our night bus wasn't horrible - it was dark & air conditioned - however arriving in trincomalee at 5:15am made the next day super weary and long! we had breakfast at the bus station, saw some spotted deer and then headed to the beach area to find a hotel. we spent the day swimming and relaxing at the beach and then in the late afternoon, we headed into town to a temple set on the edge of a cliff which provided some beautiful sunset shots.
the next morning we were up early for our whale watching 'safari'. i was surprised by the number of motorboats considering we're traveling during 'shoulder season'. as soon as a pod of dolphins would surface, 20+ boats would surround them, trying to get as close as possible to the pod. i felt sorry for them and it made me reflect on the interference we were creating (and possibly had created on our land safaris too) and the impact(s) on them and their behaviour. 
about 20 mins and many dolphin pods later, we were rewarded with a whale sighting which was pretty cool, particularly since it was within a couple of meters of the boat when it surfaced. we were also lucky enough to see some baby dolphins and some dolphins doing acrobatics (flips and spins)! 
we headed back to the beach, hurried back to the hotel to get our bathers on and snarf down breakfast before we headed off to pigeon island to do some snorkeling. we were a bit surprised to see a snorkeling course set up, packed with snorkeling westerners. it was a bit disappointing to see and when we started snorkeling, we were further disappointed with the visibility and lack of sea life due to over-snorkeling. that said, we did get to see a small shark and a couple of sea turtles which was great! 
the following day we went scuba diving which was much better, likely because not everyone does it :) we saw a couple of different types of moray eels, heaps of fish and the coolest thing was getting to swim in a cave filled with fish. we were both pleased with the scuba diving. 
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