April 20, 2025
Cycle day 24 - Kitulgala to Badalgama
Kitulgala to Badalgama = 84km (Total distance on this trip so far = 1536km)
Weather = Low of 25 with a high of 32 degrees. Yeah back to the hot sweaty days and nights again!
Accommodation = Suriya Homestay = 6150 rupees ($32.21 AUD)
Last night we walked down the hill to the local eating establishment and had a vegetable curry, due to our lack of speaking Sinhalese and their lack of English knowledge we ended up with a bit of fish curry on our plate! Needless to say that was left aside!
It was a nice meal. However there was something in my dahl that I thought was tomato and in my mouth it goes and I am munching away and nec minute my mouth is absolutely on fire! I didn't want to make a scene and spit it violently out so I just swallowed it – I nearly passed out. OMG I literally thought I was going to die of mouth burns. Not sure what it was but it was super hot! It took my mouth longer than normal to recover!
Walking back up the hill we came across a very old local post box that had garden growth trailing over it. We pulled it back to see that it was made in 1949!
Had a shit nights sleep last night. It was a hot night and not having a ceiling fan and only a pedestal fan that didn't necessarily allow for a pleasant night of sleeping. There was a group of young men rock up at about 4am in the morning to check in! For FS what a load of crock to be checking in at that time and do you think they were quiet? No? So I am grumpy as to start our morning. We eat our papaya and bananas and keep another 4 bananas for todays ride.
I think I mentioned we are alongside a river that is popular with white water rafting – there were quiet a few private outfits that cater for this and it seems very popular with the local tourists or though I did see a few foreigners in the back of a ute with life jackets on – personally when you look at the Sri Lankan lackadaisical approach to safety and processes on anything you really would think twice about going on something like this! However as you ride along in the morning when there is not much traffic about to block the noise of the river it is really quite pleasant listening to the roar of the water going over the rocks. Most of the time you can't see the river but you can hear it.
It is undulating from our accommodation to the turnoff to Ruwanwella where we had a very late breakfast part 2 as nothing was open at 7-9am in the morning! On our way into Ruwanwella Neil picked up a local friend
From here we took a B road up to Warakapola. More climbing – this time a little bit of undulations and then a 7km solid climb up with about a 6km down and then flattish into Mirigama. Riding along to Warakapola was nice. Just after our turnoff we crossed a river and we spotted a local washing in the river along with doing here laundry!
Alot of people see the river as being beneficial to ones health and not just from the perspective of a river being a way to cool down!
We pass through a rubber plantation
And just over the crest of the hill is the rubber plantation factory. By the time we get to Warakapola I am beginning to be weary with all the unduations. We find a Cargills and get a small chocolate ice cream to eat in the car park. There are plenty of spots to park so we have to take up a car park -well half of it and I am going to say it but this is just an example of someone (ie. A male) having shit for brains! We are getting ready to leave and there is a car parked in the car park next to us. So this shit for brains tuk tuk driver squeezes next to us (while he is in the process of parking he is expecting me to move to create more room but I can go no where as my bike is there) and he parks about 10cm from us. The security guy comes over and tells him to park somewhere else. The tuk tuk driver is a bit put out as he sees the security guy favouring us over them as Sri Lankans but it is not and I think as the security guy pointed out to the wife who was having words with him – the reason he had to move is not because we have a 10cm gap between us and the tuk tuk – that is fine we can move our bikes but what the shit for brains tuk tuk driver didn't realise is that he had also parked next to the car leaving a 10cm gap also so the car driver could not get in the car via the drivers door – yeah real idiot – remember I said men here just cannot drive and think at the same time – this is a good example.
Anyway we push on to Mirigama and my route was via the A road and then the B road but Neil said nah lets do the B road – I point out that it probably is undulating as I can see we are not in the mountains any more but more in the hills area. Well it was undulating but only 12km to Mirigama but enough to tire myself out even more! Traffic is hectic everywhere except the B roads as everyone is returning home. Along this road we come across a group of people trying to cut a jack fruit or breadfruit as I call it. They are nortoriously hard to get off, you can let them fall off and come crashing down but then you have to be there when it does (we see alot that has fallen and are just rotting on the roadside as no one has been there at the right time!) On Pitcairn Island they shoot them off the tree but here they had a long pole with a machete tied to the end, but I think the pole was too long and flexible to be effective in cutting it off. And unfortunately they are not the type of tree conducive to just climbing up and cutting it off that way
We get to Mirigama hot and tired. Here I make the mistake of taking the Negombo road turnoff. We didn't know the name of the town our accommodation is in it is just a small unknown locality but I do remember that it was on the Negombo road so we start pedalling along and had gone along at least 10km and Neil points out that this is a very busy B road so he checks and says we are on the wrong road – we need to be on the next road above that also goes to Negombo! LOL my bad! I just had it in my head that our accommodation was on this road to Negombo and didn't realise we had to do another north step up towards Waradala. So we find a back road that can link us up to Waradala and take that one
Fortunately we can take a by pass road to save us a few more kilometers and end up on the B road we were suppose to be on in the first place! However our accommodation is not coming up on Google maps so we struggle to find it but eventually we do and it is well of the road, a beautiful place and she is making us chicken fried rice for dinner as everything is closed and there is no where to eat.
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We have trouble booking tomorrow nights accommodation as they all require check ins to be at 6.30pm bugger that so we find another 12km out of the way and do that only to find out that their check in is 4.30pm. I am pissed as there is no accommodation around so we are stuck with the 12km extra and a 4.30pm check in. So we will stop by in the town before and have an early dinner and wait out our time. It is annoying as it was to be a 60km day and now it is a 72km day which the 12km has to be back tracked to the main highway in order to get to Puttalam on Tuesday so that day is now longer too!
Today's ride: 74 km (46 miles)
Total: 74 km (46 miles)
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