We're on our way to OZ!

Been in some slightly more remote places of late but back up with wi-fi now so time for an update.

Sri Lanka

After we left Ella we headed to Kandy for a few days, a big city in the hill country of Sri Lanka. We almost managed to successfully get the train from Ella save for the fact Gareth forgot to write the address of the hotel down (despite reading that it was hard to find the day before) . However after a quick stop at an internet café and a small detour we made it to the hotel.

We spent a day exploring Kandy then headed to Sigiriya, probably Sri Lanka’s most famous tourist attraction, an ancient village at the top of a huge mountain. We, not so cleverly, made this climb at mid day without water which made it harder work than necessary. Health and Safety doesn’t really apply here so some of the steps are a tad scary but it was worth it to see the breathtaking views from the top. We also stopped off at Dambulla on the way back to visit the ancient cave temples where Gareth was chased by a monkey looking to steal his bag. Gareth no longer likes monkeys.

Another successful train ride (getting quite good at this now and very pleased with ourselves) we head to Negombo, a seaside tourist resort near the airport for our last view days. In true back packers style we stayed in a very cheap but nice B&B but went to the posh hotel during the day to use their pool and watch the Rugby. Sad times for Ireland but good mojitos. And then it was time to leave and catch a flight to Thailand.

Thailand

First stop Bangkok, a few sandbags were piling up but at the time there was no real flooding in the city so we spent 6 nights exploring and replacing some of the things in our ruck sacks. This is probably the closest we’ve felt to home since we set off and we even spent an afternoon reading papers in Starbucks! There is lots to see and do in Bangkok and we spent pretty much every day on our feet, using the Sky Train to zip about the city sites and taking it all in. A random little find was the Novotel Bar near our apartment which did 2-4-1 deals on happy hour and had a free buffet. It was meant to attract ex pat workers but we sneaked in for the free food and decided Bangkok wouldn’t be a bad place to live and work some time.

Taking into account the flood warnings, we made a slight change of plan and decided to head south to the coast instead of North Thailand. A short flight to Koh Samui and we are back on the beach. Go go girls were replaced by children challenging you to play them at connect four for £1 (they keep the £1 regardless), Gareth was punched in the arm by a 10 year old after politely declining to play for the 12th time. Gareth no longer likes small children with board games.

For my 30th Gareth treated me to a week in a health resort called the Sanctuary so we headed there next. On arrival we were told to eat only raw food for 48 hours before starting our fast. Only problem was the raw and healthy food menu was AMAZING (as were the cocktails) so we decided to give the fast a miss and enjoy a week of healthy food instead. The resort was quite rustic and we had a chilled out week, doing some exercise and lazing in the sun. The people were mostly hippies and we didn’t really ‘get’ everything that was going on but there was good live music and friendly staff so we had an enjoyable week.

We’re now at the other side of the Island, back in a place we stayed before which has a beautiful white sandy beach for swimming and snorkling. We were surprised to find that a stray dog we recognised from last year (which Gareth mistook for a Cat last time after a few buckets) is still here, he’s now looked after by the hotel and is called Pepsi. We were delighted to see him but to be honest Pepsi couldn’t really care less.

Onto Koh Tao next, famous for Scuba diving and whale sharks………

Currently sitting on a train from Ella (central Sri Lanka Hill Country) heading to Kandy which normally takes 6 hours (took us 9) , so thought we would update the blog with what we have been up to. There’s a high chance that I am going to have one arm sunburn as I am sat by the window at the sunny side!

Since our last blog we have been really really busy and seen and done some pretty cool things. After Unnawatuna we headed of to a place called Tissamahara (Tissa) which is a very small town slightly inland up the west coast. Tissa doesn’t have much going on, but it is a great base to go to Yala National park, which is recommended as the best park in Sri Lanka. We stayed in a very small, but nice guesthouse and organised and early morning safari to the Park. We got picked up at 5am and quickly woke up as we rattled about in the back of the 4X4 as the driver, who was clearly in a hurry, sped us to the national park along some pretty minor and potholey roads.

We got into the park and started our safari just as the sun was coming up and immediately saw a huge amount of wildlife. Yala is particularly famous for having one of the densest Leopard populations in the world, though do not be fooled that this makes them easy to find! Our driver though was on a one man mission to find some leopards and sped us from spot to spot in the search for these elusive animals. It appeared elephants, buffalo, crocodiles etc where not of huge significance to him- it was all about the Leopard!

