Kandy by Train

Bible Rock 

I’m Finally Writing on the move, Kandy is the destination this time, This is One journey which have been on the side-line waiting to be written upon, However going to Kandy is an everyday journey, but this doesn’t let the beauty fade away!

I’m traveling by train the most preferred out of a few options, and if anyone would ask me what’s the Best way to get to Kandy I would most certainly say that it is by  train, The intercity train makes your ride faster in fact the fastest ways thus far, Oh I forgot about the Air taxi :P. You could start this Journey either early in the morning or late in the afternoon like I am right now, The First part of the journey is more about flat land, but not just any, some of them being cultivated with the Rice crop, it is an Ideal site to see to the Eyes of a perfectionist, for some reason or another I see a  field of rice crop brings in a lot of hard work, I see it every time along my journeys, let it be preparation or harvesting.

Amazing sites off the Foot board

Along this journey I meet a lot of travellers and I do get a chance to exchange views, one of them being they just loved traveling on the Foot board of the train, It never clicked me enough cause for me travelling on the foot board is more a norm than an extra ordinary act, however I do know its danger and believe it’s not for the faint hearted :P But let me encourage everyone to at least try it once! It doesn’t have to be by yourself though. I am encouraging you not because I want to make you into a stunt man/woman but only for you to experience the beauty of nature with no frame in the picture.

Alagala

Bouncing the way further into the mountains you begin to feel the unruly nature a little bit more, no mountain seem to look the same and the vegetation begins to change. This is the best part of traveling to Kandy on the train, This is the time I stand up and move to the footboard, but be aware a bridge might be on its way just like the one I passed right now, the bridges gives you sprouts of difference, every time you go on one of them, everything sounds different and if you look over your window you are sure to see a lovely river or creak flowing through two mountains, It’s simply amazing.

Roughly after passing the 3^rd or 4rth tunnel or Kadigamuwa to be more précised you got to be alert while the left stands out with roaring mountains the right(side) gives you a glimpse of how cool Sri lanka could be, Mountains next to each other the sun Brightly shining down at them, few seem to stand out, out of all the mountains(may be because I climbed them my self but) I am sure that no one would miss Bible rock or bathaleygala, a rectangle shaped mountain which looks just like sigiria this stands out while the rest make it look better, the whole picture is quite hard to explain but it is a full 180dgrees of pure awesomeness of it’s Creator, I hope I didn’t underwrite the left hand side of the journey lol, right after passing ihala kotte you got to look up on to your original left where you will see Alagala not lacking a bit of it’s Mightiness, A high mountain with scary cliff which might tempt you to ab-sail hehe,

This is one awesome Journey you all need to do, and now with “exporail” people with all comfort zones can take this trip.

The Train ride to kandy is simply amazing

Grand Tourer ;)

Galle Light House

So since I tend to drive fast(according to thathi) he thought of letting me drive on the Sothern Highway the first highway in sri lanka and the Joke is “Finially the SL highway Minister can call himself the highway minister-Nissanka”lol any way we started early in the morning and reached the entry point at 0646 hours, and Started our drive along the highway 110 kmph was my maximum(that’s all the car could handle hehe) so I was pretty happy the speed limit was 100kmph, so I drove along the highway at a constant speed of 100kmph overtaking a few conservative drivers who chose to drive not at the top speed, and to be overtaken by the others, The landscape is quite a nice mainly with Rubber plantations and paddy fields which were bisected by the construction of the highway, But honestly Driving along it is not as interesting as I thought as all what I did was shift gears from four to five and visa versa, but the good thing is you get to Gall in 1 hour and 1 min, in pretty good comfort, We soon arrived in gall and took the left turn towards Unawatuna, I was warned by Niru that       

                                                                Unawatuna was in a state of “unrests” However thathi and I  

                                                                decided it’s fine let’s just go check it out.

