Trincomalee
23 Sep 2013 | Trincomalee, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka
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We finally arrive in Trincomalee, North-East of Sri Lanka. When we arrive at the entrance of the port, in the middle of the night, we are chased by a navy ship who forbids us the entrance. We then anchor out of the city, in Dutch bay, to sort out the trouble by radio. It turns out that we are not allowed to disembark whatsoever as we didn't plan our arrival there through an agent, at the end Tony accepts to play their game and finally hires an agent by phone, it will cost him 350$ US at the end.
Finally on land! We park the boat in Trinco harbour and after the custodary beer (or few beers to be perfectly honest), we start organizing our days around. As Tony wants to spend as little time as possible in Sri Lanka -while I'd rather enjoy it-, and as I have no good reason to sail back to Europe already (I miss you my friends, but it's not time yet :-) ), I decide I will stay, the end of a two-months adventure sailing. David was already supposed to leave the boat, so we end up taking a room in town together.
Trincomalee is a cute little city, mainly inhabited by Tamil people. Hindus, muslims, christians and bhuddist coexist in harmony, everyone have beers together :) People are very relaxed and the town is -quite- calm. It feels like India in a less hectic version.
Chilling at the beach and trying to sort out what do you do with a woodapple, we meet Mubarak, a local fisherman, whom we befriend immediately. He offers to take us to the hot springs out of the city the following day (the cheap way: local bus and walking), and we end up going out fishing with him and his partner Kuti, spending time with Kuti's family, having some -many- drinks... Super!