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Last night there was a party in Funchal somewhere, and there was lots of party music booming over the city until the wee hours. Julie tells me that it went on until 1.20, when I was snoring. So I was up a little before her, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Once she had showered away the sleep, we walked a few hundred yards up hill to a pastelaria for breakfast. We had the breakfast of champions, custard doughnuts and milky coffee, (galao). I think that all the hiking up hills will wear off the calories (possibly). 

It felt like time to get into the middle of Madeira, so we caught a number 81 bus from the sea front towards Curral de Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns. In the 16th century, Funchal had a serious pirate problem. I’m not talking annoying blokes in striped shirts at stag parties, these pirates were very mean and deadly. So the Nuns of Funchal took sanctuary in a secluded valley high up in the centre of  the island.

The bus ascended a winding road out of the city, and went up and up and up! I have never been on such a circuitous and precipitous road. A crash barrier separated the bus from a thousand foot drop to the valley below, and the bus driver honked his horn in warning as he went round blind bends. Before we reached our intended destination, the bus stopped at Eira do Serrado and most people stood up to get off. Some English people told us that there was a walk from there to the Nuns Valley, so we got off as well. The views from there were amazing, steep side valleys clothed in Eucalytus trees and mountains topped with yellow flowering broom.  The strata on the mountains showed how they had been built up from many volcanic eruptions over millions of years.

After a coffee in the tourist trap cafe, we deccended down a path. It was about a metre to two metres wide and was paved in stones. The stones are flattish and laid edge up, so they form a serrated grippy path. We zig zagged down through wild flowers and saw tiny lizards on the rocks. It was gorgeous in the warm sun and fragrance from the grass and flowers. Halfway down we stopped to eat the ham rolls we  purchased at breakfast, it was a fantastic location for a picnic.

At Curral de Frieras we had a small beer in the cafe, and got the bus back to Funchal. Madeiran buses are not designed for men over six feet tall, I sat with my legs spread like a lout on a park bench.

Back in Funchal we took a walk down the seafront, which is a bit utilitarian. There is no beach, and a big dual carriage way runs along the front cutting it off from the old and quaint town centre. There are no nice bars or cafes overlooking the sea, unless you are in one of the big hotels on the seafront.

All the restaurants have waiters posted outside to persuade you to eat in their place. It was like avoiding chuggers on Kingston High Street, so we pretended we had eaten already and went to the same place as last night. Wanting to fit in with the locals, we tried a Maderian speciality, Picador. It was a sort of tomatoey beef casserole served with chip and salad. The waiter said the traditional way to eat it is with a toothpick, so I did! It was bloody lovely.

The only blot on the days copybook was that I LOST MY PHONE! 

OMFG.

It got taken by leprechauns somewhere between the walk down the mountain and eating in the restaurant. I hope the little buggers have fun with it.

C’est la vie, shit happens.



I worked up this morning dreaming that my teeth had fallen out, perhaps I shouldn’t have eaten the dessert last night at dinner. We found a local cafe up the hill for a ham roll and coffee for breakfast, and then walked down some steep roads into the city centre. Most of the roads are Hills, and often steep. The drivers are very adept at tearing around at steeep angles. Funchal is a very neat, clean city with whitewashed houses and red Roman-tiled roofs. The old centre by the harbour is quite small, and the twentyth century part of the city spreads for miles up the surrounding hills. Everyone gets a great view of the sea, and probably have strong hearts, if they haven’t expired hiking up a hill.

The cable car station is near the big indoor market on the front by the sea. Since we are here out of season, the queue for the cars was short and mostly retired people from Northern Europe. The trip is delightful, travelling a hundred feet over the rooftops up hill to Monte. The ticketing system is a bit confusing, since there are multiple gardens at the top, and various combination tickets that you can buy.

Below us we coiled hear the chickens and dogs, and saw plantations of the local bananas, which are only about 5 inches long (the bananas, not the trees). Monte is where the famous sledge rides start, wood and wicker sliding sofas that are guided by two men with ropes.  It’s fun to watch but as a means of public transport it has severe limitations.

Monte has some lovely views over the city, and I had a swift half of Coral, the local lager. I reckon that all continental lager is made in one giant brewery in Düsseldorf and is then shipped to all the EU and stuck in bottles with a local label, it all tastes the same to me.

