Leisure Activities

Leisure

The main attraction at Kalpitiya Beach is the rare opportunity to see dolphins and whales in their natural habitat. You can go out in the early hours of the morning, as the improbably calm sea glitters under the gently rising sun, to search for playful dolphins and awe-inspiring whales.

Water sports on offer include sailing, wind surfing, kayaking, canoeing, kite surfing and snorkeling. For those who wish to explore the land around them, a visit can be made to the small, nearby town of Kalpitiya. It’s a vibrant and unspoiled fishing town with an interesting mix of historical buildings from its eventful colonial past.
For those who wish to explore the island's ancient history, the many attractions of the Cultural Triangle, with its ruined cities, temples and statues, is within comfortable reach. About two to three hours away, it contains no less than four of the island’s seven World Heritage Sites.
Wilpattu National Park, the island’s largest wildlife sanctuary, where you can find one of the highest concentrations of leopard in the world along with myriad other wildlife, is an hour’s drive away.

The 17th century St. Anne’s Church in Talawila, a mere five miles away, is the island’s most renowned Catholic shrine. Legend has it that a Portuguese trader had a vision of St Anne while resting under a banyan tree and returned to build the church that now sprawls over the site. In March and August each year, St. Anne’s hosts the largest catholic festivals in the country, when up to 700,000 pilgrims come to pray.

Munnesweram Kovil is a much-storied Hindu temple whose origins date back to great antiquity. A highly revered temple dedicated to Shiva and associated with Kali, its deity’s name can be translated as the ‘Lord of Antiquity’ and its goddess’ as the ‘Goddess of Beautiful Form’. About an hour and a half away, it is well worth a visit.

The Puttlam salt pans are a half hour drive away for those interested in learning what one of our most basic condiments goes through before it ends up on our tables and in our food.Kalpitiya, 103 miles (165 kms) from Colombo, is a predominantly Muslim leisurefishing community strategically located at the mouth of the Puttalam Lagoon. The town was a famous port in the late middle ages of Sinhalese history, but it was the Portuguese who first built a fort in the 16th century. This fort was improved upon by the Dutch in the 1690s, and surrendered to the British in 1795.It became a garrison during the early years of British rule, but was eventually abandoned some three decades later. Now roofless, but otherwise in reasonable condition, the fort is a four-sided affair, with two whole and two half bastions. There is no ditch, but then the scarps are more than 20 feet high.St Peter's Kerk, about a half-mile west of the fort, is Dutch in origin although it now displays the architecture of the British, who rebuilt the church in 1840. At the nearby fishing community of Talawila on the Kalpitiya Peninsula there is a well-known Roman Catholic church. This is the focal point of a pilgrimage for the Feast of St. Anne, which is dedicated to the mother of the Virgin Mary, held on July 26. The church is believed to have been founded by a 17th century Portuguese who had a divine vision of St. Anne herself. The church, while overwhelmed by the number of pilgrims at the Feast, is a magnet at all times of the year because of its reputation as a place of healing.

Kalpitiya is located at the mouth of the lagoon, beyond which is the Gulf of Mannar. Close to Kalpitiya there are several largish boatislands that can be visited by boat. One, called Ippantivu, is sometimes occupied by migrant fishermen. Some miles further north is another, Karaitivu, (not to be confused with Karaitivu a small village on the landside of the lagoon opposite Kalpitiya) a strip of sand eight miles long and half to three-quarters of a mile wide. In the shallow waters around these islands and elsewhere in the gulf lives the dugong, the mysterious and elusive marine mammal that is believed to have spawned the legend of the mermaid. The largest specimens are supposed to come from the Kalpitiya area, for as James Emerson Tennent remarks in Ceylon (1859): One of the most remarkable animals on the coast is the plant eating dugong, numbers of which are attracted to the inlets, from the bay of Calpentyn (Kalpitiya) to Adam's Bridge, by the still water and the abundance of marine algae in these parts of the gulf. One, which was killed in Mannar and sent to me in Colombo in 1847, measured upwards of seven feet in length, but specimens considerably larger have been taken at Calpentyn.