Sri Lanka Day 63 (Trincomalee): Beaches & Wildlife but Missing Whales Watching -Part 2
(continued)
Fort Frederick was one of the main highlights of the trip mainly because I met a group of Grade 5 (10 years old) kids which became out of control after a while.
Everything was peaceful at the beginning. The view of Black Bay is so beautiful. The Fort is still being managed by the army as they have their own army base inside the fort.
There is a traffic light to follow such that at any one time there is only one-way traffic. So you can see in the photo below that the vehicles were waiting to go out of the fort when the light turned green.
Once you stepped into the fort, you would be able to see Gokanna Rajamaha Viharaya and the deer population. Actually Fort Frederick is not the only place where you can see deers, there are deers almost everywhere in Trincomalee, even on the roads and streets.
A selfie with the deer and a picture with the deer taken by a helpful and friendly local! Look at that awkward gap between us. I am super scared of animals, generally.
Go up the temple, you will even see a clearer view of Black Bay!
Things started to get really messy on our way to Koneswaram Temple, where we met students who were on a school trip to the temple. Those who know me well should know that I am very fond of kids because of very young siblings but when there are around 40-50 of them, things start to get out of control. Lynette took photos of me looking both happy and scared.
They wanted to take photos using my camera and phone and when they saw that my phone is Samsung phone (which is a popular brand here), OMG, they started to snatch my phone away from me and fight within themselves to take a selfie with it. I deleted all the photos in the end. Sorry but really because I don’t usually keep photos of people who are not my friends and family. But here is a selfie of me with the kids, which obviously my camera screen couldn’t fit all of them and started pushing each other. I thought it was really dangerous that they pushed each other to get into the photo and fought over my phone and SO I DECIDED, I am not taking out my electronics anymore in case they injure themselves.
I ran away after a while without saying bye to have some breathing space because they just didn’t want to let us go. Here are the pictures of Koneswaram Temple. At the right side of the temple when you first enter, it is the Lovers’ Leap! Be sure not to miss it because we actually missed it because we didn’t know where it was! I just snapped a photo of it accidentally because I realised many people were taking photos of it so I followed along and took it as well!
Lovers' Leap
Fort Frederick was a place where really so many locals came to ask us for photos taken and kids came shaking hands with us.
As we started the day very early like at around 6am, we had a lot of time left and decided to go back to the area near the cemetery, where Uppuveli Beach is located. Uppuveli Beach is really one of the most visited beach in Trincomalee! There are a lot of hotels and guest houses located there and you will be able to find a lot of shops who offer water activities. To be honest, I was really looking forward to watching the whales in the sea. LIKE REALLY WANT TO! Not going out to the sea to watch them is actually my 2nd biggest regret here in Sri Lanka, first being not climbing Sigiriya! It was easy to find a beach there just to chill because there was a large crowd and so many bars, it is actually a big challenge for them to manage the crowd and chase away people like us, who didn’t buy anything but just sat there.
Ended the day at around 7pm and we were told that there was no more bus to Trincomalee town. I don’t know how true that was but we decided to just go ahead with a tuktuk and pay 300 rupees for that.
