Sunday 6th October 2019

I was up early to get the 08:00 bus from Nuwara Eliya Bus Station. I caught one of the smaller coaches, which I booked over the phone yesterday. It left at 08:15 and arrived in Colombo at 13:15, so exactly 5 hours, which was very good and a bit quicker than usual because we were travelling on a Sunday when the roads are a bit quieter. It was a bright orange coach (see photo below) and it only cost 550 Sri Lankan Rupees (about £2.75), which is quite astonishing really! It was reasonably comfortable, but a bit lacking on the safety side, with no seat belts and a driver who tackled the journey like Lewis Hamilton might tackle a Formula 1 race. There were so many times I cold hardly bare to look at what was happening on the road, but I sort of got used to it in the end – this is Sri Lanka after all!

No sooner had I arrived at Colombo Bus Station when I was whisked off by tuk-tuk to the Ceylon Travelodge. I quickly settled into my room, then went off to get something to eat at Sen-Saal, a place recommended by my host, Anura. I had a delicious meal there, for next to nothing, and it certainly lived up to his recommendation.

It was teeming down with rain as I left Sen-Saal, but I still wandered around for a bit, as I wasn’t ready to go back to my room so early. I found an old lady with a young boy I assumed to be her grandson (or even great-grandson) and I bought my first souvenirs on this trip (see photo below) I walked past my first tuk-tuk sales place on my way back to my lodgings (see photo below) and my final photo today is of a claret-red tuk-tuk I picked out as my favourite (it had a price tag of 760,000 Sri Lankan Rupees (about £3,800).










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday 4th March 2025

Image
I finally got to my last day here which started very early, as I was up at the crack of dawn to sort out a few things in the apartment, then get my last few bits of packing done. Razeena once again brought me breakfast, which was a great start to my day. After breakfast, I popped a present for Sandra in Ravi's office, just in case I didn't see her to say goodbye to her but then met her at the Junior School on my way back and said a fond farewell to her there. I left at 08:30, with Liyanage driving me to the airport - not that I was aware of that journey, because I had got up so early this morning that I nodded off for most of it. I hardly had to queue at all for either the security checks or for check-in, so I had quite a bit of time before my flight was due to take off at 12:50. I had a delicious, filled croissant for lunch, with a latte, then went to Gate 9, where I didn't have to wait too long before boarding the plane, which thankfully took off on time. It was an 11-hou...
Read more

Friday 1st November 2024

Image
There was no school again today, as the staff were out on a staff trip somewhere (not sure where they went), so we had breakfast a little later at 08:30, then did some washing before heading into school at 10:30 to do some planning and preparation for our Maths Staff Training session on differentiation, which is taking place after school on Monday. There are 53 staff coming we have been told - across Grades 1 to 5, so I think it will be pretty challenging for us! Having got as far as we could with the planning and preparation, we went shopping for some Maths resources Valerie needed to purchase, plus a little trip to Halal Bakers to buy some bread for breakfast tomorrow. The street shops are an amazing concoction of buildings with all kinds of trades going on within them, and on the extremely busy Kurunegala to Kandy road, so Valerie took some photographs of the local shops, which you will see below today. We got back to the apartment, and I got on with planning out the Maths Staff Tra...
Read more

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more