I spent a pleasant and relatively relaxing final twenty-four hours in Sri Lanka in the handy-for-the-airport coastal resort of Negombo, where I hardly left my mid-range hotel with its own pool and beachfront lawn for the whole time. I certainly played a blinder in making good my escape from Colombo on the quiet mid-morning Easter Sunday roads, leaving myself a twenty minute trip from Negombo to the airport rather than a two hour dash out of the city centre in the frenetic Monday morning rush hour.

As I lay on my sun-lounger, I reflected on my Sri Lankan holiday and, unable to decide how much I had enjoyed it, and whether or not I would be inclined to come again, I decided to follow the modern journalistic custom and reduce the thing to a list. Hence here are twelve things I loved, or hated, or, in some cases both, about Sri Lanka.

1 The weather: beautiful to look at from inside an air-conditioned building; tolerable with a stiff sea breeze; stiflingly unpleasant and debilitatingly energy-sapping in all other circumstances. This one's a draw I think.

2 They speak English here – except they don't, generally. Given that it is one of the official languages of the country, and it seems to be used for most official business, most signs (on the front of shops and restaurants for example), and a significant proportion of the newspapers, it is really remarkable how few Sri Lankans appear actually to speak English, or even understand more than the odd phrase. I'm not saying, in any sort of imperialist way, they should do so, just that I had, in my ignorance, expected they would. I can only conclude that English is more widely spoken in the professional classes, but amongst the Sri Lankans with whom I came into more frequent contact - tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, waiters and shop workers for example - not so much. The situation wouldn't be quite so bad if it wasn't for the fact that (a) most Sri Lankans (particularly tuk-tuk drivers) think their English is better than it is, and get frustrated when you can't understand them, and (b) when they don't understand you, they generally just agree with you rather than saying they don't understand, which is often counter-productive.

3 Early mornings. I thought it was jetlag initially, but it continued throughout my two-and-a-half weeks in Sri Lanka: I was never able to sleep much beyond 6am. In Unawatuna it was a regular early morning sweeping session outside my room (see below) that did it. In Kandy it was the local stray dog population and in Colombo it was the traffic (I assume the Sri Lankan Highway Code doesn't feature the bit about not using the horn between 11pm and 7am in built-up areas. On second thoughts, it seems quite unlikely that there is such a thing as a Sri Lankan Highway Code at all). In Negombo there was no earthly reason why I should wake so early, but I still did. On the negative side, this, in conjunction with the heat, meant I was exhausted for pretty much the whole time I was there. On the positive side, however, it's easy when on holiday to fritter away the mornings with a long lie-in and before you know it half the day is gone. No part of the day is wasted in Sri Lanka.

4 Sweeping – it was the downfall of several English batsmen at Galle. The Sri Lankan batsmen seem rather better at it, which is not surprising because sweeping appears to be a national obsession. Everywhere you go you see people wielding brooms. They'll sweep a pavement, a doorstep, a floor, or even just a dirt path. Whether they achieve anything other than stirring up the dust a bit more and making the atmosphere a little bit more unpleasant, I'm not sure, but Sri Lankans seem to love sweeping, and I find a certain charm to it. Where most cricket grounds around the world would have a man with a big broom to come out and sweep the creases in the drinks interval, in Colombo they had two sari-clad women with dustpans and brushes who never failed to raise cheers from the Barmy Army.





5 Tuk-tuks. Everyone who visits Sri Lanka should take a ride in a tuk-tuk, possibly, in order to get a proper feel for the thing, they should take two or three. But I would recommend stopping there. I probably took about thirty and by the end I was thoroughly fed up with them. I don't know what annoyed me most. It wasn't the fact that most of them were death-traps, driven by maniacs with no apparent instinct for self-preservation and that you were taking your life in your hands every time you climbed into one. That I actually found relatively easy to get used to. In fact now that I come to think of it, I don't have much of a beef with the vehicles themselves. The drivers, though, are another matter. There are a few exceptions, probably amounting, on the basis of my sample, to about twenty per cent, but most of them are crooks. They try to charge exorbitant prices, and plead extreme poverty when you try to negotiate down to something even remotely reasonable. Poor, by our standards, they undoubtedly are, but there are many in Sri Lanka who are poorer. Often they try (and occasionally, despite your protestations, succeed) to take you to a a completely different place to where you asked to go, because, presumably, they get a commission for every tourist they deliver to the alternative destination. Sometimes they would fall back on the language problem as an excuse; at other times, they showed no remorse.

