Sri Lanka

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Thursday the 26th of August

Well here’s our first entry from Sri Lanka, at last. I have been trying to put an entry on for the last few days, as we have lots of things to bore you with, but unfortunately the web has been down. I was told the reason was that a ship had crashed into the underwater telecommunications cable but anyway it is working again so let the boredom begin!

We have had a wonderful week in Sri Lanka so far and it has probably been one of the busiest weeks of the whole trip. On arrival in Sri Lanka we tried to head straight to Colombo but at the airport (it was 12.30am) we were told that due to the cricket we could not get a hotel, well we could but only the 5 star Hilton or similar. This meant that our first night was spent in a fairly drab airport hotel. In hindsight I think that we were told that all the hotels in Colombo were booked just so they could get us to stay at their hotel near the airport. On the plus side the following day we decided to miss Colombo and head straight to Kandy in the hill country. I say this is on the plus side as we fly out of Colombo in a couple of weeks, so not spending a few days there on the start of the trip has given us more time to explore the rest of the country.

The most amazing thing about Sri Lanka has to be the wildlife; so far we have seen elephants (both wild and at the elephant sanctuary where Charlotte works,) various monkeys, chameleon, monitor lizards, snakes, eagles, deer and various other strange beasties which I do not know the names for. On our first day in Kandy we went out for dinner and about 50 monkeys came swinging past and disappeared over some roofs. If you thought dogs going through your bins in London were bad, imagine having 50 monkeys on your roof. Lou is a bit scared of the monkeys as one has tried to grab her and another one has stolen here pineapple. Well I say that the monkey stole her pineapple but that is not really the truth, what really happened was Lou was eating some pineapple and a monkey started to walk towards her, so Lou flung the pineapple at it and ran away screaming. Does that classify a monkey mugging? So far the monkeys have left me alone, whether this is because I am so much bigger than them or whether it is because I slightly resemble them, who knows?

After Kandy we headed up north to the coast and a small place called Nilaveli, where we meet up with Charlotte and some of her friends from the Millennium Elephant Sanctuary. Nilaveli is a very small town with not much there and the nearest large town is Trincomalee, which again is a bit sparse. You could also imagine my horror on discovering that the restaurants there did not serve alcohol, this was made even worse by the fact that the food contained some of the hottest chilies I have ever encountered. Hot curry and no beer, there should be a law against that! Although the towns were a bit on the quiet side this did not really matter, as with over ten miles of beautiful beach, there was more than enough to do. We only stayed two nights in Nilaveli as Charlotte and her friends had to get back for work so we hitched a lift with them back down to Habarana where we stayed for the next few days.

Habarana is roughly in the center of the country and is an ideal place to both go on an elephant safari and also to visit the ancient cities, so we decided to do both. The ancient cities were very nice, especially Sigirya, which is the ruins of an old fortress. The best thing about it was the giant rock, which used to have the palace on the top, it takes about an hour to climb it but the views from the top were incredible. After the culture of the ancient cities the next day we had an early start for the elephant safari. The plan was to wake up at 4.30am and start the safari at 5.00am; I am pleased to say that at 5.00am both Lou and I were in the restaurant of our hotel, slightly sleepy but ready to go. I am not so pleased to report that in the restaurant of the hotel we remained for the next hour and a half! First of all our original driver had gone awol, then the replacement driver could not start the jeep, then we were informed that the other jeep was broken down. Finally they ended up hiring a jeep and driver from a rival company. The reason we were supposed to start so early was that by 8.00am the elephants start heading into the bush for cover, so I was quite annoyed when we arrived at the reserve only to find the elephants already heading into the bush. At this stage I finally lost my temper and told the driver quite bluntly that if all the elephant I was going to see was an arse disappearing into a bush, he better bring me back to the hotel and give me a full refund. This had the desired affect and the driver set off in hot pursuit of the elephants, it soon became apparent why he originally did not want to follow the elephants into the bush. We were driving along looking for them when all of a sudden there was a trumpet sound and an elephant came out of the bush and charged towards the van, at this stage the driver started to shout and floored it, while Lou jumped back in for cover. I on the other hand tried to take it’s picture, probably not the smartest move but then again I am a plank! In the end we both really enjoyed the elephant safari and although we did not get to see the elephants all out in the open we did get to see quite a few of them in the bush.

Well yesterday we came back down to Kandy, where we are now. The plan is to move south tomorrow but as of where to, we are not sure yet. Anyway better dash as we are off to see Charlotte.

Monkey Man Redmond

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Sunday the 29th of August

Two complaints today, my legs are killing me and I hate Everyready batteries! We are in Nuwara Eliya at present; we left Kandy as planned and traveled down to Dalhousie. Dalhousie is the base for climbing the 2243m Adam’s Peak but I will not go into that, as Lou is going to put on a proper entry tomorrow to fill you in on the climb. Suffice to say that on arriving at the top I got out my camera to take some pictures and then the batteries ran out, obviously this was no problem as I had foreseen the problem and brought some more. So I got out my pack of brand new Everyready and put two in the camera, switched it on and was slightly shocked to see the camera tell me it was out of batteries. So I tried the other two and got the exact same thing, four brand new batteries and not a single picture. At that stage I really wished the chairman of Everyready was on the peak with us, as I would have been more than happy to show him the quick way down. So Everyready now joins, Robbie Williams, white people with dreadlocks, Roquefort cheese and juggling, as things that I want to see banished from the earth to the burning pits of hell! Now I have got that off my chest I am off for a nice cup of tea.

