At 9 o'clock we left City Beds, backpacks on and tatty grip in one hand, and walked to the station dodging tuk tuk drivers that offered to take us anywhere but where we were going. Ticket office #4 was the place to be, apparently, and for the princely sum of 220 rupees (about two quid) we bought our passage to the south of the country. An hour later a blocky beast of an engine arrived dragging a large number of dirty red coaches. We looked for a big 2 on the doors 'cos we were travelling posh. Linda battled her way aboard and cached two empty seats while I fended off the pushy locals with my trusty grip. A couple of other intrepid whiteys with two hefty hard-shell suitcases who were heading to Hikkaduwa, they told us later, weren't so lucky and had to take turns sitting on their suitcases in the isle. Amateurs.
How to describe it. Air conditioning consisted of three fans wired into the ceiling, two of them broken, the third making sounds as if it soon will be. The other passengers jammed all the windows open and wedged the main train doors open too for good measure. Nobody fell out and no trade union went on strike, ruining everyone's day, for reasons of "passenger safety". Thus cooled below unbearable sweaty temperatures we rattled and clunked and groaned our way down the coast. The trip was punctuated by shouty Sri Lankans who charged up and down the carriage constantly with boxes of apples, oranges, pineapples, cooked prawns, nuts and even water to sell. Very enterprising, these people. However, our decision to eat absolutely nothing 12 hours before embarking proved to be the wise thing. Later in the day, when the train had thinned out a bit, I took a peek in the toilet. "Disgusting" is a good word. 'Nuff said about that aspect.
I'd anticipated a boring three or four hours, reading a book and looking at the scenery. However, I really hadn't given much thought to getting off the damned thing. Linda brought it up when she realised that the stations we passed had very few signs on them. In fact, we only knew where we were after we'd left it. No wi-fi, so no Google Maps. Also, although Mirissa had a local station, it wasn't used on the "express" services and we weren't sure that there would be any transport to the beach. So we decided, after scouring the forums, to get off at Weligama, a stop about 8 klicks away. The train changed to a smaller engine at Galle and then chugged its way eastwards along the coast, stopping at every cow pat and lamp post, as Ginge would say. For the next 20 minutes I hung out of the perpetually open door of the carriage shouting at the locals on the platform:
"Where are we?"
"(Something)gama."
"What?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"Weligama."
"Well, next is (something)gama, then it's (something)gama, then it's Weligama."
"Cheers, mate."
People usually shrugged at this point, probably thinking "stupid tourist".
I repeated this procedure at the next couple of stations just to be sure I got the hang of it until we reached the fabled Weligama. With a sweaty cheer we hobbled of the train, only an hour late. Outside we commandeered a tuk tuk and for the princely sum of another 400 rupees found ourselves hurtling along the last 8 kilometers of coast road to our final destination. Actually, Weligama looked quite fun; bit of a surfers' beach I've been told. Finally, we were met at the doors of our hotel by a cheerful owner and led up three flights of stairs to a cool, cool room. Mission accomplished, with nobody damaged, lost, or ripped off along the way. A small miracle.