6 The conversation of tuk-tuk and taxi drivers always followed the same script.
“Where are you from?”
“Here for the cricket?”
“Are you married?”
Every time! Every single time: “Are you married?” And every time they were completely unable to grasp the concept of a man in his thirties not being married. I guess it is a cultural thing but by the seventh occurrence I found it quite annoying. In the end I had to invent a girlfriend back in England, and eventually I had to turn her into a wife, just to stop them trying to set me up with some “nice Sri Lankan girls”.

7 I don't pretend to understand economics. I particularly don't pretend to understand the Sri Lankan economy. And while it's great that you can travel halfway across the country by train for a couple of quid (or by chauffeur driven car for fifty), send a postcard to the other side of the world for twelve pence, buy lunch in a decent restaurant for a fiver or in a more than decent one for a tenner, or buy a pair of Calvin Klein pants (should the fancy take you) for £4.20, it still doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that the monthly salary of a chartered accountant (according to a chap I meet on Unawatuna beach who was training to be one) is only £200, which is about what it will cost you to spend a night in a five-star hotel, while a brand new Toyota Avensis costs the equivalent of £25,000.

8 The wildlife: Sri Lankans, of necessity perhaps, seem more adept at cohabiting with their fellow creatures, and there's a less clear division between the inside and the outside than I am used to (they can get away with it in their climate). So, at the guest house in Unawatuna, they think nothing of the monkeys swinging through the trees in the garden (and at times making a frightful racket) or of the lizards climbing the (internal) walls. And while my room there had few windows, it had lots of grilles and gratings and what can only be described as gaps to let the fresh air (and, on the down side, mosquitoes) in. And at my guest house in Kandy, it was apparently quite common for a frog to hop across the living room floor, and they occasionally played host to larger mammal visitors. And then there was the monitor lizard ambling around the boundary at the Galle test match, and of course all those elephants. Sadly I didn't get to Yala National Park to see the leopards, or to the turtle hatcheries on the south coast, but I think I saw my share of Sri Lankan wildlife nonetheless.

9 Landscapes. Unawatuna beach may have been voted one of the most beautiful in the world, and who am I to contradict the mysterious electors who have reached this conclusion? But it is annoying that so much development (and when I say development, I'm mainly talking bars and restaurants of the wooden shack variety) has taken place right up to the high water mark that there's actually very little beach left to be beautiful. The scenery in the Hill Country, however, is unrelentingly splendid. As long as you like tea, of course.

10 Health and safety, This, as a concept, does not really exist in Sri Lanka. Most of the things that happen in Sri Lanka and make it what it is, would not be possible in the “developed” world due to health and safety legislation. Tuk tuks, for example, quite apart from the way they are driven and the fumes they expose you to, have no physical barrier to prevent you falling out. Similarly trains and buses habitually drive around with their doors open and people hop on and off while they're in motion. Railway lines are completely accessible and people use them as footpaths (it is, after all, a very good way to avoid getting lost). Few of the roads have footpaths; instead they often have deep open drainage channels running alongside them, and it's hard to know whether the most hazardous in the dark are the ones with no covers over them at all, or the ones that are largely covered with concrete slabs, but have the odd one missing. If Galle Fort was in Europe, I am sure they would by now have installed a hand rail around the ramparts. It was also interesting to see electrical cables running along the bottom of the drainage channel around the perimeter of the cricket ground in Colombo which were, consequently, submerged in water. Strangely I never saw anyone killed or injured as a result of any of these things. This sign in Galle may have been paying lip service, but I don't know what the sign stuck on top of it says!



11 Trains. I make no secret of the fact that I am a fan of trains, and the experience of taking the slow train from Ella to Kandy has done nothing to diminish my enthusiasm. It was frustrating, though, that I couldn't take the train from Colombo down to Galle (it couldn't have been worse than the bus journey) and that I couldn't have travelled by rail from Kandy back to Colombo without missing out on a trip to the elephant orphanage. Train travel in Sri Lanka may not be luxurious, but it sure beats travelling by road.

