Boomers on buses and trains. Sri Lanka and India 2024

30c Rain forecast, but I don't believe it'll happen The last time I wrote we were in the middle of a day of absolutley torrential rain.  Haven't seen a drop since. Nicky gave us a lift from Ella to Tissamaharama.  We stopped by waterfalls which were absolutely gushing what with all the rain.  The hotel we'd booked in Tissa was a bit disappointing, all looked rather unloved and deserted, living off its past reputation and listing in the Lonely Planet guide book I think. We booked our half day tour to Bundala with the hotel for 2pm that afternoon, hoping we'd made the right choice.  You never know with these trips, what kind of vehicle you'll get, a good driver and/or guide.  You can ask all the right questions but until it all turns up you really have no idea.  We were, in the end, extremely thankful for our wonderfully, skillful driver and our lovely guide who knew where to look, and, all the names. ...

Mount Breeze hotel, Ella 19c and tipping down I'm wearing socks First things first, trying to get the keyboard to attach to the phone AND find a comfortable position in which to type. Some things are never easy. We arrived January 1st after a gruelling 32 hour journey beginning with a 3.5 hour coach trip from Bristol to Heathrow.  It ended with us arriving in Negombo at 7pm the following day.  It was dark, and raining but 25c, so that's alright then. These days we like to take a day or two to settle in to a country, get over the jet lag and get our heads around the money, climate and general ambience of the place.  It was 1990 and the civil war was raging the last time we were here, the population has grown from 17mn in the early 90s to almost 23mn today, they've had the devastation of the tsunami in 2004 plus all the government ills of two years ago.  The people of Sri Lanka are paying the price for a reckless, corrupt government is the story we are hear...

Wednesday 27 December 2023 Bristol, dark, dull and wet You may or may not already know but Boy Wonder and I usually travel on bicycles, and we've been doing that since 1987.  However, since we have reached our 'Autumn' years the two year cycle tours have come to an end.  For now ........ only to be replaced by a 3 month European tour each year with the odd winter sojourn to warm climbs. We're leaving the bikes behind for this trip, heading back to places we visited many years ago, Sri Lanka and India.  The last time we were in Sri Lanka Sadam Hussein invaded Iraq (1990) and a civil war was raging.   On 26th November 2008 we arrived in Mumbai about 2 hours before the whole city was shot up by terrorists.  The reason we were in the hotel we chose (Colaba district) in the first place was to be close to the ferry that would take us to Alibag, on the Mainland, without having to cycle through the traffic of Mumbai (even we aren't THAT crazy).  The gunmen cam...