I promised a blog about Sri Lanka right? Well hold onto your sarongs, here it comes. Better late then never, right?

The story begins when Marissa met Sagar. Yadda yadda yadda, they hook up and get married. The wedding is to be in Sri Lanka. They invite friends - this is where I come in. Since they both grew up in NZ, there are a lot of friends - particularly Kiwis. A road trip is to be had, and thus it is done.

The road trip through Sri Lanka as dictated by Marco in his semi-daily voice recordings. (I've deliberately left it unedited where possible. You might therefore notice I in (even) less grammatically correct sentences than I write.) In hindsight, this is LOOOOoooooonnnnggg (it took an age to finally finish - it's a bit of a novel). Don't feel ashamed to just look at the pictures. It's what I put them there for. :)

"Captains log. Twenty ninth. Arrived very tired. Stayed up all day. Did hand crafts. End log."

"Captains log. Thirtieth. Went shopping. Bought stuff. Met Sean and Tanya. End log."

"Thirty first. Big party, uh, on rooftop. With fireworks. Went for a trip with Natasha and took pictures in a graveyard. And, bargained for fireworks. And big party on rooftop, playing with fireworks, burnt tee-shirt. Played song. Lots of fun. End log."

This party was fantastic. The roof sported a view right across Colombo, and being New Year's we could see all of the fireworks being set of across the city. We played around with dangerous home-made fireworks which sometimes went off when they were supposed to, played guitar, took lots of photos and had a royal good time. I presented Marissa my wedding gift; a song. I rarely write anything, so it's cheesy and amatuer (much like myself). For the record, it goes like this:

G C
You know, you've always been a good friend to me.
G C
And I know, you'll always be.
G C
And I see, that you're a changing.
D C G
No how matter how far you go, some things will always stay the same.

Well I known you, for many a year today.
And I been blessed to my soul, that our paths crossed along the way.
Now here you stand, surrounded, by loved ones and friends.
And I'm pleased as punch, to count myself among them.

CHORUS:
G (pause) C
Well go, marissa walk your way.
D C G
And I'll be walking mine, but never that far away.
Because I know, marissa you'll never be alone.
And I hope never to be, more than a stone's throw away.

I see myself in the mirror each morning. Watchin' my hair recede away.
Yeah I maybe past my prime, but it's not even half time. No way.
I'm not the man I was ten years ago. (Hell, I couldn't even play the guitar back then.)
Come ten years from now, I'll be all changed all over again.

I'm uncertain, what tomorrow'll bring about.
But I reckon, I'm pretty damned keen to find out.
And when I grow old and dodgy, like you know I will.
I'll be that eccentric old cowboy, you tell your kids about.

CHORUS
Well go, marissa walk your way.
And I'll be walking mine, but never that far away.
Because I know, marissa you'll never be alone.
And I hope never to be, more than a stone's throw away.

CHORUS 2
Well go, marissa it's your wedding day.
Take Sagar with you, down the isle and far away.
Live for the moment, marissa seize the day.
'Cos these'll be the golden times we'll talk about, when we're old and grey.

"New years day, first of January two thousand and ten. Went home from rooftop party very - well, not very drunk... but with some very drunk people. Stopped at a twenty-four hour place which was very cool. Had good Milos. Went home, woke up next morning after nearly six hours sleep and was dragged by the beach, had a Pina Colada and a pitcher of beer within an half an hour of getting up. Went for a swim in the ocean. Lots of friendly people. Lots of dodgy people. Was forced to dance with locals and some were very friendly - too friendly - uncomfortably friendly. Lots of people asking for money or wanting to be a tour guide, presumably for money. Then went back to flat, did laundry, fixed green non-colour fast problem, and went out and visited the other flat, bought food at Muslim restaurant. Was given top class treatment in a private restaurant area [because we were tourists] and was driven home in his taxi for 600 rupees. End log."

