SRI LANKA: LAGOON PARADISE BEACH RESORT AND A SNAKE HOUSE (NO WORRIES, THOSE TWO THINGS ARE UNRELATED)

Our last night in Sri Lanka was spent in the Lagoon Paradise Beach Resort in Tangalle, Sri Lanka. Again, it was in a spectacularly beautiful setting. Our room was enormous and had very high ceilings. 

The bathroom was almost comically large. It was bigger than our master bedroom at home--but almost empty. There was a toilet:

. . . a sink attached to the wall, and an open shower:

There was a lot of empty space. Seriously, you could move about six pieces of gym equipment in here and add a big screen TV, and it would make the perfect workout room.

We made our way across a bridge to the restaurant:

. . . where we ate dinner at a table in the sand on the beach. The only light was a candle, and we were serenaded by the irregular beat of waves against the shore. What the place offered in atmosphere, however, it totally lacked in food quality. To say our dinner of giant prawns and shrimp cocktail was mediocre is kind. Our breakfast the following morning was equally mediocre:

. . . but the surroundings were even more spectacular than we thought. The bridge to the restaurant crossed this glassy inlet:

The water was so still and the light was so bright that the water made an almost perfect mirror:

Our view of the Indian Ocean was also wonderful:

The grounds between the restaurant and our room were landscaped with all kinds of exotic plants:

In this setting, even coconuts seem exotic:

One thing I haven't mentioned is that Diet Coke is incredibly expensive in Sri Lanka. I think they must have a regular Coca-Cola bottling factory on the island, but that they import the diet stuff. The price of a can of regular Coke is 175 rupees or about $1 (actually pretty expensive for Sri Lanka), but the price of a Diet Coke is over $2.50:

Our first stop of the day was at the home of a man Sanjay knows who keeps a variety of snakes in cages in the yard of his house:

Hmmm, I never thought of using shedded snake skins as backyard decor:

The first thing I noticed when he shook our hands is that he was missing most of the thumb on his right hand, which we later learned was the result of a mamba bite six months previous.

He first brought out two cobras, one and then the other. It was interesting to see what looked like a face on the back of the cobra's hood:

. . . and also on the front:

Definitely not something I would want to see on the trail in front of me:

Bob, on the other hand, was like a kid in a candy shop:

Just look at his grin:

The owner handled the snakes quite nonchalantly and even held one by the head and showed us his fangs:

Note his missing thumb:

He was probably doing something like this when he got bit:

Does disability insurance kick in if you willingly touch a cobra and have to get your arm amputated? Just wondering.

He put those two snakes back in their cages:

. . . and then he brought out a huge boa that he wrapped around Bob's neck--maybe 10 feet long and about 60 pounds:

This is Bob's kind of a "feather" boa:

I passed on having that creature wrapped around me, but each of us took a turn modeling a small, non-poisonous python:

By far my favorite snake at the farm, however, was the two long, slender vine snakes that slithered around our faces and rested on our glasses. It made me feel like some alien creature out of an old Star Trek episode:

Thank you, sir, for making my husband very happy.