India Preseason: Surviving Sri Lanka (scams, beaches, buses and bombs). SL is a hard place to describe, its cultural richness suprising, areas of natural beauty, tea plantations of unnatural artifical beauty, crazy bus driving and dust. Its people are generous and good natured and even help you after you've said "no" to whatever they are selling. Contrasting the serenity of the beaches ($12US a night) is the fact that SL is still in midst of civil war. If you read the reports on the day that we left the Tamil Tigers carried out their first aircraft bombing raid on the SL airforce base next to the international airport, killing 7 and injuring 25. A couple of times on the trip we heard shelling or saw the flashes of gun fire. It did make for some nervous travelling at times. But as Mark and Janice, friends met on the journey pointed out, it was no where as bad as living in Belfast during the Troubles. Still a night or two of consideration of the wisdom of doing SL.

We only got scammed three times but only twice did we have to pay. About 30c in total and the third time all we lost was time as the guy (telling us the restaurant did not open to later) got commission simply for pulling us to the shop. All good preparation for India. The other scam was being given something at a temple when you really don't want to and getting charged for it at the end - the mistake was not talking about price before we took the flower. LESSON = nothing is for free.

We also survived our first bus clipping when the overtaking van failed to judge the distances correctly and instead of smashing into the oncoming bus veered into our bus, clipping the front bumper and causing our driver to take evasive action. Anyone who has been to Asia knows that road rules are relative and the horn an essential component of any vehicle. Basically biggest and fastest wins in any contest for road space.
These are the interesting stories to tell. In general SL is pretty laid back place to be, the standard of living is highish so there are only small numbers of beggars and touts. the war probably helps this because tourists are not coming much more so it is only locals who are going to the main cultural sites.
(L = Palace built on top of Lion Rock, Sigriya. R= the rock itself)
The beaches are lovely and a real break. You still see some evidence of the tsunami in reconstruction and foundations but mostly we sat around the beach by this stage. We did this last and an ideal way of winding down.

Everyone is mad on cricket and with the World Cup on I get to steer the conversation away from selling us stuff to the games. One of the best experienes was joining in a game and I was glad to be able to bat well enough to uphold Australia's reputation.

When catching buses the idea is to sit at the back so you have no idea what type of craziness the driver is doing. (To the R= In distance dagoba at Anuradphura, ancient capital, reaching up to 120m high, they were second only to the largest pyramids in height).

Overall though, SL will be remembered for the people we met - Mark and Janice - on this leg of the journey. Although we tried local food of rice and curry, rice and curry and more rice and curry, there is a reason why SL cusine is not world famous. SL nightlife is also not famous, with everything shutting at 7.30pm. As a result the best meal we had was a Pizza Hut home delivery, sipping on beers overlooking Kandy with mountains in the background, lake in middle of city in view.

So, after 18 days and a bit of hassle in getting our India visa, we finish the trip and have made our way to Delhi to see how "match fit" Sri Lanka has made us. Photos to come.
Safe travels to all.