"Captains log. Saturday the second of January two thousand of ten. Was the wedding. Got up, got dressed. Grabbed some curry at this local place and a banana split - was good. Got on a bus, went quite a long way south to a little hill where the wedding was. I saw my first elephant at the bottom of the hill. Was amazingly hot - I was sweating like a pig, it was incredible. The ceremony was quite beautiful, very well organised, with lots of singing. Very catholic. It was really special to see Marissa and Sagar get married. Then we went to a place to a beach which was quite close to our place called the Golden Mile, where the reception was held. That was just this awesome party which went on till the early hours. I danced a lot, and sweated even worse then I had been sweating. Drank a bit. Acquisitioned James' tie who went swimming in the ocean with Sagar. Took a lot of pictures (using Natasha's camera - there will be a lot of photos on Facebook, once I create an account). Took a trishaw home. The driver tried to bitch about that we'd given him the wrong address and tried to increase the fare from three hundred rupees to four hundred, but we just got out, gave him the three hundred and walked. It was fine. End of log."


"Captains log, third of Januray two thousand and nine. Woke up, had breakfast- had no breakfast. Did laundry. Took it pretty easy. Went to town with Sean and Tanya and Trisha and... yeah just checked out the shops. Saw this big old building which looks like a failed construction project. It has this big billboard out the front advertising it as a flashy apartment complex, but in actual fact it's an empty shell with the scaffolding still on it and tarpolens hanging off it and it looks all run down - not at all what the billboard portrays. Went back to a bar called The Station and went on the beach a bit. Found out that they block the beach after seven because there's a navy base nearby. Had a long island ice tea because they didn't have any other drinks on the menu. They had the long island ice tea and the margarita, but they could not make us a screwdriver which is just vodka and orange. Went to the Mosque Road apartment and hung out there for a little bit. Got some food on the way home. Packed and got ready for the road trip, which is today. Which as I speak is not shaping up to be much. Driver was late by about fifty minutes, in the end changed his mind and couldn't pick us up from our door, even though the company insisted that we had a door-to-door address. So we had to carry all our stuff down to the Meal Cart anyway. When we arrived he then decided that we needed a baggage van because we had too much baggage because they'd changed vans and didn't have enough capacity for it all. Then we stopped to pick up the Mosque Road guys. The driver packed another sad and said that there were too many people and then drove off to get another van, and now I've just heard that we're going to get another driver because, well of course someone brought some Arack on board which had a faulty top and spilled inside the van, and... well yeah. I'm pretty happy right now. I'll blog on this again later. Today's the fourth. Ciao. End of log."

Don't drink the water...

"Captains of log continuing from previous update. We're all stranded at a Buddhist temple. We went in and talked to the Buddha guys who gave us some stuff; these really disgusting oil cakes, and some coconut toffee. Eventually we got something sorted out and another bus came with another driver and a baggage van. Seems like the guy just wasn't keen on doing it because he wasn't going to make enough money because the bus was too full or something, and so was looking for an excuse to bail out and made a lot of silly excuses and cost us about half a day. Eventually got to the elephant park and watched the elephants bathing and got to feed them (for a small donation) and take pictures (for another small donation). Yeah it was cool. Got into Kandy in the evening and so I was pretty tired so I hit the hay. Was pretty stressed out most of the day. Was generally seething. Yeah, that's all."


"Captains log for fifth of January two thousand and nine. Woke up in Kandy in the morning. Had western breakfast with eggs and toast and jam. Pretty simple, but not bad. Went into Kandy with some people to the botanical gardens and had a look around. Missed the giant bats, but saw, well, a swingbridge [and lots of things that you expect to see at a botanical gardens]. Went to a drum and dance thing. The dancing was [interesting], I took some pictures. They had drums and [traditional] instruments, did fire walking and some stuff like that. It was okay, but it was a bit too short. Saw the Temple the Tooth which is a relic of Buddha. Didn't actually get to see the tooth, just this urn which it is supposedly in. Had to wait for a long time, and they played lots of loud drums which would have been bad had I had a headache. Then got ripped off by some guy selling Pashminas. Learned that although people are always outwardly friendly, it's often just for money. Everyone's friendly, but everyone wants money. Yeah. Played guitar and sung until four thirty, then went to bed. End of log."


