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Post by Voy on Feb 10, 2018 16:20:02 GMT 2
well - Serendip ! it IS easier to be happy if you have a bit of the wherewithall
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 10, 2018 23:40:31 GMT 2
aawww, Shri Ganesha!
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Feb 11, 2018 1:56:29 GMT 2
Ganesh to me is like if a Pokemon somehow hung around the memespace long enough to become a god.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 12, 2018 11:07:56 GMT 2
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 12, 2018 15:51:29 GMT 2
that's WEIRD.
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Post by Voy on Feb 12, 2018 17:38:19 GMT 2
ain't it just !! Even worse than some of the ones in S India ... and where do they get that terrible pink paint ? Sorry to be rude about someone's religion.. but that is just Yucko
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Post by sophie on Feb 12, 2018 18:51:15 GMT 2
Psychedelic!!!
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Post by kuskiwi on Feb 12, 2018 19:06:56 GMT 2
Hope the nighmares from looking at that have gone away now. It's certainly 'busy'
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Post by sophie on Feb 12, 2018 19:43:46 GMT 2
That`s up in the northern part, isn`t it? When I was in Sri Lanka (mid 80`s), because of rebel activity, going there was not recommended, so I didn`t see some of the more interesting sections.. so thanks for the pictures.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 13, 2018 13:16:15 GMT 2
One for Mrs Faz -
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Post by Baz Faz on Feb 13, 2018 16:12:47 GMT 2
Mrs Faz loves the birdie and thinks it is some kind of sun bird. She is researching it as I write so there may be an update (as corrections are called).
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Post by Baz Faz on Feb 13, 2018 16:15:30 GMT 2
Update. Mrs Faz thinks it is a bee eater. Further update from Mrs Faz. It's a little green bee eater. What a beauty
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 13, 2018 17:13:32 GMT 2
Mrs Faz or the bird?
Both I think.
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Feb 14, 2018 14:02:01 GMT 2
Bees presumably think otherwise.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 15, 2018 13:14:27 GMT 2
Lunch was a thali. Cost €1.20 - Near this little monkey -
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Post by Scrubb on Feb 15, 2018 18:47:36 GMT 2
Mmmmm. That thali looks so good. Nice monkey, too!
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 15, 2018 20:12:02 GMT 2
I'm green with envy as well, looking at this thali and not being able to eat it. (really need to go have a thali in a tiny place i know not too far from here.)
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Post by kuskiwi on Feb 15, 2018 20:31:40 GMT 2
Nice food. The monkeys knees look like mine.
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Feb 15, 2018 23:48:12 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 20, 2018 12:41:01 GMT 2
The view from my balcony. As good as it might be, the mist you see is actually pollution from vehicles and rubbish fires. Fortunately I'm some way above it. I must admit it is the worst pollution I've seen so far in the country, worse than the capital, and I think it is so because this city is in a valley and not subject to strong/sea breezes. It is clear in the morning though -
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 22, 2018 12:36:43 GMT 2
Some places I stay include breakfast. Some don't. Nearly all the rooms advertise they have tea/coffee making facilities within. But they don't. So for the times I don't have the breakfast I've bought a brew making kit, i.e. tea, coffee, milk powder, sugar and a kettle and will have one before I set off. An hour or so later I start getting peckish so a number of times I've stopped and bought a couple of these. They are a bread called a paratha and it is folded and wrapped around a medium spicy potato curry. There are other things I can get that are similar and have egg in them and they can be fish or meat. I stick with the veg ones though. Inside - They cost 30 rupees each, $0.20/Euro 0.15 and you only need two to feel full.
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 22, 2018 18:13:53 GMT 2
yum yum. drooling here!
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Post by Scrubb on Feb 22, 2018 20:15:04 GMT 2
Yes, please.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 23, 2018 12:27:41 GMT 2
Maybe waiting for his laundry to be done -
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 23, 2018 12:35:41 GMT 2
Back down on the coast again -
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 23, 2018 13:38:02 GMT 2
kind note: pics of food are yummier. thank you.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 23, 2018 17:20:14 GMT 2
And talking of food, guess what I had tonight? Rösti!! Wasn't half bad either.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 26, 2018 16:22:34 GMT 2
I'm back and will commence work on a report in a day or two.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 27, 2018 17:27:17 GMT 2
Note – some things might have been mentioned, before the report has come to fruition, as I was travelling round. So there might be a repetition at times of what you already know. Bear with me though as I want really to get it all down rather than jump around to bits and bobs and/or miss bits out.
