Monday 12th Feb’24

Up later today and a leisurely breakfast at the hotel - fruit and omelet and then we pack up and jump in a tuktuk to the nearest train station (Habarana), which is about 25 mins away. Typically train is running late so we watched the monkeys and wild dogs… Eventually the train arrived at 12. It was hotter than hell (and sadly no 1st class carriages on this train) so I spent most of the 3 hour journey hanging out of the door, literally, but it was fabulous watching all the wildlife; peacocks, sea eagles, water buffalo, and even a Crocodile (I’m not joking) and lots of evidence of Ely’s but sadly I didn’t spot any. We whizzed by plenty of villages and I was counting the stops and also doing squats at each station, don’t ask me why. Just thought it might help pass the time. I made sure I didn’t need the loo but having said that the toilet at the station was as grim as! Train toilet loo’s were probably better! Ah well… the joy’s of travelling I suppose. We grabbed another tuktuk which cost about £2.50 to take us to our hotel, the train fare was only £2.25 for both of us! We’ve literally travelled West to East of the island over the last week and now we’re staying one night in a fairly crummy hotel before we move to what we hope is a really lovely place further south on the coast for three nights. We arrive and our room is also hotter than hell and the AC doesn’t appear to be working. Eventually we get moved to a different room and leave it running and head to the pool for some respite.

The bar and restaurant were extremely underwhelming but thankfully it’s a one night stop before we can check into absolute paradise, I hope!