Friday 3 September

I've just had as wonderful day as a bear could wish for.

We left the Tristar as soon as we could and headed north and then west to our second camping site.

En route we called in at a school to deliver some English dictionaries which the challenge organisers were donating to the school. (They're a bit good at things like this - sickening, really.) Although term hadn't started, the children all came in to greet us and looked very smart in their uniforms.

As each tuk-tuk team came into the classroom with a dictionry all the children stood and gave us a formal 'Ayoboyan' greeting with hands held together as if in prayer.

At this point J, who very occassionally gets things right, brought me in from my seat in the tuk-tuk and introduced me to the children - who all stood and gave me an 'Ayoboyan'! Then I spotted the new love of my life on the front row and had my picture taken on her lap. Bliss it was to be alive that day. And I don't even know her name!

Then it was back on the road. We did about 180 km in total, mostly over reasonable roads (the organisers obviously got some thing wrong there). The challenge of the day was to go off the main drag and find a badly sign-posted buddhist shrine. Here we saw two magnificent statues and had to answer questions about their age (7th Century), hieght (38 ft) and branch of Buddhism (Mayan).

Then off to the campsite, which involved passing through Yala National Park, the largest in Sri Lanka, where we saw a wild elephant eating at the raodside. We didn't stop too long - you don't.

The campsite was way in the countryside and not completely impossible to find. Although a couple of teams who'd had tuk-tuk problems arrived after dark. ( Their friends and families might like to know that one of them was Khan & Jenny.)

The local people cooked us delicious food, but the highlight was the chili-eating contest. Each entrant had to chew a portion of chili paste for a minute and not change expression. After about twenty minutes of this (around six portions by then) the quantity was increased to a teaspoonful. At which point H gracefully retired. Horrifyingly, this went on for what must have been seven spoonfulls until a draw was called as the audience was suffering more than the finalists - one Sri Lankan, one Sicilian and one half-Tunisian Brit.

Then off to loitering within tent (ho, ho, ho)