Gerry Hat-Trick

Definitely our most gruelling day so far, climbing up Ella Rock. The guides said it’s not for the faint hearted, and they weren’t kidding. It didn’t help that, as a blog or two had warned, the way up isn’t clear, and sure enough we missed it. We were still headed in more or less the […]

Funny old day.  On Eugenia’s recommendation, we decided to go to Dunhinda Falls. It sounded like the timing would be a bit tight – just one train there and one back and only two or three hours in between to get to the waterfall – but what the heck, let’s do it. Got to the

Who knew. And so much for that. Got to Ella late afternoon yesterday after a four hour coach ride along featureless motorways through featureless jungle followed by a long, grinding, winding haul up into the hills. The town itself, a ‘backpackers paradise’ according to the guide book, turned out to be the kind of place

Not much to say about today. We caught the bus to Ella. That’s about it. So, two weeks in, a few impressions of Sri Lanka… First and foremost, Sri Lankan people are lovely. Everywhere we go we’re met with smiles and kindness, (“Hello!”) and when people see you confused, they rush to help. The heat

Bit of a fiasco day today.  All we had to do was get to Makumbura – the transit hub whence we have a bus booked to take us to Ella on the morrer. Started out heading up the coast on the slow train to Colombo. Not that it was that slow – just that it

Off to Secret Island this morning – the island that’s on all the maps, and isn’t actually an island. Quibble quibble quibble. Nice man offered to ferry us over, and having read that we should expect to pay 2,000-3,000, which did seem a bit bonkers for a 100 metre ferry ride, we were pleasantly surprised

Said goodbye to Umatuma this morning, after a lovely few days, heading north for…a beach! Oh yes. There’s a lot of ’em round here. But this one offers access to Secret Island. Though the moniker seems a bit of a misnomer, what with it being on all the maps. Not to mention the fact that

Unawatuna is just the name of the local beach – one of the most famous in Sri Lanka – but I can’t help pronouncing it like some cod character in an old episode of The Lone Ranger. Unawatuna! And so much for that. This morning, as per Virle’s suggestion, we got up at sparrow fart

Another beach day, oh yes. With one distinction – it was at Turtle Point. Where – jammily, as we later came to appreciate – we arrived just in time to find a group of three or four just off the beach, attracted by food bought from locals for the purpose and distributed by tourists.  We

Had dinner at our hotel last night and found ourselves sitting next to a very nice couple; her from Holland, him from Lebanon. He was kind enough to give us the number of the guy they’d hired a bike from – said he was starting to get a business off the ground, and he had