Whale Watching off Mirissa + Lunch!

About a 150 km from Colombo, Mirissa is a very small town, on the southern coast. But from its habour, one can for a goodly fee (Rs. 6000/=) sign up for a boat ride of several hours, to the deep waters some 15 miles out and with luck, see both the blue whale, the largest animal on earth, and the dolphin, bottle nosed and other variates, who are of course, cuter than cute.
And so we went, stayed at the Giragalla Inn, which overlooks the lovely Giragalla (Parrot Rock), and woke up early, took the boat at 7, were very lucky with our sightings!


(Dolphin breaks the water -- above -- Whale dives, below)


Then, hungry after the long ride, which took 5 hours, and having postponed breakfast fearing seasickness (we had all dosed up on avomine), we fell upon a simple, classic 'rice curry' lunch at the old and famous Weligama Bay Rest house.



the most interesting dish, a karavila curry, which I'd never had before, wasn't the most popular, since true to its name (bitter gourd), it remained bitter :). Still since I've been fixing Karavila salads, I tried quite a bit of it. It wasn't very good; perhaps more lime would have helped, with more initial de-bitterizing!?