"So, captains log. Sixth of January two thousand and ten. Basically had a very long night. We had to take two days worth of clothes with us because [they didn't want to take the luggage van north]. At six we got up and left. Felt generally fine but very very sleepy. Didn't get a lot of sleep. We went to visit a Sigiriya, which was the throne of some ancient king who built it as a throne for himself. It's this massive rock, similar to Ayers rock, so it's a mountain which is basically one gigantic boulder. So he lived up there and built this scaffolding and had ways to take things up to him and had five hundred virgins apparently who danced for him, and he was massaged, and there are swimming pools up there and had this whole retinue of people who looked after him. They had even ways of drawing water up there, which might have been through windmills, and water gardens and structures. It was quite mind blowing. A lot of people want to be your guide, and want 'to help' which I'm getting very hard about now because people just ask for money.

Stopped for takeaways on the way. Headed back to Polonnaruwa (sounds Maori, but it's not). Stayed in a really really nice resort. Had huge bedrooms, flash bathrooms, an uninterrupted supply of hot water [which is rare], and they had really good food there as well. [Big party that night. Drunken merriness. The next day we] went with Natasha and Tria to see the old ruins. Went first to 'New Town' which is not a town at all but just some government buildings with a high court, a magistrates office, and a prison all rolled into one complex complete with pictures on the walls of the prison of people behind bars and in handcuffs, thinking about their wives and children. On the other side of the road is the attorney's office. I asked one guy where we could get bikes, but there was nowhere nearby so we left. It would seem that he was connect to the local bike syndicate, because twenty minutes later a guy arrived in a van and took us to the bike rental place for free. Then we ate something, checked out the ruins. They were pretty cool. End of log for the sixth."


"Captains log for the seventh of January, continuing from previous log. Was picked up by strange guy to get bikes, explored new town, found town, ate, went to the ruins, looked at the ruin statues (which were quite far apart, so it was good that we had the bikes). Yeah, saw a lot of stray dogs. The ruins are pretty incredible, there are cows living amongst the ruins and some guy farms and they just leave the ruins alone. Lots of Buddha statues and stuff. The locals don't like it if you are in a photo with your back to Buddha or if you have a hat on or shoes on in Buddha's presence. And there are people, I don't know whether they are voluntary or whether they're paid, but there's like these vigilante guys who go around and prevent you from doing that sort of stuff. These ruins are pretty big, it's quite surprising. I've definitely noticed that people, like, a lot of the jobs which require one or two people back home (so New Zealand/Switzerland) is replaced by teams; multiple people so at Sigiriya there was one guy whose job whose job was to read the bar codes off the tickets and write the numbers down. For that we just have a bar-code scanner. Busses have always two people; one person drives [driver, duh] the other person collects the money and tells people when to get out [conductor, double duh]. Labours pretty cheap here. I guess it works. All of the roadworks and stuff is done manually, well, most of it. So you'll see teams of people with picks and hammers and stuff ripping up chunks of road and placing rocks in it, and doing it all old school, manually. It's quite interesting to see. Anyway, about the rest of the day, we did that, saw that stuff, it was getting late by that time, handed our bikes back at the place where we hired them from which we didn't check out (the guy wanted to buy my camera battery). And then we met up with the other people in town. Had dinner and went to bed. End of log."

	Ceiling Cat iz redy foar ur wurship

"Captains log, eighth of January two thousand and ten. So, evening of seventh of January or early morning of eighth of January it was Paul's birthday and there were festivities which ran quite long into the early hours. Made quite a lot of noise. I got royally drunk with these guys. Paul was turning twenty seven and someone came up with the idea of giving him '27 beats', so everyone was tasked with hitting him once. He woke up the next morning feeling like he'd been playing rugby, apparently. It's funny we get this a lot, nobody ever complains. It's funny being back among some real Kiwis again. I realise what I miss about Kiwis, and I also realise [what I don't miss. On one hand] I really like the style of speech and the easy-goingness and the 'she'll be right mate' attitude. [On the other hand] these guys drink a lot ( and we're talking [semi-regular] binge drinking sessions), long, loud parties, and a lot of weed. [This in itself doesn't bother me at all, but I felt we weren't being very considerate to any other guest, to the staff, to the locals, and indirectly to Marissa and Sagar. Marissa never mentioned anything, but Marissa's father had pulled strings through work contacts to get us corporate rates at the Polonnaruwa hotel, and we held the party of parties there till maybe 4am. Perhaps it's just my Swiss influence coming out, but I felt just a tinge irresponsible the next day.] Woke up early morning in Polonnaruwa, got on the bus and travelled a long day. Was about eight hours of being on the bus. First we went to check out this weird monastery, it wasn't a monastery it was just another Buddha shrine I guess. They had some elephants there, and another big Pagoda there - same deal. When we arrived there were no beggars, and when we left there were, pedlars and all the rest. So they could smell us. We got back on the bus and went further and further and further. I didn't sleep much in the bus, but we went through some magnificent, absolutely incredible scenery with these rice paddies and jungle and huge valleys with lakes and rivers in them. It was really impressive. We stopped like twice to get something to eat. Arrive after dark at the hotel which looks really flash. Unfortunately I drew a bit of a short straw and there were seven of us in this little room with four beds and one bathroom with one toilet and one shower, and it was mouldy and smelled rank, and even better, the slats in my bed fell out during the night. I didn't wake up the next morning feeling too good. Food was really good though, but I think people were just tired and there was not much happening after that. We just ate a buffet meal and went to bed. That was it. End log."

