Geoff Jones

Biking from Heritance Kandalama to Kandy on Lifeday 25,403

Posted on February 14, 2017

I couldn’t face the breakfast or it’s price so I was on the road before 7. After 6 hours of OK sleep in my ginormous bed.

First stop was the Golden Buddha in Danbulla it really is magnificent, I even walked upto the Rock Temple stupidly taking my GPS which then had the effect of reducing my cycle speed 🙁 After the walk I had a breakfast including ice cream 🙂 in their restaurant, watching the bus loads of tourists arrive.

I then dropped into the museum next door which has replicas of all the cave painting, interesting to see the prehistoric looking very similar to the Creswell ones.

Then onwards and upwards! the next food stop was when I saw every stall selling buffalo curd in lovely stone pots, I woofed a whole one down laced with wild honey – delicious.

Further on I kept seeing these ‘herb gardens’ eventually the curiosity got to me and I stopped at Sirilak Spice & Herbal garden outside Matale. Fantastic one to one guide who described each plant and its uses in Ayurvedic treatments. He tried the Herbal depilatory on me and I’m pleased to say I now have a coin sized area free of hair 🙂 the active ingredient is apparently lime skins. Then he said did I want a back and head massage with their Red Oil & Herbal Balm – what a daft question to ask me! Lovely 🙂 free for a tip to the masseur guy. Gardeners would find it fascinating especially because they get two crops a year.

Then onto Kandy, goodness me almost as bad as Colombo for traffic 🙁 also quite a lot of time out pale faced kids here. Obviously a must be aLonely Planet place.

After another ice cream I departed for my WarmShowers host Benjamin who I’ve now discovered lives on top of a 600metre high hill 🙁 The room is basic but his mum cooked me a lovely rice dish. The rice is cooked with coconut milk.

Tomorrow I move on to what looks like a 2000 metre climb.

The Strava is here

and pictures here

Polonnaruwa to Heritance Kandalama on Lifeday 25,402

Evening dinner

I managed to leave Peacock Vista before 6.30 with my free breakfast box 🙂 which I tucked under the bungees behind my saddle. The route I had created on Strava to Medirigiriya Vatadage and then onto Sigiriya finishing at Heritance Kandalama worked perfectly. The first bit through very quiet roads and pleasant countryside.

I arrived at Medirigiriya Vatadage just as two busloads of young Buddhist students arrived 🙁 So I quickly parked the bike and took a short cut to the statues which are really excellent, they didn’t have the stone wall technique quite as good as the Incas but not bad 🙂 The four Buddhas at the cardinal points was pretty impressive especially with the view. I wandered back to the bike to find it surrounded by monkeys with one perched on the top of my bag and ferreting around to find food. My poor breakfast box was gone with a monkey on the ground devouring the last mouthfuls 🙁 I guess their need was greater than mine….

The next section through the national park was along a very bumpy track but the bike is proving very robust 🙂 I eventually hit the main road again and bought myself a full on brunch with the owner going on about all the wild elephants in these parts, lots of elephant dung on the road to prove the point!

Eventually I took the turn down the narrow road to Sigiriya, pretty dreadful with the large tourist literally forcing me of the road, worst yet. Sigiriya itself is just one long road with the archeological complex just outside. I rode around but it was really busy and walking up a hill at a snails place didn’t appeal.

Anyway I had more exciting things to look forward to! My most expensive hotel yet! the one night is just about equal in price to the previous 12 nights 🙁 Heritance Kandalama Hotel is down a dirt track and built into the mountain and overlooking the lake. They upgraded my room to a suite for free 100m2 or twice the size of my old apartment in Les Gets 🙂 For me the shower is the best feature apart from the super slippery floor. I did a 30min swim in the pool downstairs and had a full on 3 course meal. Will I stay another night? Nope 🙂

Todays pics on dropbox

Todays 70 miles on Strava

Tourist day in Polonnaruwa LifeDay 25,401

The dead Buddha

Some things I learned as a tourist in Sri Lanka today. I must remember:

Make sure camera battery is fully charged!
Wear shoes that are easily removable.
Wear a shirt that easily comes off, only applies to men 🙂
Toughen your feet up, as a lot of walking barefoot over sharp sand.
Make sure it isn’t a full moon day or other local holiday.
Practice listening to Indians talk by calling Virgin Media help desk.

A relaxing day visiting the 12C ruins on my bike with the guide on his motorbike. A bit of a pity it was a national holiday since there were quite big crowds of locals about 🙁 Interesting for me was this constant removal of shoes and hats going from one set of ruins to the next. In the museum we all had to stand still for the National Anthem. One thing I may have learnt is the problems with the Tamils started when one of the kings married an Indian princess, so the wars predate British rule by several hundred years apparently.

In the afternoon it was time for a massage 🙂 A TukTuk took me up the hill (where I’m biking tomorrow) to the Giritale Hotel and its therapy centre 🙂 It started with a Swedish, OK but not a patch on Sally’s then straight onto a chair for an Indian Head massage 🙂 followed by a steam chamber, which all I could think of was that it was like the old Iron Lungs used for Polio victims in my childhood. (Thank goodness for the Salk vaccine!) Whilst in the chamber with my head protruding she massaged my face – OK but when the oil trickled into my ear I couldn’t remove it , torture. Then it was straight into the sauna, barely warm but very quaint like a mud hut. After that I was shown the shower, paid my 3,000 rupees (£16) and went to grab a pretty good buffet lunch. After a rest and swim in the pool it was back to the Peacock Vista .

A very pleasant day which seemed never ending 🙂 with all that free time.

Tomorrow I pedal further south.

The Photographs of the day are here and the mega 12 mile Strava is here

Trincomalee to Polonnaruwa biking on lifeday 25,400

A mega day for me ending up at well over 107 miles pedalled in temperatures in the low thirties.

I left Orr’s Hill House at 6.39am after a VERY disturbed nights sleep 🙁 A great morning its pretty redundant saying this since every morning & day is great weather wise – wall to wall sunshine and light winds.

The road was a bit hilly for the first 10 miles and busy. Interestingly the school girls weren’t all dressed up in white today and a lot more hijab’s about. The villages all looked much poorer and I when I stopped at 20 miles for breakfast in a bakery the roll was crawling with mites 🙁 I put it back and picked its neighbour 🙂

Drink and food shacks were few, far apart and poorly stocked 🙁 Still significant signs of war damage and all the bridges are brand new!

At 60 miles I saw a posh hotel/restaurant sign for “Giman Free” so I headed down towards the sea. Food was OK but very expensive, shudder to think how much it was to stay there but it didn’t appeal to me at all to be waited on by obsequious folks.

So I pressed on, the very rolling hills presented no problem to me, the bike is working very well especially for a 27 year old drivetrain 🙂 The road narrows down a bit so on at least 3 times I had to quickly dive into the verge to allow oncoming passing trucks to pass 🙁 at least it keeps me awake.

I booked into Hotel Senaro on booking.com which was a mistake as it was 7K out of town the opposite side 🙁 when I arrived the guy said it was fully booked. What a tosser! I left and trundled back towards town. The Peacock Vista looked interesting and has very reasonable rates plus they sell beer and food 🙂 So I’m ensconced in here for two nights so I can do the tourist bit and explore the ancient royal city with a cycling guide tomorrow 🙂

The 107 mile Strava is here

and a few pictures here