There was a choice between th sun tropical gardens or the Botanical Gardens, so I decided on the Botanical Gardens, since I love reading small signs in Latin. Getting there required another cable car across a massive ravine and entry charge  to the gardens, €13.50 combined. 

Kew Gardens, it ain’t. It’s a nice place to spend a couple of hours, but there are no greenhouses and very few little Latin signs. The cactus and succulent garden is impressive, with lots of big mean looking spiny plants. The museum takes the award for The Crappest Natural History Museum I Have Ever Seen. The tatty stuffed fish and birds are even crapper than those in the museum in Prague, my previous award winner.  But I do have to bear in mind that Madeira has the same population as Plymouth, which doesn’t have a Botanic Garden at all!

I needed another small beer and a bit of cake, all that vegetation exhausted me. Being mad and English we decided to walk back to the flat, it didn’t look far on Google maps. In actuality the road was steep, twisty and without a footpath all the way down to the city centre. Once we got to the bottom, we then had to walk up a hill to get back to the flat. Man we wuz knackered when we got back.

After a rest we examined a heap of leaflets to decide what we are doing on Sunday. It’s going to be a journey into the mysterious Nuns Valley, I’ll bet you’ve never seen one!

Dinner was enjoyed at a restaurant called Trigal. I had Espada, a delicious fish with a banana on top. Wierd I know, but that’s the way they eat them here.

It’s my birthday, I’m 61 today. It doesn’t feel as exciting at last year when I was retiring and recovering from My Operation (more about that one day), but it still feels good to be fit and well and on holiday.

We flew from Gatport Airwick with Monarch, my first experience with this package airline. The flight was no frills, no leg room and instant coffee, but it was cheap. I’m a man that loves a bargain, so having cramp in my left leg was all part of the “fun”. 

Madeira is out in the Atlantic 500 miles off the coast of Morocco, and has been Portuguese for almost 500 years. It’s a volcanic island poking up from the depths of the Atlantic! With peaks that rise up to 6,000 feet above sea level. The top of the island gets lots of rain, which is channeled down to the fertile sunnier parts of the island using irrigation channels.

Our Air b’n’b is in Funchal, the busy capitol of Madeira. It’s a city spread along the side of the central mountain, so there are lots of steep hills. Our place overalls the historic centre of the city and the harbour. It’s only took 10 minutes to walk down hill to the old town and tourist centre. A waitress charmed us into the Spotlight restaurant and I had a steak, it is my birthday after all! 

Now we need to plan what to do tomorrow, which means engaging our brains, not so easy after a 3 course does none and a bottle of very good vino tinto. I think we will find our way round town and get properly oriented. I would discuss it with Julie, but she has fallen asleep!


“Villa Hundira is great, so great” as Donald J Trump would say. It’s the kind of place where you don’t need to go anywhere else, you can just sit and listen to the wind in the trees and the birds. There is an occasional bloop sound as a fish breaks the surface of the water. Mangroves grow at the waters edge, and their stilt roots are full of tiny fish seeking refuge from the bigger fish in the creek.

Breakfast was the Full Monty, Sri Lankan style., a buffet served in heated tureens. To start I had egg hoppers with curry, a solid start and something for my intestines to grab hold of. Next I had frankfurter and bacon, the real thing not crappy turkey bacon. After that came the fruit course; pineapple, watermelon, papaya and bananas. To top it of and I finished with fresh bread and jam. What a glutton! That will keep me going until dinner this evening, possibly.

There appear to be almost as many staff as guests here, and they are all busy maintaining the property. Other hotels we have been to are quite scruffy and the staff just sit around doing nothing most of the time. It’s clear that this place is very well managed and they keep high standards.

We borrowed a sit-on kayak and went for a paddle into the Lagoon. It is only a few feet deep, and is fringed by mangroves. The Lagoon is open to,the sea, so it is tidal, but the range is only a foot or two. There were plenty of birds to see; crows, cormorants, herons of various types, terns and distant eagles. I feel more at peace here than anywhere I have been in Sri Lanka. It’s such a contrast from all the turmoil that we have seen on TV  on the BBC World News. DJT appears to be making enemies of everyone apart from white American conservatives.