12 Food
My first Sri Lankan breakfast at the Colombo Haven was amazing, and the ones at the Strand were pretty good too, but unfortunately these weren't matched anywhere else, and weren't available to me when I returned to Colombo for a longer stagy. I developed a liking for Sri Lankan curries, approving of their dairy-free constitution, and although there are a few candidates for best Sri Lankan curry of the trip, the prize goes to Shini in Kandy. An interesting phenomenon was that while the five star hotels charged “international” rates for their rooms, their restaurants were much close to “local” prices. On three occasions I dined in one of these restaurants, and every time got a very good meal for between £10-15. I have never tasted pineapple or papaya like the ones in Sri Lanka (in fact, I've not tasted that much papaya at all, which I have made a mental note to rectify). I liked the fact that there were men walking around the cricket grounds carrying bowls of pinapples on their heads, and gave them my custom on a daily basis. And I discovered the delicious (and apparently very nutritious) drink they call King Coconut. Less good was the fact that you often had no way of knowing what it was you were eating, due to the language issues (see above). And another problem was that so much of the stuff was so nice, there was a real danger of overeating.



So having mulled all of that over, would I return to Sri Lanka. I think that I would, but I'm afraid I would have to impose certain conditions. It would only be cricket, of course, that would bring me back, and there would have to be a test in Kandy and one in Galle, so that I could avoid a long stay in Colombo. It would have to be in December or January when the weather, reportedly, is more bearable. And I would have to be considerably richer so that I could afford a driver for the duration (thus avoiding tuk-tuks), and get someone else to sort out the cricket tickets. I'm not sure I could handle India though, if, as I suspect, it is a bit like Sri Lanka but more intense.

Finally, I must say that the friends I made both amongst fellow English travellers, and Sri Lankan hosts made this trip much more enjoyable than it would otherwise have been, and I thank them all.

I tried very hard to like Colombo, I really did. I gave it a second and a third chance to correct my initial impression that it is the most unpleasant city I have ever visited. But I can only conclude that my first impression was correct. If it's not the heat and the humidity that gets you down, then it will be the dust, or the stink of the open sewers. Or, if not those, then the insanity on the roads: the tuk-tuks which are no more than lawnmowers with ideas above their station and drivers whose aim in life is to swindle as much money out of you as possible. And even if you are able to take all this in your stride, the resulting noise and fumes will suffocate you into submission. Galle and Kandy had these things too, but not to quite the same degree. And, besides, Galle and Kandy had many things to recommend them, to offset these annoyances.

Colombo had nothing to recommend it, unless you happened to be staying in one of the very nice five-star hotels, other than the fact that the second test match of the series between Sri Lanka and England was taking place there. That said, my accommodation in Colombo was excellent value. It was a penthouse apartment on top of an office building with air-conditioning and rudimentary cooking facilities. The roof terrace had views of the sea and of the city, and was also home to a tortoise called Terence who seemed to live behind the condenser unit.





In any sensible climate, it would have been within walking distance of most of the parts of the city you might want to visit. Unfortunately, in the exhausting heat and humidity of Colombo, “walking distance” is much shorter and so everything was a tuk-tuk ride away. By the end, I had had enough of tuk-tuks.

Fortunately, the test match turned out to be one of the most enthralling I have witnessed in my overseas travels. This, and the fact that it ended in an England win, made it worth putting up with the inconvenience of being in Colombo and the discomfort of the ridiculous weather conditions to be able to watch it live. Apparently the weather at the moment is extreme even by Sri Lankan standards. The cooling sea breeze that had moderated conditions somewhat in Galle was not so much in evidence in Colombo. Some electric fans had appeared underneath the temporary canopies at the cricket ground, that had not been there in Galle, but this was no more than a gesture. It was a draining experience watching cricket while being slowly baked in a moderate oven. I desperately sought the shade whenever possible. How the large numbers of England fans who stood, sat, or lay out in the sun all day avoided melting, I cannot comprehend. How the players were able to exert themselves for six and a half hours each day, I will not even begin to try to explain.

The decision to stage the test at a ground no larger than most county headquarters proved to be not as disastrous as it might have been. The ground was bulging at the seams, but as far as I know everyone who tried to get a ticket was able to, and there was certainly plenty of atmosphere. The ground was located in the middle of a particularly insalubrious residential area with no shortage of beggars, foul-smelling waterways, and ramshackle constructions that passed for houses right outside. But the ground itself, other than the fact that, as with most things Sri Lankan, it could have done with a good clean and tidy up, was a bearable place to watch cricket. Anderson's sublime opening spell; Swann's persistence and roaring celebrations; Strauss's, Trott's and most of all Cook's patience; Pietersen's disdain; and a bit of a Barmy Army singalong; all made the suffering worthwhile.

