Negombo
We had wanted to go straight to Hikkaduwa from the airport originally but all the quotes for transfers from the airport were in the region of $70 which we thought was pretty steep – so instead we decided to spend the night in Negombo and get the train down to Hikkaduwa the following morning. Our plane arrived early and we had our bags and visa within 15 minutes, we went through customs and a guy was waiting to take us straight to our hotel where we got straight into bed and crashed out. When we woke up the following morning we tried to find out how to get to Hikkaduwa via train but were told that the main station in Colombo was closed due to the SAARC convention that was currently taking place. This meant that we had to go and get a bus – something we were a little dubious about with all the recent bombs that had been blowing people up on the local buses! We got in a tuk-tuk to take us to the bus station and within five minutes the driver had convinced us to just take the tuk-tuk all the way to Hikkaduwa! Probably not the smartest move on our part as the journey took the better part of 6 hours and was by no means comfortable!

Hikkaduwa
We had been really looking forward to coming back here to spend a few days relaxing on the beach, however this time it was completely different to 2 and half years ago! The beach had practically disappeared, pretty much everywhere was closed as it was not the high season and the whole place just had a really depressing air about it – so we decided to just spend the night and move on the following morning.

Galle
Last time we were in Sri Lanka we had briefly visited Galle and didn’t think very much of it, this was due to the fact that our old guidebook mentioned nothing about the old part of the town that was inside the fort! So with this new information we were looking forward to something a little more interesting, however once we arrived we still didn’t quite get the appeal. It was nice and quiet, some of the streets were pretty, walking around the fort walls at sunset was nice enough – but there was just nothing to do! So instead of the 3 nights that we had planned we decided to cut our losses and head off early the next day.

Matara
Even though we said that we didn’t want to get any buses it was the easiest and cheapest was to get to Matara and we weighed up the probability of our bus being blown up and figured we were more likely to get run over by a bus than blown up on one! (Plus we’d already jumped on a bus the previous day to get from Hikkaduwa to Galle and we were still alive!) The main reason for us coming back to Matara was to visit a particularly interesting temple nearby called Wewurukannala. The photographs below can do it more justice than my words! We also visited another temple that has underground passages that are covered in a weird kind of “comic strip” of Buddhist paintings – very strange but very interesting.

Ella
After a five hour bus journey we finally arrived in the sleepy little town of Ella – we quickly found ourselves a nice quiet room that had great views of the surrounding countryside. To be honest there wasn’t that much to do in Ella, so after a couple of days we decided to take a trip out to a tea factory in the relatively nearby town of Haputale.

Two hours and three bus rides later we arrived at Dambatenne Tea Factory and went on a little tour of the factory. As it was just the two of us it made the tour much better as we could go around at our own pace and found out exactly what happened at each stage of the process, the only downside was that we didn’t get to taste any of the tea. After being shown around the factory we headed back to the road to get the bus back but decided to take a little detour down a different road before getting on the bus. This turned out to be a smart move as we stumbled upon what seemed to be the only group of ladies picking tea leaves on the whole estate! After taking some photos we headed back to Haputale to get the train back to Ella which was much more pleasant than the bus!

Kandy
We had originally planned on taking the train from Ella to Kandy as it was supposed to be a very picturesque journey but we had been told by the manager of our guest house that we could get a bus from the nearby town of Badulla and get an express bus that only took 3 hours as opposed to the 7 that the train took. To start with Badulla turned out to be an hour away from Ella and then when we got to the bus station found out that there no express buses going to Kandy and had to sit on a bone-shaker for the next 4 hours!

We had booked a room on the internet as we’d been told that it would be really difficult to find a room during the Kandy Esala Perahera Festival and that all rooms would be more expensive than normal. However, once we arrived at the guesthouse and saw our room we decided that it was taking the piss. To start with, the guesthouse was at the top of a steep hill and the room was probably one of the worst ones we’d been in this trip and we were certainly not going to pay 2000 rupees a night ($20) for the privilege! So I set off back down the hill to go and find out how much rooms were at the place we stayed last time in Kandy, we’d tried to call them before arriving but there was never an answer. Luckily for us they had a few rooms left and it would only cost us between 700 and 1100 rupees depending upon which room we wanted – much more our budget!

The one major downside of being in Kandy during the festival was the security – not that we object to the rigorous bag and body checks, but when they insist on pulling out every last item of the camera bag and handle it like it’s a bag of shopping, it gets a bit annoying! The funny thing was that the security checks became more and more relaxed the closer we got to the end of the festival – thankfully we didn’t get blown up though! Actually there were two major downsides, although this one applies to all of Sri Lanka – how hard is it to find a decent meal?!? There is a severe lack of restaurants or places that serve edible food, people just seem to survive on pastries and massive plates of rice – we were struggling!

The plan had been to go and watch the Perahera (procession) every night for the week that we were in Kandy, however, due to the lack of decent food and the constant security checks, diversions and blockades we were getting sick of it before we’d even seen it! It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth night that we decided to get a roadside seat to see what all the fuss was about – luckily we managed to bargain down the ticket price from an extortionate 4500 rupees to 1000. It took a while to warm up but the overall spectacle of the 3 hour procession was pretty impressive – it’s also very obvious that the local’s love it too as the streets are filled with families sitting by the side of the road from around mid-day – the actual procession doesn’t start until almost 8pm!!