Jungle Beach Unawatuna 

                                                         

Snorkeling in Unawatuna

So we did and we soon managed to talk to a boat dude who talked of the Corals and fish out in the yonder, so we were pretty much taken by his words and there we boarded what was one of the most terrible journeys I’ve been on, Looking down at the bottom of the glass boat made me sick instantaneously, and by the time we got to the spot where we were supposed to snorkel I was dizzy and feeling the motion sickness, but I managed myself off the boat and into the water I grabbed a life jacket cause I  was that bad, and I managed to swim with a bit of fish but I couldn’t enjoy it much as wobbling on the waves didn’t help the cause either, so after snorkelling for a little while I swam back to the boat where I puked L, thathi didn’t find it easy as well, he too was battered up by the dizzy boat ride, we soon came back to the beach where I managed to rest my head under the warm sun, we both did but thathi got up after a little while grabbed the snorkels and went snorkelling closer to the beach he waved signs of good fish so after he was done I too went into the sea and started snorkelling, Wow it was truly amazing even though I would still rate Nilawelli as the best and would never forget the first with Nissanka, This was pretty good too I mean I saw quite a number of fish and I loved it. 

I was really hungry so was thathi so then we took off to have lunch there we saw the Jungle Beach having gone there before I knew it would be nice so we drove ourselves to the Jungle beach it was just us and a couple of tourists and had the whole beach to our selves, it was a nice experience. After which we went up to the temple which gives you a bird eye view of the Gall town we saw the Gall Fort in the distance and there we decided to go there as well, The buildings inside Fort was so nice specially the once which were refurbished, we walked along the rampart and there we had a “hello king coconut” or better known as Thambili hehe, which was so refreshing.

it was time to say Good bye to Gall thathi suggested that we take the normal route back to Colombo as the sea and the sunset would be nice, and I yes I was happy as the highway was quite a boring ride( but I loved it too ), any way the way back was so fast, and the gear shifts and all the revving up when overtaking is way more cooler than on the highway, even though I had two close calls with the cops :P, I was going over a double line and they saw, I got a bit freaked out but thank God they didn’t pull me over, any way  it was so fast that we even missed a bathing spot which we planned on, but luckily we didn’t miss the sea turtle farm in kosgoda, there we saw sea turtles being helped to survive in the smallest ways.

Sri Lankan sun set

The sun was setting it was a bright yellow at first so we decided to just pull over, and watch the sun set, I managed to find a comfortable rock with a back rest where I gazed out into the ocean waiting till the sun gets dipped down in the horizon, the sun was so bright yet so clear it changed from yellow, bright yellow, orange and finally red it was indeed a treat to watch the sun set, and when the sun did dip itself for the night, thathi said “I hope you would enjoy many sunsets with the one God has planned for you” hehe infact that’s pretty much it, I’ve been thinking too while I saw it set lol. Any way with that we started our way back to our car and started our drive back, Soon darkness set in and I had to use lights and it was terrible I saw dozens and dozens of silhouetted figures running about on the road it was so difficult to drive, specially the cycles which didn’t even had a reflectors. So I thought its best if I pull over and give the wheel to my father, so we did and soon found ourselves at home where we sipped into one of ammi’s tasty iced coffee.

Grand tourer ;)
15.12.11 with thathi 

Hiker's Paradise

Hiking in the Knuckles range is supposed to be heaven, and it is truly a hikers paradise, We hiked manin gala, this mountain is used to check the time by the locals in early days, We started climbing at around 9000hours  and we actually hiked the whole day, Getting to the top was a bit tough to all of us, but being at the top of the mountain was such great feeling, It was a clear day with a clear blue sky, but soon clouds took over not too much to take away the sunshine but it was one of those days which makes it great with any kind of weather, actually it was super!! We came to a stream where we took a well earned rest and there we had lunch, refreshed our selves and started climbing again hoping to reach mini worlds end before the light could fade off, and we did.

On top of  Mannin Galla

Hiking in Knuckles 

i have been to mini worlds end on number off times before but this time our guide took us to a corner where the wind from all over gets capped into a small channel and it shoots it self up, and it was a thriller of feeling the power of the wind right on you, Getting to that spot was a another challenge on its self, cuz we had to crawl our way there to reduce the surface area that is hit by the strong winds!

We didnt want to meet any herds of elephants whom were reported to have been roaming at dawn, so we quickly walked back to the place we were staying, it was a hike to remember totally loved it! and surly made me want more,