Tour of Sri Lanka 2025 | Day 5 | Mirissa – Weligama – Matara – Dondra- Mirissa | 87.8 kms

I woke up around 6:30 am and by 7:30am, I am ready to leave. Landlady says that breakfast is ready and so, I have breakfast before leaving. I leave around 8 am, the weather is bright and sunny. I head to the stilt fisherman fishing point near Koggal. It’s a 15 km ride. I reach there quickly due to low traffic. Luckily, I find 2-3 fisherman fishing over the stilt. I quickly take a photograph of them. One of the Sri Lanka’s wish list got completed. Next, I head back to the guest house to get my GoPro as I need to drop it off to the service centre to get it repaired. They say that they have 50-50% chance of making it work. They tell me to check back in evening. Meanwhile, I head to the Surf school my guest house friend had suggested me.

It is right next next to the corner on the beach and I manage to locate it without much hassle. The name of the Surf school is ‘No Limit’. It’s 5000 LKR for the training. I am all in. The instructor first gives me on the ground training about the surf board and the techniques on how to balance, stand and pose for a perfect surf. It goes on for about 20 mins following which we head towards the water for the real practice. In the beginning, its difficult to balance, let alone stand on it and I am almost everytime falling off. After repeat tries, I slowly manage to get a grip on it and 3-4 times, I am able to surf quite a distance. The guide after an hour, tells me that his time is over and that I can practice my own for however time I want. Thereafter, I spend like 2-3 hrs enjoying surfing myself and finally nailing the technique.

I am quite happy and ecstatic having learnt something new. Finally, I come off the water, take a bath, enjoy some fresh tender coconut sitting on the beach before returning to the guesthouse.

After getting ready, I then head towards Matara and Dondra as per the instructions from my landlady. She’s given me some name of the places to check out. I first head to Matara, a mere 10 km ride. There, by the beach is the beautiful temple of ‘Parewi Duwa’. A straight cement road connects the temple from the beach. To reach the temple, you need to climb certain amount of steps. I reach the top, the views all around are great. I pay my respects inside the temple, click some photos before getting down. The beach is full of people. I pick my bike and then head towards Dondra, another 6-7 kms ahead. I am in search of elephant inside a temple whom you can feed. Upon reaching Dondra, I struggle to find it but a local points me our that I had entered wrong pin on the map. Someone, mistakenly had put elephant photo for a different location.

The ‘right’ temple is on the main road itself which I enter now. After asking the priest, I get the location of the elephant. I walk towards them, one male and one female. Both are massive in size and quite intimidating. I get a chance to feed bananas to male elephant name ‘Banu’, 20 yrs old. The elephant’s ‘mahout’ even makes me sit atop the elephant which was a scary stunt. He takes 2000LKR for that. Overwhelmed, I leave the temple and visit the next local attraction for being the Sri Lanka’s southernmost point.

It’s in a small park which has a light house. The marker is pointed red. I click photos and by then it’s almost dusk. I retrace my steps in the direction of guesthouse. On the way, I stop at some places to click some amazing sunset shots. I even stop at a Nescafe shop for a caffeine shot. The coffee is ready made and bit sugary. I return to my guesthouse.

I take a bath and have my dinner made by the landlady. After dinner, I go for a small walk. It’s lightly drizzling. Coming back, I doze off as my body feels little tight and sore owing to the surfing in the ocean. I am quite tired and just doze off.