Blogs from Sri Lanka, Asia - page 127

Woke at 6, which was not my plan! Listened to music, watched the ocean and just generally lazed around until 8.30am. Last night, Aminda showed us the "best room" in the hotel - a suite called the Residence. It was huge, with a fibre optic lit private pool hanging over the gardens and sea. It had a giant jacuzzi and huge Smeg fridge. He didn't tell us the room rate! We like our room though. It has a huge bed, CD/DVD player, bose sound system, plasma screen tv and an ipod, loaded with 6000+ songs. We've got it on shuffle and were jigging around to Bhangra or something like that first thing. There is a library with dvds and books to borrow. Breakfast was a buffet - first time we encountered this. But what a spread! ... read more

Woke at 5. Chanting tape on. Couldn't get back to sleep. It is 8am as I write this. I'm having my bed tea and I'm bloody knackered! All the other guests are leaving today - we're the lucky ones staying here for three nights. I wonder if there'll be new arrivals? Today we've asked Seelan to take us white water rafting. I'm apprehensive now as I'm tired, slightly hungover and it looks quite strenous from photos I saw up in the Summerville office yesterday. In fact, a sign said that you should only go if you are of "good fitness level". Yeah, right - that'd be me. Not. Still not sure if the road is open yet. The manager here has discussed an alternative plan where they can boat us across the lake to Summerville and ... read more

After what seemed like a whistlestop tour of Kandy, today we're on the move again. We'd asked for breakfast at 7 - they served it on our verandah. Have I mentioned our verandah - it's huge! Finally got to try something vaguely Sri Lankan to eat - Egg Hoppers and onion sambol. Preceded by a tropical fruit platter. Oh, and the fruit juice they served was pineapple and coriander - great combination. Roy had cornflakes, followed by pancakes with pineapple compote. The egg hoppers were good - I'd been looking forward to trying them, I like eggs a lot and these were tasty. Seelan picked us up at 7.30am - today he's taking us to Perideniya Junction to pick up a train to Hatton. He had a fairly stressful drive across rush hour Kandy to get ... read more

Just set up my Travel Blog, Sitting at home. Tomorrow train to London at 6.15am. Tube to Terminal 5. Flight to Mumbai at 10.30am. Arrives 12.40am on the 19th - meet Josh and Tom in airport. Flight to Columbo on the 20th at 3.40am. Arrives 6am. Keep you posted... read more

So this morning we got up at 6am as we were headed for Sigiriya Rock Fortress. This involves climbing up a lot of steps (reports vary, some say 750, others say 1200) and so Seelan decided it would be a good idea to be there when the gates open at 7 - the idea being we'd get the climb out of the way before it got too hot. It was pleasant driving through villages before 7 and seeing schoolkids all up and on their way to school - all in their smart white and blue uniforms. I'd been dreading the rock climb - I'm unfit and I knew it would be tough. It was as hard as I expected. It's a 200m climb but steps all the way up - slopes I can cope with, but ... read more