Category: Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka (finally finished) – Elephants, Jewels and Rickety Trains
When we cycled to into Habarana, we were, as usual, tired and dusty. Stopping for a drink before we started the faff of finding accommodation, we were approached by a pretty crazy looking dude with a beard and a great big sack of something slung over his shoulder. Thinking that he was trying to hawk…
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Sri Lanka – Mulaitivu to Padaviya
Since we’ve arrived in Sri Lanka, I’ve been dying to see an elephant in the wild, just one, even from really far away. As long as I can tell it’s an elephant then I’ll be happy. Even better if it waves it’s trunk in salutation, but I’m not picky. Just one pachiderm, please! So far…
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A War without witness
Knowing we had another long day we woke early, the alarm call had been changed to promote a more rapid rise but the familiar process of looking out the window to see heavy rain meant we had little enthusiasm for movement. We packed our things, loaded our bikes and walked a short distance to fill…
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Sri Lanka – Mannar to Jaffna, the top of Sri Lanka
Cycling over 100km any day is a big ask. We knew we had to do 118km today, there’s absolutely nowhere to stay or even wild camp between Mannar and Jaffna and so we would just have to push on. It’s a flat road, but things never go exactly as you want them to and our…
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Sri Lanka -Backtracking in the rain again..
When we woke this morning we knew we had to change accommodation, we were told when we checked in that a large group of 60 had booked all the rooms where we were staying. Our loose plan was to move to one of the many other places in close proximity then hire a motorbike to…
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Sri Lanka – Mannar (26/11)
Despite our great plans to get out for a cycle around to see the Mannar peninsula today, when we got up, the rain was coming down in buckets. It was much later than we had anticipated when we finally got to leave the guest house and go for breakfast. We headed to the hotel, that…
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Boring Mannar
Without mosquito nets in our room we had yet another sleepless night. The loud spinning fan above our beds meant we didn’t hear them, but they were there biting us constantly resulting in another restless itchy night. The old wooden walls of the colonial era government rest house was no barrier for these guys who…
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Sri Lanka – Making our way north.
Anuradnapura is an ancient town with lots of old Buddhist temples, unfortunately because of the high entry cost we didn’t visit the main area of ruins. There were some you didn’t have to pay to see, and luckily on the day we visited some kind of large festival was taking place so it was very…
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Sri Lanka – Puttalam to Wilpattu and Back Again!
Sri Lanka can be a strange auld place. We stayed in a “holiday resort” last night and paid 1700 rupees for our room. We were told it was far superior to the rooms for 700. On dumping our bags and getting a chance to look around, we discovered here wasn’t much difference in it. The…
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Chillaw to Puttalam
Last nights sleep was restless, the air in the old musty room was heavy with moisture and hot making it uncomfortable. The rotating fan above our head looked like it was likely to detach from the ceiling imminently and seemed to do little to stir the humid air. Yet somehow we did manage some sleep,…