For the first four days I was sitting under the temporary canopies, right in front of the hard core Barmy Army. And although I still get annoyed by their more inane and football-inspired chants, they won me over in the end, particularly with their Matty Prior song (to the tune of “Ring of Fire”), and their Tim Bres-naan song (to the tune of Mary Hopkins' “Those Were The Days”). I found myself joining in with their twice-daily renditions of “Jerusalem” (at the start of play, and immediately after tea, usually drawing a round of applause from Andrew Strauss and some of the other England players), and, occasionally, the odd round of “Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy. Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson”.



On the final day I was in another part of the ground with a slightly better view, but further from the Army, which I even found myself missing at times.



And when it was all over there was the novelty of a good old-fashioned pitch invasion. When Pietersen hit the winning six, a few England fans ran on to the pitch to celebrate. Nobody, including the massed ranks of police, tried to stop them, so pretty much all the other spectators followed.

The scheduling of the test matches left me just three days in which to explore the interior of Sri Lanka, so I hired a car and driver (which is what you do here: car with driver doesn't cost much more than car alone, and gives you a slightly better chance of living to tell the tale) and early on Saturday morning we left Unawatuna. The car proved to be comfortable and air-conditioned, and the driver competent and the first couple of hours took us along the south coast road to the east, past the place where the famous Sri Lankan stilt fishermen would have been had they been there, which they weren't: their stilts were there, but no fishermen. Then we turned inland, past some impressive (and costly) looking infrastructure projects, and into the Hill Country. We stopped on the way to take in the amazing rock-carved Buddhas at Buduruwagala, and to survey a waterfall or two.



In the early afternoon, well ahead of schedule, we arrived at my initial destination, a town which shares a name with my maternal grandmother (and the daughter of a friend of mine).



Apart from having stunning scenery all around and a generally relaxing atmosphere, the major attraction of Ella, in common with much of the Hill Country, was the noticeable reduction in temperature compared to the baking coast. It was still hot, mind you, but English-summer's-day hot rather than unbearably hot.

Hot enough, though, for me to work up a sweat climbing the easiest of the nearby hills, Little Adam's Peak, the view from the top of which, just before the mist rolled in, looked something like this:



I returned to my hotel to enjoy a fine Sri Lankan curry (the devilled aubergines being a particular feature) and my first hot shower in a week.

The next morning I caught the 0947 train from Ella to Kandy (change at Peradeniya Junction at 1622 to arrive Kandy 1656). I had wanted to travel first class (which would have cost the equivalent of about £3 for the 9-hour trip!) but you have to book this in advance and when I tried to do so on arrival at the station the previous day, the station master did not even attempt to conceal his mirth that someone should think such a thing was possible. So, second-class it was (which cost about £1.20!).

Entering Ella station was like being transported back to colonial times. First of all the station building looked more like a country cottage than a railway station.



It had an old-fashioned ticket office, issuing old-fashioned tickets, which were punched in the old-fashioned way on entering the platform, and was adorned with all sorts of notices such as this one showing the arrangement of carriages in my train:



Quaint little hill country station it may have been, but when the train arrived the platform was as packed as Bristol Parkway at 8 o'clock on a weekday morning, and the scramble for seats once we boarded was of a similar nature also. There was a good number of England cricket fans who had shared my idea of a brief escape to the hill country, but there were also quite a lot of Germans and the odd American.



I was fortunate to get a seat and I have to report that it was at least as comfortable as the seats on a Cross-Country train in the UK. I was also fortunate that the seat I had, although not a window seat, was on the right-hand side of the train. The line was cut into the hillside for most of its length with the result that while the left hand side looked straight at a sheer rock-face, the right hand side gazed over a precipice at dramatic views of rice fields and little villages. And tea: acres and acres and acres and acres of tea plantations, all laid out in neat little rows on the hillside, giving the appearance of terracing, which for some reason brought to mind Incas. I think I can safely say that I have seen sufficient tea plantations to last me a lifetime.

