Welcome to the backpacking diaries, where I’ll be updating you weekly on where I’ve been, what I’ve been getting up to, and most importantly, how I’m really feeling about this insane decision I’ve made.
As you probably know, I’m currently backpacking through Asia after quitting my job and leaving London for good.
I want to remember every moment of this experience, and document as much of it as I can, just like I’ve documented everything else in my life post-18 on this website.
You can keep up to date with my travels on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube but for now, enjoy week four of the travel diaries!
If you missed the first three weeks of backpacking diaries, you can catch up here.
Day 22: Monday 8th April 2024
Location: Dickwella. Weligama & Mirissa, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
We made the most of our morning in Dickwella, squeezing every second out of our one-night luxury stay. We headed for a walk along the beach at 8am since it was too hot to do so at any other time, and grabbed breakfast in the resort.
Then it was time to make our way to our next beach town of Weligama. The bus stopped directly outside of our resort and we raced across the south coast of Sri Lanka for an hour or so before making it to our next destination.
Once we checked into our strange accommodation (by strange I mean there were no lights on, and we were shown to a room without showing any booking confirmation/passport details) we swiftly left and headed to the nearby beach town of Mirissa for the day.
Mirissa is famous for its surf, turtle beaches and Coconut Hill. We ate a late brunch at Shady Lane which was giving major Bali vibes and I was highly enjoying, before traipsing towards Coconut Hill on foot in the scorching heat.
Coconut Hill is a bit of an Instagram-famous spot, but we arrived at a good time when there weren’t too many people around. It was cool to see and definitely made for a good Instagram backdrop.
We stopped in the first shaded spot we could find for a drink and sat looking out at the sea with a cold bottle of water before making our way back to Weligama and having a night in with some snacks.
Day 23: Tuesday 9th April 2024
Location: Ahangama & Weligama, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
We left Weligama once again to visit the nearby surfer town of Ahangama. We’d seen this on Instagram quite a lot, being titled the Canggu of Sri Lanka due to attracting a lot of digital nomads, so wanted to check it out for ourselves.
We took a ten minute train (which we had to wait an hour for as it was delayed) and went for breakfast at Cactus Cafe which was incredibly Instagrammable, but they didn’t have wifi.
So we went to our first co-working space (Focus Co-Working) and paid around £5 to stay there all day, use their (incredibly fast) wifi, plug sockets and stocked up on drinks from the cafe inside. It’s definitely a great place to come and work in the area, but would be even better if it had a sea-view.
After a full day of work we headed to Crust for some pizza and tacos on the sea-front which had a lot of dogs that were a little aggressive towards each other so not great if you’re not a fan of big dogs (like myself).
There was a large group of surfers seated around some tables nearby who all jumped up at one point due to a snake slithering over one of the girls’ feet. So that was nice. They also had a power-cut after we’d finished eating which was good timing, but power-cuts are very common around Sri Lanka and everyone’s pretty used to them.
Day 24: Wednesday 10th April 2024
Location: Weligama & Galle, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
It was time to leave the town of Weligama which we hadn’t really explored at all. Not on purpose, but we had wanted to see Ahangama and Mirissa and didn’t have time to explore Weligama in the end.
We did head out for brunch in the morning before heading on to our next location, and ate at another bali-type brunch spot called Moochie’s. It was quite like Shady Lane in Mirissa and had some great merch that I wish I had room in my backpack for.
We did wait about an hour and a half for our food, but good thing we weren’t in a rush and could work on our laptops for a while.
Our next destination was Galle Fort, an old town on the south west coast of Sri Lanka, enclosed in fort walls. It was another scorcher of a day and the ten minute walk from the train station to our Galle accommodation was as difficult as running the London Marathon I would say.
We had our first major rainfall of our Sri Lanka trip here, which meant we couldn’t really walk around that much to see the fort area but browsed some shops and galleries and walked around the lighthouse.
Galle Fort was definitely giving European city/Greece vibes since all of the small streets were lined with boutiques and gelato shops. We went for dinner and had dumplings!! The withdrawals had been real and I was insanely glad to be reunited.
It’s making me sooo excited for when we eventually get to Japan/Hong Kong and all of the dumplings I’m going to be indulging in there.
