Hey its Laura,

We arrived in Sri Lanka early in the morning and got a cab to our hotel in Negombo. Even though it was already hot and sunny we decided to get a few hours sleep before heading to the hotel pool. The hotel was situated on the beach so we spent the day lounging by the pool or splashing around in the sea! In the evening we met up with the tour group. Our tour leader is a Sri Lankan man called Bruno and there are 9 people in the group including us. After the welcome meeting we all headed out for dinner. Lily and I were shattered by this point so were fairly quiet.

After a good nights sleep we got up for breakfast at 7am and headed off in a mini bus on our first days activities. Our first stop was to see a community of toddy tappers. The men in this community climbed up the palm trees with no harness, to collect coconuts and toddy (coconut juice). Our second port of call was a fish market in Chilaw. The smell was repulsive but it was strange how quickly we became adjusted to it. There were lots of women selling fish on little stalls and men were catching or gutting them. We then traveled a little further and stopped for lunch of prawn curry before ending our journey at our current location of Anuradhapura. We had a little bit of free time before we headed off on an optional tour to a ancient Buddhist site. We traveled there on tuk-tuks which are the Sri Lankan equivalent of cabs. We spent the afternoon wondering around and climbed a stone monument in order to see a spectacular view of the surrounding area. As we were leaving we saw some young trainee monks walking home from monk school which were very cute.

For dinner that evening we were introduced to some traditional local cuisine. I even took the opportunity to make some of the food myself (hoppers). I informed everyone in the tour that I had a food hygiene certificate but I imagine that the Sri Lankans don't stick to many food hygiene regulations!!

Today we had another early start before setting off on a bike tour of the ancient city of Anuradhapura. Our local guide for the day was an ex-archeologist called Eddie who was an expert on the area. We were a bit wobbly to begin with but we soon got the hang of the cycling. We then spent the day looking at ancient Buddhist sites. Lily and I soon remembered why we took Geography and dropped History as we felt that once you had seen one Buddhist site you had seen them all! After five hours of riding around in the scorching heat it all got a bit much! Luckily we have had the afternoon to ourselves and spent some time in the pool before coming to a local internet café.

We will upload some photos once we are able to find a good enough internet connection.

Lot of love Laura & Lily xx