Day 9 - Tuesday

This morning we got our alarm call at 5am and were out of the hotel at 5.30am.  We travelled in safari jeeps to the edge of the national park in Yala and then had to wait while the sun came up before going into the park itself.

Once inside we bobbed along bumpy tracks, seeing bee-eaters (with their blue-green colouring), small crocodiles and egrets.  We also saw a lot of water buffalo happily having their early morning soak in small water holes.

After a while we came to a safari traffic jam. Three elephants, including a baby, were blocking the road. Eventually we were able to get past, taking photos of them. Mum looked very protective of her baby as it suckled milk. We learnt from our guide that the baby elephants take milk until they are 7 years old.

However hard we tried the leopards evaded us. We had a stop on the beach at the edge of the national park and then headed back to the hotel.

This afternoon has been spent swimming, reading and eating burgers!  Tomorrow we head across the south of the country to our final stop at Galle.

Day 8 - Monday

We left the hill country and Nuwara Eliya behind and travelled down to the flat country again yesterday (Monday).  As we descended we came across Hindu temples, monkeys and waterfalls before we reached our lunch stop.

In the afternoon we visited the Elephant Transit Home at Udawalawe. It is a project which takes in abandoned or lost young elephants (under 7 years old) and let's them roam in the park and they feed them milk and foliage until they are old enough to be released back into the wild. It was an amazing experience to watch them having their dinner.  Some were so small they had to be bottle-fed by hand separately from the others.

We then left the elephants and travelled to the national park at Yala which is our base for the next two nights.

Tomorrow is an early start for a safari.

They say there's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil and there certainly seems to be quite a bit of tea in Sri Lanka as well

Day 7 - Sunday

Yesterday we left Kandy and travelled into the hill country.  Our first stop was at a hill town, Pussellawa, where we had a walk through seeing all of the shops and stalls.

We then went to visit the Glenloch tea plantation and factory where Sasi (our guide) showed us inside the factory and then out onto the plantations where some of our group tried their hands at picking tea (much more difficult than it looks!).

After a late lunch stop we arrived at our hotel mid-afternoon to distinctly English rain and chilly weather.  We nipped into Nuwara Eliya by Tuk-tuk but decided to head back to the hotel rather than tramp round town in the rain.

The wooden box contains different types of tea leaves

The wooden press presses the leaves once they've been dried

Day 6 - Saturday

Today we had a good look round two of Kandy's attractions. This morning we visited the Royal Botanical Gardens first of all. The gardens are extensive and had a large variety of plants and trees from all around the world. We also visited the Orchid House within the gardens which contained some beautiful examples of different orchids. 

The gardens have been visited by many foreign leaders who have planted trees in the gardens. We saw a few trees which have been planted by the Royals on their various trips to Sri Lanka. We also saw the Great Circle lawn where Lord Mountbatten had spent some time encamped when he was in the country.

The second half of the morning was spent at The Temple of the Tooth. It is said to contain one of Buddha's wisdom teeth which was recovered from his funeral pyre. The tooth has had a varied history of many different groups trying to destroy it but it has survived so far! It is encased inside about 7 caskets so we never actually saw the thing itself!

As it was Saturday (and yesterday was a public holiday) the temple was packed with worshippers bringing offerings of beautiful fresh flowers and incense. As we walked through the praying crowds inside it was a very powerful feeling, seeing how much their religion means to them.

We then headed back to the hotel for a quick break but then Catherine headed out with one of our fellow travellers to visit the old cricket ground in Kandy which is no longer used for test matches. However this plan soon changed and we decided to travel out to the new ground which is actually at Pallekelle - about 6 miles out of Kandy. Despite our best efforts we were not allowed in the ground (due to the fact that it is a weekend and only a skeleton security staff were present) so we could only take photos through various gates and fencing. Then it was back to the hotel again for a dip in the pool but no sunbathing as the sun was hidden behind a cloud. The rain has now started and it sounds quite torrential!

Tomorrow we leave Kandy and travel to Nuwara Eliya - part of tea plantation country.