Blogs from Trincomalee, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, Asia - page 2

Saavuttiin Trincoon lopulta joskus 7.30. Heti tuli ovista ja ikkunoista tuktuk-kuskeja tarjoamaan reissua Nilavelin rannalle, jonne oltiin menossa. Yksi tyyppi tuli ylimyymään ja ns kusettamaan, koska tarjosi 800 rupialla reissua, jonka toinen tarjosi vieressä 400 rupialla. No euroissa ei ole hirveästi eroa, mutta se halvempi oli muutenkin luotettavamman oloinen. Juuri ennen riksaan hyppäämistä tuli kolmas kaveri, joka sanoi tulleensa hakemaan meitä. MITÄ? Ei me mitään oltu tilattu eikä kukaan ollut infonnut. Lisäksi toi on ihan peruskusetus. No mentiin siihen halvan kaverin kyytiin, joka alkoi tietty vänkäämään perillä tuplahintaa. No ei maksettu kun potutti niin paljon sen touhu. Lopulta selvisi, että se tuplahinta on normaalihinta, jota pyydetään Sri Lankalaisilta. Hävettää... Mentiin sukelluskeskukseen tsekkaamaan seuraavan pvn sukelluksia ja sinne tulee dive master, joka on se sama ... read more

Pollonoruwa After our great excursion to Sigiria and two nights at the middle-of-knowhere grasslands guesthouse, our driver outlined the last two days of our trip. First, we would be travelling to Pollonoruwa, an ancient capital city about 50km from our hotel. We would see the ruins and stuppas built hundreds of years ago before heading across the country (150km) to Anuradhapura, another ancient capital city, to check into our next hotel. After saying goodbye to our hosts in the savanna and our car bouncing along the dirt track back to the highway, we were on our way. Its a relatively new, smooth stretch of highway after that, with picturesque straightaways crowned by large trees along the way. The driver knows some back routes to Pollonnaruwa. At one point we're on a rough, one-lane dirt track moving ... read more

Finally we were off to do the part of the trip I had been eagerly looking forward to - visiting my cousins ... well sort of. Sri Lanka consists of two people groups, the majority being the singhalese, and the minority being tamils. Tamils are squashed up in the north and east of Sri Lanka, and thus so far, the majority of our interactions had been with singhalese. Being of tamil descent, I was looking forward to getting into Tamil territory so I could try out my very rusty Tamil language skills. Unfortunately Sri Lanka is just recovering from a 30 year civil war, during which large parts of the infrastructure of the Tamil parts had been completely descimated. The area we were heading to, Trincomalee, had been partly damaged and so the drive there was ... read more

The road to the north is really bad and buses are crazy weaving through traffic in these narrow roads, we saw an accident, looks like the car in the embankment tried to swerve from an oncoming bus but went too far, we came to a town called Vavuniya it looks very busy, this is now Tamil country, for those not in the know the Tiger rebels were defeated and peace was attained in this area only since last year. We got to the last checkpoint at Omanthi but there was a checkpoint that the Sri Lankan army was manning, they asked for passports, most of the soldiers here look like boy soldiers, they are so young looking, anyway one officer came back to tell us I needed a certificate or permission from my own embassy in ... read more