After an hour or so, even with my newly acquired laser eyes and Cats keen sense of smell, we hadn’t spotted a leopard- but had seen many elephants, crocodiles, monkeys, dears, peacocks and buffalo. Then… our driver spotted another 4x4 who had clearly spotted something in the bushes, we quickly sped over and discovered that they had found a leopard. It was in very thick bush and we only caught of 10 second glimpse of it as it soon disappeared- shying away from the attention it was getting. Leopard man (our driver), unlike cat, has the patience of a saint and proceeded to hang about this same area for the next hour or so, scouring the bush with our binoculars. Then suddenly the drivers perseverance paid off. Out came the leopard from the bush and strolled nonchalantly along the side road towards us. We got a really good view of it for a while before it spotted something in the bushes and went off to catch it.

Yala was a great place to go and we would definitely recommend it to anyone heading to Sri lanka. Next stop was Arugma Bay, where just a couple of weeks before a world championship surfing competition had been held and it is ranked in the top ten of surfing destinations in the world. Neither cat and I are surfers but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to give it a go and we had a great day surfing on our second day there managing to catch a few waves. Arugma bay was quite a funny place and the guy we rented the boards had clearly watched to many surfing movies and had decided he was going to be the epitomy of a ‘surfing dude’. With his mix of Sri Lankan, Australian, American, South African and English accent he cooly batted back many of our questions with random nonsense. Conversations with him would go a bit like this:

Us: Hi, How much is it to rent two boards for the day?

Surf Dude: Hey man, it really depends on the waves bro, you can take a board, ride sweet waves dude.

Us: Cool, so how much is it then?

Surf Dude: We have long boards, short boards, body boards. Where you from brah?

Us: Scotland and Northern Ireland

Surf Dude: That’s really cool man, I’ve been to England once.

Us: So can we rent two long boards and how much will it be for the day?

Surf Dude: Yeah man, you should ride on down to whisky point and hit up some of the tubular waves.

Us: Wheres Whisky point and how much does it cost?

Surf Dude: Depends on the waves man.

We spent a few days in Arugam bay and then headed off to Ella to see some of the hill country. We ended up staying in a really cool place run by an Aussie woman which looked right over a huge waterfall and was the most laid back and beautiful place. On our second day there we went for a hike up to Ella rock which is 2500m above sea level and has some amazing views over the valleys and tea plantations. It was quite a hike and we had set off with only vague directions from the guesthouse owner but we managed to find our way (there are zero signposts) and made it up to the top, even with Cat’s bambi legs. When we got back we had a nice massage and it turned out to be one of the best days we have had in Sri lanka so far.

Next stop Kandy for 3 days and do some days trips to Dambulla and Sygriya before heading to Colombo to watch Ireland smash Wales in the World cup quarters, apparently there is an Irish bar which we are going to try and go to (there’s one everywhere!)

We have been in Sri Lanka now for 3 weeks and it has changed quite a bit from last time we were here, the end of the war has made it more relaxed, a bit more developed and therefore…. a bit more expensive! (still pretty cheap though compared to the UK)

We arrived into Colombo and got a four hour taxi down to a seaside town called Aluthgama. The roads here are mental and the basic rule appears to be that right of way is determined by how big you are. Take this one rule and add to it a mix of Buses, cars, Tuk Tuks, motorbikes, cyclists, pedestrians, cows, dogs and goats and its gets pretty mental. Unfortunately it also means that the Sri Lankan buses, and their kamikaze drivers, pretty much rail road anything else out of the way if they can, whether that be on their side of the road or the other! We did spot a policeman with a speed camera though, which seems pretty ridiculous given that the roads are pretty much lawless!

We spent a few days in Aluthgama, and nearby bentota, and went round a few of the sites such as the Buddist temples, lagoons and mangroves, the best experience here though was the turtle sanctuary. The turtle sanctuary buys turtle eggs of the local farmers for a couple of pence more than the fishermen could sell them for at the market (I think they eat them!!). With the new eggs they bury them in sand for a couple of weeks and wait for the baby turtles to hatch. They then put them in a tank until they are 2-3 days old before releasing them into the sea (they would normally go into the sea as soon as they are born, but are pretty useless and therefore don’t survive/get eaten by fish/sharks/birds). The cool bit was that we got to release 3 baby turtles into the sea (Toto, Toby and Terry) hopefully they all made it safe and sound and are now swimming about happy in the sea and avoiding sharks!

