Fai Tira blog Thursday 20^th January 2011

Galle Sri Lanka  06:01.44N 80:03.43E

 

After quite a horrid voyage across the Bay of Bengal we arrived in Sri Lanka in time for my birthday party and tour of the island.  Here we met up with Steve and Maureen my friends from Leicester.  They came on the tour and will be travelling with us to India.

 

Steve and Maureen.

 

My birthday started with a visit from Derry and Sheila presenting me with a birthday cake.  In the evening a party had been arranged by Mark and Chrisy from Blue Magic.  All the crew that were in port came and we all had a great time, but our thoughts were with those who were still at sea and coping with a cyclone and fifty knot plus winds.

 

Here I am with my cake and the rally girls.  The boys looked after me as well plying me with some very dubious alcoholic drinks.

 

My cake was lovely.   Inevitably I ended up asleep on Blue Magic where my sailing friends shaved my eyebrows off.  The party ended about 5.30am and I awoke the next morning to start doing repairs to Fai Tira.

 

The following night saw us parting again at the BWR welcome party.

 

 

We were treated to some spectacular local dancing.

 

A couple of days later we gathered together for a tour of the island.  Steve, Maureen and Jeremy accompanied me and a large contingent of the BWR crews on a trip around the island. John decided to his own thing with Richard from Island Kea.

 

Our first stop was at a massive temple dedicated to Buddha which had a thirty metre effigy of him and thousands of pictures depicting his life.

 

 

 

Our next excursion was a jeep safari in a Yala National park in the south east of Sri Lanka.  We saw Water Buffalo, Elephants, Monkeys, Peacocks and lots more. The only problem was with our Land Rover which must have been 50 years old.    The driver had problems with the gears the steering and on the way back the suspension collapsed and we bounced along at 5 MPH in extreme discomfort until we decided to jump rovers and hitch a ride with someone else.  We were refunded our money by the operator who was most apologetic.   Because of this we were late getting to our hotel and missed having a relaxing evening.

 

The next day saw us heading north to the town they call “Little England”  The road to this place was being upgraded and consequently took us a age to arrive at the famous Hill Club where ex-pats used to go the get away from the heat of the low lands.

The rooms were quaint and after dinner, where a shirt and tie were the order of the day, we retired to bed after a couple of drinks to be greeted with a hot water bottle in the bed.  How unexpected.

 

The next morning after a hearty breakfast we headed off to a tea plantation.  Unfortunately it was a Sunday so nothing was happening.  We got a free cup of Ceylon tea before heading off to our next destination of Candy.

 

We chilled out around the pool before we saw a cultural show where the finally was men walking across red hot ashes in bare feet.  They didn’t ask for volunteers to have ago thank god.

Cultural show and the view from our hotel.

 

The next day we headed for Sigiriya.  This is where a king built his huge palace on top of a massive rock sometime before christ, (BC) which dominates the area in the middle of the jungle.

 

 

The area had been hit by floods only a couple of days earlier.  This was the view of the rock from our hotel.

 

 

 

Paintings off some of his harem from BC were still in great condition.  We had to scale the rock on precarious metal steps. Over 1500 of them.

 

A great picture of two Buddhist Monks with a statue of Buddha in the back ground.  Also this was the swimming pool on the top of rock.

This was for me the best part of the trip for me and well worth a visit.

 

The next day was a long drive south which included a visit to an elephant orphanage.

It was great to see the elephants enjoying themselves in the river.

 

 

We even got the chance to interact with them.  What a fantastic experience.  Here is a mother with her two week old calf.

 

We have really enjoyed our time in Sri Lanka.  Tomorrow we head off to Cochin in India for more adventures.

 

Pete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Th