Blogs from Adam's Peak, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka, Asia

Sri Lanka had welcomed me with that mix of hospitality and embarrassment of those who, peaceful by nature, found themselves with a rifle in hand and do not understand why. Negombo Airport was armoured and Colombo city centre was constantly combed by agents (uniformed and not) looking for potential bombers. Only in Israel, I guess, I’ve seen more weapons around. But people here -contrary to what happens in Israel- keep smiling. As to say: no bomb can kill a positive philosophy of life! My not too cautious, little plausible, not at all wise attempt to cross the virtual boundary line that separates (or used to separate, at least) the South in the hands of the government from the Tamil Tigers’ controlled North was a fiasco. In a region where the tourist is by now an extinct ... read more

Hello everyone! So, here I am in Sri Lanka, dodging bombs and searching for sunshine!! he he! only joking, well actually, half half! Yep, there have been a few bombs since i got here, but in the main they've been in Colombo and I have to say that I don't feel unsafe at all. Apparently the cease fire has officially ended though and there are military and police everywhere you go here. On the sunshine front, it honestly did rain continuously for the first week of being here. We then got a sunny few days and now its chucking it down again, so in that respect, I am searching desperately for some sun! So what have I done so far here? Well, I'll start right from leaving Goa. Our taxi turned up earlier than the 5.30am ... read more

THE CLIMB I had wanted to climb Adam’s Peak for some time, and I made sure that I took the chance to do so when I put aside a couple of days during my Sri Lanka trip, and began to arrange to get myself transported there. After toying with the idea of getting several buses, or a couple of (probably unreliable) trains, or even a combination of both, from Colombo to the area where the climb begins in the central hill country, I actually opted to enlist a driver and vehicle for the adventure. It is not quite as extravagant as it may seem to pay for a ‘chauffeur with car’, at least not to westerners, as the costs incurred were within my budget at £25.00 over the two days that “Ilanga” and his ageing Sherpa ... read more

So just a little bit about my white water rafting experience and a few photos to prove that I was there. We had a great time and all managed to stay safely in the raft although there were a few hairy moments. We also got chance to float along the river which was very relaxing. This river is famous because the film 'Bridge over The River Kwai' was filmed here, now I know you are probably thinking that the River Kwai is in Thailand and that I'm not, but seriously when it came to making the film there was some nasty bug thing going on by the real river so the best location they could find was here in Sri Lanka. They only had one chance at blowing it up because it took so long to ... read more

I ended up staying in Hikkaduwa for an extra day, being Sunday (I had completely lost track of what day it is) as I am extremely hung over from last night. Turns out Saturday is a big night here with a massive beach party at one of the bars right on the beach. So as usual not knowing anyone I’ve rocked up, wandered around made friends with a few British and Hong Kong volunteers and sipped on a few cocktails down by the beach. Well that’s how I remember it, sort of, then it gets a bit blurry after that. Ended up getting stuck into a few of the local spirits, Arrack to be exact, which is kind of a bourbon style drink, that mixed with a few liter bottles of Lion, vodka and goes knows ... read more