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# “Giant” Expectations
- URL: https://tombrewer.co.uk/giant-expectations/
- Published: 2026-03-12T16:41:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-21T09:31:41.000Z
- Author: Tom Brewer
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1789982889005, #Import 2026-09-21 09:29

## Rhythm of Hikkaduwa

When you can finally draw your eyes away from the hypnotic rhythm of surf barrelling in from the Indian Ocean, you’d better pay attention to the Galle Road cutting down the Hikkaduwa shoreline. Tuk-tuks, buses, scooters, bikes, dogs, diggers - and yes, other pedestrians - all compete for the same strip of tarmac in a dance that defies any western instinct for order. Spend a few days here, though, and the chaos reveals its own rhythm. Learn the heartbeat of Hikkaduwa; the pulsing sound of trains on the railway running parallel to the main street, the ebb and flow of bodies on the road, and what once seemed like anarchy begins to make more sense.

## Turtle Beach

Turtle Beach in Hikkaduwa shouldn’t need much more explaining than its name. It is almost impossible not to encounter a giant green sea turtle here, many of them weighing between 110 and 230 kilograms, living fully up to their formidable moniker. The spectacle is genuinely astonishing. But there is a darker story to be told about their abundance right here on the shore.

The turtles are drawn in by the seaweed that grows in the warm shallows of Hikkaduwa’s shore. Locals, recognising an opportunity, have for years been harvesting this seaweed, bagging it, and selling it to tourists eager for a closer look. They have fed the turtles directly, ensuring both the animals and the visitors keep returning. Scientists are now documenting the consequences: measurable changes in the turtles’ behaviour, and a growing threat to their health and survival instincts.

I stood and watched as crowds spilled into the shallows to pat shells, hand over seaweed, and pose for photographs. These are the uncomfortable moments that reveal the paradoxical nature of this economic balancing act. The same tourism economy funding these practices is the one sustaining the conservation and rescue efforts that work to counter the greatest threats to Sri Lanka’s turtle population: egg poaching, entanglement in fishing nets, and boat strikes.

The people on the shore selling plastic bags of seaweed are not doing so out of malice. But that makes it no easier to watch these magnificent animals, creatures that belong in open water, thriving in a natural habitat, reduced to props in a shallow and crowded photo opportunity.

## Madu Ganga

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/0a44b375-3bb0-4ab3-9d06-69b0c0eeae27_5705x3803-jpeg-1.jpg)

Balapitiya is a small coastal town on Sri Lanka’s southwestern coast, around 85 kilometres south of Colombo, sitting at the mouth of the Madu Ganga, a river that is both the town’s defining feature and its greatest draw. Dense mangrove canopies stretch across 64 islands of varying sizes, sheltering over 300 plant species, crocodiles, water monitors, kingfishers, sea eagles, and a remarkable variety of other wildlife within an ecosystem of rare, quiet intensity.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/a6cb3095-b346-4b42-9af4-a7cd2c7456c9_2048x1365-jpeg.jpg)

Our guide for the boat safari was Ravisha. I’d like to think he recognised some innate nautical prowess in me as the reason he handed over the tiller for a short stretch of river, but I suspect he extends the same offer to all his guests. We made a brief stop at Cinnamon Island, where we were offered cinnamon tea and shown how Sri Lanka’s most famous spice is harvested and prepared, the inner bark peeled back in long, curling strips.

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/193e9e3a-f990-4977-9f50-c82e84de2019_2048x1365-jpeg.jpg)

But the true highlight was the wildlife. Barely a minute after setting off we spotted a kingfisher, flitting from tree to tree, as if it was guiding us up the Madu. Then more. A Brahminy Kite banking low over the water. A white-tailed sea eagle watching from the high branches. An Asian water monitor perching silently from an inconspicuous branch on the river bank, two Sri Lankan rat snakes entwined on branch just before it meets the water, a crested serpent eagle beating its giant wings across a hazy orange sky. And then, perhaps most striking of all, flocks of great egrets in their thousands, white against the setting sun, elegantly swooping just metres above the surface of the water from far across the river, rising and settling like a breathing thing in a nearby cluster of trees on one of the smaller islands in the Madu, with cormorants stoically watching the spectacle unfold.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/57579694-081a-4eaa-b41f-eb5f1d8d4749_2048x1365-jpeg.jpg)

Dusk fell before the Madu revealed its final surprise. As the last of the daylight trickled away, the sky above the mangroves began to move. The Indian Flying Fox, and unlike the giant sea turtle, that name should not be taken too literally, is a bat. But to call it simply a bat feels like an injustice. With a wingspan exceeding 1.2 metres, these creatures are enormous in a way that takes a moment to fully process, their silhouettes unmistakably fox-like as they peel away from the canopy and climb into the fading sky. They erupted in their hundreds, wheeling out over the river in the last of the light, and it was, like so much of what the Madu Ganga offers, utterly extraordinary and unforgettable.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

![](https://tombrewer.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/eb3a694c-d495-427e-8c85-ac93a9e5c199_2048x1152-jpeg.jpg)