	Woah! Hang on Jesus!

"Captains log, ninth of January two thousand and ten. Woke up feeling not too good, unfortunately. After a night of slats falling out of bed, and not being comfortable (the bed was too short I had to stick my legs off the side or sleep spread eagle or whatever, and the air in there was bad), I woke up feeling a little bit giddy actually. I had the same feeling like when my muscles were weak, kinda like the beginning stages of a flu. I've still got it now in the evening, and I've had a mild case of runs, which (I mean, I've only had to go to the bathroom three times today, and I'll have to go again later on) but it hasn't been so pretty. So it's not diarrhoeal, it's not violent or sudden, but it's concerning. This morning I did get up, and decided I wanted to go water rafting so one bus went to the water rafting. It was only grade four so there was no tipping of boats but Creon did fall out of the other one which we were quite pleased about. But yeah, it was quite fun, even though I wasn't feeling so top notch I still managed to go on this adventure. We've come home I'm kind of winding down, did my log, and will maybe read, and at one o-clock we're going to walk up to Adam's peak, but I'll blog about that tomorrow. End of log."

"Captains log, tenth of January two thousand and ten. Didn't feel well enough to go for the walk at one o-clock, took two Panadol, went to bed, woke up next morning, I used someone else's room, slept like a baby, it was nice not to be in the dungeon. The pink room was good. Had breakfast, regained my appetite, passed my first dry fart [in about a week] around lunchtime [Creon laughs in background] (it was a victorious moment), sat on the bus, got a nice picture of everyone sleeping except for myself, Creon and Maia. Arrived at new hotel, awesome rooms (I've got a double-bed to myself), did some laundry, went in and got a cut-throat shave, liked that very much, now I'm going to bed. End of log."

Guess who walked to Adam's peak...	...and who didn't.
Arrival at Olympus luxury Hotel.	View in front...
...view behind.

This reminds me, Creon began composing limmericks about people on the trip, and started a short-lived trend. Here is my attempt (performed in the worst attempt at a Sri Lankan accent you can imagine):

curry & rice, curry & rice
is not expensive, taste very nice, yes?
it has ingredients that every-where grows
it is a recipe that every one knows

curry & rice, curry & rice
you can have mild, or with much spice
a little chilli will burn you once
a lot of chilli will burn you twice, yes?

curry & rice, curry & rice
you can live on all of your life
there is always enough to every body feed
it have all goody-goodness your body need, yes?

BUT SOMETIMES...
when grumble goes your tummy
and your poo becomes runny
and you spend a week chained to your dunny
then that was your friend
curry and rice, yes?

