Tangalle: Buckingham Place

The drive from Negombo to Tangalle was much easier this time than during our last visit nine years ago. (It's kind of remarkable to realize that when we went, the civil war had only been over for four years. And it was three years ago that the Colombo bombings happened on Easter. So much tragedy for such lovely people.) Anyway, a new highway took us a little farther inland, so there wasn't as much winding through small villages along the coast, combined with the special way of driving here.** So it was a smooth, speedy trip, which my easily carsick tummy appreciated. We saw big yellow warning signs along the highway, "Danger Peacocks Ahead," which was so startling. We learned that there are so many peacocks (no lie!) and they fly over the highway and can cause accidents, or get killed by cars and trucks. We've seen elephant crossing signs and monitor lizard crossing signs and random mammal crossing signs before, but never a peacock crossing sign.

We stayed at Buckingham Place last time, and since then Nick, the owner, did a huge upgrade to the property. It was nearly unrecognizable, moving from a kind of small property with a small dining area, a very small and unremarkable pool, and several rooms, along with easy access to the beach, to a very dramatically designed place with a HUGE dining space, lots of places to sit on a couple of levels, a billiard room, a piano, and a completely gorgeous infinity pool that overlooked the ocean. Nick had been away the last time, so we finally met him. He favors very long, brightly colored shirts (more like dress-length) and uses a cane, wears his hair pulled back in a low man bun, and he is a very good host in that he smoothly and seamlessly adapts himself to the guest. I am casual and personal and he was immediately that way with me, but I saw him interact differently with other guests.

Another change was the level of formality in service. Our chairs were pulled out for us, we were ma'am-ed and sir-ed and our French press pot was pressed down for us and coffee poured. Some of the staff spoke English very well, and all spoke English 100% better than I spoke Sinhalese, but communication could be a little confusing -- and made more so because the staff all wore masks, without fail. We didn't have to wear them, which was a relief. We were introduced to the property by Umesh, a really beautiful young Sri Lankan man with very good English. After showing us around the public spaces and explaining things, he took us to our room and as he was leaving, he pulled his mask down quickly and smiled and I felt like crying. It was so beautiful to see his face, to see a smile, and it was only the first time someone would do that and it was stunning both times. Both times (with Umesh and with Bas, in Anuradhapura), seeing their full faces was surprising, and they looked different than we imagined. It moved me then and it still does, when I think about it. The staff had hung a huge "Welcome Back" banner in our room, and left a bottle of white wine for us/me. Since it was Valentine's Day, they had also spelled out "Happy Valentines" in leaves and flowers on the foot of our bed. At dinner, they gave us a Valentine's Day card that every single staff member had signed. They hung hearts everywhere (shaped in lights) and each table had vases of red flowers. They went all out.

Mostly what we did here was to swim, go to the beach (on which more in a second), enjoy the fantastic breakfasts, Marc took walks on the back roads, and we took tuktuks into town for dinner. It was so good to be back in a tuktuk; the last time for us was October 2019, in Myanmar, before the world closed down. Being in a tuktuk with Marc is my favorite place to be in the whole world, wherever it might be. It was so relaxing, so beautiful, so special, that we extended our stay by two days. We'd planned to go to Colombo, mostly to break up the long drive from Tangalle to Anuradhapura, but we decided to just deal with the long drive. On which more in a second. I read a few books (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers; To Paradise, by Hana Yanigahara; Bewilderment, by Richard Powers; and Matrix, by Lauren Groff, and they were all amazing).

Marc has thought about the beach--Rekawa Beach--with great longing since our last trip, and it really is one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. There is a strong riptide and the sea is wild, there, so it's not a place to swim, but the pristine beach is brown, damp sand, very clean, empty, and with great rock outcroppings along the way that provide places to sit and enjoy the view and the surging water without being swept away. It's a little too wild and unpredictable for me, so while I enjoy seeing it and watching it, it's hard for me to walk in that unpredictable water's edge, that seemingly randomly stays away, washes over your feet, surges up to your knees, from one moment to the next. Once I was walking on the beach and the water was coming in, so I wanted to take a little video of it. I was walking backwards, looking at the screen as I videoed, and failed to remember an outcropping of small boulders behind me, and took a tumble. It's one of my favorite videos. Marc went to the beach quite a bit, and once we sat together in one of the protected rock areas and marveled at all the sea urchins (which he kept calling sea enemas) and crabs crawling and hopping all over the rocks. It was so very alive. Sea turtles were laying eggs, so every morning we'd see those great, lumbering tracks from the sea to the back of the sandy beach, and the large holes dug for the eggs, and then her lumbering tracks back to the sea. They close the beach at 7pm to protect the turtles during this time, and and the area is one of two Turtle Conservation Sanctuaries on the southern coast of Sri Lanka.

When our hotel comes with breakfast included, if it's a good breakfast we always eat there, and our ordinary habit is to eat dinner somewhere else if at all possible. The breakfasts were so, so good, and the egg hoppers, which I have been craving for nine years, were on the menu. We also loved the chili eggs with bacon curry, mmm. We would have gone into Tangalle for dinner on our first night, but we were still very tired from jetlag and they had a big ta-da deal for Valentine's dinner, so we stayed, much to our regret. I mean, the food wasn't bad, but it really wasn't great. I don't even remember what we ate, a bunch of unremarkable curries, only that it was really disappointing. The rest of our stay, we went into town for dinner.

