Beach guide to Sri Lanka's South West Coast

Beach guide to Sri Lanka’s South West Coast 

Reader warning: I couldn't help myself. I got a bit carried away with the length of this blog. So pour yourself a cup of tea, put on your glasses, and settle in.

Hikkadua Beach, Sri Lanka.

As all of you know our favourite place on the earth is the beach. It doesn't matter what country, we love it. Although not all beaches are created equally. Here you will find our expert opinion and some useful tips of beach bum life in south western Sri Lanka. The beaches we will discuss include:

• Hikkadua 
• Hikkadua 
• Narigama 
• Unawatuna 
• Unawatuna 
• Jungle 
• Wijaya 
• Mirissa
• Mirissa
• Weligama 
• Dikwella
• Dikwella 
• Hiriketiya 
  
• Tangelle Beach

Hikkadua

From Colombo Fort Train Station we hopped on the train to the seaside town of Hikkadua. The train follows the coast the whole way down and for the majority of the trip you are looking at the sea. This cost us $1.30 AUD pp for a three hour train ride in second class. The train was so full that we couldn't get a seat. Luckily we were right by the door looking out to sea (make sure you are on the right hand side of the train if you take this journey). We sat on our bags and tried to stay out of the way of locals walking past (and by walking I mean squeezing around people) to sell their cut pineapples, rotties and many other snacks. It was a fun experience for the first hour, but by the third we were ready to get off, regain some personal space, and head to the beach.

We stayed at Best Lanka Guest House for 12 AUD per night. When we got there they smiled at us, lead us to our room and left us be. We didn't see them again until it was time to check out two days later. They literally had no idea who we were. But the room was clean and close to Narigama beach so all was well. 

Whilst we were in Hikkadua beach it was off season so about half of the shops were closed. The town is mainly situated on the highway which decreases that enticing holiday vibe. Within the first minute of walking onto Hikkadua beach we saw the biggest sea turtle we have ever seen. We were so excited! But then we realised that the locals were feeding it seaweed to entice them in and a lot of the tourists were harassing it by getting up in it's face taking photos and patting it. For me that definitely took away the beauty of the experience. I don't understand why we can't just appreciate the beauty of a creature without annoying them! (I swear this is my only rant for the rest of the blog, maybe). Apparently Hikkadua beach can get some pretty good swell but being the end of the monsoon it was pretty choppy whilst we were there. 

Hikkadua Beach 

Narigama Beach

From Hikkadua beach you can walk along the coast onto Narigama beach which is where we were staying. Sections of the beach are utterly beautiful. It is sand to reef followed by turquoise blue water. You can also find a few rock pools to hang out in and watch all of the different fish, sea cucumbers, hermit crabs, sea urchins, and star fish hang about. On the sections without reef protecting you against the big swell the beach is un-swimmable because of all the riptides, currents and dumping waves (although we still found two tourists swimming, and can you imagine? They got caught in a rip- yes they survived). But this may be different in the high season. On the beaches there are multiple restaurants with deck chairs to hang out on if you are that way inclined although at this time of year they were all pretty empty.

Protective reef in some areas of the beach, where the turtles like to hang out (when the water is deep enough).

Me- forever exploring in rock pools 

Unawatuna

We had a good time at Hikkadua and Narigama beach but it being off season we were ready to go to a livelier area. So we hopped on the bus to Unawatuna. To get to Unawatuna you catch two buses. First get on the bus to Galle (40 cents AUD per person). At Galle swap onto the Matara bus and get off at one of the Unawatuna bus stops (there are three, shown on maps.me app). This cost us 20 cents AUD per person. Beware that the bus drivers are crazy drivers. We were speaking to a Sri Lankan woman about them and she said herself that the bus drivers make their own rules and are the cause of most crashes. Be ready for the bus to start moving before you even take your first step onto the bus (I nearly got left behind on our first bus). Once we got off the bus we decided to walk from the bus stop to our accomodation to save a couple of bucks instead of taking a tuk tuk. This was fantastic idea as we ended up finding a fruit stall which we visited many more times whilst in Unawatuna (especially for the coconuts and papayas).

We stayed at Hansa Villa for 12.50 AUD per night. The accomodation was run by the sweetest local man and the rooms were reasonable. The best thing was that they had a communal balcony and a kitchen you could use (with a blender, so we could make our own smoothies, which was a massive win!). 

