Well it has been a long time since my last blog. and what a time it has been!

So i had my last weekend in Sri Lanka. Friday i went to the beach at Unawatun and then met up with other volunteers at night and had a really cool night playing poker and having a boogie! it was really fun as nearly all the volunteers were there. After a late night i spent the day on the beach with Kathryn, another volunteer. Had a really fun day and even dared to go in the sea - woohoo! that evening we got a bus to Hikkaduwa a beachtown about an hour away from Una. I made quite the mistake on the bus and sat next to a monk. you should have seen peoples reactions! Oops! Me and Kathryn checked into a nice hotel with all mod cons and then did a bit of shopping and met the others for a beer while the sun went down. Very nice. THen we went back to our hotel and got all dolled up in the air conditioning which was such a luxury as we could do things like straighten our hair and wear make up with out it melting off our faces. Of course this happened as soon as we stepped out the door but never mind! So we went out and met the other volunteers and had some food and then headed to this club called Mambos which was a lot of fun. Gradullay everyone disappeared until there was only me kathryn and a guy called steve there. and the kathryn fell asleep on a table!so the rest of the night was just me and steve dancing with random sri lankans! a lot of fun. the next thing i know this girl is lying there unconscious and no1 was with or knew who she was. so me and steve went over to help and then i really started panicing because i didnt tink she was breathing and she wasnt responding. i was desperately trying to remember what i had learnt in the hospital but as i was panicing i wasnt quite thinking straight! luckily she came around before we had to do anything and then she was quite rude and aggressive to us! how annoying. Anyway after this me and kathryn headed back to our hotel and slept. We met the volunteers for some food later and i said bye to everyone and headed off as i was knackered. i went home and slept for a bit. i got up later and tried to pack and suddenly felt really quite ill. i had a really bad headache and a reallly high temperature and couldn't stop sweating. so i tried to pack but ended up going back to bed cos i felt so bad. about an hour later i got up and was violently sick and then couldnt stop being sick. i have never felt as ill as i did then it was horrible. mrs manamperi came up and tried to get me to eat but i couldnt keep anything down. at this point i was really panicing as i was getting picked up for my flight that night.

basically to cut a long story short i ended up going to the doctors and getting diagnosed with a viral fever and the insurance company managed to change my flights for me. they were an absoloute godsend and i went up to colombo the next day so that i was nearer to the airport. i had a glum few days of waiting for my flight and feeling pretty rubbish but by tuesday night i was dying to leave and was so happy to get on that flight. i arrived in hong kong on wednesday and met darren who also was ill! and very jetlagged. We had the afternoon in hong kong but didnt really do much as we both felt so rubbish. we had a mooch round the area and went for some realllly nice food and caught up. it was great and it is sooooo good to be back together. just a shame neither of us felt well! On thursday we went for a walk around the area in the morning and went to a market which was really good, then headed off for our train in the afternoon. We boarded the train and our cabin was so amazing! we had 2 little beds and a table and an armchair and a toilet! it was great and a great way to spend 24 hours on a train. the journey went so quickly. unfortunately the scenery wasnt very interesting as we had hoped as it mainly went through industrial areas which wasnt great! when we arrived in beijing the next day we went through immigration and and darren got stopped and questioned! it was really scary but funny to think of it now! they were questioning him because they were like 'where is Bury?!' Funny! After this we got a cab and were so pleased to be in beijing as we really felt like our luck was changing. Wrong. We got to our hotel and all the power was off. and i realised i had left my camera in the taxi and we had no idea of how we could get back. gutted. absoloutley gutted. so dont be expecting any photos for a while! the rest of the day we explored the area and found and amazing food market with loads of stalls selling all sorts of weird and wonderful food such a starfish on sticks and snakes! this guy was like 'lady you want a snake, just one?' er noo thank you! darren got this wiff of something really foul and started gagging. like really gagging, and couldnt stop it. it was a horrible smell it was like horse s*** but 1000 times worse! i thought he was messing around until he couldnt stop gagging! that evening we went for a great chinese meal and then tried to find a bar. and we did. only it wasnt a bar. we realised when we were sat there drinking that it was acutally a brothel! it looked like a bar but there were rooms off to one side and guys kept coming in and then a parade of girls would go into the rooms afterwards. it was so creepy!!! really really gross. so we left. pronto.

Anyway im running out of time so thats an update up to here. Will write more soon, promise!