Matara

In Matara there is not really much to see. We were here too many days, because we were told that the new year's party here would be celebrated big time. That was a little disappointment though. In our hotel (T.K. Guesthouse) we stayed for about 5 days, and here we had a small party with some other tourists. 
One day we even had a small, black scorpion walking around in the restaurant. 
There are some interesting sites to go to in Matara. For instance there is the Dutch Fort with an old, white English clock tower. Also close to Matara is the most Southern point of Sri Lanka, where people build a big light tower. From the top you have a perfect view over the country.

Mirissa

About three days of our stay in Matara we rented a bike to drive to Mirissa, a small village a few kilometres down the road where we found the best beach in Sri Lanka. A wide beach with beautiful white sand, some good waves, not crowded at all (almost a private beach) and there was only one restaurant with a nice bar just at the beach between many palm trees. Weeehooo, a perfect spot to relax. Maybe now there are more hotels and restaurants, but I hope not.

Unawatuna

From now on we only stayed in villages at the beach, so we reached our relaxing period. Unawatuna was a good place to start. Till now we had only seen few tourists in Sri Lanka, but here in Unawatuna there were many.  
We stayed in the Sri Gemunu Guest House just at the beach and in the late afternoon some stilt fishermen showed up and created a amazing scene. These people can sit on such a stilt for hours without moving. To get to the stilts it is very hard and slippery, but when they sit on it they catch a lot of fish. 

Galle

Dutch people have been every where in the old days. Just look at the Dutch Fort (another one) in the very nice city of Galle. This was a base of the old VOC-colony and there are a lot of Dutch 'things'to see here. For instance there is a street called the 'Leijnbaansgracht', a well known street in Amsterdam. There is also a Dutch church, with many graves of Dutch people. Of course we felt home right away. 
The English have been here too (the Dutch gave Sri Lanka to the English!!), which is noticed by the very nice old colonial English Orient Hotel. Unfortunately the waiter was a little rude, but maybe he had a bad day.

Hikkaduwa

Our next stop was Hikkaduwa, THE tourist city of Sri Lanka. Amazing how many tourists walk around here. And for 95% Germans, it just seemed a second colony. To be honest we had (finally after 3 weeks) some excellent German coffee at a "Deutche Bierkarten'. 
In this place are many bars, restaurants, hotels, gift shops and all the other touristy stuff you normally see in this kind of areas. 
It was almost time to get home and here I had one of those seldom moments of complete happiness, and I want to share that feeling with you. Just take a look at the 2 photo's below and you will know what I mean. If not.., experience it your selves on the same spot?