In Unawatuna there are three main beaches

• Unawatuna beach
• Jungle beach 
• Wijaya beach

Unawatuna beach was nice and protected, the beach can get a bit dumpy so make sure to choose a safer spot to swim (if all else fails swim where others are swimming, this works most of the time). The beach has heaps of restaurants on the sand and you can either choose to be a pleb like us and lie on your towel on the sand or be fancy and get a day bed for the day. The water was clean here and a nice place to spend your time as it is really close to majority of accomodation.

Did I mention that the sunsets over here are pretty amazing?

Jungle Beach

Jungle beach. This is the one that we heard the most about and had read that it is a lot of peoples favourite beach. This would be the case for us too if there was no such thing as plastic (prepare yourselves for rant number two). Picture beautiful white sand beaches, lined by coconut trees and crystal clear turquoise blue water. Now imagine hundreds of thousands of pieces of rubbish lining the beach and water. This is jungle beach. It was devastating, and the worst part is is that there was so much rubbish that we couldn't even begin to clean it up. Especially since once you pick it up where do you put it? In another area of land just to destroy another piece of landscape or as some people know them as “dumps”. The best thing that we can do is reduce our plastic consumption and try to motivate others to do the same. Think metal straws, re-usable containers, shopping bags, not using pods for coffee, eating more fruit and vegetables because they come in natural containers (eg. banana peel, coconut husk, potato peel) unlike all processed foods that is wrapped in plastic. Every little change counts! Not that we are perfect but every little bit counts!

Jungle beach, perfect right?

Wrong, not so perfect. Also this photo does not do it justice. There was so much rubbish.

Wijaya Beach

After we were saddened about jungle beach we were worried that all beaches in Sri Lanka would be like this. Thankfully this was not the case. Wijaya beach is a 30 minute walk from Unawatanu or a 5 minute tuk tuk ride. This is one of the most famous beaches. It is picture perfect (as you will see in the multiple photos taken below). This was one of our favourite beaches, along with a lot of other tourists. It has it all; natural swimming pools (formed by sandy areas, protected by reef), surf spots, shady areas, rope swings, beautiful sunsets, turtles and restaurants in some areas but it has by no means lost it's natural beauty.

Life sucks.

That one time that leaning our camera on a fallen over palm tree and using self timer worked. Professional photographers right here.

From this position Luke could see six turtles frolicking in the water

I agree, Luke looks like an absolute bum, a really happy bum. 

That perspective. I told you we are professionals.

Weligama Beach

Our favourite part about beach hopping along the south west coast of Sri Lanka is how close all the beaches are to each other. The maximum amount of time it took us going from one beach to the next was 30 minutes. this was an enjoyable change for Luke and I not having to take overnight buses to reach our next destination, which was so often the case in other asian countries. To get from Unawatanu to Weligama Beach catch the Matara bus and get off at the Weligama bus station. Thankfully we met a fellow Aussie to pay for our trip (50 rupee each, 40 cents) as we had no smaller change on us than a 5000 rupee note (~$50 AUD).  

In Weligama we stayed at 2b1 Guest House for 10 AUD per night. This was a 1 minute walk to the beach. The best part about staying here is that the owner also owns a surf shack on the beach where you can lay on a sun bed for free, buy coconuts to sip on and rent a surf board. Surf board hire in Sri Lanka is generally 2 AUD an hour or 8 AUD for a full day. Weligama beach was Luke and my favourite beach. Weligama town is still very much a local town and there is only one bar to drink at unless you are at a hostel. Other than that you have to eat at local eateries and generally have early nights. This worked out perfectly for us as we were exhausted after surfing all day. It is the perfect beach to learn to surf at, so basically perfect for me. In saying that there are plenty of waves for those advanced surfers (not me).

Luke in his happy place.

Weligama beach

If you are a surfer- get out of the way. The local fisherman catch waves to beach their boats. If your a good person (Luke, not me) you can help them push it up the sand so the high tide won't wash them away.

I swear it was a wave. 

Puppy Magnet.

