We booked Sri Lanka way before the civil war really got going. Mr Rajapaksa however was making his decisive move to crush the the Tigers. So it was left to weigh up whether safe drive round was the sensible thing to do. No one likes sensible so we jumped in with two feet.

Air Arabia is not good at a lot of things and scheduling is definitely one of them. We landed at 4am and dazed staggered out of the airport with only the vague hope that are hire car would be ready and waiting. Making enquires about said car to many gentleman were united with the machine that take us to see the glories of the country.

All seem to be in order so we set off with destination elephant sanctuary and then onto Kandy. On the exit of the airport we went past many army personnel then on to the highway to Colombo where every 100m there were armed soldiers. Oh yeah the civil war this did not seem a place to hang around. My trusty co pilot had the map but against her was the darkness and the absence of road signs. She did herself proud and we arrived at the elephant sanctuary reasonably promptly.

The elephant sanctuary was nice it was about 5% 1900s circus and 95% actively caring for the elephants welfare. There little elephants getting fed and large elephants, who had been to elephant school, doing various poses for the cameras with the inevitable tip for the keeper. The highlight of the day is the trip down to the river. The tacky tourists all go down the river first then a might heard appears. They all thundered into the river which music merriment. All apart from one with a leg which had healed at a very strange angle. The elephants loved it by there came a point when we had to leave them and continue our journey to Kandy.

We stayed in Kandy for 2 days. We visited the botanical gardens, which had very creepy bats hanging from the trees completely enveloped in their own wings. A trip round a fetching lake, and holy holy holy Buddhist temple not like other holy holy holy Buddhist temples you have seen else where.

For the next leg of our journey we were going from Kandy down through the highlands to the south coast. First stop of the leg was Sri Pada/Adam’s Peak/Samanalakanda/Butterfly Moutnain/Sivanolipatha Malai or what ever you call it! It is the holy mountain Sri Lanka. The peak had to be conquered. Owner of the b&b where we stayed was full of stories of leeches and sore thighs. Leaving the beautiful missus behind I set off at 2am. The climb starts horizontal and ends vertical! I was tiger-balmed up to the max with trousers in my socks as apparently there are loads of leeches; thankfully no leech attached itself to me on the journey. I powered up the mountain and reached the top with some time before sun rise. Looking around there were gaggles of many different peoples and creeds from the western tourists to the Sri Lankan muslims all waiting. At this point I supposed to wax lyrical about the heavenly sun rise however... sadly it was mostly cloudy and obscured maybe next time. By the time I arrived back at the guest house the wife was just waking like a fairy tail princess (please do not be sick).

That day we left the guest house. Onwards winding our across the highlands. We stopped off at a deserted waterfall only to be invaded by 40 school child for 15 minutes then promptly deserted again. After some more winding we happened on a Tea shop. This was not any tea shop. It was the newest freshest thing we saw in Sri Lanka freshly painted and fitted out seemingly based on a building from the  Lake District, UK. We stop for some excellent afternoon tea and scones. That evening we stayed at the forest paradise guesthouse in Ella. We wondered down into “town” and it was all happening as it was the start of a big public holiday. We ducted out of the mayhem of gambling and liquor into an internet cafe. Within 15 minutes the mayhem had caught up with us, well at least the alcohol part. The owner of the internet cafe, his friends, a Canadian tourist and us two we all given measure upon measure of Aarak (Sri Lankan coconut liquor). The bad western style Sri Lankan music was cranked up and the eight of us were all trying to figure out how to dance to this odd music. After two hours we left still standing with our ears bleeding and then slept like babies.

The next morning we left the highlands to reach the southern coast. On the way we stopped off at some massive buddhas carvings, which was nice. Three hours later dodging a massive monitor lizard we arrived at our rebuilt Sri Lankan beach fantasy. Yes the Asia tsunami had wipped out this part of the coast and looking up and down the coast luckily our guesthouse was one of the few that had been rebuilt. We stay there for three days off relaxing, kayaking and beaching it during the day and Aaraking during the evening.

A quick stop at Gaulle and a tour round a highly militarised Colombo in the dark we felt like we had “done” the south of Sri Lanka.