Birthday
The last two days of our stay are dominated by one theme, relaxation. Thursday, my birthday we did get up and take the bikes hotels bikes out for a one hour spin. I felt quite wobbly on the back roads outside the hotel. I didn’t know how to operate the gears on the rough and pot-holed roads and my sense of balance has deteriorated since I last cycled anywhere.
However we made the there and back trip without incident and returned to the hotel somewhat sweaty for our breakfast. I’m getting a bit fed up with Kahanda Kanda’s morning food. I start with the curd. On top of this I place the nuts I can dig out of the granola and some pieces of pineapple. The cooked part of the meal is also uninspiring. During the five days at the resort I’ve tried all the combinations and none have I wanted to repeat.
After breakfast we returned to our lovely room and lazed around until 5 pm when we joined the yoga class. The did not have lunch, but we did have a swim in the large communal swimming pool.
Our instructor didn’t arrive until 5:15 and he seemed a little flustered when he did arrive. For some reason the class didn’t flow as well. Both Maggi and I were helped up to a headstand. When we finished we the sun had set so we walked back to change in the dark.
After changing I filled my water bottle with whiskey and we walked to the bar and joined John and Hutch for drinks who were seated with another couple, Jan and Johnny.
Johnny and Jan fitted in perfectly with the rest of the clientele at Kahanda Kanda, wealthy, old, English and very county. Hutch and John although younger than the rest of the guests came from this same set. John had inherited the money that allowed the two of them to spend 5 weeks at an expensive resort, run a home in Scotland and Majorca plus tour the world.
Whenever you talked to the other guests they spent an awful lot of time on holiday destinations. Jan and Johnny intended to fly to Tahiti after Kahanda via New Zealand and then return to Sri Lanka to meet up with their daughter and her new baby who would stay in a nearby AirBnB.
These were the sort of people we mixed with in this beautiful little resort.
The resort provided a cake to close my birthday. Although only small I managed to share slices with the rest of the guests, some of whom thanked me profusely.
Valentine Day
Today was even lazier than yesterday. Without taking part in any activity beforehand we didn’t arrive at breakfast until after 9. We ate more than necessary and then sloped back to our room. At midday we asked for a tuk-tuk to take us to the KK beach resort.
The beach resort sits between the main coastal road and the ocean. It doesn’t have the charm of where we are staying but is still very nice. We didn’t visit any of the rooms but they have open air bar and restaurant underneath the main building on the ground floor. A large 20 metre swimming pool dominates the outside area. Palm trees provide welcome shade under which one can read while the ocean breeze provides some coolness during the middle of the day.
We ordered non-alcoholic drinks to sup on the sun beds. We changed and walked down the few steps to the beach. A warning sign declared that the undercurrents presented a real danger. The breakers crashed down so neither of us ventured beyond our knees.
We came back and joined a portly gentleman who held tightly to a large blue float and walked up and down the pool. He didn’t stay at the resort but came for the pool from a place down the road. We swam for 20 minutes. He remained in the pool for at least 2 hours because he was still there when we left the resort.
My tooth had started to ache and I started on the antibiotics that Mr Amin had given me before we left for Sri Lanka. It meant that I didn’t really fancy doing the last yoga session of our holiday in the evening. Maggi also opted out of the session which surprised me.
George Porter, the resort’s designer and proprietor makes a special event of Valentines Day and charges extra for the evening meal. He does provide 6ish courses and a free cocktail. We ate poolside but we could hardly see the food it was so dark. An amuse bouche was followed by two starters, one a soup, and then the main course. Finally the pudding arrived. I hadn’t really enjoyed any of the food, it had taken a long time to serve, and was partially cold when it should have been warm/hot. Now I have a dessert in front of me and I’m not hungry. One bite and I decided that the very heavy white chocolate mousse would not appeal and I left 90% of it.
We returned to the room both of a bit anxious that we might have indigestion during the night. Fortunately this fear didn’t materialise.