Sri Lanka vs India - a mind shift

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The day awoke clear and hot. We didn't have a lot on our agenda before catching the train at 3:55pm so we decided the National Museum could be a good introduction to the history of Anuradhapura where we were destined. It proved to be awesome with a good coverage of the history of the various ancient seats of power in Sri Lanka's history. The omnipresent Buddhist faith scattered in amongst various rulers and races controlling the country painted a clear picture on how significant the religion is to most of the country.

From the museum we went to an upmarket shopping complex that had been recommended. Shelley needed a couple of new tops as the Indian laundries had almost destroyed some of hers. Nice to sit down and order a flat white and a long black in the swanky coffee shop in the food court.

After our hassles with money in India and the lack of ATM's I decided we should load up with cash at the first ATM we saw. I hadn't spent a lot of time on switching exchange rates so guessed how much we would need for our cash budget and got what I thought would cover it. I completely miscalculated and ended up with 700 NZD which is way to much for what we will need. I am thinking we can buy some US dollars on the way out as we are a bit short and I am not expecting India's cash crisis to be fixed when we arrive back.

With still 3 hours to wait for the train we headed back to our hotel, picked up our bags and went to the train station. We left our packs at the left luggage department. I had packed a small combo padlock and a small chain which proved handy to secure the large lockers that we got offered.

We took a walk around the train market, loaded up with some mandarins, peanuts and water, got our packs out of storage and embarked on our first train trip of the holiday.

I have forgotten how hard a train seat can become!,

It was only a 4 hour trip and quite fun. Shelley hadn't packed any headphones so we had a great time singing along to Fleetwood Mac Rumours late in the trip sharing one headset. Not sure what the locals in the same carriage thought but none complained. Our hotel that night was also fantastic. Called the London Palace (palace might be stretch) it made us a great meal when we finally got in around 9pm.

Summary of the day was that Sri Lanka has advanced incredibly compared to India since my last visit and this was starting to feel like a holiday rather than an adventure.

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