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Tuesday the 31st of August

Well a day later than Ruairi promised, here is my entry on Adams Peak. Adams Peak was sitting pretty high and we started off in the middle of the night at 2.30 to make the roughly 5200 stair ascent. It took about 2.45 hours to get to the top and our dark journey was made more fun by the company of two guide dogs from the lovely Green Guest House where we were staying. The dogs were pretty fit and never panted once, I was so surprised. We on the other hand took regular breaks and munched on biscuits and bananas. In fact I think the dogs ate more biscuits than we did and I am certain that this is the main reason they climb the mountain, probably every day. They just sniff to see if the climb is worth it and follow the bag of munchies. Well we were happy for the company and they were happy with the ginger nuts. Ruairi named the dogs, Keeble and Biscuit, appropriately.

We arrived at the top a little early for sunrise and waited in the cold until the sun began to rise. At one stage I thought my finger was going to fall off from the cold but as soon as the sun shone it felt fine. The view from the top which can at this time of year be obscured by mist and cloud was actually pretty amazing, we were way above the clouds and it was breath taking. We did not stay too long up there though as we did not want the sun to be too hot for the way down. So I gathered the sleeping dogs and I was rather upset to see they had decided to stay up there with some other tourists who obviously had more grub than us. So much for faithful! Well we trundled down and it was actually worse than going up on the legs and knees. Still we made it down in good time and back for a nice pot of tea and a fresh herbal bath.

Our only regret was that we did not see Adams footprint at the top or the perfect shadow of the mountain as the sun rose. We just concentrated on the sunrise and forgot all else. Never mind though it was really worth it.

Our next destination was the tea town of Nuwara Eliya which due to its elevation was cold! Like properly cold, we even asked for a fire in the room. It was an odd place which kind of reminded me of Wales, Ruairi thought Scotland. There was not a great deal to do there and I think its main attraction is simply the temperature which makes a nice change to Sri Lankans. We did however visit a working tea factory which was interesting and had a nice cuppa which was lovely, as I forgot how nice tea is.

We are now in the south beach area staying in Mirissa. This time of year though the waves are strong and it’s windy but it is still really beautiful and relaxing and the fresh fish tastes very good. We are staying right next to the sea and can hear the waves crashing from our room as we go to sleep.

Only a week left in Sri Lanka and I am already thinking I would like to come back. It’s really a great place altogether.

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Friday the 3rd of September

Well we have finally moved on from Marissa today and are currently 20 miles up the coast at Unawatuna. We were both quite reluctant to leave Marissa but in the end we simply ran out of money and as such had to move on to find an ATM to withdraw some more. The fact that we only had 50 rupees (about 28p) left this morning, after paying the hotel bill, gives you some idea of how much we liked the place and how we tried to string out our stay there as long as possible. I think that the fact that it was out of the main holiday season made Marissa even more attractive, the beaches were fairly empty and we were the only guests at our hotel. The food there was also fantastic, fresh prawns or calamari for less than a pound, oh what a life! I would have to rate Marissa as was of the most relaxed places we have visited so far, we have just spent the last 4 days sitting on the beach reading and splashing about in the crystal clear water’s.

It was even quite hard getting annoyed at the Tuk Tuk drivers in Marissa. Yesterday I had the same driver follow me around all day asking me if I wanted a Tuk Tuk. In the end I finally lost my temper and in a raised voice said “listen you have asked me about 15 times already today, for the last time I don’t want a bloody Tuk Tuk today.” On his response of “how about tomorrow?” I could not help myself laughing and replying “maybe.” The only bad thing about Marissa was the fact that I kept on getting electrocuted. I tried to plug my camera in to put some pictures on the web at a couple of internet places but kept on getting an electric shock from the back of the PC. I was told that it is to do with the electricity not being properly earthed. Well I have just asked the guy here to plug in my camera (after 5 electric shocks I am not stupid enough to do it myself anymore) and I am sorry to say that he has just got an electric shock as well, although not as sorry as I would have been if I was the one holding the USB wire. So it looks as if Unawatuna has the same electrical problems and as such there will be no pictures so a while. I am hoping Colombo will be OK but who knows?

Well I am going to wrap it up now as I have a good book to get back to, hope all is well with everybody and adios for now.

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Tuesday the 7th of September

Well it is almost time up for Sri Lanka and we have decided to go out in style! On arriving in Colombo we decided to push the boat out and stay in the colonial era Galle Face Hotel and what a wonderful hotel it was. It has been there for about 150 years and during that time it has had such guests as the Noel Coward and George Bernard Shaw. There was no double rooms available so we ended up staying in a suite, which had it's own living room. I realised that I was getting a bit carried away when I phoned the butler and got him to come to the room to collect my shoes for polishing.

We have spent the last few day's exploring the local area with our new friend Derick, who we met in a pub one night. Derick is a guide and volunteered to give us a bit of a guided tour of Galle and the surrounding areas. This included being shown around the city and watching the presidents visit. He also took us to see a Buddhist temple where the 83 year old, head Buddhist monk had just passed away. We felt a bit out of place wondering around the temple when all the other monks were in moarning, especially when he brought us into a room where the dead monk was laid out on a table. As I have never seen a dead monk before I was not sure what to expect but I am glad to say he just looked like a monk having a kip.

Well what can I say about Colombo, not much! We have both really loved Sri Lanka but Colombo has to be our least favorite place on the island. It is just a big dirty city with nothing much to do and on the whole we are both glad that we only had two days here, also the weather has taken a turn for the worse, so it feel's like time to move on.

From here we have a week in Hong Kong to enjoy the luxuries of western living before getting back to basics in India.

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