Sri Lanka 2026

It’s finally happened - Sri Lanka has temporarily broken us.   The 7:30 alarm went off and despite there being a tour this morning, we just couldn’t make it - we could do all the things tomorrow under our own steam and therefore have some proper kip. I woke up at midday with Joss in the shower having woken up just a few minutes before. We both needed those hours. We got changed and went for lunch in the Hideout Lounge and met up with another couple, Rob and Karen. They weren’t eating as they’d had a big breakfast but Joss and I had pizza which was delicious. We then had a few Lions and they got hungry so they ordered and we also had some loaded crisps - again lovely. We bartered then for 2 tuk tuks and made our way back to the hotel. Their tuk tuk was less weighed down than ours and they quickly overtook us and disappeared. We then went round the corner and tuk tuk was on its side in the middle of the road. Bloody hell - we thought it was them!!!! It wasn’t but we really felt for w...

It was an another late night, so I didn’t wake up until 10:15 - breakfast finished at 10:00 - bugger. So we got up and tuk tuk’d it into Kandy to have a look around the shops. We started by having a burger for lunch before going round the shopping mall. Then we went to the market and saw monkeys on a roof before Joss tried her hand at haggling. Then a Sri Lankan walked past and said hello. He then said that we didn’t recognise him out of uniform and that he was from the hotel. We couldn’t remember him but didn’t want to be embarrassed so we played along. He then took us to two market stalls where we were bullied into buying stuff for an over the top price. At the end we felt violated so went to The Pub and had a beer. It was only then that we realised we haven’t seen anybody at the hotel and that even the “meet cute” had all been a con. Oh well, live and learn - although the goods were expensive for Sri Lanka they were still cheap for normal prices so it could have gone a lot worse. We...

Well we didn’t make sensible choices last night so the 7am alarm was quite the shock. Added to the beer I’d had a curry last night and an 8:15 pick up meant that there really wasn’t enough time for me to assess how my body was going to cope. We did go down for breakfast first and I’ve never seen such a variety - it was definitely 1-0 to Kandy on that front. We went to the pick up point and for the second time, one of the buses was broken so people quickly poured onto the other bus as they didn’t want to wait. We weren’t bothered about waiting and actually got the better of the deal as the group was now not split evenly so we all had a seat each and the air conditioning was excellent. We’d even been given a packed lunch from the hotel - very smart - I kept it closed for a surprise reveal later We drove for what seemed a lifetime to a tea plantation.  We got dressed up and were asked to do some picking. Joss said she really enjoyed it but if your living depended on it I reckon the no...