Travel Troopers Tour Sri Lanka 2025

A day of leisure and exploration ... Jan and I had been advised to wear leech socks if we were to wander around, as some recent rains had energised them apparently. The only pair of these glamourous socks that I saw in my room were too narrow to go up my calves so I did my best and off we went: not a wise decision in retrospect..... We wandered around some of the property totalling eighty acres, located the infinity pool, climbed over a bridge above a babbling brook and stomped along a path with a lot of leaf litter - not a good choice. When I returned to my room I stripped off and was horrified to see two fat leeches clinging to my calves.  After some shrieking and yelling Kerryn came to my rescue. She dashed to the office to find help but no one was there. Fortunately Sid appeared, grabbed the salt and headed in my direction. As they approached Kerryn yelled out to me that he was coming so I had a chance to put some clothes on. I couldn't risk him dying of shock at my nakedness b...

We still had more hours to go driving up into the tea mountains before we could reach our next destination and stay put for a few days. So after a quick walk around the grounds and another sumptuous breakfast we headed off.  During breakfast I was delighted to meet Gilmandi one of the waitresses who was very helpful. At one point, I was standing with my egg hopper  (a bowl-shaped crisp rice pancake with an egg cooked in the bottom of it) wondering about the best choice from a range of condiments when she suggested caramelised onion chutney and red sambal, which has a bit of a kick to it. We have been eating the hoppers with a knife and fork but she showed me how to roll it up and eat it. So simple but so much easier. It was delicious. She also gave us some advice about the best coffee place in Kandy where she lives. So chatty and helpful. As we approached Kandy we headed up along circuitous roads and through lots of busy towns, getting gradually to a considerable height. As we...

On our morning perambulations Jan and I would often find tiny Hindu temples tucked away in the back streets and today was no exception.  We loved these beautiful scarves tied on the tree out the front of this simple community temple. We had been intrigued by tall windowless buildings in every large Hindu temple we found. Sid had told us they were carriage houses for storing special carriages used for parading gods in holy processions as we had seen at the Nallur Temple in Jaffna. Today we were thrilled to get an up close look at an exquisite golden carriage at one of the larger Hindu temples we found on a back road. After we finished pounding the Jaffna streets for the last time, avoiding annoying stray dogs and the occasional cow, we had a last breakfast in the Hotel. The staff had been great, so we took photos and thanked them profusely (and left tip money to be shared of course). They thought we were very peculiar as some of our food combinations seemed a little strange to them....