sri lanka

hello everyone just a quikie. we are both sitting in an internet cafe at the moment in bangkok, doing major catch up work with the old emails and blogs. HOORAH!!! we have fast computers at last.
I have been really enjoying our time here so far, but that story is for jamie to tell, in the next installment.
I am here to tell you a story, so sit down and make yourselves comfortable children, for this is a story of the mystical magical world of Sri Lanka, where the shadows fall on the clouds and the lesser spotted package tourist is rife in the trees.
We started our Sri Lankan experience in a place called Negumbo, and our friend the wonderfull Neil was still with us.
As we had only two weeks we wanted to make the most of our time there, so we started off moving the day after we arrived, and we all agreed that we where gonna have to bomb it to get around to most places.
Firstly we decided to move up to Anuradhapura, as we where told there where some of the worlds largest stupers there plus the famous sacred bhodi tree. Having been bowled away by how neat and unlittered negumbo was we where even more bowled away by how nice the first coach we got on for this journey was. Air con as standard!!! ...............But then it all went down hill from there!
The second coach we got on was basically like we where back in India! Oh what happy memories! We arrived at our destination with a 4 year old lonley planet guide, which we soon found out the prices where maybe 3x more than what this guide had said. Plus the place was like a Ghost town! I have to admit this place is proberly the furthest North I would personally go in Sri Lanka, which is proberly why there was no fellow travellers or even package peeps and why all the locals seemed to be trying to rip us over!!!!
The sites where of a disapointing standard, and we even got a tour guide around a mueseum that said she spoke English..........God help me I did not understand a word..........but of course she made sure we could understand that she had children and a husband that needed tips!
As you can imagine, we did not stay long.
We then did a climb up a large jutting volcanic rock called Sigiriya, that is famous for having a ruined castle on the top. It was built thousands of years ago by a Agraphobic king who was permanatly paranoid he was going to be invaded. He built this to live in, only to one day come down with a large army on elephant back to finally face his demons, and be deserted by his people and left to die in a swamp that he stupidly led them all in to. He killed himself due to severe embarrasment. Maybe a little bit of a sandwhich short of a picnic!

On to the next place..... Kandy, where I must say we kicked back a few days in a really nice hotel with a TV!!!! This is where we learnt of poor old Bernard Matthews and all those surprise letters to the dvla!. We did use it as a base though to see a few sites, the Botanical Gardens we went to where brilliant, there was a beautifull Orchid House there.... Chelle you would of loved it!........and also an Elephant Orphanage. I got to stroke an Elephant which was lovely, but even though they where obviously trying to do something good, by starting this place, there was still something there that made it feel uncomfatable. Though English standards are not Sri Lankan standards, and you have to keep on telling yourself that when your there.

After Kandy we all went straight onto a place called Dalhousie where we all went up a Mountain called Adams Peak at 2.30 in the morning to make it to the top for sunrise. This is a pilgrims route and there where lots of people doing it at the same time. Its lit up all the way, with 5000 steps to climb. Its famous for the shadow that falls on the coulds. My God my legs ached for days after, but I felt so good for doing it! It was proberly the most mentally and physically challenenging thing I have ever done. What a moment it was to watch the sunrise from the top, with all these pilgrims around you and drumming in the background.
Any way I will leave you now to pass on to Jamie. I hope you have enjoyed this story of mine, and here are some photos of our time along the way in India and Sri Lanka
em xxx