The Travelling Buncebury's

    Having reached the northernmost point of Sri Lanka which isn’t at Point Pedro lighthouse as the sign claims but at Alvai a few km to the west, we turned south.    It’s the same incorrect ‘fact’ as John O’ Groats and Lands End being the northernmost and southernmost points of Great Britain which as I’m sure you all know are actually Dunnet Head and Lizard Point.   Phew.   Pleased to get that off my chest.   a requested photo but not by the one in the middle We've seen hand written similar signs outside houses Our destination was the Ancient Cities and the sprawling ruins of Anuradhapura was to be our first stop.   The area with the main sights covers an area of roughly 4km by 2km, so it is big.   It was the first capital of whatever this country was called back in those days and that was around 380BC.    The whole place is very impressive with huge man-made reservoirs known as tanks and many Stupas, the dome shaped Buddhist monuments.   Smaller ones are called Dagobas al

    early morning reflection near Jaffna no caption required This trip was chosen as a six week one back in May when Ben (highly recommended) of Dial-a-Flight suggested that Covid restrictions would lift at some time and air ticket costs would rise.   As we got to our flight date and C wasn’t about to disappear we decided on an organised tour rather than our usual plan of just arriving in a country and not having a plan except to use public transport.   Just us two plus a driver/guide for two bespoke fortnight tours with some time at each end and a break in the middle.   Tikalanka Tours organisation, itinerary and guide have all been excellent and we found them through Rosy Responsible travel.   Our time in Galle was the middle break, Niroshan dropped us at our hotel and we were to meet up with him back in Colombo a few days later.   The last picture in the previous blog was us proving we could still organise something off our own back.   Our hotel in Colombo really went to town on

  male Asian Paradise Flycatcher if the bridge has collapsed and you want to get to town......... There is a string of excellent National Parks across southern Sri Lanka and we worked our way across Bundala, Yala, Udawalawe and Sinharaja, a World Heritage Site.   All magnificent and each with their own character.   For the first three we were in an open sided jeep but Sinharaja was different, being hilly rainforest, an environment entirely unsuited to anything but walking and we had another early start by tuktuk from our accommodation.   If you look at accommodation as a word it always seems to have too many letters in it, like a mouth with too many teeth.   But I digress.   early morning from our balcony - not looking good and starting to look a lot better as we get to Sirharaja Palli and Niroshan By the time we arrived, the mist which hangs around an early morning rainforest was being burnt off by the sun as we walked down a rough track to a river.    Our guide for this Sinharaja