Wednesday 3rd January 2024

It was lovely to have had one night in Negombo before taking the long drive up to Nuwara Eliya, and I would certainly do this again next time. As I was up early, it meant that I had time to sort out my blog and do my diary, and it also gave me the opportunity to have a fairly leisurely breakfast, which included egg hoppers - one of my favourite Sri Lankan delicacies. The Cave by Blue Bird turned out to be a very good choice of accommodation.

I had a transfer back to the airport, with a Singhalese guy who had no English whatsoever, and took me to Departures rather than Arrivals, which was rather unfortunate, as it was quite a trek to drive from one to the other, even though they were next to each other! I enjoyed meeting Stephanie, my first volunteer in my role as Volunteers Coordinator. She is on a world scholarship programme, and actually flew in from Bangkok this morning.

Reggie was well on time at the airport to take us on the long journey up to Nuwara Eliya. It was a great opportunity to answer Stephanie's many questions about Tea Leaf Trust, and the journey passed pretty quickly, including a stop for a very good buffet lunch, and a few minutes viewing Devon Falls. We dropped Stephanie off at her accommodation first, then made our way to Yad's place in Blackpool, which is such a familiar journey to me now.

It was so lovely to see Yad, Jana, and Meena again, and to also meet Miggy, a long-stay volunteer from Norwich, for the first time. We had a good catch-up over a cup of tea, and later on enjoyed a very tasty chicken kottu together. I then spent a long time trying to sort out all my luggage, and got to sleep very late, although it was under a beautiful new duvet that Yad had got for me, and it was extremely comfortable, so I felt very cosy in my room.

Today's photos are meeting Stephanie at the airport, and then the long drive up to Nuwara Eliya.








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