Blogs from Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka, Asia
May 5th 2012
Hello there! Apologies for the delay in writing this next blog, I did type it out once then promptly lost it when the Internet cafe lost power (no, I still haven't learned to save) and we haven't had Internet for a few days... Since I last wrote we have spent a month in Sri Lanka. Once described by Marco Polo as one of the 'best islands in the world', it's easy to see why. Tear drop shaped and cast adrift in the Indian ocean Sri Lanka is small but perfectly formed and is so varied that it feels like several countries rolled into one. Unlike India whose vast scale makes it impossible to explore fully, I do feel as if we have experienced a great deal of the country. Although we haven't seen everything, we managed ... read more
May 2nd 2012
Hello, hope you're well, we're in Kuala Lumpur at the moment awaiting a flight to Indonesia, having spent almost a month on the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. We're over halfway through our trip now and it is just going ridiculously quickly. The past month had been very busy and so will be pretty hard to summarise, but I'll try and keep this as short as I can... We arrived in Colombo after an easy 45 minute flight from Trivandrum and soon discovered that Colombo is not a great place to stay for backpackers, especially with all the England supporters filling up the rare cheap hostels. We genuinely spent the best part of two days cruising around the city in a tuk-tuk (or more commonly sitting in traffic) trying to find anywhere faintly reasonable. On the ... read more
Spontaneity is the spice of life....
Published: April 22nd 2012Asia » Sri Lanka » Western Province » Colombo
April 20th 2012
4/18 After a long 13 hour plane ride from Heathrow, I finally arrived at Colombo airport. I had arranged a bunk for one night before my departure from London, and also scheduled a pick up to my desired location. After withdrawing some local currency, I found my driver, sign in hand. His name was Kielty and he was there to take me to the hostel. As I stepped out of the airport, beads of sweat began forming on my skin. It felt like millions of small insects crawling on me, every which way. Since I was still dressed in the same clothes I had on in England, those which had protected me from the cold and rain of London, the heat and humidity were intensified. The drive to the hostel took abut an hour. The congested ... read more
Colombo & Negombo, Sri Lanka - 8 to 10 April 2012
Published: April 23rd 2012Asia » Sri Lanka » Western Province » Colombo
April 17th 2012
We left Hikkaduwa on the South West coast heading towards Negombo via Colombo and the roads were busy due to public holidays and festivals. Sri Lanka marks the main Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and some Christian festivals as public holidays. The dates of many Buddhist holidays change from year to year as they are determined by the movements of the moon (Moon Days). April sees both Good Friday and also the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year, so our visit coincided with both of these and the roads were busier than normal although ‘normal’ is still hectic. Whole families ride together on individual scooters and motorbikes - we saw many carrying both parents and two children and some even with three children including very young babies squashed between the adults. It was quite strange to see one coming ... read more
January 6th 2012
K - I am writing this at Colombo airport. We are sad to be leaving Sri Lanka which is a beautiful island - full of variety with beaches, hill country, ancient cities etc. but we are excited to be moving on to Bangkok. We will be spending a few days there while we apply for visas to Myanmar (Burma). We have spent the last few days on the beach at Unawatuna and Hikkaduwa. The former was a little too cramped and touristy for us and had the worst restaurants we have encountered so far in our travels - surreally bad service and average food. The food scene is actually the only area of Sri Lanka that has disappointed us. In general the Sri Lanken people are very friendly and hospitable but they don't really have a ... read more
Colombo, our first stop in Sri Lanka
Published: October 26th 2011Asia » Sri Lanka » Western Province » Colombo
October 17th 2011
This is an introduction to our next ten days of fun in Sri Lanka. Leslie and Tiffany have a full week of school holidays, so we hit the road closer to home this time. Today, as I'm writting this, the one week holidays has actually turn into a three weeks break for them, as school in Bangkok are now closed till 7th of November due to widespread floodings. For info, home, school and all the area around us is still fully dry under a beautiful sun (today!). Few the next few blogs, i may give you some updates about our little lives in Bangkok. Hopefully we will still be able to have power...and communications to the outside world. So let's come back to our ten days adventure in Sri Lanka. This is one of the first ... read more
"Noise May Provoke Hornet Attacks!"
Published: September 30th 2011Asia » Sri Lanka » Western Province » Colombo
September 30th 2011
Although only small in size (220km x 430km) Sri Lanka has plenty to offer. For the past 12 days we have been part of a group of 11 on an adventure tour which took in many of the highlights of this beautiful island. Our group of Aussies, English and an American, were all like-minded travellers and our guide Kingsley, had an amazing love and knowledge of his country which he communicated with great skill. Our driver Athula, was very adept at navigating our minibus along roads often choked with adrenalin-charged drivers of vehicles of all shapes and sizes. The tour took us from the ancient and long-abandoned cities in the north, through the central mountains and highlands and along the beautiful southern and south-western coastline. Elephants feature prominently in Sri Lankan history and mythology. We were ... read more
April 10th 2011
We woke up today relieved to be playing an U16 team and not an U21 international spin team. We arrived at the ground and caught sight of a pregnant dog which Barron said had potential! The toss was made and we decided to field much to the delight of those playing only as batters like Sale, Ritchie and Bertie. We started brightly with a wicket maiden from Dickson and the rest of our bowlers kept it tight early on, including Barron who made a valiant comeback from injury. Scags finally got the big from skip and bowled strongly despite his size taking three wickets for very few runs. The opposition finished on 190 all out, a real plus that we had bowled then our again. The opening bowler started brightly and despite fears that he might ... read more
February 21st 2011
Can't believe I'm hear on the 27th floor, staying in a spectacular apartment with a wonderful host the Miss Emma. This stylish sanctury overlooks the famous Galle face green and what better soundtrack could you ask for, the chorus of prayer. You can see most of Colombo from here. I'm 5 hours ahead of you, so while your waking up I'm having lunch and when I'm sleeping you are stuffing your face with your lovely homecooked dinner. Talking of dinner I'm cooking tonight, heading to the market to buy local veggies and yummy and unusual fruits, ( I wonder what the sinhalease aquilevent of TWO FOR A POUND DARLING) will let you know.... The flights were in total a speedy 12 hours On arriving at the airport, Billy(as named in the family, William to you ;0)) ... read more
February 3rd 2011
A beautiful island and a new adventure, my Chinese new year holiday this year led me to ... Sri Lanka. It was a ten day adventure that I cannot squeeze into one blog because we saw and did so much! Instead I will begin at the capital, Colombo. After an overnight flight and two hours at Mumbai airport, we arrived in colombo at 5am and were very pleased to have booked a hotel for a morning sleep! I had no idea what to expect from Sri Lanka, and guessed it might be similar to tales I had heard about India. I was most definitely wrong. On our first afternoon we headed out to the train station at Colombo fort, which was a very colonial and ancient building with beautiful rickety trains inside with people hanging out ... read more