"Captains log, eleventh of January two thousand and ten. Woke up in luxury hotel, got up, had a nice breakfast and more or less did nothing else than hang around and mucked around on the net, got on the bus, and headed off. We drove and had lunch at Ella - but first we went to a Tea factory. Tea factory was cool, interesting. It's this multi storey factory where they bring all the tea leaves from the surrounding plantations, dry it, let it naturally ferment into the black tea we know and love. Then it's dried and there are conveyor belts everywhere, and processing machines and sifters and all the rest. Natasha and I found some white lab coats with white caps and pretended we were tea inspectors. We sampled some tea, but bought none (300 rupees for a box of tea = tourist price). Then to a colonial mansion ("tea house?"). The guy who lived there put on sandwiches and bananas, and tea of course, for us. The place is very English with a lawn and ponies grazing and a swimming pool and a view across the valley. It's just incredibly English - especially in contrast with the surrounding lands. The people who built it obviously had very strong ideas about what was proper, and modelled the place to fit their ideals. I felt a bit ambivalent about the place - rather than accepting and integrating Sri Lankan beauty, they went to great lengths to make it as English as possible. [I mean, ponies and a swimming pool? On the remote hills of Sri Lanka? Geez.] I suppose this was the colonial attitude. We left there stopped once for lunch - I experience the joyous combination of runs + squat toilet + no toilet paper (just a bucket of water and a tap). It didn't thrill me. Stopped in Ella for lunch, which is effectively a collection of shops next to the highway which cater to western (particularly British) tastes, quite high up in the mountains. Kind of a tourist stop. I was able to get a vegi burger, but there were places next door which do hamburger, pizza, etc. Service was super slow (about 1 hour) but the food was good - I had been hankering for western food. I wrote a poem in the bus about rice and curry - mostly because I'm slowly having enough of it... it's been a staple diet and it's not impressing me much any more. I've been craving the foods I know, which is a bit unexperimental of me, but I'm just over it. At least for a while. After lunch we went down the mountain to a town where there was a Hindu ceremony happening. I really liked it, actually. I didn't realise it was going to be Hindu - I had expected it would be Buddhist with lots of drums and clashing symbols and lots of people walking slowly and being very ceremonious. But it wasn't at all. We showed up, they ushered us in, I gave some flowers to one guy, and then this guy put this white chalky paste mark on my forehead, then someone gave me a big handfull of sweet rice with nuts and raisins in it. People was just handing out food. It was my first experience where the locals were friendly and open without expecting money. I found that really refreshing. I like the light and colour and sound and the party atmosphere of Hinduism. It was for me much more preferable to any religion I've seen so far. Hinduism is cool. Lots of different gods, lots of choice, and there are no strings attached. After the ceremony it was dark. There was smashing of coconuts [a Hindu prayer ritual], making of vows [also Hindu], then we got back on the bus and drove to where we are now, which is actually a really reasonable with place. I'm sharing a room with Sean and Tanya, the place is clean, the bathroom is adequate, the services are good. I'm pretty happy where I've landed tonight. End of log."


"Captains Log, twelfth of January. Waking up, sharing room with Sean and Tanya on second floor. Was nice actually. Had a little balcony at the back. Did some laundry and handed my T-Shirts in to be washed for me (60 rupees per item) . Hung out with Sean and Tany for the day. Got a very cheep trishaw ride into the main town, used the internet, posted a card to Max and Rowena, drank a lot of water, checked out another Pagoda (you've seen one you've seen them all) and went off to a resort called Refresh. We walked in there and just saw a see of white people - it was full of tourists. But we'd walked a long way so we had something to eat. Sean ordered the rice and curry, which was actually big enough for all three of us. I got a mixed fruit juice (which I've come to love) and a cheese toasty - because I could. Was quite touristy and pricey - we weren't that impressed, but was nice. Took a trishaw back to the hotel, had dinner, played a board-game which works a bit like pool where you have to flick wooden checker-like counters around the board and try to knock them into corner pockets. You get sore fingers. There was a big party out on the balcony till late, which I turned in early from. Then slept. End. Of. Log."

"Captains log, thirteenth of January two thousand and ten. Got up at four o-clock and left by five. Went on a safari to the outback somewhere near the ocean. Some people saw a leopard, saw a lot of painted stalks, lizards, crocodiles, water buffalo, elephants, monkeys... was completely covered in orange dust. Stopped at the beach and saw the old conservation centre was, which had been wiped out by the boxing day tsunami. I was very sleepy, and fell asleep in the front passenger seat. Was KO.

