Friday 7th March - Day 33

Yesterday, I booked two excursions, one to see a turtle sanctuary and the other for the following day to visit an elephant sanctuary. Today is turtle sanctuary day. I ask the driver to take me to any interesting places he knows about along the route and back. The lesson here (in hindsight) is: know what you want to see because they (drivers and guides) only take you to places where they get a cut of the takings.

The hour long drive takes us to a small turtle sanctuary called, 'Bentota Turtle Project.' I was really surprised that they allowed visitors to handle the turtles. I'm shown a water tank of about a hundred one day old hatched turtles. I'm allowed to pick them out of the water. I hold three of them in my hand and have a photo taken:

Amazing.

I'm then allowed to pick up a big turtle out of the tank. I was a little apprehensive about it, but did it anyway. And I'm shown an Albino turtle, which is quite rare. Apparently, it has no chance of surviving at sea as it would be seen by predators from miles. There's a little pressure from the 'keeper' to donate money or buy something, even though there is an entrance fee to visit the place. I'm pleased it wasn't a waste of time coming here, as you can always visit a zoo to see animals, but I got caught off guard when I was asked to handle them. I'm looking forward to the next place we visit.

It's a spice farm ? Ok, this might be interesting, keep an open mind. First a guy shows me around, pointing out various plants. To be honest after the first or second one, I lost interest. He talks very quickly, and interspersed between descriptions, pop out a few questions, where are you from ? What do you do ? What hotel are you staying at ? Etc, etc. He then leads me into a hut and asks me to take my top off. Then another guy comes in. The first guy explains that I would be given a shoulder, back and arm massage with some of the oils produced by plants from the herb garden. Fifteen minutes later, after not a particularly pleasant massage, the first guy returns and asks me for a money 'donation' for the masseur. He has the cheek to suggest I wasn't giving him much when I didn't ask for the massage in the first place. This irritated me and I was soon to find out that there's a fair bit of 'squeezing money out of the tourists' that goes on in Sri Lanka. When anyone talks to you they always ask where you're from ? What hotel are you staying at ? They sound like they're just being friendly but what, for example, does it matter which hotel you are staying at. It's to gauge how much they think you have. I know that now; I wish somebody had told me earlier.

I'm put off going to the other suggested places and end up going to Bentota beach. This is quite a nice beach really. But it is a really hot day. It's probably about 34 deg and bright sunshine. It's back to the hotel after a few hours.