Note: if you double click on any of the pictures you will be transferred to the picture gallery where they will be enlarged to half page size. Sunday 8th December: we checked out of the Laya Safari at 10am for the 100 mile, 3-4 hour, journey to Galle. The roads were again well surfaced and not too busy, except in the towns we passed through. One section of the road had been upgraded to a 6 lane dual carriageway but this only extended for 2/3 miles past a very large modern building that Diya told us was a new conference centre – basically in the middle of nowhere. The reason for this was obvious once we realised that this was the President’s home territory – and he was due to arrive the same day as evidenced ... read more

Note: if you double click on any of the pictures you will be transferred to the picture gallery where they will be enlarged to half page size. Thursday 5th December: an early start for us, setting off from the Hotel Suisse at 8.15am as the drive to our next hotel on the south coast of the island was expected to take around 10 hours. Getting out of Kandy was relatively quick and painless. We followed the same road we had taken to the Elephant Orphanage then turned off to head south into the higher areas of the central mountain range. Happily the volume of traffic, and in particular the bullying buses and crazy tuk tuks, lessened and we were left to enjoy the good quality roads and ever improving views as we climbed higher and higher ... read more

Note: if you double click on any of the pictures you will be transferred to the picture gallery where they will be enlarged to half page size. Monday 2nd December: we checked out of the Heritance Hotel at 10am heading for Kandy via the World Heritage site of Sigiriya, an amazing palace complex perched on a rock outcrop and one of Sri Lanka’s most iconic places. It took only half an hour to arrive at the site as it's located across KandalamaLake from the Heritance Hotel. We stopped off at a Government Rest House for coffee before beginning the tour; then we went into the site where we met up with Reginold Dissanayaka (“Call me Reggie”) a professional guide recommended by Diya our driver. Reggie bought our tickets for us which provided further enlightenment for my ... read more

Thursday 28th November: we’re on the road again; or more accurately in the air, Sri Lankan Airlines flight 504 Heathrow to Colombo to be exact. A convenient departure time of 9pm allowed for a leisurely day’s preparation and drive to Heathrow. So leisurely in fact that I unintentionally left my mobile phone in the car instead of bringing it with me as planned. The flight departed slightly late because, we were informed by the Captain, the crew transport had got stuck in a traffic jam in Kensington on their way to the airport. Obviously Sri Lanka Airlines spoil their staff rotten putting them in fancy hotels in Kensington instead of a B&B in Hounslow or Slough – like Cardiganshire International Airways would. The 10 hour flight was quite tiring because our seats didn’t have sufficient legroom ... read more

Note: by double-clicking on any of the photos you will be transferred to the photo gallery which provides bigger images of the photos. Saturday 1st June: a leisurely breakfast in the sun looking up at the Tahtali Dag, a mountain that dominates the coastline here. It’s 2,318 meters/7,600 feet high and is just 10K/6 miles from Cirali. Later we headed off to Phaselis, an ancient port city just along the coast from Cirali that we had previously visited in 2008 and had good memories of it (Alexander the Great also rated Phaselis quite highly having wintered there in 334/333 BC; but he rated it more for its wine than it’s tranquility). Driving there only took 25 minutes and it hadn’t changed at all except that there were a lot more visitors this time, mostly ... read more