Got back, had breakfast, finished packing and departed for a beach at Mirissa. We stayed in a beach house. There was some weird mistake with the bookings but we got it ironed out. The shack we ended up in was okay, it had the basics. The location was absolutely superb. There was this big long sandy beach with some bars in it. The waves were special - they were very violent. They make big two meter breakers which we were body surfing. The problem is that if you time it wrong, they will pick you up and drop you straight onto the ocean floor. They pull your legs out from under and tumble you around, and then sometimes picks you up and dumps you again. Yes, dumped like a teenager. I got a black eye - either punched by the wave or rammed by the wave into the ocean floor. We ate a huge dinner which we couldn't finish and spent the evening at a bar right next to the resort. They stayed open as long as we were there, and we got very very drunk [like we never do]. They didn't make long island ice tea, so we hijacked the bar and did it ourselves. Used a 'hat system' to pay the tab at the end of the bar, which thanks to Creon's generous donation we were over by around three thousand rupees, and used the remainder to buy more beers. Crawled back to my shack in the early hours very drunk, and slept badly till the next morning. Endoflog."


"Captains log fourteenth of Januray two thousand and ten, woke up with an earache. Not so cool. I wasn't sure what it was. I got a Panadol from Creon, and that kinda helped but I just kinda let it lie. I thought it might go away but it didn't seem to. Couldn't sleep on it, and my left ear was blocked. I got up early due to my sore ear and went for a walk along the beach. Saw a guy climbing coconut trees and cutting the coconuts down. That was impressive - they're pretty damned tall those things, and those coconuts fall with a lot of power (you don't want to catch one of those things falling, that's not good). Went and saw the island at the end of the beach and chilled out. Watched some crabs and these funny little sea urchen/cucumber/leech thingamijies that were feeding off the rocks. Came back, met up with everyone, went for a swim with Creon at first thing, surfed some waves. Got dumped a couple of times but that's okay, it's all part of it. Yeah, was feeling a bit better. We had breakfast before hand - it was great. Creon left (it was his last day) so we bid him farewell. Then we all got back on the bus and drove to [Unawatuna], where we are now. It's a really luxurious place - it's the height of luxury as far as we're concerned. It's got everything. There are big spacious rooms, it's got running hot water, they've got TV's, they've got a pool apparently, it's got W-Lan, there's a beach right in front (I spent a good few hours in the ocean). We kinda chilled out in the waves a bit, went for a walk, I bought a very nice saronge, then we met up with some guys who wanted to eat so I followed them, we ended up missing the rest of the crew who actually came to our restaurant to order stuff, and so I ordered something blindly over the phone which was butterfish, which actually turned out to be freaking nice I have to say. While we were waiting for this we were sitting at this jamacan themed reggae bar which was cool, and there was this guy just practising his fire pois so we got a bit of a show, he set off some fireworks, it was actually quite cool. I was feeling quite bad though. Emma gave me some Panedine which I took. That helped quite a lot, but I've still got the sore ear. It hasn't gone away. I asked Juliet and she thought that maybe it was an ear infection. There was a party in the evening. We had food, and then I went upstairs. The place has wireless lan - the first place I've found which has it - which is great. It allows me to not only check email and make contact with the rest of the world, but also skype out and call people I've been meaning to call forever. But that was it. I sort of hit the hay a bit early but slept very very well. End of log."

"Captains log for fifteenth of january two thousand and ten. Woke up the next morning and still had a sore ear. Decided it was time to get it checked out. Lo and behold there were actually three of us (myself, Kat and Maia) with ear problems. Florency came too. We took two trishaws and headed from Unawatuna and went to the hospital in Galle. I was surprised at the lack of privacy in the hospital, as the waiting line is in the consulting room, next to the doctor's desk. And the doctor was asking questions like "are you pregnant" and (well, he didn't ask *me* if I was pregnant, but he asked the girls) and basically discussing medical stuff in earshot of everyone else. But other than that it was excellent. The doctor was very thorough, gave us some prescriptions. I mean, it wasn't complicated; he looked in my ear and said "yep, that's an ear infection. You're going to need some antibiotics for that" and prescribed me a course of antibiotics for five days plus antiinflamitories, plus pain killers, plus something to prevent it from spreading to my chest. The net effect is that I've had to abstain from alcohol, and it hasn't been that bad. I've been twice out with the guys and both times I've had a good evening and danced a lot and drank juices, so that's good. We got that done, went to a cafe. The two girls needed to have silicone air washes done, and they want to do it asap so in the cafe we improvised a dropper using a straw and did the ear washes then and there in the cafe. We turned this little room of a cafe into a clinic. We'd do a round of ear washes and then food came, so we'd eat something and then wait for five minutes and do the next round. Was kinda cool. Florency entertained the owner's daughter drawing pictures of her on elephants and things. He's really good with children actually. Really nice guy. We parted ways shortly after that because there was some stuff I wanted to buy. I bought a photo album for Moni and a mortar and pestle. I also got some cinnamon oil for Brenda and wandered around Galle a little. It's an old Dutch fort with high walls and that sort of thing. Quite impressive actually, quite cool to see. I meandered around and found my way back. The trishaw just took me to this random place - his brother's gem shop, and then went back to my hotel and chilled out for a while. There was a party in the evening and we went to the banana bar and took one of the local guys. I wore my sarong (was great fun), got my dance on, sweated like a pig, but right at the end I ripped the sarong. At around 3am they started doing gymnastics like splits and stuff. I tried to do a hand spring but the sarong was too small (I think the guy skimped on material which is why it was so small), and I just tried it. *Rip*... made a 15cm tear in the fabric, landed on my back, and looked like a dick. So it was kind of a sobering moment for someone who was already sober, and that was the basically the end of my night. Took a shower, went to bed. End of log."

