April 4, 2025
Cycle day 13 - Pulmoddai to Mullaittivu
Pulmoddai to Mullaittivu = 65km (Total distance on this trip so far = 834km)
Weather = low of 24 with a high of 29. Not exactly cooler but once you got to the coast and felt the breeze it was nice!
Accommodation = Sun and Sand Guest House = 9500 rupees ($51.61 AUD) – still cheaper than a Western Australia unpowered campsite! Please don't think this is the start of us going upmarket with our travels by our accommodation costs – there is nothing else here so we have to pay that price!
Last nights accommodation was lovely and they cooked us dinner – local style (and I say local style because they cook it forgetting us westerners annual individual chilli consumption is not by the tonne as it is here but by the milligram!) Gosh the chicken fried rice made my lips burn! But it was nice and I know the burning subsides (and just on a side note I realised that if I ate Papaya – as they served us that for after dinner – it actually stops the burning on the lips!) They served us a big plate full to share and we couldn't eat it all which is ok with them as they are not offended if you leave some on the plate (I assume it would be sort of a slap in the face to them if we managed to consume everything as it would mean they didn't prepare enough and makes them look bad – so Ray you would be no good here as I know you would challenge yourself to eat it all and by crikey you would eat it all just because it is there!)
There was sliced red onion which I can't eat as that just repeats on me all night!
In the morning we had breakfast as that was included in the price and we sat down to another rice meal (sweetened this time) along with cooked onion and chilli! I was happy with the rice as that meant carbohydrates but the cooked onion looked lovely but hell it was hot that I had to dilute it with my sweetened rice, I never looked at the chilli direction. As well as banana and papaya. The rice is a bit like rice pudding just not as stodgy and I could taste a little bit of coconut. Neil couldn't taste the coconut – that is because he hasn't trained his coconut palate over the years whereas I (who would eat coconut in any form breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks every single day of my life!) have trained my coconut palate to detect it in anything! But the coconut they use here is not tinned it is the milk part and that has quite subtle coconut flavour. Nevertheless I ate alot of it. Its traditional name is Kiribath and you are suppose to eat the chilli with it but nup I just couldn't do that!
We left there at 7.30 and were looking forward to todays ride as we were going to be riding alot of the back roads and we needed Google Maps to navigate our way around in case we got lost.
It wasn't long until the locals began to pull up alongside and chat to Neil
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And as you can see our roads are narrow and quiet. It is only 1 lane wide and just wide enough for us and the local bus to pass each other.
We knew at some point the road was going to be unsealed but when we came across the unsealed section it was alot earlier than anticipated and not as long but crikey it was full of dips and craters – ok for us on the bike but tuk tuks, cars and buses would have had a hard time navigating their way through it
The first part of the ride was through what looked like rice fields just waiting for monsoon season before they were dug up and planted. But once past the tank or lake you could see the fields were using the water to irrigate the rice fields
Wildlife today included a dead snake or 2 then a live one slithering across the road (a small one but we were too slow again to get this one in a photo!), heaps of mongoose running to and fro, Neil saw a big wild boar (but I was looking elsewhere and missed it), heaps of birds that we are just too slow to get a photo of but we finally managed to get one of a kingfisher that has brilliant azure blue on its back and monkeys
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https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/204519-Halcyon-smyrnensis/browse_photos
2 weeks ago
We had an interesting tractor pass us today
This is one used in the rice fields – it is a bit like a paddle steamer! I assume it is for when they are plowing in water filled fields and the wheel additions help it through so it doesn't sink into the mud.
Once pass Welioya we start to head in a north east direction and towards the coast and rather than being flat the road begins to wind a bit and slightly go up hill then down hill but it is ok to ride. What is interesting about this section is the jungle growth is quite thick alongside the road and then you start to see these signs
They are all along the left side of the road and there are red sticks at regular intervals and then a red stick either side of something that looks like a driveway that goes deeper into the jungle – anything behind the sticks has not been checked for land mines! We did come across one guy completely kitted out with protective gear laying out these red sticks – we dare not go in and ask about it!
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We then saw this sign and clearly they are employed through Interational Aid money to do this job and check. Just a side note the flag 2nd from the top on the left side should probably we scrubbed out since they no long provide Aid money anymore!
So it is all along here between Welioya until the road joins the coast road. We take a break here and we have our banana and bun sandwich. There is a lady that is setting up a small stall of cooked corn, excess fruits etc and she comes over and offers us some local fruit that she has a lot of – its local name is Jambu or wax apples or rose apples
I liked it (I like any fruit!) so when we finished I took the plate back to her and bought some of her as well as a guava (if you see Sharon and Dad it looks like the ones they grow on Pitcairn Island!).
From here we turn left for Mullaittivu which is about 22km away. Sometimes the road comes to the ocean and you can see it
On a side note we did notice a heck of alot of army battalion type places today. We usually see 1 or 2 a day but today there were heaps and once we got to town there were heaps of army people walking around (not with guns) shopping, banking etc.
The beach here a Mullaittivu is sensational and we sat under Palmyra trees (similar if not a Pandanas tree) for shade and ate our small tub of icecream while admiring the yellow sand and clear blue water.
From here we got to our accommodation (which I forgot to get photos off as I had to charge the camera battery!) and passed some ruins – not sure if these are from the civil war or the Tsunami.
Tomorrow we head inland towards Kolinochchi – a short day and we will be in Jaffna on Sunday.
Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 757 km (470 miles)
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