Monday 13th January 2025

Ragu had decided to visit Horton Plains today, as a treat for everyone, but it involved a very long car journey that would have taken me back past Nuwara Eliya, and I really couldn't face such a long car journey today. It would have involved a very early start, and it would have been 2 hours there, and 2 hours back. I decided to have a much more leisurely start to my day, with a bit of a lie in, a late breakfast, then a bit of a stroll around Maskeliya town.

On my way around town, I said hello to Babu the tailor, who made a couple of shirts for me a while back, then popped in to see Sobiya, one of the teachers I chatted with as part of my native English-speakers initiative for the project that Kavi runs. Sobiya made me a cup of tea, and we had a good catch up. I then carried on to see if my good friend Mr. Rizvi was in, and fortunately he was, so I had another cup of tea, and enjoyed catching up with him and two of his nieces as well.

I wandered around Maskeliya a little more, then I came back to Daresh Home Stay for a bit of a rest, plus catching up on this blog and my diary, before getting the bus from Maskeliya to Norwood. It's quite a ride downhill to Norwood on the government bus, and not for the faint-hearted! I was lucky because, the moment I got off the bus in Norwood, I bumped into Ragu, who just happened to be in town, and he took me back to the house, where Daya was waiting for me.

I had quite a long chat with Daya, then other people started to arrive, and we eventually sat down for dinner - a bit earlier tonight, as we didn't want to be too late, because we were all going to have a very early start tomorrow for the Thai Pongal (Tamil New Year) celebrations. Ragu had kindly taken me back to Maskeliya in his car last night, but tonight I opted for a tuk-tuk, as I didn't want to put Ragu out again, and it didn't cost that much.

Today's photos are of me with Mr. Rizvi (I failed to take one of Sobiya), a couple of Maskeliya, one of the front elevation of the renovation work at Daya's home, and a couple of us having our evening meal in his uncle's house next door.






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