Blogs from Sri Lanka, Asia - page 128

Trouble free journey to Manchester. Arrived and got through security ridiculously early. Shops, coffee, boarded. Emirates seem back to their best - in flight entertainment was excellent. Watched comedies and documentaries and did not sleep. The time passed very quickly during our plane change in Dubai - as we flew in we saw the "tallest building in the world" that they're putting up there. It is phenomenally tall! Really looks quite silly towering so far over the existing skyscrapers. It seemed no time between immigration and boarding our flight to Colombo. Mind you, we did spend ages in the shop buying binoculars as I'd forgotten to pack ours. They seemed like good value but I have to say that we were generally shocked at the prices in Dubai duty free. Last time we were through there ... read more

Sri Lanka had welcomed me with that mix of hospitality and embarrassment of those who, peaceful by nature, found themselves with a rifle in hand and do not understand why. Negombo Airport was armoured and Colombo city centre was constantly combed by agents (uniformed and not) looking for potential bombers. Only in Israel, I guess, I’ve seen more weapons around. But people here -contrary to what happens in Israel- keep smiling. As to say: no bomb can kill a positive philosophy of life! My not too cautious, little plausible, not at all wise attempt to cross the virtual boundary line that separates (or used to separate, at least) the South in the hands of the government from the Tamil Tigers’ controlled North was a fiasco. In a region where the tourist is by now an extinct ... read more

This weekend I went to Sinharaja Rain Forest and Udawalawa National Park, based in Sri Lanka’s hill country. The drive from Hikkaduwa to Sinharaja takes around 3.5 hours, so we were picked up at 6am. We arrived in good time, paid our entrance fee, and a picked up a guide, who was female, which is highly unusual in Sri Lanka! She was very nice and knowledgeable. As we walked around Sinharaja I kept getting the urge to burst into a chorus of “YMCA” as she kept on saying “and the village peoples use these berries for…” “Village peoples make jaggery from this tree…” I didn’t know that the Village People were rain forest natives!! We did a 6km hike through the rain forest and saw loads of different plants, flowers and trees (obviously!) the guide explained ... read more

Once a long time ago, I was a little boy, only three in fact, and I found myself in this lovely country called Sri Lanka. My memories of the time have faded and those I have I am not certain of. Are they my own memories or are they memories formed by stories told by my parents or photo's seen in old albums? My first memory is in fact of a crab in the swimming pool of Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. They had, and I have heard, still have a salt water pool there, so it isn't a hostile environment to crabs if they should choose to reside in the pool. I think the crab was in that pool for quite some time, I am not sure what motivated it; I can't imagine the tiled ... read more

As you all are aware, I haven’t blogged for a while. This is down to many, many reasons but can be summed up by the old adage “if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all”! I’m not going into the reasons here, but feel free to ask me upon my return and I will endeavour to enlighten you! I do however now have something nice to write, so here goes! On Christmas Eve morning I was sat at the top of Adam’s Peak (or Sri Pada, as it is also known) a very large mountain, watching the sunrise. It was magic. We set off at 4pm from Hikkaduwa in a car. Our original car had crashed on the way to pick us up, so we had to get another one at ... read more