Swiss Residence Kandy

... the proceedings, altho’ one was being very loving towards him.

There were absolutely loads of tourists at the river, when we accompanied the elephants, that were not at the sanctuary and it made me think that they probably hadn’t paid at all! After all, this was an open river area and strictly anyone could view, so I wondered if many had been warned about the costs at the sanctuary and given it a miss. Ironically, when I checked my ticket ...

... the new day. The coolest part of the sunrise is the shadow Adam's Peak cast in the distance. If you look at the pictures you can see the shadow of Adam's Peak in the distance. As I hiked down I followed a bunch of Buddhist pilgrims who were all chanting in unison as they were descending. After the climb I went for a swim in the river with a puppy that was hanging ...

... hit open water we turned off the engine and were really sailing... but due to the lack of wind we were actually more drifting than sailing. After a tropical early evening shower the wind picked up big time and we had the wind in our sails. Inge likes to sail at night for various reasons, but at night it is a little bit more difficult to spot fishing boats or to be more precise, the location and direction of the fishing boats. In the early night I slept a little bit and after that ...

... lived in the trees at one end - the highlight was the Orchid house - some lovely plants. It got hot and Andy/Max headed out. Chris and I continued for a bit more - found the double palm avenue and the memorial - Chris hugged a giant tree much to the amusement of the group of Sri Lankan women looking on. After a few more photos acting silly we joined Max & Andy and headed off. We picked up the jewellery bought yesterday and stopped off at a ...

... kids still adorable and the bleary eyed teachers held up against the tiredness admirably. Jasmine spent the morning annoying/getting in the way of the teachers in the kitchen to such an extent that they ended up throwing her out! Today was also the first day of teaching. I had the job of teaching the letter J to the small children which was a good experience and think that they took it in.. AND We had pumpkin today so so full! A brilliant few days all round!

... get a sense of what life is really like in this beautiful country.. for instance Christmas at Ali's, then visiting the Galle family I had met two years ago after the tsunami, and finally spending time at Lara's guesthouse. Back to my excursion up the country. We passed through the town in SriLanka that produces the most marijuana. I forget the name! (Don't draw any conclusions about short term memory loss due to drug use! I meant to write ...

... later the train was rammed, people hangin outa doors and all sorts. i had 3 fellas practically on me, and everytime the train jolted i got a face full of sri lanka cod piece. not nice. im sure one had a ****in semi on too cos it felt fairly robust against my collar bone. im sure if you were of the bottom persuasion it wud be a real treat at 7am, 3 strappin young lads tryin to do the sex dance with your face, but for me whos not quite so keen on man love it was quite a torrid time.

... treatment. On the way our tuk tuk passed a school where there appeared to be a sports day event going on (to do with the new year celebrations), as we were stuck in traffic we started to watch what at first glance appeared to be an egg and spoon race for the parents but instead turned out to be an lime and spoon race (with the lime replacing the egg) when we tried to explain that in England we use an egg we got some pretty strange looks After seeing another doctor at the ...

... went again, I would try to get there a little closer to sunrise as to equate the top of Adam's Peak (Sri Pada) with the toilets around the main stage of the Pilton Pop Festival would not be outrageous. Anyway, I digress... sunrise was astounding, but back to Ihalakotte, where I now find myself. Never heard of it? No, nor will you ever, for it is a cul-de-sac off a dirt track, just outside a little known suburb that doesn't know it's own name, way off the beaten track from near, but not ...

... what else could we do? How much do you want to pay? He asked. No more than 1,000 rupees I said. OK, no problem was his response. What do we have to loose we thought. So off we went, two tuk tuks following each other with the backpacks in one with the big man, and Lee and I in the other. Weaving in amongst the crazy traffic like a bicyclist on speed, our tuk tuk took a hard right turn and drove down a very dark and dingy looking alley to our 'hotel' - the Venus Lanka as it was called. Neon ...