Blogs from Sri Lanka, Asia - page 8

Our short visit to Jaffna over, we headed back down south. Saman relaxed immediately, but continued to stay well under the speed limit. We stopped for a buffet lunch at a resort hotel. It was relatively cheap, with a great range of food, and a pleasant break beside the resort pool. We were to spend the next three nights in the area around Sigiriya, one of the prime tourism destinations in Sri Lanka. After lunch we stopped in Habarana and booked a safari into one of the parks, hoping to see some elephants in the wild. We enjoyed the safari but wouldn’t do it again as there were too many jeeps. We did see elephants, four or five groups of them, including cute baby elephants. The jeeps must stress the animals and one elephant did charge ... read more

As we drove towards the northern tip of Sri Lanka we realised our driver Saman was nervous. We knew he wasn’t happy about going to Jaffna, but we had told the company we wished to visit the area prior to booking with them. Jaffna is the capitol city of the northern province, a peninsula which bears the same name. The majority of the city’s population are Sri Lankan Tamils and most are Hindus. It was also the region that, until 2002, was involved in a long running civil war between Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil guerrillas. It was effectively a no go area for many years and has only recently has welcomed tourism and the dollars it brings. It is still not on the established tourist route, probably because of it’s distance from the rest ... read more

We spent the night at Tunes hotel at KLIA2. We stayed at the same hotel in 2009 prior to going to India. How the airport has changed in that time.... The hotel is four times the size and a massive shopping mall is now between it and the main terminal area. However it was only a two minute walk in the early morning gloom to the airport transit bus which took us to the international terminal. Our flight from Kuala Lumpur on Sri Lankan airlines was comfortable and the three and half hours passed quickly, helped again by Netflix and in flight movie. We had prebooked a taxi but it did not meet us so we had to negotiate with another company to take us to the hotel, hoping the hotel would pay the bill as ... read more

Today was another long & hugely memorable day starting with a 6 am 15 km cycle to Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress with a royal palace perched atop. The early start was essential to beat the normal rush of tourists & pilgrims on a virtual single lane staircase. Arriving at the site is a stunning visual of a massive granite outcrop that emerges from lush greenery at lower levels to a citadel that dominates the whole surrounding skyline. The once impregnable fortress firstly passes a series water gardens before 1200 stairs needed to reach the top. Half way we passed some incredibly beautiful rock wall frescoes that somehow have survived centuries of neglect while undiscovered. The entrance to the almost vertical final 200 mtr hike to the top was once guarded by an enormous rock carved ... read more

After 2 easy days of riding today was an early start for a hot & hard 70km ride to Ritigala before a 60km coach ride to our overnight stay at the Siyanco Holiday Resort, Polonnaruwa. The distance was not the problem but rather the wind, continuous slight rise & sections of bumpy roads. Frequent rehydration stops needed to replace the sweat. Much of the passing outlook was of rice paddies, man-made water tanks and patches of jungle. At Ritigala we visited the ruins of a beautiful Buddhist monastery where the ruins and rock inscriptions date back nearly 2000 years.... read more