A wonderfully relaxed morning: lay in, breakfast in the courtyard, some internet research, writing and a Coke. Oh, and a good chat with the owner who’s leaving for a holiday in Malaysia, via Singapore, tomorrow and wanted to hear all about his destination. Didn’t really want to leave, but we’d done all the area had to offer, and the town wasn’t really one you’d hang around in, so we finally left.
On arriving at the bus station, the conductor put our bags on board and gestured to the best seats in the house. Up front. With no seat belts. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but the best view wasn’t worth risking my life for. Decided to go with it, and I needn’t have worried – the roads are good. Very good. UK-standard good. And there’s virtually no traffic – even on long, straight stretches, you couldn’t see more than a dozen vehicles.
We’d only just started when the bus pulled over, and the conductor jumped out. To pray for a good journey:
Twice:
For some reason, I decided to take pictures of road signs. Well, there were no bugs, and they reminded me of home:
I sat in the front and spent a very happy 3.5 hours wondering in the place that is Sri Lanka:
Slogan t-shirts are back:
A bling temple:
And metal scaffolding has reached Sri Lanka – they use metal for the important bits, and prop the rest up with bamboo:
Oh, and buses are the one of the fastest things on the road, overtaking tuk-tuks, vans, cars. And they’re the opposite to London: you get on the back, and disembark from the front:
As we neared Kandy, the world became greener, there were more mosques and motorcyclists were wearing jackets (a sign of cooler temperatures here in the mountains).
On arrival, the conductor suddenly wanted paying. Twice the price, as it turned out the price he’d quoted us was, yet again, a “tourist price”. Two tuk-tuk drivers seemed very upset about this. One of them, Anas, took us to view some hotels. Checked into a deserted one, and headed back into town for dinner and sunset:
