D7 The verdict has changed reference the Sri Lankan drivers. We have come to the conclusion that many are reckless and dangerous. This morning we were nearly run off the road by a car overtaking a lorry uphill at speed with just enough room for us to get through – frightening. This afternoon entering Minnetiya John was thrown off his bike by a foolish motorist who came alongside and then swerved across him to enter the fuel station. John had to turn with him and applied his brakes on the wet road so skidded to a stop in a big heap with a battered knee, forearm and hand. The police came and instead of reprimanding the driver tried to encourage John to go to hospital. However, since he did not want to contract some deadly disease ... read more

Dambulla D5 A bit cooler today at 24 degrees instead of the 30 and 28 of previous days, but still warm since there was less breeze. We headed back South down the route we took on Monday until we turned off onto a minor road just after the car accident where the car looked definitely twisted and leaking water badly. This is the first accident we have seen in a country with busy roads, but not fast traffic, and everyone blowing horns but giving space and no aggression. Most people treat us with respect and many wave and shout ‘hello’. School children run to the gates and shout and wave. We must look like aliens from another planet in our lycra and futuristic bicycles (compared to their roadster workhorses). Again we saw many birds today, kingfishers, ... read more

Sri Lanka D3 After flying to Heathrow from Manchester and the normal laborious queuing the Sri Lankan Airways flight set off 90 mins late, for no indicated reason, which meant we were late into Colombo. After being met by our agent Ivan we had a meal on the way to the hotel in Nebongo and arrived in the dark for another meal before rebuilding our bikes. Not a good move when you have missed a full night’s sleep. Eventually got to bed at midnight and after fighting with the air conditioning temperature, and fan, I kicked it into touch at 3am and then took some pain killers for my headache at 3.40, which seemed just before my alarm at 7.15 for breakfast. Away we go at last after a great breakfast of everything you could want ... read more

Day 10 Rakov Skocjan to Cerkno Today the sun shone on us. Last night we looked at the weather forecast and saw it was due to rain during the afternoon. As a result we decided that if it was poor we would take a short cut from Idrija. Some had decided to do this regardless, either to save the legs or to visit the silk and the mercury mining museum in Idrija. As it was nice 12 of us had a nice lunch in the pleasant town of Idrija and then headed up the rather pleasant valley to 710m before a 7km stone track descent -hairy- especially when you meet lorries racing up towards you with little room to spare. Once at the bottom it was a nice steady run alongside two rivets to Cerkno for ... read more

Day 8 Hushrevica to Rakov Skocjan Thank goodness today was a bit easier than yesterday. We did a steady run into Ajdovscina passing through some nice villages until we hit a supermarket to buy sandwiches for lunch. We then hit the old town centre and had a coffee and viewed the tiny Saturday market in brilliant sun, which we had not seen enough of this trip. Again the mountaintop had no place to eat so it was eaten sitting on a wall top. On inspection the village of Col only had a crummy bar with no food. Upon reaching the summit we headed down the mountain and hit the gravel after 1k for around 3k on reasonably graded gravel. Unfortunately John had a compression puncture on the foot of the gravel section which his friend Geoff ... read more