So far we have stayed in eleven different places. The worst was Sunny Hills for one night in Kandy, which cost £12. The best is Villa Hundira which costs about £45 a night, and by far the best value. The priciest was Muhsin Villa in Galle which was £48 per night.  This place is so beautifully furnished with interesting pieces, including a life sized white wooden bull sat in the middle of a huge lounge. The whole hotel looks like something out of a glossy magazine or a book on architecture.

In theory I could sell my London home and buy a big beachside home here in Sri Lanka. But in reality I would be bored within a week! I have lots of interests in London that keep me busy; skiffing, running, cycling, cinema, country walking – none of which I could do here. The weather is wonderful for a few weeks, but I would miss the change of the seasons at home. Of course the main question is, could I live on curry? Well I have enjoyed it every day since I have been here, so I probably could. Sri Lankan curries are much lighter and more interesting than the typical “Indian” available at home, and they are an compliment to the rice, which is the main dish. My final Rice and Curry is at 6.30 tonight, in half an hours time, so I had better go and put a shirt on for dinner.

To get from Galle to Columbo there are three choices. The Express train leaves Galle for Columbo at 10.55 from the station close to the cricket ground. The train takes two and a half hours to Columbo, then we would have to a get another train to Negombo followed by a tuk tuk to the hotel.

The second choice is to get a bus to Colombo which takes three hours, then a train and tuk tuk.

So we choose the easiest and most expensive route, we got a taxi all the way. I rang up a Galle taxi company and they quoted me 8.000 rupees, a thousand less than the price from our hotel.

So the taxi picked us up at 9.30, and headed up the very quiet Southern Expressway. It’s Sri Lanka’s only motorway from Matara to Colombo. We came off it in the Colombo suburbs, then the driver go a bit lost. He confessed that he’d never driven to Negombo before, and didn’t have a map. They have Muppets in Sri Lanka as well. We are experienced travellers, so I had the map saved on my iPad, and we helped him to find our destination with that.

We arrived at Villa Hundira at about 1pm, the driver didn’t get a tip, in fact we should have got a discount for finding the route for him! 

The hotel is several beautiful buildings on the edge of the Negombo Lagoon, and is the best hotel I have EVER stayed in! Our room is about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and has waxed, polished concrete floors with rugs and heavy wooden furniture. There are two huge windows so it’s very light, and looks over a creek on one side, and a swimming pool on the other.

Lunch was (another) magnificent rice and curry; I had pork and Julie had fish. Then we waddled over to one of the swimming pools and collapsed on a sun bed and looked out over the lagoon. Hundred of crows flew low over us on their way to roost, and a water monitor swam across the lagoon.Julie found this place on Booking.com, and I had a look on Expedia and found a better price, £45 a night. I suppose they need to fill the rooms and sometimes let them our cheaply.

So now I’m slumped on a very comfy sofa watching the Fast and the Furious  on the satellite TV. God it’s going to be a shock to the system going back to London in the winter.

I enjoy an egg hopper as much as the next man, especially with some dhal and vegetable curry. But my digestive system is not robust enough to have them for breakfast every day. This morning they were a delicious alternative to toast, but it’s back to a non-spicy breakfast tomorrow I think.

Today was a re-run of yesterday, we got a tuk tuk to Unawatuna beach and did sweet FA for a few hours. I want keep my perfect peachy complexion, so I don’t go out in the sunshine for too long. The tuk tuk disgorged us on the road at the back of a restaurant, and within seconds we had found a comfortable shaded  wooden plinth with a thatched roof and cushions to lie on.  Some folk spend hours out in the sunshine, but by the time they are fifty they will look like Dot Cotton, and the men as well!

One of the pleasures of the beach is watching other people, all sorts of shapes and sizes in swim suites. Some views are much more pleasurable than others, but I will leave that image to your own vivid imagination.  Most of the beach is lined with restaurants with an inside dining area, and then a much larger outside dining area with shaded tables and and chairs and the aforementioned covered lounging platforms. I can’t think of a proper name for such an item, but since it’s a cross been a bed and a sofa, I’ll call it a Bofa. You heard it here first folks, next  year they will be selling bofas in IKEA
After a few hours we got bored with lying on the bofa, and even the bitching about passers by got a bit repetitive , “look at the size of her arse in a bikini”, “why is a grown man wearing a crocheted beany hat, what a prat”, and so on. We went back to Galle and had a nice cup of chai in a rooftop cafe with blue furniture and aphorisms painted on the wall.

