We though the journey to Kalkudah would be ok as when we arrived at the Trincomalee bus station you bought a ticket before getting on and had specific seats! Little did we know the journey would still be hellish - people piled in until the bus was packed with people sitting and standing and it was swelteringly hot. It didn't help that I was feeling slightly dodgy and delirious at this point as well as tired and achy. Although we both kept falling asleep it was lucky Emily managed to stay awake to realise we had just gone past where we needed to out -Valaichchennai. Although that didn't actually help us try to stop the bus - luckily some locals realised we needed to get out and pushed the button while we squeezed through the seething mass of people.

We ended up on a road in the middle of nowhere. After checking the lonely planet which was low on info. We wandered up and down a bit in search for another bus or a tuktuk. It wasn't long before a friendly tuktuk driver stopped - and we told him we needed to get to Kalkudah. We asked him how much -and he said, "I don't know - how much do you think? 500?" - obviously they don't get many tourists here! We settled on 300, although we ended up tipping him as he took us round half the guesthouses in Kalkudah - negotiating deals and checking the rooms with us.

We ended up at Sea Breeze Inn - a spotlessly clean little guesthouse which wasn't in any guidebook, but family run. And spent a little while chilling, cooling down and rehydrating. We went for a short walk to the nearby Passekudah beach - a little stretch of sand with very shallow water and lots of locals enjoying a Friday night on the beach. On the way back we saw a massive billboard showing the development scheme which supposedly should be complete... Two friendly police officers stopped to explain it in more detail before rushing off for their shift. We made our way back to our guest house for dinner. We had chicken fried rice (will always avoid chicken in Sri Lanka - pretty sure they just stick a chicken in a blender).

The only other guests were a French family - the dad and his mother left Sri Lanka some 25 odd years ago due to the war and violence and had returned to Jaffna, their home town, for the first time. The son left when he was only one and had come back with his own son. They said it was a very emotional reunion with the family in Jaffna and were now relaxing at the beach for a while.

After dinner we headed to bed, Alex was feeling pretty bad still and an early night and a very long sleep was in order.