We had a couple of dinner spots we remembered from nine years ago and wanted to revisit: the hilariously named Cactus Cafe, right on the beach, and an amazing little restaurant next to the bus station, called Prem. Of course the pandemic has had a devastating effect everywhere, and small restaurants were often closed, so we did the best we could. Tuktuk drivers take you to the restaurant and sit and wait for you, at such a nominal hourly rate it's kind of heartbreaking. We had such a lovely tuktuk driver, it was always so nice to see him each night. Cactus Cafe was still great--fresh fish and prawns and the crispiest French fries ever, and a Lion beer for me. Marc found a small restaurant at a guest house, so we walked there one night and were served good food by the most beautiful young Sri Lankan woman, the daughter of the guest house owner. We had to call ahead and tell her what we wanted to eat, and when we would arrive. The owner was proud of her food and kept inviting us back, and back. When Marc was scouting the place, he walked into the property and saw a closed door with a welcome mat, so he knocked, and then opened the door.....and it was some guy's room! From what we saw, the guest house catered to young people with backpacks and frugal budgets. 

Aside from those meals, we tried the best restaurants we could find, all of which were kind of lined up on one road. The first of those was really great, with the friendliest people. Marc asked if they had okra curry -- just asking if they did -- and the waiter said just a minute, ran out to a man on a motorcycle, and came back and said his dad was going to get some okra, it would be a few minutes. They had decks of cards on each table, so for the first time in our lives together, Marc played cards with me, gin rummy. "Boy, you're competitive," he said, and I smiled and said no, this is not me competitive, we aren't keeping score, this is just me, professional gin rummy player, with thousands of games under my belt. Still, he beat me more than he lost. It was so much fun.

The best food we ate at those restaurants was on our last night, at a family place (they all were family places). The setting was nice, ceiling fans, nice tables, and the young man who took our order seemed off-kilter or confused or maybe just not up to the task. We didn't have any confidence that our order was taken correctly, and in fact it was not. Marc didn't get the food he ordered, but he had kotthu roti that was the best we'd had up to that point. So all the thumbs up for the food, thumbs down for the service. Otherwise, we ate at one sweet place where the dad was so proud of his food and family and it was OK and we were hot and sweaty and bitten by mosquitoes, and another place where we sat outside on a patio and watched a family of Russians sitting on a covered porch....before the war with Ukraine began. Since this is apparently Russian season, as our Negombo taxi driver informed us, encountering Russians since the war began has been hard for mouthy but passive-aggressive old me. I keep wanting to go up to them and say "I heard your accent, are you from Ukraine?" with a big smile and enthusiasm and then when they say Russia, to scowl at them. Of course I didn't do any of that.

Buckingham Place is filled up with peacocks, a few monitor lizards, and monkeys. There are so many peacocks, they're just like more-beautiful pigeons, really. They walk around the dining room. Perch everywhere. What's that out of the corner of your eye? PEACOCK! The peacocks like to scream a lot, and one day it sounded like one was right at our door screaming. One morning, when we'd moved to a room on the ground floor after we extended our stay, a whole flock of peahens and peacocks stood at our window, looking in, and it made me laugh so hard. The bulk of our time was in a 2nd floor room, where monkeys sat on the railings, jumped from one balcony to the next, and gathered in congress on the roof of the building below us. One late afternoon a male peacock was there among all the monkeys, raising his beautiful tail feathers and ruffling his butt feathers, which was confusing because the monkeys didn't care. Marc saw monitor lizards a couple of times, always coming to tell me with little-kid excitement that made me melt.

When it was time to leave, we were sad, even after seven days there. The drive was 6.5 hours long, and our sweet driver was taking us and then turning around and making the return trip immediately after. We wanted to get a SIM card in Tangalle before we left, thinking it would just be a quick and simple thing, but the rude person at the store was entirely unhelpful, and even though it meant we were later getting away (and so he would be even later getting home), he drove us to two different places to get help.

Driving here is messy! It's fine if you're in a big van, but it goes like this. Tuktuks and bicyles and motorcycles and cars and trucks are all in the lane, fitting together however they can -- i.e., not lined up -- and the oncoming lane is the same. Passing means a bit of honking and just pulling into the oncoming lane no matter who is coming, except for big buses or trucks, and everyone just figures it out. Somehow it all works, and while it's kind of terrifying in a tuktuk to see a big van or car coming right at you, it all works out. It also involves a lot of slowing and going fast, slowing and going fast, and getting through towns and villages is an experience. It doesn't seem to work in quite the same way as in Hanoi, where everyone seems to be anticipating what everyone else is going to do so it's important that you keep going since everyone is predicting you. In some way this felt different to me, though maybe it wasn't. To me it seemed like everyone was just focused on themselves: I need to pass this car so I'm just going into the other lane. Then the drivers in the oncoming lane had to reckon with you. I don't know. Somehow it felt different. But it was always interesting!

So onward to Anuradhapura!

BEST MEMORY: For Marc, it was walking on back roads (he always loves that), walking on the beach, and sitting in the rock pool. For me, and I feel kind of not-great saying this, it was just being in such a beautiful place and enjoying the luxuries of it. I don't think of myself that way, and never want to be spoiled, but I really did enjoy that part the most. Marc feels that way too, so it was nice to share both the pleasure and our somewhat uncomfortable feelings about it.

BEST THING WE ATE: Marc really loved all the grilled prawns, and I loved the breakfasts the most, the egg hoppers, the chili eggs, the fruit and juice and coffee. I couldn't make coffee in the room because there was no kettle, and we were up much earlier than they served breakfast, but I could always get a cappuccino in the bar before breakfast. They weren't the best at milk foaming, but it was very sweet.