from the actual destination.

5. 2mins before the destination, you'll pass a small bridge and then Google will end at the most random looking location and go "You have reached your destination". But if you see a bare land to the right with a car park area and tiny hut, you're good, you have arrived at the correct place.

6. Park, change if necessary and there should be a tiny path leading you to the river on to your right.

Note: Once you get to the stream, keep walking up against the flow of water (not towards the bridge which you crossed to get to the place). The locals said that its a little deeper where the bridge is and a few people have drowned.

On our way from Colombo, we found a little place which served string hoppers. Since we assumed there wouldn't be anything around Nachchimale we stopped there for breakie. But, dammit. Right next to the place where we parked the car was a small hut which served the yummiest Pol Rotti (or as my grandma would say "Hot hot rotti") with nai mirris infused lunumiris. YUUUMMM. Only got to know about it after our 3 hour trek.

If they do open before you head into the water, it would be really cool to pack some up and eat on a rock. There are many fancy areas with natural pools, mini waterfalls and rocks in the middle of the stream to sit on and eat away. It would be a nice experience 😊

Please take back whatever you bring with you back to Colombo; water bottles, snack packages etc. It's kind of sad to see such a beautiful place with so much litter everywhere. You know, don't be an ass. It's not a big task to take everything back and if you do see someone littering, just ask them not to, again its not a big task. It's important to maintain these beautiful wonders for your kids, grandkids or anyone really. Everyone should see nature in its truest form, not with garbage around.

Our little trek would have been faster if we had aqua shoes on so that it didn't feel like walking on thorns half of the time. Other than that and the water snakes, everything was #Perfect The water was nice, cold & shallow (maybe max around 4ft at certain points), tiny fish swimming around our feet, the few people around at the time were friendly. They were intrigued cause we kept on walking along the stream with a backpack but, didn't bother us with dumb questions.

The three of us stopped every now and then when we found a secluded area to chill, eat, make fun of Buddi (the dude in the picture) and just taking in the peacefulness, greenery and natural beauty of Nachchcimale.

As time passed, we noticed that it was getting a little crowded with big groups of people singing, playing drums, jumping and having a good time. Some even came to the exact spot where we were although it was a long stream and there were many, many, many more places they could have chilled but, decided not to. Argh!

So after 3hrs of peace and calm we headed to the road which happened to be only a 10minute walk to our car. Yup, 3hr trek, 10min walk on the road. LOL. Oh oh! Sorry Shantz for losing your slipper in the middle of it all... hehe .. that was my bad... Oopsie poopsie!

Here we are having our second breakie for the day (around 10:30am) cause who says no to rotti and it was delicious! Packed some extra for lunch too.

The weekend venture did end earlier than expected and nobody was in the mood to go back to Colombo... Not even the car #truestory So we headed to meet Malith bear in Beruwela ... Yup... Beruwela, nowhere close to Ingiriya but, it was the fanciest way to end the weekend. By the river at dawn and the sea by dusk with the best company. Not bad, right?

The drive back to Colombo was epic too... The pink sky, good music & happy vibes. It's always a bummer to go back home but hey... it's just a week away from our next adventure.

Incase you prefer to watch a video of le trip, here it is! Made by my fancy cousin. Thank you human! 🙏😊

Music: Oceans - Cold ain't for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhn0hcwGzTE

#Fin

Ps. This happened in August, yes, its almost the end of October... Also, it would mean a lot if you click on the heart to like the post and share with your friends :)

Happy Friday!