After Aluthgama we headed down to Hikkadua where we spent 3 days in a beach side hotel. This is where we attempted body boarding. Normally with body boarding you would swim out a bit, wait for a biggish wave and paddle as fast as you can to catch it to take you back into shore. NOT HERE. The waves were all huge and came in a second or two apart so you basically stepped into the water, got knocked off your feet and battled with the waves for a while before being dumped face first in the sand (not always with all the swim wear you started with). We didn’t last long.

Next up was Unawatuna, this place was one of the worst hit by the Tsunami in 2004 and there were lots of memorials explaining the damage and loss of life that had happened here. They have done an amazing job of building it back up and we stayed in an amazing place called the Flower Garden (our favourite so far). It had a lovely pool where Gareth made good progess on swimming!, tasty food and really nice staff. A wedding party was arriving just as we were leaving. We bought a ring which may or may not be a sapphire but was very cheap so no real risk. We watched Ireland and Scotland play with mixed results and we met an interesting group of guys who were former marines and now work guarding cargo ships from Somali pirates. We joined them for dinner and drinks and then spent the next day nursing a hangover, a good night though.

Next stop Tissa and Yala National Park to see some animals………

Just in the airport waiting for our next flight so thought we’d give a little update to our blog on our Honeymoon in the Maldives.
Kuramathi Island is basically paradise, clear blue sea filled with tropical fish, white sand beaches and all the Mojitos you can drink. When we arrived the weather was a bit average but it got better and the last few days were fantastic. After a crazy few weeks of wedding mayhem a sunlounger and a good book was perfect. We could bang on about if for a lot longer but to avoid boring you too much; here are some of the highlights.

Snorkelling

Take five steps from our Villa door and we were on a beautiful, nearly private beach with crystal clear blue water filled with fish and baby sharks chasing them. We’re not sure if it was normal behaviour but the baby sharks seemed to choose a spot ourside our villa to launch a group attack on the fish. Something you don’t see every day!

Diving

We were kindly treated by the Willis’s to the Hammerhead shark dive and we did one other dive just to get used to it again.
The first ‘check dive’ was great, we saw lots of rare fish, eels, baby sharks, Manta Rays and one Octopus.
So back into the swing of diving we braved ourselves for the Hammerheads. This dive basically involved getting up at shark feeding time (5am), dressing up like shark food (fat little seals, in Cat’s case already slightly toasted to taste) and diving to shark feeding depth (30m) to bob about for 45 mins or so hoping that either a) you spot a hammerhead shark (who just happens to be passing your exact spot) b) Nothing else less pleasant spots you first. All in all it wasn’t feeling like the smartest thing we ever did.
Turns out it is quite a big Ocean out there and we weren’t on the sharks menu so we just hung about with plankton for an hour (who incidentally it turns out that if they take a dislike to you sting!)! All in all though it was still a great experience though.

Spa

We had another massage after which we got to soak in a bath filled with flowers accompanied with fruit and champagne, amazing!
The spa also had a gym where we went once, twice for Gareth and it was a bit of a token effort. Turns out working out in this heat is hard so here’s hoping we get used to it or we’ll be rolling to Australia!

Food and Drink

The buffet was great so we didn’t see the need for a la carte but we did have a fantastic candlelit dinner (another great prezzie from Mark and Clare)which was very nice and a little bit different. Gareth even enjoyed the sushi! The cocktails were as good as we remembered and we made our way through quite a few, always returning to the favoured Mojito which, in our opinion, is worth the air fare alone!

Animals

The Island is full of funny little creatures: some of our favourites.

Harry the Heron, who seemed to have got too lazy to fish so hung out at the sting ray feeding to pinch their dinner.

Zezu the Zebra fish, a little Zebra who lived beside a step ladder, probably the friendliest fish in the world.

The Maldivien Squirrel (Rat), we only saw one and he seemed to have bed head, not sure why.

The Island Cat, didn’t expect to have one given the proximity to water at any given point on the island but a fat little black and white Cat lives there who baaa’s like a sheep rather than meow – odd.

That’s it for now, waiting to catch our flight to Sri Lanka for our next adventure.

Cat and Gareth