Tuesday 7th January 2025

I struggled to get to sleep at all last night, so I was feeling pretty exhausted when my alarm woke me to get ready for an 07:00 breakfast. It was a very enjoyable breakfast on the top floor of the hotel, with lovely views over the industrial landscape of the dockland and out to the Indian Ocean. Although it can hardly be described as scenic, looking out across Colombo's docks, with its huge cranes and massive ships with their shipping containers, is still quite an impressive sight.

At 08:00 Nilanga picked me up in his car, and we drove out to his sister's house in order to swap the car for a little van. His sister, and his parents with there, and I had a chance for a very brief chat with them before we headed off to the airport to pick up Miggy and Isabelle. It was great to see them again, having stayed at Jana and Yad's house with Miggy at this time last year, when Isabelle, who is French, was also volunteering with Tea Leaf Trust, and we enjoyed a good catch up.

We travelled via Kurunegala, where we stopped at the Royal International School to pick up some of my stuff, and met very briefly with Ravi, the Managing Director of the school, who arranged for us to have a much appreciated cup of tea. We also popped in to Tea Leaf Centre Pussellawa, as we were passing it on the way. There had been a huge delivery of cook stoves that Tea Leaf is delivering to homes across the Hill Country for some time to come.

We finally arrived in Nuwara Eliya, and Nilanga dropped Isabelle and me off at Sky Heaven before taking Miggy on to Blackpool. We sorted our rooms out, had a good rest for a couple of hours, then walked down the hill into Nuwara Eliya for dinner. We were going to eat at Milano's, but in the end we were tempted by De Silva Food Centre, where we both enjoyed a delicious meal at a very reasonable cost, before walking back up the hill to get a good night's rest.

Today's photos show Miggy and Isabelle arriving at Colombo Airport, the downstairs classroom at Tea Leaf Centre filled with boxes of cook stoves, one of a local hotel I admired as we walked down the hill to Nuwara Eliya town centre, and a few of my lovely room in the basement at Sky Heaven.








Comments

  1. CharlesJanuary 11, 2025 at 12:20 AM

    Your bedroom looks very clean and tidy - with just a hint of Christmas in the fairy lights (which may of course be a year-round fixture) Where do the cooking stoves come from, I wonder? Hope you have by now been able to catch up on the lost sleep...

    ReplyDelete

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