It all started a year or so ago when I was bemoaning the fact that I was soon to be sixty. I was urged to do something a bit special for when that date came. “Special” though means different things to different people and I wasn’t one for a loud party with a gathering of friends. One thing put a sock in that for a starter, which was now living in Zambia and far away from anyone else. I was told that as my present I could have a business class flight to anywhere I wanted. That got me thinking. Firstly was the time of year it would be, February. Well, that discounted the northern hemisphere as being too cold. Anywhere south cut it down a little but still not enough. Where had I not yet been? That cut it down quite radically. Next year I’ll be going back to Colombia and I didn’t really want to go to South America this time and then again next year.
Africa was on my doorstep so it didn’t feel quite special enough. That left parts of Asia and Aus/NZ. New Zealand was a long way away and I’d already been there. Australia looked favourite for a while but after doing some research, especially difficulties with car rental and how far you cannot go with them, plus the cost of accommodation and living expenses, made it drop off. Madagascar came up but at the time of deciding the plague going on there hadn’t been controlled. So, Philippines? Nope, lived there already. Time has also been spent travelling in Thailand and Malaysia. That left Oman and UAE (not in Asia, I know) but Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar/Burma.
I wasn’t so bothered about an Arabic country after spending nigh on many years in them and then Mrs M dropped a bit of a bombshell. She said she wouldn’t want me to go to the other places in Asia as she wanted to come with me – she had already been to most of them anyway as part of her work but not for any length of time. She wanted us to travel around there together. Plus I couldn’t go back to India/Nepal yet again, she said. It wouldn’t be special enough. Well bugger me, thought I. So I reverted back to a big world map and remembered a comment made at some stage about Sri Lanka. I zoomed in (mentally) and physically to examine it more closely.
It’s an island, obviously, so I thought “Ooooh! Can I drive all the way round it?” I looked at distances and realised if I rented a car, with the time per day I like to drive, I could be round it in about a week. Not good enough. I’m certainly not using a bicycle (like last time in India) again as it is too far. A motorbike/scooter then? That’d slow down the distance each day, but then I came across renting a tuktuk. Max allowable speed is 40km/h so with the state of the roads and traffic, 100km – 150km per day would give me a drive for all morning until lunchtime(ish), a walk round in the afternoon, dinner out somewhere and a lazy late evening. Ideal. And a bit of an adventure as well. With all the other logistical things falling in to place (visa, flights, food, costs, culture, sites, countryside) it seemed ideal. So a flight was booked. Plus the first couple of nights accommodation and a tuktuk booked.
I then looked at Trip Advisor about self driving in Sri Lanka (maybe should have looked first, but it wouldn’t have mattered or changed anything). The current common advice is that if you do, you will die, but not before having money extorted by corrupt Police, having locals crashing into you to also extort money, being locked up for days whilst it is sorted out, spending a fortune on lawyers, being ripped off by car rental companies, no insurance, far too dangerous, etc etc. All gloom and doom. I took exception to a few posts along this theme and when anyone suggested self-driving they were immediately jumped on by the nay-sayers. One in particular who I then “entered into a discussion with”. It seems he had a bad experience many years ago as a tourist which has tainted his thinking. He said these things happen all the time but when asked to produce accounts of it being so, as opposed to numerous accounts of having no problems at all driving yourself, he was unable to do so. We left it that I disagreed with him.
A long introduction, but I hope of a little interest. If not, well, you’ve just wasted five minutes of your life. Not unusual now we have the internet.
I arrived at the international airport late afternoon and arrival procedures went smoothly so I was out of the place in about twenty minutes. I nipped to an ATM in the arrivals hall and bought myself a cheap SIM card for my phone. I wouldn’t normally do the last thing but was advised to do so for various reasons, like being able to use an Uber type app and to be able to contact accommodations to confirm a booking, as it seems numerous people have had problems with this upon turning up and being told no booking was received and end up having to pay a higher rate. As it turns out I had a couple of minor problems but nothing much. Out of sixteen places I stayed I just had two places that made me query something, but that'll be explained later and didn't amount to much.
Transport from an airport is usually quite overpriced and as I’d not really got far to go I was loathe to book a shuttle offered by my hotel. So I walked out of the terminal, walked no more than two or three minutes and onto the main road. There I flagged down a tuktuk who took me to the nearby area of Negombo. The information I’d had was that the price would be about 1000 Sri Lankan rupees (LKR) – as I’m working on 200 being about 1 Euro, that seemed ok (US$ about 150LKR). Immediately though the driver gave me a price of 800. I hadn’t the heart to beat him down so we set off.
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Post by OnlyMark on Feb 27, 2018 17:30:03 GMT 2
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