Serendipity in Tissa

From Galle, we moved on further along the coast towards Tissamaharama (i.e. Tissa for short). Our ride, a minivan arranged by Shangri-Lanka Village, was comfortable enough and the driver friendly. After 2 days in Galle Fort with only a short venture outside to the turtle sanctuary, it was fascinating to see more of Sri Lanka. This was a country that was embroiled in a 26-year civil war until only recently and was partly ravaged by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. It was sobering to know that many villages in that part of the country we were travelling in were wiped out. Family members were lost, houses gone in seconds. A train on the very same service that we took from Colombo to Galle was derailed and wrecked by the waves near Hikkaduwa, with a death toll of more than 1,700.

Today, travelling along the costal route past sleepy villages, there was no evidence of the country's past disaster. The only disaster I could see was in the form of a group of tourists taking the term "tourist trap" to a whole new level. Sri Lanka is famous for its stilt fishermen and we had asked the driver to stop us at any beach where we could see the fishermen in action. He did - but the only action taken by the fishermen there was taking Rs2,000 from the gullible tourists just for the latter to sit on the stilts and be a "fisherman" for a few minutes, with pictures taken of course.

Stilt fishermen in Sri Lanka....

...doing a lucrative business

After the coast, we past wide and open grasslands, wind turbines, paddy fields full with egrets, boundaries of Bundala National Park and makeshift stalls selling buffalo milk curd with palm treacle, apparently a specialty in that part of Sri Lanka.

One of the many curd and treacle stalls lining the
road leading to Tissa

After more than 4 hours on the road, we arrived in Tissa. Before taking us to our hotel, the driver made an unplanned detour just before the lake to show us one one of the most amazing spectacles I have seen in my travels. We stopped near a huge rain tree, on which countless equally huge pelicans were nesting. More amazingly, the tree was shared by colonies of roosting bats hanging upside down from the branches. Irf couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the bats. And neither could I.

Nesting pelicans...

....and roosting bats near Tissa Wewa

We were again acquainted with the beauty of (the completely underrated) Lake Tissa or Tissa Wewa the next day. After our safari in Yala National Park, we had a couple hours to spare so decided to walk to the lake. It looked near enough when we were being driven to the hotel and anyway the hotel staff assured us that it would take 10 minutes. So we walked and we walked and obviously it took more than 10 minutes, probably 30 minutes. Despite the busy 2-lane road with tuk-tuks, buses and lorries, it felt like a walk in a village with roadside stalls selling fruits and freshly caught fish and locals hanging out at the roadside. I nearly gave up until, turning around a bend for the umpteenth time, I saw slivers of the lake.

Tissa Dagoba - originally built around 200 BC

An evening in rural Tissa

We had not planned for any activities, only a walk around the lake. That all changed when a boat approached us and we were asked whether we wanted to take a boat trip to "Bird Island". I was not at all keen thinking that it was another tourist trap but Irf, perhaps seeing all the birds flying around the lake, was so excited with the idea. The boatman quoted Rs1,000 per adult (free for kids) for a 1-hour trip and as the boat was clean and came with lifejackets, the 3 of us ended up in the boat.

It turned out to be one of the best things we did in our Sri Lanka trip - minus the crowd. We saw colonies of nesting black-headed ibises and cormorants including their hatchlings peeking out from the nests, egrets chilling out on the back of wading water buffalows, more pelicans and herons. One hour on the lake and I was turning into an expert in birdwatching.

Black-headed ibises

The egrets using the water buffaloes to catch fish

Sunset at Tissa Wewa

The boat ploughing through a vast 
expanse of lotus plants and flowers

Birds and bats changing shifts

Our boat trip ended in the dying light, with orange and pink streaks in the sky. It was Rs2,000 (plus generous tips) well spent, definitely a much better choice than giving it to the "stilt fishermen". The experience proved that the unplanned are often more rewarding. Perhaps it was fitting that we encountered those serendipitous moments in Tissa. After all, serendipity is derived from the word Serendib, an old name for Sri Lanka.