our last blog entry. we have come to the end of our travels for now anyway. 5 days to go till we fly home.

we landed and got a taxi to our hotel in negombo and it seemed alright, went to sleep as it was late. got up the next day and went in search of breakfast, couldnt find anything near us so went on to the main town where it was quite a shock that everyone we passed stared at us. there were no other white people anywhere. found a weird cafe to eat and had some rice yum! found the train station to find out how to get to kandy. lots of people shouting at us trying to get us to buy stuff and get in their tuk tuks also not really caring if they ran us over as there werent any pavements, so we walked back to our hotel a little intimidated by it all and how different it was to thailand where they liked tourists. hid in our room for a bit as it was soo hot then went in search of dinner ending up in a nice little hotel on the beach.

up early today and escaping negombo we got on a train to colombo where we got off and went to buy tickets to kandy. 2 men hustled us into their "tourist office" a dirty old cabin on the side of the station, told us to sit down when we declined they got a bit annoyed and started asking questions. told them where we were going then they both started competeing with eachother to talk to us at which point nicky got annoyed and told them to shut up and one of them talk at a time. they wanted to sell us tickets for twice the retail price on a train that doesnt exist. so we left them to it and had a cup of tea. sorted our own tickets out and then one of the men came and found us again trying to tell us he was in charge of accomodation in kandy and to go to his office!!! we walked off to get our train. waited on the platform for it to come at which point every person in colombo joined us on the same platform to get on this one train. a deaf and dumb bloke came up to us to kindly help us pointing to us where to get on the train another man then came up and told us he was a scammer and would come back and ask for money, on cue back he came with some sponser forms. the train slowly pulled in where a surge of people behind us pushed forward and tried to get on the train as it was still moving. having seen nothing like this before we thought it best to try and join in, so with rucksack in one hand nicky tried to push people out the way as she got dragged down the platform with one hand on the train and then got pushed into the doorway and managed to get up the steps. meanwhile ben got bundled into the side of the door blocking it as his bag was caught outside and he was half on, as people pushed harder and harder ben became a wedge in the door so no-one could move. meanwhile a nice man was getting in the way of nicky telling her he had saved her some seats so she shouted at him to get out of the way at which point he still didnt move so as a surge of people built up behind her she got pushed through him dived on to 2 free seats. whilst ben was still stuck in the doorway he calmly turned round to the people behind him and politely asked them to back off. he could see nicky but there was no way of him getting to her as there were people running up and down the aisle trying to get seats. after a while when it calmed down ben braved it using his bag as a shield, managed to move the 3metres down the train to nicky. at which point we both looked at each other and laughed.

4 hours later we made it to kandy where we got ambushed again by lots of tuk tuk drivers. got picked up by our hotel and settled in before going for a look around town. got some dinner and then walked around some more where a guy claiming to be from our hotel came up to us and started chatting to us, he said he wasnt allowed to talk to us at the hotel as it was against the policy and he would loose his job but wanted to practice his english. he offered to show us around and we thought we would see where it ended up and how he was going to try and get our money. after some more chatting and not being able to answer what hotel he works at, led us into a local market where we looked around at some spices and tried some spice tea (which was rank) we could see where it was heading so when his back was turned we ran off, but he ran after us shouting where are we going and seemed annoyed telling us there was more to see. not being bothered with all this we ran off again, did some more shopping and back to our hotel. thinking is this whole country out to scam us?

we had arranged with a tuk tuk driver to take us to the elephant orphanage so we got in and he started the drive unfortunately he fancied himself as a bit of a tour guide and took it upon himself to show us the sights, including stopping at every river crossing along the way telling us that it was all the same river and flowed right to colombo. wow! we got near to the elephant place and stopped to try some bananas which were good but of course we ended up paying including 2 huge bunches for the elephants. round the corner we stopped at some place offering elephant rides so not having been able to do it in thailand we payed the special tourist price of 3 times more than anyone else and had a half hour ride through some paddy fields. then got soaked by the elephant in the river. after feeding them we got back in the tuk tuk and then got shown how they make elephant dung paper. that was great. the orphanage was next door which was our original destination got to the ticked counter and found that it was double the price in the lonely planet and 20times more for tourists than locals. so we decided not to go in and then get food. but our driver had other ideas and took us to a spice and herb garden where he was really happy with himself as it was free entry. but no known to us he had told the guide that we were studying herbal meddicine thats why it was free. so we endured an hours talk and demonstration on lots of different herbs and how they are used in sri lankan medicine, on the way out we went through the inevitable overprice shop and the man was most upset when we said we didnt want anything and stormed off. then we got some food and went back to kandy.

today we were heading out to nuwara eliya where they grow all the tea. we were getting the train again but luckily it wasnt that busy and we got on safely. had to change trains at which point we had to run to find some seats and only just got some. another 4 hours and we were there. where when we got off the train a tout ambushed us trying to get us to go to his hotel and offering us a taxi for 400 rupees. trying to get rid of him we walked out the station and 2 men in a car offered us a lift we walked straight past up to a line of tuk tuks and got a lift for 250. got to a hotel which seemed nice and decided to treat ourselves to a nice big room and then went out for a walk around and dinner of a nice hot curry.

off to the tea plantations today, got there and had a play in the tea fields before we went on a tour of the factory where health and safety isnt a major priority and we walked around lots of machinery whilst he stuck his hand in some machines and pulled out tea in various stages. then we drank some tea in their tea room before going back to town and having a look round the shops. had dinner and went to bed.

didnt have much to do today so went and did some souvenir shopping before hanging round the hostel catching up on some reading. decided to eat at the hotel restaurant for dinner where the food was crap. then as we were leaving early the next day we asked if we could pay our bill which turned out to be 2000rupees more than it should be. the man explained you have to add 10% service charge and then 10% tax, so we argued with him for an hour saying we werent going to pay for the service charge on the room when he didnt do anything, he explained it was for cleaning it so we said we would pay for one nights service charge as he would only have to clean the room once. but he told us he had to clean it 5 times. then we argued about the tax on food saying no where else puts tax on food and we agreed to 2500 rupees a night for the room but he was charging us 3000. he got really annoyed and started to shout which we found funny and told him not to shout at us which angered him more. so we went to bed after giving in and paying the full amount where he decided at 12:15 he would play loud music for an hour.

left early to catch the train to colombo which would have been another mad dash for a seat but we had prebooked into first class where they allocate you seats. so it was a nice 8 hour journey back to colombo, where we then got on another train, and then another train, and another before finally arriving in hikkaduwa a beachside town where we found a good hotel and had a slap up meal for 10 pounds.

have now been sitting on the beach for 3 days, however today it is raining so no sunbathing. got 2 more nights here before we are leaving and going to brave colombo for 2 nights before we fly home whoop.