We were starting to get really bored during the days as there wasn’t very much to do in Kandy so decided to get up early one morning and get a bus to Nuwara Eliya to go and visit another tea factory. We set off at 6.30am as our guidebook had said that the journey took 4 hours – 2 hours later we arrived – typical! It was refreshing to be somewhere new, especially that early in the morning in the hill station town that’s known as “Little England” – it was very cold! After warming up with a doughnut and a coffee we jumped on the bus to take us down the road to the Pedro Tea Estate. Once we got there we realised that it was the same factory that we’d visited last time so were looking forward to seeing it again – unfortunately for us the factory was closed as at this time of year they work during the nights instead!

Well it was still early in the morning and it was a beautiful day so we wandered back out to the road to get a bus to a different factory, but before we got there we spotted some women picking tea further up the hill. It was amazing, they were all very friendly and it was the perfect time and place for a photographer to take some great tea-picking shots – Kim was very happy! Three hours later we had walked around and taken enough photographs so decided to head back to town and then go visit the other tea factory. After having some lunch we decided to change our plans as the weather was turning and the clouds were rolling in so we just jumped on a bus back to Kandy instead.

Everything had been leading us up to the final night of the Perahera and thankfully we had managed to book ourselves some amazing seats and even managed to get the price down to something a little more reasonable. It’s very difficult to explain exactly what happens during the Perahera, mainly because there are so many things going on, but it’s mainly a lot of dancing and drumming in various costumes with a lot of elephants – the photos will give you a better idea. It was a great night and had made the stay in Kandy for over a week worthwhile – if a little more expensive than we would have liked!

Dambulla
There’s not too much to say about Dambulla to be honest – we really didn’t like the place very much – our room was pretty awful, it was almost impossible to find anything to eat and the entrance fee to view the cave temples had doubled!! We got on with it and made the climb up the hill to view the famous Dambulla  Cave Temples – which were pretty interesting but had been ruined by the installation of horribly bright up-lighting and tables that circled all of the caves so that people couldn’t get easy access to deface any of the statues – all well and good but it makes the place pretty unsightly.

Polonnaruwa
Well, if there wasn’t much to say about Dambulla then I may as well stop writing about Polonnaruwa now – what a waste of time! We really should have looked into it better and realised that the complex of ruins were really not going to be of any interest to us – I know this might sound like we’re pretty spoilt but after we’d walked around for five minutes in one of the ruined areas (that was supposed to be the most well preserved) we decided that we’d seen enough and promptly left!

Anuradhapura
We were really hoping that we would have a better time here – luckily we had come here on the last trip and we knew what to expect – no food, expensive rooms but some very interesting pagodas, dagobas etc. I managed to find us a relatively cheap room which seemed perfect – that was until we were about to go to sleep and the window flew open and we heard someone sneaking through the bushes outside! Unfortunately for us the window refused to lock and neither would the bathroom door so we decided to stay awake all night instead of the possibility of someone sneaking into the room in the middle of the night!
Once it turned light I went to tell the manager about what had happened the night before but he just completely ignored me and didn’t seem to care at all – he was a very odd man and we were looking forward to leaving the place but as it was 2000 rupees cheaper than the place next door I decided to ask for a different room, which turned out to be much better as all the doors and windows locked!

As we hadn’t slept the night before we had to crash out for most of the day instead of doing our trip around the ancient city and postpone it until the day after. It was a good thing that we spent the whole day in the room as we found out later that evening that two people had been shot dead at a political rally that was taking place literally 500 metres down the road from us!!

We finally managed to sort out a trip around the ancient city with a very nice tuk-tuk driver who showed us everywhere that we wanted to go and also threw in a few extras that we’d missed out. It was a really good day and just what we needed to lift our spirits from the last couple of places we’d been! Check out the photos below to have a look at a few of the places we visited. As we had the tuk-tuk for the day we decided to go the train station before heading back to our room. After all the  bone-shaking bus journeys we’d suffered through we decided it would be better to relax on the train so we treated ourselves and booked first class tickets for the next morning’s express train.

Colombo
We were hoping that after arriving off our first class train we’d be able to stay in Colombo longer than the five hours we managed on our last trip, but we hadn’t counted on the YMCA. This was the only place in Colombo that we were anywhere near being able to afford to stay – it was probably the worst place we’ve ever been – it smelt really bad, was filthy, the doors and windows didn’t shut properly and it was full of leering men. Well that pretty much settled it, off to the bus station and out of the city within an hour!
 
Unawatuna
The journey down to Unawatuna was going well until the bus we were on started to shake and make a strange noise, the driver pulled over and got out to have a look but then so did everyone else on the bus. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no replacement bus and every single bus that drove past us was absolutely crammed full of people and there was no way we could fit on with our bags. After about half an hour a small pickup drove up and even though the guy didn’t speak a word of English we managed to explain where we were heading and he drove us to the nearest town with a bus stand – much to our relief!

We finally arrived at around 4pm (we had set off that morning from Anuradhapura at 6.30am) and were pretty exhausted so we weren’t really in the mood to go traipsing around to find a room. Luckily the third place that we went to had decent rooms at a reasonable price and also threw in free wi-fi – very handy as I had a lot of work to be getting on with and we needed to do a bit more research for the next couple of countries we were going to.
Apart from doing a lot of work we never managed to get around to going to the beach during the day apart from one afternoon for about 2 hours after all the work had been finished. We would have had about three days to spend relaxing on the beach but the weather turned against us, yet again, and proceeded to rain for the last part of our trip!