This place is wild. Raw. Loose—but cool. Let me explain…
I jump out of the surf yesterday, still dripping, and hear a rustle in the bushes… strange noise too. Oh, no biggie—just a wild elephant near the car park. They’ve strung up makeshift “fences” (bits of string on poles mimicking electric fences) to keep the elephants away from humans. Comforting.
As I’m peeling off my wet gear, a pack of monkeys charges past the car—I swear one eyeballed my camera bag like it owed him money. One particularly enthusiastic one later climbed all over Jet… and wee’d on his head. We laughed (Jet didn’t).
On the tuk tuk into town, our driver, Sudi Piastri, casually offers a detour: “You wanna see crocodiles? Just 10 minutes away, in the river near town.” Uh, maybe after dinner?
At Salty Swarmi’s, I’m enjoying a cold Lion Lager on the deck—great beer, by the way—when out of the darkness emerges a betel-chewing bloke with a 2-metre tiger python wrapped around his neck. Offers it to me like it’s dessert. I politely decline. So he rummages in his bag and lobs a cobra at our feet, tapping it like he’s winding up a toy. I nearly spat my beer. (Yes, it’s on my IG Stories.)
Hideaway restaurant has a tightrope running through the middle of its dining tables, right under a cubby house. Because, why not? Great food, too—Deb reckons it’s the best taco she’s ever eaten.
Also worth noting: there are soldiers with machine guns just chilling on the beach. No one bats an eyelid.
And speaking of food… I’m baffled. Arugam Bay is basically a sleepy surf strip in the middle of nowhere, and yet the food is unreal. Consistently good. Like, $15 for something you’d expect in Bondi or Byron. So I asked Sandrita, a long-time local restaurateur: “Why is it this good?” She says, “Arugam’s been a surf town for 40 years. In a typical year, 70% of the tourists are Israeli—they don’t eat Sri Lankan food and have very high standards. So we all had to lift our game.”
It’s like being out on the Nullarbor and finding a dozen world-class restaurants side-by-side. Totally unexpected.
The surf? It’s all rights—long, playful ones—breaking off point after point. The main break is a bit chaotic (even by Bondi standards), but the real gems are out of town. You cross dusty tracks and farmland, dodge the odd cow or buffalo, and you’ll be rewarded with empty lineups and reeling rights for days.
:: uge
