Wednesday 20th November 2019

I was up at 05:30, as we had to be at the Bus Station for 07:00 to get the bus to Matara. Fortunately, there was a bus that went all the way from Nuwara Eliya to Matara and it was very nice not to have to change buses along the way. We sat right at the front of the bus and it left at 07:45. It wasn’t too bad a journey, just incredibly long, with just one break on the way, about half-way through the journey. If you look on the map it really isn’t that far from Nuwara Eliya to Matara, but here is no direct route and we went east via Bandarawela, Ella and Wellaway before heading south to the coast. We travelled through Hambantota and stopped just before Ambalantota, as we had to change a tyre. We then passed through Tangalle, which brought back great memories of my time there back in October.

We arrived in Matara just before 14:30 after a six-and-a-half-hour bus journey that left me feeling quite exhausted. However, it was no surprise to find that Matara Youth Reconciliation Centre is nowhere near Matara but is in fact quite a bit inland on the outskirts of a small town called Kamburupitiya. We had a short break before then catching another bus to Kamburupitiya. This took an hour and was followed by a tuk-tuk ride to the Youth Reconciliation Centre and then another tuk-tuk ride to where we were staying for the night.

Today's photographs show the beautiful place we are staying in tonight!









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