Day 25: Thursday 11th April 2024
Location: Galle, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
It was another pretty miserable day in Galle, but we explored for a little while in the morning, walking around the Dutch areas and saw the oldest library in Sri Lanka. Gutted that it was closed due to the Sri Lankan New Year.
Since it was too miserable and wet to be outside, we set up camp for the day in a Barista coffee shop (the same chain that we set up camp in Sigiriya). We planned some more of our travels and worked on content for the day, only breaking when it was time to go for dinner.
We had another of my favourite Sri Lankan curries of the trip that evening. A little spot that offered cooking classes, but served 10 curries with rice for two people sharing. We devoured the ten plates of curries with rice and popadoms and I know I’ll still be dreaming about the food weeks from now.
Day 26: Friday 12th April 2024
Location: Galle & Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
We took an early train out of Galle this morning to head to the sea-side town of Hikkaduwa, one of my favourite stops of our trip around the country.
Sri Lankan New Year was on the horizon so we found quite a few shops and restaurants to be closed as we travelled around. We had headed to Salty Swamis for breakfast but was closed, so went to Sunny Side Up instead and had some lovely avocado on toast.
We took a bus out to the Tsunami Museum in the nearby town of Peraliya and although I knew it would be heartbreaking to visit, I didn’t expect it to be so emotional. The museum is a display of camera images of the days and weeks post-tsunami and were incredibly graphic.
We were taken on a tour around the images by a survivor of the tsunami, which heightened the reality and aftermath that much more as she shared the trauma the adults, kids and even future generations have went through since that day in 2004.
This was definitely one of the most memorable moments of my time here, understanding Sri Lanka so much more and what the people went through and what they’re still going through today. A must-visit if you’re in the area.
It was quite sombre to come back to the beach area later and to go about our backpacking trip as normal again, but we headed to turtle beach to check this area out and could see some large turtles in the water.
We also watched baby turtles being released into the water in the evening which was a cute concept, but was so over-crowded with tourists watching that it didn’t seem natural or particularly enjoyable.
We headed for dinner at a burger spot which was incredible. It was nice to change things up a bit from eating so much Sri Lankan food, and the burgers at Hello Burger really delivered.
Day 27: Saturday 13th April 2024
Location: Hikkaduwa & Colombo, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
Another morning with an early alarm, but we headed straight to turtle beach early so we could hopefully swim with some turtles without the crowds, and turned out to definitely be worth the early alarm!
We were surrounded by around five or six large turtles swimming around the shallowest part of the sea and I was able to put my Go Pro to the test for the first time and shot some very cool footage of turtles swimming in the water.
Then it was time for some well-deserved brunch from Sunny Side Up cafe (again) for more avo toast before making our way to Colombo, a full 360 back to where we originally started on our Sri Lankan adventure.
Today was actually Sri Lankan New Year’s Eve which meant everything was closed. We were travelling along on the bus towards Colombo and it was becoming very clear that everyone stayed at home and indoors during this holiday.
We checked into our hotel and camped out here with the rooftop pool, the luxury bed (we had a duvet!) and ate at the hotel in the evening.
Day 28: Sunday 14th April 2024
Location: Colombo & Negombo, Sri Lanka
Dear travel diary,
Happy New Year (again). We headed into Colombo City in the hopes that we could find an open brunch location and came across Grind, a sister cafe of Seed that we had dined at during our first visit to Colombo.
After filling up on a hearty sandwich, we headed to see some of the tourist attractions the city had to offer, although the streets were deserted. We headed to the red mosque which was closed to the public due to the holiday, then into the bustling shopping district which was a ghost town and wandered to another temple.
Since there really wasn’t much happening at all, we headed for the train to return to our beloved Negombo where we’ll be staying for another four nights to round out our trip to Sri Lanka.
We got on the wrong train (of course) and ended up in a 30 minute tuk-tuk which we were about five minutes into before the biggest storm we’d ever seen in Sri Lanka began and we thought we weren’t actually going to make it to our lovely Negombo villa.
We had to basically swim in the flooded streets to get there, but we made it in one piece and were shown back to the same villa we had stayed at the first time. It felt like coming home.
Our Sri Lanka adventure comes to an end and we visit a brand new country in week five’s diary!
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