"Captains log, sixteenth of January two thousand and ten. Woke up, had breakfast - breakfast was really nice at this place actually. They give you a decent selection of stuff. They give you an omolete, and coffee or tee, and curd or porrige, and toast with butter and jam. So it was a decent, solid continental breakfast. I can not do curry and rice in the mornings. In fact, I'm complete off curry and rice. It doesn't interest me any more, which is unfortunate because that's what's really popular here, but that's just not my thing. Maybe with a break I can get back into it, but I'm just really loving my western foods. Got up relatively early, dashed off to the sarong shop and ask if he could a) fix the tear and b) add some material to it because it was too freaking small. Which he did for only another 400 rupees (in other words I was between a rock and a hard place so I paid it). Whatever - it's a great sarong, I've still got it, I like it. He fixed it and I'm really happy. I really like that thing - it's massive now. That doesn't matter, I'm going to wear it in Zürich for sure. Even though it's negative twenty degrees I'm still going to wear it. Then got back on the bus and went along the coast towards Colombo. We stopped at this little place for lunch and had poppadoms(?). They were kind of okay. Went to a mask museum (which I found utterly boring, but some people liked it). Juliette was absolutely over the moon because they had masks and puppets, and she does shadow puppets so she was really keen on that. Headed back to Colombo. Had an incident of note driving there. Imagine we are in a passenger bus full of around twenty tourists or so, driving on the left hand side of the road. Coming towards us on the opposite side of the road is a gas or oil tanker with "highly inflammable" written on the back of it. There is enough space on the road for both of us. But then, a transport truck of some sort reckons he's going to overtake the oil tanker and moves onto our side of the road. You can imagine what could happen: explosion plus fuel tanker plus bus full of tourists makes a crispy critter fireball. Yeah, our bus had to hit the brakes and swerve to the left, the oil tanker swerved hard to the right, and there was just enough space for the truck to fit in the middle. Freaking incredible. But yeah, that's kinda how they roll here. It's pretty amazing - surprised the hell out of me. Got back to Colombo in the evening. We were dropped in the Walawatta flat. It's the nicest flat I've seen. A big step above the Ratmalana flat. There's hot water, the place is clean, there's TV, there's radio, even air conditioning in one of the rooms. It's a bit Fort-Knoxy with bars just everywhere and locks, and the landlord lives next door and wakes up *anytime* when someone comes and the dogs bark, and she tells you how to lock the gate - we're talking two or three o'clock in the morning. But they really are nice people - they gave us phone numbers, gave us tips on how to do this and that, who we should call, taxi numbers. Even let me use the internet to print out my flight check-in slip. In the evening there was a party/event we'd heard about from some other tourists in Unawatuna, so we met up with them. They drove us to the party (1000 rupees entry fee). There was myself, Tria, Daria, Natasha and Ryan and these other guys. The party was actually really happening. It was the first "club" club I've seen since I've been here. There were almost equal numbers of girls as guys (though only guys had to pay entry). I bought a very expensive, very fat cigar and smoked it. It was great. Ryan and Tria had a TV interview with some local reports. Then Ryan and Natasha disappeared and we didn't see from them till the next day. After some time we got tired and went home. We made multiple attempts to try and rouse Joe but we couldn't get a message to him because the hotel staff had their rules and were not having it, oh well. Took a shower and slept. Was good. End of log."

