Arugam with Azi

Our new location in Sri Lanka is on the east coast in a beach town called Arugam Bay.  Arugam is known for its world famous surfing -- famous surfing from the months of April to October.  The remainder of the year the town shuts down.  Somehow, despite this, we decided it would be a good place to visit.  As we arrived yesterday, we definitely second guessed our choice.  We drove past boarded up shops, closed restaurants, and checked into our empty hotel.  The owner pointed out the one place we could eat and we began to panic.  However, as we always try to look at life as an adventure, we decided to suck it up and make the most of this quiet location.

Flash forward to an amazing dinner, a few Lion Lagers, and a viewing of Meet the Fockers and we were already feeling much better about our choice of coming to Arugam.

This morning, we loaded up with our new friend, Azi, and his Tuk-tuk to head out on a three hour tour.  We did not realize that our "tour" translated to "doing whatever Azi thought we, as Americans living in Kuwait, needed to do."  We spent the day cruising around the region in a 3-wheeler seeing ancient ruins, spotting crazy animals, hiking up more than un-safe mountains, eating breakfast with the locals, hearing stories of Azi surviving the Tsunami, and shopping for Azi's groceries -- all in the period of 7 hours.  By the time we were dropped back off at our hotel and by the time we said goodbye to Azi, we realized that sometimes quiet and desolate can be an awesome experience after all.  In all actuality, Arugam is awesome.

Things always look better with delicious Sri Lankan food and a cold, cold beer.

The beach.  The water is brown because the dam from the river is open which releases all the river water into the bay.

Azi took us to an old marriage site for the ancient king.  He decided that he was not only our tour guide but also our personal photographer.

We went to a national park where we saw:  thousands of cool birds, peacocks, snakes, turtles, monkeys, buffalo, dingos, lizards, crocodiles, and a ton of cows and goats.

Our ride through the Arugam Bay area.  7 hours in class and comfort.

Buddah.  This one survived the Tsunami.

In a rain storm, Azi had us hike up a mountain, barefoot, to take in the view.  We can't make this up.

It was a stunning view but somehow the fear of dying on the ascent and descent over-rode the beauty ... well, almost!