Monday 28th May 2012 - Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka

I jumped out of my bed so fast this morning to go to another hotel. I called the tuk tuk driver and he picked me up and took me to another place - Mid Bay. This place was literally just off the beach and had its own bathroom and was a solid brick foundation for double the price but I couldn't bear anymore rats so I took the room and then went and showered. After my shower I got talking with the guy that worked at the hotel. His name was Ananiyas, he was Tamil and 25years old. The tuk tuk driver had hung around a bit too much after dropping me and asked me if I wanted to go to all these different places and told me that Ananiyas was his friend. However, whilst talking with Ananiyas he told me to not trust the tuk tuk driver and told me he was a bad guy and had told Ananiyas not to talk to me as i was his girlfriend!! The tuk tuk driver told me he wasn't married and Ananiyas told me it was a lie. Ananiyas and I got on immediately and he seemed like such a decent honest guy. He was also a very hard worker and very funny. After chilling with Ananiyas for about an hour and eating food, I headed to the beach. In my opinion the beach was not as beautiful as Nilaveli but it was still nice and was shaped like a giant letter C. The water was not calm, instead there were lots of waves crashing against the beach causing a cliff like effect with the sand.  I spent most of the day on the beach and then headed to a restaurant called Tsunami to use their wifi. It was a five-star hotel located on the beach.  I walked up to the bar to order a drink and was greeted by an English guy. We immediately clicked and he came and sat with me and we talked. His name was Lee and he was maybe in his mid thirties and from Devon. He owned the place with a Sri Lankan guy but had taken over the running of the place 23days ago.  While we were talking a Russian group of two guys and two girls came in and I got talking to one of the guys. Lee ended up leaving the table and the two guys and one of the girls sat down and joined me but only the one guy Sergo talked to me while the other two talked amongst themselves in Russian. Sergo was cool and pulled out his laptop showing me photos of all of his adventures. He seemed to travel a hell of a lot! He and the other guy owned a business together creating the most random souvenirs (like a Walkman made from a rock - no it didn't work but apparently it made money!). The other guy was the boyfriend of the girl that was sitting with us and the other girl was just their friend. As Arugam Bay was the place where surfers come Sergo asked me if I surfed - of course I didn't but I did want to try. He told me him and his friends had a lesson booked tomorrow and asked if I wanted to join them. He said he would see how much it would cost me to join but that they were going in the morning at 7am for maybe three or four hours. I was in! I chilled with them for most of the day and had dinner with them too.  I found the other guy to be really arrogant. He had ordered some soup but it was spicy which he was not happy about so he rudely turned his nose up at it infront of the guy that had cooked it and pushed it away. I didn't like that at all - especially because the chef (also called Lee), seemed like a really nice guy! Also despite Sergo seeming like a nice guy, he was a bit too pushy for my liking. He had told me that before surfing in the morning they were all going to go jogging on the beach and asked if I would like to join. It didn't appeal to me in the slightest so I said no but then he kept on going on - "ah come on" blah blah blah.  I played cards with the Russians and drank beer then left and went back to my hotel and chilled with Ananiyas. The more I talked with Ananiyas the more I liked him and the more I really wanted to help him to make a better life for himself. His was from Pottuvil and had one older sister, one younger sister and an older brother whose whereabouts he had no idea of after he was kidnapped by the LTTE. Apparently during the civil war it was standard that the LTTE would kidnap the oldest son of every Tamil household to turn them into soldiers.  They had kidnapped the older brother during the night and the family hadn't heard from or seen him since and had no idea whether he was dead or alive - Ananiyas had little faith that his brother was alive.  Also his dad was a fisherman but had been attacked by a crocodile whilst fishing in a lagoon and now could not work and had to pay massive medical expenses every month. With Ananiyas being the only man able to work in his household it was now his responsibility to bring in the money and pay the medical expenses. Now that brings me to his job. He worked 7-days a week (8am-11pm) and only got paid Rs.10,000 per month (£100). Rs5,000 of that money went for his father's medical. If Ananiyas wanted any time off he wouldn't get paid. I was so gutted to hear all this and thought back to Gayan and Shiran who I thought had it bad with 25,000 per month and one day off. They did have it bad and I still wish I could do something to help them too but damn, Ananiyas had it really really bad. Also, you might as well say that Ananiyas was managing the place as his boss was nowhere to be seen as he was in Kandy a lot so Ananiyas did pretty much everything - he cooked, he cleaned, he dealt with customers.  Anyway, it wasn't all doom and gloom, we laughed too and caught joke about the tuk tuk driver and the Russian guy Sergo who we thought liked me. I was a bit freaked out though when Ananiyas told me that when I had left and gone to the beach earlier the tuk tuk driver had followed me and was watching me from a far! Oh hell frikin no!!  We talked for hours and I went to bed about 1am.