SRI LANKA - PART 1

With 8 days works holiday to use by the end of February picking a destination was a bit tricky for reasons highlighted on the previous trip to Jordan. In the end I came up with Sri Lanka (Costa Rica and Mauritius were other options I looked at). It was going to be a slightly shorter trip than Jordan because of the longer flight times and I gave myself a day at home before going back to work.


Got a good flight time arriving at around 8:30 in the morning. First impression of the locals were good with plenty of waves and smiles. I figured the best place to start was Negombo as it was not far from the airport. Met a few others to talk to at the accommodation but as expected it was jet lag and recovery day.


Day 2 I hired a bike and rode south to a place called Ja Ela then after recovering for a couple of hours went north to Kochchikade. For some reason I was expecting Sri Lanka to be "different" from south east Asia.


Most of it including the town I was staying in didn't look a lot different with the obvious exception of the people. My biggest fear of the locals was being asked about cricket (a sport I hate) at the start of every conversation. I did get a few shocked looks during my time there.


The heat and humidity limited what I could do during the day time. After getting a bit burned I figured my sunscreen was past it's sell by date. At night there was the Rodeo bar which was a great place to meet other travelers as well as some of the locals.

I stayed another night after that exploring Negombo town and the smelly fishing area during the day.


I moved on to Kandy with a woman from Finland who had been there before. We didn't leave until after 10am and it was a long crowded and very slow bus ride. The previous nights beer didn't help a lot. When I got there my pre booked accommodation was "full" and after a long wait and endless repeats of "I booked on the internet" I was relocated to their other accommodation on the other side of town. I have had days like that on previous trips but they are a lot easier to deal with on a long trip. When you are only away for about 10 days it's a big chunk out of your time.

I had a proper explore of the area the following day including the big temple. Then I headed up to some woodlands on a hill, seen a bit of wildlife but felt a bit uneasy walking round as there was no one else up there. Also my guidebook said there had been muggings in that area.

In the space of 24 hours I felt that it was time to move on from Kandy to the south coast. I did have a couple of other people to talk to at night but it felt too much out of the way.

I came out my room in the evening to see the guesthouse manager hitting what I first thought was a rat or mouse with a big broom. It turned out to be a massive spider.

I didn't sleep too good that night........................