 

Currently I’m lying in a hammock on the roof of the Muhsin Villa next to Julie who is also in a yellow stripy hammock.  She has just let off an enormous squelchy fart and said “pardon me” loudly, not realising that some other people had quietly joined us on the roof.  Both our hammocks are now shaking while we laugh as quietly as we can.

This morning we packed our stuff again in a well practised manner to move to the Muhsin Villa, on Lighthouse Street. I picked up my tee shirt off a rack and there was a huge cockroach attached to it. Julie was showering, so I quietly bundled it in the shirt and took it outside. I saw a rat in the street yesterday, but I didn’t tell Julie at all, she would have freaked!

You don’t have to to stand on a cold street corner and  hang around ages to hail a taxi in Sri Lanka. Tuk tuks are everywhere, like the wind blows and rivers flow. You just step out onto the street and within a minute a tuk tuk driver will be asking if you want a ride.This morning we took a very stylish tuk tuk with white leatherette upholstery and twisted chrome guard rails that separated us from the driver. He was a nice guy who chatted about cricket and how Galle gets invaded by thousands of English cricket fans when they play at the ground just outside the Fort. Both English and local fans like to gather on the walls of the Fort to watch the games.

 

He took us a few miles east to Unawatuna, a very popular beach resort. The name makes me think of Una Paloma Blanca, an old song from the seventies. It is similar to Mirissa, but bigger and busier,  with more hotels and restaurants.  Dear reader, you would like it here, the sky is blue, the sea is like a warm bath and cold beers can be brought to your table in the shade. The only minor fly in the ointment are the hawkers on the beach flogging bed spreads and wooden elephants. I settled in the shade and listened to a podcast of a Ted Talk by Dan Bricklin, the guy who wrote VisiCalc and invented the electronic spreadsheet. His invention gave me a good living, I spent ten years teaching people how to use Lotus 123 and then Excel. That paid my mortgage and shoes for my kids when they need a new pair every three months!

Back in Galle this evening I looked up the restaurants in Galle Fort on Tripadviser and  found a place called Chambers. It is close by on Church Street, and serves Moroccan food. It was one of the best meals we have eaten on this holiday, lovely oily hummus with hot flatbread followed by the best chicken and prune tagine. A great end to the day.

When I woke up this morning in the Old New Dutch House in Middle Steet it was rain. Then it started raining heavily, and then torrentially, as it does in the tropics. Inside our room the atmosphere was a bit thick. Not only was the usual smells that accumulate over night, but also the damp from our laundry that was drying in the room. I didn’t want to pay the silly prices for hotel laundry, so we washed our smalls in shampoo in the basin, wrung them out and hung them to dry. The fan was going all night to provide an internal breeze. Our clothes were sort-of clean, and we had more money to spend on rice and curry!

The walls of Galle were built by the Dutch, and are tall, broad and very substantial. The British got them because the Netherlands were part of Napoleons territories, and the British thrashed Napoleon at Waterloo. Galle Fort is on a peninsula, and the walls go all the way round it. The Fort is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has lots of lovely old buildings. Many are now shops, restaurants or hotels, and derelict buildings are being restored. The streets are relatively quiet, and have more tourists than local people, it reminded me of an Asian Dubrovnik.

We ate lunch at the Lucky Fort Cafe and had another enormous rice and curry meal. I ate some novel curries including beetroot, pineapple, mango, tapioca and palm heart. I shall be shitting for England at about 8.30 tomorrow morning. After lunch we walked through the gate and  into Galle new town, a typical Sri Lankan town. A street hustler tried to persuade me to go to buy some spices and tea. I explained to him that because I live in West London I can probably buy spices for less than he does, and Tesco sells a huge variety of excellent tea which is approved by chimps.

Throughout Sri Lanka I have seen posters for Nippolac, which is either:

A) Japanese paint, or

B) a breast feeding aid

You decide.

As it was getting dark we fancied a drink, yer know, a proper drink. But we found ourselves near the mosque, and no booze to be found in that quarter of town. So we went into a trendy bar  called the Gullible Tourits and paid too much for small drinks and bad service. What they need is a proper boozer selling London Pride, the Chinese tourists would love it!

