Sri Lanka: part two

Since last I wrote we're had some adventures. Mr Ranjit turned out to be a right royal pain in the arse - if not a crook. Emily had read that we should take cars and a 'driver' and I allowed myself to be over ruled as regards the train journey up to Kandy. As a result we got lumbered with a 34,000 rupee bill for a van, a driver, 4 nights near Habarana and tours of the ancient sites.

The drive up to Kandy (in the hills) was OK although I hate vehicles with dark windows. When we got there it was raining and we took quite a while to find a hotel. When we did we ended up with a place full of screaming women, snoring men and hard surfaces. We went to The Pub (not out of choice) a Chinese restaurant. We managed to get food poisoning and even I was sick.

The day after I was feeling rather unwell and had to grit my teeth through the Kandy tourist stuff. The weather was awful and the 'traditional dancing' somewhat trying. The temple of the Tooth was actually quite interesting but our driver spoke so little English that explanations of what was going on were next to useless.

After another night at the hard surfaces hotel (Man I tell you there wasn't a soft surface to be seen) we went what the Britishers call 'up country'. This was to the vast quantity of Stupas, temples, Buddhas and other religious sites in the north. When I say 'North' were were never less that 50km away from the fighting.

One of the sites in particular was fantastic. A kind of forgotten city in the jungle. A 1,000 years old and rediscovered by the Brits (I suspect that as with most of these things the locals knew it was there all the time). Our guide (not our driver) was quite superb and really gave us a flavour of the place.

We also went to the most fantastic botanical garden.

During this 'oop North' phase we stayed at Dream Cottage (another Ranjit idea). This was nice and the food was excellent but Ranjit sold us 3 nights for the price of 4 with no hot water. Still it was almost worth it for the bats and MASSIVE frog chorus which struck up at 6pm.

I developed a horrible cold and a chest infection while I was there and the carried it back to Kandy with me. At Kandy we divested ourselves of the driver (at great expense) and spent a couple of days getting better, coughing up blood, and seeing the sights.

Since then we have been winding our way cheaply and beautifully by train down south. Tonight we are in Ella in the tea planting highlands. It is truly lovely and not having the responsibility of 'staff' and the feel of the earth under my feet.

We may well be at the coast tomorrow where I will go over this to add some more detail and correct the errors.

Gary Nelmes