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barbecue on the west Sri Lankan beach
Tuesday, July 8 2025
location: the smallest room at Amanta Beach Resort, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka
Neither Gretchen nor I had slept well last night, what with the smell of soap bothering Gretchen (though I thought she was overreacting) and my persistent cough bothering me. We showed up at breakfast late, and it was for some reason being served in that same infuriating way that lunch had been served yesterday afternoon, with plated dishes coming out that we were just supposed to eat. And this might've somehow included string hoppers. I understand that being a chef is a big deal, dude you made it!, but I don't understand the arrogance of assuming all people will find your food equally delicious. Fortunately, though, there were some things that had been put on the table to be eaten "family style," including reasonably-good bread, and french presses of the best coffee we'd yet had in Sri Lanka (though that was a pretty low bar). Interestingly, most of the people in our group didn't seem to be eating the bread or drinking the coffee, so that stuff was depleted near me while still plentiful down the table where, for example, all the single ladies were eat-pray-loving or where Pat & Nicole, that mother-daughter pair from Ann Arbor, were chuckling about something.
After breakfast, the activity was a cooking class taught by the chef, which was definitely something I felt great skipping out of. Instead I went for a soak in the main pool, that is, the one not attached to Gretchen's parents' room. It had been situated alongside a building in the shade specifically so it wouldn't end up hot like the pool at Fox Jaffna.
Lunch was served at Amanta Beach Resort and some of it had been prepared during the cooking class. Fortunately, it was served buffet-style, which allowed me to better curate what I was putting into my body. And some of the food was really good, particularly a curry of tiny eggplants that looked like olives.
The activity this afternoon was a chef-led tour of Amanta's garden followed by a tuk-tuk ride to the edge of a nearby reservoir. Since this was a mostly-nature activity, and since nature activities have been the only ones I've been enjoying, I opted to participate, though Gretchen did not. (She opted to hang out on or near the beach with a book she has been reading, and then she got a $30 massage on-premises.)
The garden tour was mildly interesting, culminating with some sort of tiny citrus fruit with a tangy, edible skin.
I rode in a tuk-tuk to the nature walk with my father-in-law, and it gave us a good opportunity to talk about how the insides of tuk-tuks are decorated. They often have a theme, such as a particular movie or a Trumpian idea of of what exactly America is. Then there's often a religious component, which might be Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or some combination of several of those. In one tuk-tuk I noticed a built-in MP4 player with a little screen that claimed to be able to play video in full HD.
Our swarm of tuk-tuk drove out past some rice paddies to the man-made dike holding back water on one side of an ancient reservoir. Then we walked along that dike, mostly looking at various plants and birds, few of which we hadn't already seen elsewhere. Most of the attention of our guides seemed to be going into an ill-fated effort to spot a crocodile. But there were still interesting things to see, like a herd of conventional Indian-style humpback cows and a nearby herd of water buffalo. They're related, but, according to Zach, they don't intermingle.
After walking some distance down the dike and not seeing all that much, we turned around and headed back towards the tuk-tuks. Somewhere along the way, Jiva and one of the guides identified an insect that sounded to me a lot like a cicada as a "locust." But then when one was found, it looked exactly like a North American cicada, though with different coloration.
A herder was wrangling his water buffalos past the tuk-tuks when we made it back to them, and Gretchen's father went off after him to snap pictures.
On the drive back to Amanta Beach Resort, our tuk-tuk driver kept slowing down to give us the opportunity to take pictures of peafowl, which is apparently something tourists go apeshit about. But by this point we'd seen so many that they no longer seemed remarkable.
Gretchen was still getting her massage when I went looking for her at the beach. (Among the palm trees and hammocks it was pleasant, though out on the sand it was a hot, inhospitable desert.) Instead I found the Australians from Cambodia and the couple from southern England just returning from a phenomenal snorkling adventure. (It hadn't been part of our itinerary because snorkling in this part of Sri Lanka isn't done in a way that protects the reefs.)
While they were all gushing about what an amazing time they'd had, I was taking notice of the behavior of one of dog who had been sleeping in the shade of a hammock for most of the day. The dog had been eying a cow walking down the beach and when that bovine got to the open gate giving access to the Amanta Beach Resort (including the gardens I'd just seen), the dog leisurely strolled up to the cow and barked in her face a couple times until she moved on. I realized at that moment that some of the dogs one sees lying around all over Sri Lanka have actual jobs. Perhaps in exchange for keeping out cows (and also suspicious humans), that dog can count on reliable access to food.
This evening, Amanta Beach Resort had a big vegan barbecue for us on the beach. The food had been specially designed by the chef and there was even a traditional Sri Lankan music act (they sounded a little calypso at times). Before all that began, though, there was a genorous happy hour that included whiskey, vodka, beer, and even red wine. I got a glass of that last one and Gretchen and I then went strolling south down the beach for a quarter mile or so before turning around and coming back. Along the way, we marveled at how undeveloped the beach was and also at the crabs (some big!) scuttling sideways in front of us into the surf.
We took up seats at the long table set up on the beach and make repeated forays to where the barbecued items were being staged for us to take (thankfully!) buffet-style. Not much of this food was all that great, and, somewhat embarrassed not to be eating some things, I kept digging holes in the sand and burying them. While I was particularly struck by how bad the veggie burgers were, I did eventually find some things I could eat. I also drank about as much booze as I thought I could get away with. At one point while getting more booze, I asked Anne about the neighbors down the beach, and she said they were trying to get approval for some god-awful jetski resort. I wished her luck in keeping that from happening.
By then Gretchen and I had moved to some chaise lounges, where we watched a huge bonfire burn while eating vegan icecream (I think I had a little). I told Gretchen we should head back to our room after a certain log collapsed, and that was what we did, walking with Carly, our friend from Rochester. We showed her a crazy mantid hanging out in one of the lighting voids in the wall near our room.
After some communication difficulties earlier in the day, Gretchen finally got the point across to Anne and the cleaning staff that all we needed was a wipe-down with pure water and them maybe the soap smell in our room would be weak enough for us to tolerate. They did their thing and when we went to bed tonight, Gretchen deemed the situation tolerable.
A dragonfly on the beach early this afternoon. Click to enlarge.
The garden tour today. The chef leading it is in the back. The social-media director who drank that beer yesterday is on the far right. Click to enlarge.
One of several cats at Amanta Beach Resort. There are also a number of half-grown kittens. Click to enlarge.
A plover-like bird on our nature walk today. Click to enlarge.
A Sri Lankan cicada. Sorry; it is out of focus! Click to enlarge.
A herder with his water buffalos on our nature walk today. Click to enlarge.
This dog station at the beach entrance of Amanta Beach Resort just after telling a cow she had to move on. Click to enlarge.
That dog later relaxing on the beach as the sun went down. Click to enlarge.
The musicians at the barbecue this evening. Click to enlarge.
The bonfire on the beach this evening. Click to enlarge.
The freaky mantid near our room. Click to enlarge.
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