So farewell Peacock Wings guest house, you were really average. The ants running up the walls were  quite annoying, But when I squashed a moth by accident, the ants did conveniently take it away. A whole gang of tiny beasts gathered around and took the dead moth away to feed their babies. The place was quiet, but lacked comfort and charm. Alex Polizzi would have enjoyed making the place more appealing.  The landlady’s mother who brought breakfast didn’t manage to smile once at five breakfasts. Maybe she always wanted to be an undertaker and just got as far as the gloomy face. But it did have a nice view of the sea from the breakfast room on the roof, plus squirrels, monkeys, ants and mozzies. I put some sting cream on Julie’s legs this morning and counted at least twenty five red bites.

For breakfast we had space hoppers again, but no fruit for the first time since we have been in Sri Lanka. 

I am pretty good at cramming everything into my small wheelie bag and rucksack,  I wear my trainers and pack my flip flops, because they go nice and flat.

 We walked over the road just in time to catch a 350 bus to Galle. It stopped for about five seconds, just long enough to get into the bus. Jesus they go fast! They barrel along at about forty, beeping loudly the make sure all other traffic gets out of the way. The tuk tuk drivers are fearless, and have to steer clear of the charging buses. I haven’t seen any accidents yet, but I expect to. We passed through Weligama and Midigama, and saw some stilt fishermen perched on the cross pieces of stilts that are stood in the surf. They fish with rod and line, I don’t know how successful they are. It’s much easier just to buy fish fingers from Lidl.

Galle was a Portuguese trading fort then it was Dutch, who built huge walls around their settlement. We are staying at the confusingly names New Old Dutch House in Middle Street inside the Fort. For lunch I had my favourite Sri Lankan meal, rice and curry. It was a belter today, consisting of:

• Rice, a big bowl
• Fish curry, a small portion of tuna in a thin hot sauce
• Geeens curry, something like spinach or cabbage
• Jack fruit , tastes a bit like aubergine but  is starchy like potato
• Tomato and red onion salad
• Dhal
• Green bean curry

It cost about £4, the price of couple of naan bread at home.

The old Fort area has quiet streets, and is full of good restaurants and shops selling up market souvenirs. I bought a little wooden tuk tuk from a hawker on the ramparts. I paid nine hundred rupees for it, having knocked him down from four thousand. I probably paid at least twice what it’s worth, but I was happy with my deal.

We passed a restaurant on the way back to our hotel which advertised a very appealing offer for dinner. Ten curries for nine hundred and fifty rupee and enough food for two people.

We ate a different kind of Sri Lankan breakfast today, hoppers of a new type! They looked like bowl-shaped pancakes, some with eggs cooked in them, and some without. I don’t think they were as good as string hoppers with dhal and chutney, but they made a change.

 

The guide book described a temple on a hill with good views, so we set off to find it. We did find a hill, but no temple or views, but delightful birds with tropical songs. There are lots of jungle noises here, the little squirrels that run up the trees are very vocal! After climbing the hill we saw a sign for Secret Beach, so we followed that. A path took us along the side of a long wall which went down to the sea. We then had to clamber over rocks to find the Secret Beach. It is a stunning little bay with a small beach and a cafe amongst the trees. There were several small children paddling in the water and it looks idyllic. 

With sarongs spread on the sand  we settled down to read, I have just started Dissolution from CJ Sansom, a very good Tudor who-done-it. Then the water beckoned, so I went into the warm sea. I’m glad I put my goggles on, not only was there some colourful small fish, but also plenty of sea urchins! I got spiked by some of those nasty little buggers in Yugoslavia in 1975, and I don’t want to do it again. Another visitor was picking spikes out of his feet, and a lady next us got stung by a large wasp. Julie had some anti sting cream in her bag, which helped ease her discomfort. Then Julie got bitten by a big ant, which stuck its jaws in an wouldn’t let go! I had to pull it quite hard to remove the creature.

After lunch (calamari and chips) I found a very comfortable hammock slung between trees and had a snooze, you can’t do that in Twickenham.

Some the Secret Beach is very lovely, but also the most venomous place we have visited! On our way out we followed some other tourists, and took a much easier route back to the main beach. I passed a tuk tuk selling bread, they are all over Sri Lanka and play the same tune, Fleur de Lys. Either that or the same bloke has been following me around for three weeks.