"Captains log, seventeenth of January, two thousand and ten. Farewelled Natasha from the flat in the early hours of the morning. Hung out with Sean and Tanya for most of the day and browsed souvenir shops. Went to Majestic City, a shopping mall where we often hang out. First we randomly bumped into Juliette, Pip and Florency there, and went upstairs to the pool hall/cafe we often hang out at for lunch. The number thirteen is the shiznay - it's like a frappucino but with chocolate and grated chocolate and a face drawn in cream on top. It's great. And then the rest of the boys came and so we randomly met the rest of the crew. I was feeling actually really jaded - the ear had been fine (aside from being deaf in one ear) and on top of that I was feeling a bit dizzy and I had a sort of altitude headache. So I was on the Panedine for that. So I was feeling pretty bad and slept instead of joining their festivities, and hung out with Sean and Tanya where we talked a lot about the whole trip. It was actually kinda nice just to wrap everything up and to see what their perceptions of the trip were. Eventually the taxi came to take them to the airport, and that was that. I went to bed. End of log."

Captains log, eighteenth of January two thousand and ten. This is my last and final day here in Sri Lanka. I'm basically moping about the flat feeling a little melancholic. I've just sort of farewelled the last people who were here, and since I'm the last person leaving here everyone basically filed past me and gave me a hug and said "hey man, see you later". Uh, yeah. I'm feeling a bit melancholic I'd say. I know I'll see a lot of these guys and it's just been an amazing trip, and I know them all now and I've met them all and we've done some cool stuff together, and I don't know. I guess you understand. And fucking Abba's Fernando was playing in the background as they were leaving, and that just made me depressed because I hate Abba but now every time I hear that I'm going to feel melancholic because I'll remember everyone walking past and saying goodbye. So yes, that was it for Tria, and for Daria, and for umm.. Ryan and Joe and Crystal and Kim and James and also for Jack and for Ben. I think I got everyone, who was just here. And now I've got the house to myself. Yeah, the radio's playing and just did a bit of a cleanup. What happened today? Well I found a tailor to fix the shirt I lent Ryan. Went to the same place where Sean went to to get his trousers taken up. They did it on the spot while I waited, which was just brilliant. I really like that. They charged 150 rupees which is peanuts for having work done while you wait, (I waited around 5 mins) so I gave the guy who did it a 50 rupee tip just because I was happy about it. Stopped at three places, couldn't find any Marmite - a bit gutted because I've seen it here - I did find some Milo however. Then I got home, had a nap, booked my taxi, called Daria, went and met them at an internet cafe, checked in online while I was there. I bought this neat little mosquito zapper. It's tennis racket shaped. You have these wires which if anything gets between them it generates a high voltage current and fries whatever is between them. So basically if there is a mozzie flying around you just hit it with this racket and it goes BZAP! and there's no mozzie any more - it vaporises it. A lot of fun. It also has a torch on it and a recharger. Very cool, a fun toy for Switzerland because I *hate* mosquitoes. I'm *covered* in mosquito bites, and I've scratched them till they bled and I can't stop scratching them. Oh yes, I've also developed a rather nasty rash which kind of seems to circle my legs - particularly around the thighs, but also on the backs of my knees. Shall we say that a mixture of temperature, humidity and constant sweatiness have all played their respective parts in that. At least, that's what the chemist told me. The rash itches like nothing, basically as bad as the mosquito bites and it hurts now as well. But once I'm back in Switzerland at a more comfortable negative twenty degrees I'm sure I won't be sweating as much. We came back here, kind of hung out for a bit, and eventually it was time to farewell the people. And I've already covered that. So I'm going to press stop relatively soon, and then I'm going to have a shower and go to bed. At five-thirty my taxi is going to come and pick me up, and I'm going to drive to the airport. I'll fly to Dubai, have a shower, get on another airplane, fly to Zurich and give Moni a hug. And that will conclude my adventure to Sri Lanka. It's been a freaking amazing trip. Marco out."