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Today we had a very early start. To early for my liking. We got up at 4.30am and at 5.00am, we were meant to be picked up by a taxi. That taxi never turned up. We started walking to the train station hoping to come across a took took (see a took took in photos on blog). We were getting quite worried that we would have to walk to whole way and miss our train. The streets were pretty deserted. Eventually, we can across a took and arrived at the train station just on time. We were very lucky. We booked first class for the train ahead of time so all we had to do was find out which part of the massive, long train was first class. Mum said it was at the back of the train so we walked all the way to the back. I was quite worried. The seats looked really uncomfortable. They looked liked a big block with no support for your head. Then we found out that it was third class and all the way down the other end if the train was first class. We arrived there and I was expecting something really nice. It turned out to be the equivalent of third class in Australia but it wasn't too bad. When the train started I got a huge wake up call that I am in Sri Lanka. I swear that that train ride is the bumpiest, clunkiest train ride in the world. It was actually quite fun. There were times where my bottom was actually lifted of my seat. It was AWSOME (from my point of view. I'm not so sure about my parents. After about 4 and a half hours on the train, feeling fine which is a good sign. We took a taxi to have a look at two hotels; Hotel Shalini & Milano Tourist Rest Guest House. The Milano place was a lot better than the Shalini and had a lot better price so of course we decided to stay at The Milano. After we got settled in our room, we headed off for our next adventure. We went to a very sacred place where the oldest tree in the world lived. No joke! To enter, you had to have pants/skirt/dress lower than your knees (Can you imagine how hot that made me. I was sweating all over), then we had to take our hat and shoes off. Then we had to walk through a passageway. There was a passage for male and a separate passage for females. It was quite odd. The ground was boiling and dirty and there was bugs crawling everywhere but no one seemed to care but us. They must be used to it. As we walked around, we seemed to get more and more people staring at us. I felt very awkward and felt like I really didn't fit in. Just because I look different to them doesn't mean that the people should give me unwanted looks. They kept on staring at me, making me feel like I was an alien. Not just did we see they oldest tree ( over 2000 years old), we also saw the Ruvanvelisaya Dagoba ancient temple. It was guarded by hundreds of elephants (not real of course, carved stone but still beautiful), standing shoulder to shoulder. It was made around 140 BC. It rises 55m high and although very huge, it is quite a lot smaller than its original height (due to damage from the Indian invasion). It was amazing. Around the temple, there was heaps if monkeys. They were so cute. Some were adults, sone were toddlers and some looked like they had only been born the day before. When we got back to our room mum and I had super saw feet from walking around bare foot on boiling, cracked pavement. For dinner we had a nice curry and then went straight to bed, ready for a early morning ( luckily no where near as early as the last morning ). Phew!
- comments
stephen ryan wow sounds like a real adventure x
Emily Royle i wish i was with you!
Shevaun WOW!! Sound amazing