Mirissa

On the other side of the bay from Weligama is Mirissa. This has more accomodation options and is often where people choose to stay instead of Weligama because there are more bars, especially on the beach. We stayed in a homestay ran by one of the sweetest Sri Lankan families. This was called Mirissa Holiday Bangalow (yes it is spelt bangalow, nothing better than not checking the spelling before deciding on the name of your business). Here we rented a room from them (10 AUD per night) and were served a Sri Lankan breakfast which we ate in their living room. After being fuelled for the day we headed down to Mirissa beach. Here there were no surfers but instead amateur body boarders. It's so much fun seeing people of every age enjoying a body board and getting taken out by the waves. I swear body boarding brings out the inner child in everyone. You can enjoy cheap beers on the beach bars for $2 AUD each. In most other places in Sri Lanka you will be paying $5-6 AUD per beer. 

I couldn't get more content with life than I was in this moment.

Dikwella and Hiriketiya beach

As we were leaving Mirissa holiday bangalow the owners asked where we were going to stay in Dikwella. We answered with “Tharurashmi Holiday Resort” (a family homestay) they laughed and told us that this was her sisters place! So we went from one welcoming Sri Lankan family to another. To get to Dickwella you catch the bus from Mirissa to Matara (40 cents AUD each) and then the Tangelle bus to Dickwella (40 cents AUD each). It was so lovely, the dad came to the bus stop and picked us up in the tuk tuk for free. When we got to their home we sat talking to mumma and the son Jithma for about an hour. Here they were talking about anything and everything but what was a common occurrence in a lot of our conversations was them ragging on their fat cousin (the son of the people where we stayed at in Mirissa). It's probably a “you had to be there” kind of thing but it was hilarious (also don’t you hate when people say that?). Luke also enjoyed getting the opportunity to be shown Mumma's wedding album and get the run down on the days events. Our accomodation cost us 24 AUD per night with breakfast and dinner included.

Dickwella is the main town in this area and the beach is pretty open and average (well at least the day we walked there it was nothing special). What people go to this area for is Hireketiya beach. This is a little laid back beach in the shape of a horse shoe which has good surf. Our accomodation was about a 30 minute walk away from the beach but the family organises free tuk tuks there and back whenever you want to go. As soon as we got to the beach Luke rented a board and went out with the big dogs. The first day I didn't go out as the waves were a bit big (so small, but I’m a wuss). Luke caught a few cracker waves whilst I lounged on the beach, read my book and drank coconuts. the second day I finally built up the courage and for the first time I went out with the big dogs (woof woof). Here I caught a couple of waves, missed many more and ate shit multiple times (sorry mum and dad for swearing but its oh so true).

After our days on the beach we went home (home has become wherever we sleep at night) and our Sri Lankan mumma cooked us a traditional vegetarian meal each night. As you can imagine it was delicious and she catered way to much food. When we were leaving their homestay they gave us a friendship bracelet and we have got them as friends on watsapp (we have been messaging ever since).

Just behind Dickwella beach. The coconut field was much prettier than the beach.

Hireketiya beach.

I told you I was lounging around reading whilst Luke was surfing.

Tangalle beach

After Hireketiya beach, Tangalle was was our last stop on the south west coast. The buses seem to be least busiest between 9am and 11am so I would highly recommend catching them in this time as other wise you will be standing up and packed in like sardines. We got to Tangalle where we stayed at Vibes Guest House (21 AUD per night with breakfast included). This was clean and had a good bathroom which we enjoyed very much. We were underwhelmed by Tangalle beach. To the point where if you were going to Sri Lanka you can definitely keep it off of your list of places to visit. Our favourite part of Tangelle was the breakfast included with our accomodation. It was lentil dhal, rotties, hoppers (a carbohydrate wrap in the shape of a bowl) and a mixed fruit smoothie. It was delicious.

Not Tangelle beach (Wijaya beach). Sorry forgot to take photos at Tangelle (trust me it wasn't worth it).

Well this is how we have spent the last few weeks. It's been pretty amazing. We are leaving the beach for a few days and heading to Yala National Park where we are planning on going on a safari.

Lots of love,

Claire and Luke (Luke was busy snuggling with a cat whilst I wrote this so he counts as a co-author too right?)

Clive the cat (we named him) with a cleft pallet, who we watched hunt down a squirrel. We also found out that he enjoys tea cake and pats, lots of pats.