Monday 30 August

Hi, sorry about the delay.
First of all, Sunday - our first day and what a fun one it was. Went into a ditch once - thank you, N; got lost twice - thank you J; and got absolutely poured on for two hours in the worst traffic you can imagine - thank you, G*d.
It all started well. We left the Tamarind Tree hotel at 9.30 and made our way to Negombo Fort to receive our first instructions.

with me leading the way:

All went reasonably well until about 100km out when it didn't just rain, it torrented. By now we were on a very busy road with a lot of heavy traffic. And in Sri Lanka the buses and trucks take no prisoners, particularly if they are tuk-tuks. J was the sheet-white person in the front driving, H & N took to prayer, later saying it was one of the most terrifying journeys they'd ever been on. And not just because J was driving.

We finally got to Digaparnatha, very near the amazing Siguraya, at about 5.15 and fell into a beer.

As a result of the rain, there was a rainbow, have a look at it over Sigaraya and over the tuk-tuks:

By the way, we came 14th out of 28 that day. If a certain navigator hadn't got us lost twice, we would have been in the first ten.

Monday dawned just after we got up for the daily briefing, which wasat  6.30am. We were given a very nasty little riddle and told to go the answer for detailed instructions for the day. Luckily, the reception staff knew the answer and drew a map for us.

We ended up at a rock just next to Siguraya. It was about one-third the height and was where the priests made their home after the king had taken over their rock. One of the team had to climb to the top, be given a lotus blossom by a priest and taught a short prayer. He/she then returned to the bottom, taught the prayer to the rest of the team and together they made an offering of the flower and food to Buddha, whilst repeating the prayer to another priest. Luckily, the man for the job was amongst us. Step forward H, who then did a sterling job climbing up and crawling down. 

All this took nearly two hours, then off we went to Trincomalee (Trinco to the cognoscenti). We had a great run across the island through dozens of tiny villages where the children all smiled and waved.

and we bought petrol from little shops who sold it in old litre squash bottles!

We made good time to our destination, Nilavelli just north of Trinco, and arrived not too exhausted at 3.15. N was a hero and did most of the driving

After a decent pause, or beer as it is known, J went to the local UK military graveyard and delivered some pictures he and P had taken 6 years ago when they were last here. They were of the then graveyard caretaker, a splendid man in his seventies at least. It turned out that in the interim he had died, but J was able to give them to a tearful widow.

This evening there was a beach barbecue and a reminder that tomorrow's briefing session is 7am. We'll be under canvas tomorrow night so no blog for a couple of days. I know you'll be sorry about that.

Otherwise sad news of unrequited love. A girl I mentioned earlier has let it be known that I'm not her type, probably too mature for her, so we shall speak of it no more.

Toodle-pip for a couple of days.

Oliver