Rotor and Tailplane

Day 10 - 21st December 2018 - The Tooth Relic,  British Garrison Cemetery and Kandy Botanical Gardens 08:00 for The Tooth Relic; here a Tooth recovered from Buddha’s cremation pyre is preserved having been sent over from India by the king with the prince.  Sumi manages to find a perfect parking spot and shows us the temple, providing us with interesting information.  School is out so there are plenty of families with young kids and babies as well as school holiday trips; but we’re here in good time and beat most of the crowds.  Maria manages to have her photograph with a monk who has been in service since 1995 as well as a load of kids.  The temple and its surroundings are great but we never did see that allusive Tooth.    Before picking up the car we headed to the British Garrison Cemetery and walked amongst the graves and headstones of young colonialists who died mainly from jungle fever.  The average age in the cemetery was around...

Day 6 - 17th December 2018 - Dambulla / Dambulla Caves 08:00 pickup today, so check out early and meet our “guide” / driver Sumi in his old Toyota.  If the Toyota has suspension then Sumi & myself use most of it, and Maria’s packing the rest .   Sumi’s a decent guy and provides us with some information on our way out of Colombo.  He also lets slip that Walker’s Tours had indeed forgotten us and he was pulled in at the last moment.   Enroute we stop of for tea at side road cafe and are treated to some halapa, which was very sweet, too sweet for me.  However we probably needed this after having been repeatedly driven off the road (literally) by trucks and government red buses! Our second stop (after a total of 4hrs driving) is the Dambulla caves, were I changed in to long pants (trousers) for a 300 step hike.  Here we encounter our first real monkeys 🐒 (Mekak). The hike didn’t cause any real issues and we both arrived at the top rea...

Day 4 - 15th December 2018 - Pettah Market, Colombo A great nights sleep results in us missing breakfast, so we grab an early curry lunch before heading of to the Pettah Market district.  We grab an Uber for 265 SrRps (about £1.30) for a 15 minute ride.  Enroute we drive past several hotel construction sites, JW Marriot, Hyatt, and ITC Hotels among them.  In short few years the landscape of Colombo will be very different.   Uber drops us of in the Pettah Market district were we become immersed among the crowds and melt into the chaotic atmosphere.  Anything can be bought here, but we are drawn to the spices, peppers and other foodstuffs.  There still seems to be a fascination amongst the locals for fair skinned Europeans.  A small child is especially fascinated by Maria and reaches out to her, touching her shoulder to check whether she is real. Having spent a couple of hours wandering the streets and spending 130 SrRps (Less than a £) on a ...