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Published: June 29th 2011
We began the week with cleaning the tanks again! In the afternoon we met the 6 new volunteers so it is now a bit of a squeeze in the house! We taught English in the afternoon which was quite intimidating as all the new volunteers were watching us. For tea we got to try curd which is made from buffalo milk and treacle and it was really tasty! We also had some arrack which was good!
On Tuesday morning we were weaving and we got told we would be allowed to progress to actual weaving on Wednesday rather than just straightening straw! The newspaper came as they were doing a story on us volunteers and we had our pictures taken for the newspaper which was good fun as we had to pose and pretend we could weave really complex stuff! In the afternoon we taught English, Emily and I split the class in half and she taught past, present and future and I taught them everything to do with time.
On Wednesday we progressed and got to weave our own bracelets which was good fun however Emily had some issues and the women kept unraveling what she had done
because it wasn’t good enough! In the afternoon we taught in the temple again and got the children to write their names and think of an adjective to describe themselves that began with the 1st letter of each letter in their names and to draw pictures to represent the adjectives which was good fun. However we made a mistake by getting our cameras out as then they went crazy trying to do things that would get them photographed!
On Thursday morning we cleaned the tanks again and also tidied up the beach. In the afternoon we taught at the temple again. Whilst we were teaching the children went to get ‘water’ and came back with a lot of flowers that they then decided to put in my hair, which was quite amusing and slightly painful!
We left the volunteer house on Friday for Nuwara Eliya which was only 2 buses however the 2nd bus took 6 hours so it was a long day travelling. We arrived in the afternoon and immediately noticed the temperature difference. The area is called little England and we could see why it was very cold and misty! We went out for dinner and had
an early night as we had to be up at 5.30am the next day.
On Saturday morning we got up bright and early and were taken by minibus to Hortons Plains and World’s End. We had to get their early as the later you leave it the more likely the area will be obscured by mist and then you wouldn’t be able to see anything! As we drove into the park there was a large deer that was very tame and we fed it chunks of apple. We then parked up and did a 9km walk where we saw little worlds end, worlds end, bakers falls and a number of other natural features. We were a little bit worried on the walk as we were told that we may see leopards which would have been very scary as we were on foot! Fortunately we only saw monkeys! Little worlds end and worlds end were spectacular and apparently on a clear day you can see all the way to the sea. Bakers falls were pretty but not as big as we were expecting. However it was a fun morning and the walk didn’t seem too strenuous. For lunch we stopped
at a bakery in town where I had an onion roti which was very spicy! We then had to make our way to Dalhousie, as we missed the last bus we had to get 3 buses and it took ages. We finally got there that night and within a minute of Emily stepping off the bus she had a leech on her foot!
We had an early night again as we had decided to set off to climb Adam’s Peak at 2am. We got up bright and early with our head torches ready to climb Adam’s Peak which has over 5,000 steps to the top. Very early on we managed to lose the path and got lost in a tea plantation for an hour and a half which was amusing we managed to find the trail and an Australian guy on it as we fell out of the plantation on to it and him! Were still not sure how we managed to lose the path especially as it turns out we only moved about 20m along the path by taking the huge plantation detour! We then embarked on our crusade to the top which was extremely hard and treacherous,
Adam's Peak
Phil and I reaching the top!it was also very misty and there were plenty of leeches. Luckily I managed to find all the leeches on me before they latched on however some people were less fortunate and Phil was literally covered in them! We made it to the top at 6.30 am 4 ½ hours after we began. Unfortunately we did not see sunrise or anything as it was so misty! We rang a bell in the temple at the top and sat in a hut and drank sweet tea to warm up as it was very wet and windy at the top! We then started the descent down which took 2 hours and our guest house had breakfast waiting for us at the bottom which was appreciated. We then took a taxi back to Colombo and managed to spot the bus as it was stopped at traffic lights so we just jumped on!
As it was Emily’s birthday we had a small party in the evening, which involved arrack, presents and cake which had been transported all the way from England and managed to survive the journey and the 2 weeks in the freezer!
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