D66 Sri Lanka - Colombo to Kandy

A quick thank you to Kate for her epic work on captioning many of the photos from the Turkey leg of our trip - it was such a hectic and time poor tour, meaning extra effort has been required to get us back up to date.

After a late arrival in Colombo, seeing us greeted to our accommodation by a cool watermelon juice at 11pm, we woke this morning from a very deep slumber. Sayura House was a delightful little hotel to the south of Colombo Fort, featuring white walls, dark wooden furniture embellishing old British design, and polished concrete throughout the bathrooms. Although we left straight after our breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, fruit and coffee, we loved our stay there (except for the patch of mould in the corner of the room, and subsequent smell, which we chose to ignore).

Arriving to Colombo Fort railway station after a hair raising tuk tuk trip engineered by a little old man, we grabbed our second class tickets to Kandy. We watched the world pass by while we waited for our train - rust buckets rolled along crammed with human sardines; locals nibbled on deep fried crispy snacks purchased from vendors; and fatigue wearing, gun slinging army men cleared locals from the seats for western travellers. But not I, who politely said ‘no thanks’ to the guy with the semi automatic rifle...

The rolling stock ground to a halt and the stampede of elephants began. Instincts kicked in and I was pushing my way past the young men who were all vying for a precious seat on this longish journey. I flung my body on the first double seat I came to, as a person outside the train attempted to reserve it by squeezing part of their bag through the window. Luckily, they gave up after realising I was already lying down on the seat, turned upside down like a turtle stuck on its back.

We drifted past lush green rice fields, each with their tokenistic water buffalo roaming around. Bananas and papayas lined the tracks, bearing fruits ready for the picking. The people ebbed and flowed throughout the journey, with opportunistic fellows bringing cold water, deep fried snacks and pomegranates through in wicker or plastic baskets held proudly on their shoulders. Kate was lucky enough to have the opportunity to hold a blind lady’s hand whose belly was poking Kaye in the head with every bump in the tracks. She’s such a Good Samaritan...

Leaving Kandy station, our first tuk tuk driver didn’t seem to want to take us the distance to our resort so he called on his mate, the Michael Jackson tuk tuk man. Thus it began, 30 minutes of pumping classics. “Heal the world, make it a better place. For you and for me, and the entire human race... there are, people dying....”
‘Let’s hope it’s not us’ I said to Kate as we hooned along.

And then we arrived to our final destination for the next three full days - Royal Classic Resort. A quick dip in the pool, a beer watching the sun go down, and a delicious buffet, we’re both ready for a sleep in!Read more