I had been recommended a guest house in Kandy by Paul and Joanne, whom I had met in the guesthouse in Unawatuna, and it fully lived up to the glowing testimonial they gave it. For starters there was the view:



Then there were the friendly hosts Chris and Shini; the cooking (best curry in Sri Lanka to date) and a very comfortable room.

My stay in Kandy was, of necessity, all too brief; I had to return to Colombo for the start of the test match on the Tuesday, and in the meantime, I had an appointment with some elephants. I had time for a quick look around Kandy, and I wish that the test match had been played there (they have a perfectly adequate international ground) rather than in Colombo, because I think I would have rather liked spending a week there. They have a big lake right in the middle of the city, which is always a good way to start when planning a town, I feel.



They also have the "Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic" (or "Tooth of Temple" as my driver referred to it), which celebrates the fact that it allegedly contains the remains of part of one of the Buddha's teeth. For some reason, which I fear is grossly disrespectful of the religion, I found this quite amusing.

I then headed off, with a new driver - this one rather more recalcitrant than the previous one, and with a less comfortable and non-air-conditioned vehicle - towards Colombo, stopping at the Pinewalla Elephant Orphanage to see the elephants head down to the river for their daily bath...



... wallow for a bit...



... and then head back again.



Here's a picture of me with my new pachiderm friend.



I will not dwell on the hair-raising, uncomfortable and long journey from Pinnewalla to Colombo, suffice to say that I survived it. I was more concerned about the fact that I did not have any tickets for the Colombo test, and the Sri Lankan authorities had decided to stage it not at one of the two state-of-the-art 20,000 capacity stadia in Columbo, but at a small old ground that hadn't hosted a test for years and which would not be capable of accommodating the number of England fans that had turned up in Galle. An early start would be requierd on Tuesday morning to get sufficiently close to the front of the ticket queue.

I'm afraid that some of my fellow English cricket fans are starting to annoy me. Not all of them, of course: there was a very friendly and intelligent little group staying at the guesthouse in Unawatuna, with one or more of whose number I have shared pleasant breakfast-time chat, days at the cricket, tuk-tuk rides and the odd dinner. I was even persuaded by a couple of them to put in a brief appearance at a Barmy Army party which was taking place about fifty yards away. I was in two minds about this, but then I learned via Twitter that Jonathan Agnew was going to be there and this sealed the deal, although it turned out that his appearance was even briefer than mine, and I didn't get an opportunity to pick up an acquaintanceship started outside an aeroplane toilet five years ago.



The ones that are annoying me are the ones who are still moaning about the price of the tickets to the test match (I mean, have they not got over that yet?!); those who decided (whether or not by way of some sort of protest against the ticket prices) to watch the match from the ramparts of the fort, and then thoughtlessly left that lovely edifice strewn with their litter; and those who (and perhaps the previous offence is just another manifestation of this) treat their hosts with a lack of respect that borders on racism.



There was, however, about the Galle test match, much about which to moan, should one be so inclined. It seems to me, when privileged to be a visitor to this beautiful but troubled country, churlish to do so, but there was no shortage of material for the moaners to get their teeth into. I will not dwell on the ticket fiasco except to remark on the irony of the fact that after all the furore there had been, there was no-one actually checking tickets on the gates when the England fans started to arrive on the first day. Many walked in without paying, and many more could have done so.

This situation was rectified later on in the day, by the second day a pass-out system was also in operation to prevent used tickets being recycled by way of the perimeter fence, and by the third there was even some sort of effort to make people sit in the correct part of the ground. Which part of the ground was the correct part for any given ticket appeared to vary depending on which gate man you spoke to, and the system was easily overcome by a firm manner and an air of confidence. Consequently, while confined on the first day to an stifling temporary canopy area, on the subsequent days I joined a couple of my fellow guesthouse residents, who had staked out a position with a better view and a cooling breeze on the top deck of a stand to the left of the pavilion.

The foodstalls had no food until just after lunch on the first day (although after a dubious chicken sausage on that first day, I sought my lunches outside the ground thereafter), and the beer, I am told, ran out at one stage (although in fairness it is easy to see why any ground authority might underestimate how much of that eight thousand England fans might drink).

On the first day, a blast of loud, bass-heavy, music issued, at the fall of every wicket and the striking of every boundary, from speakers directed towards the crowd like the canons of the fort. The DJ, and the ground authorities, appeared to be under the impression it was a Twenty20 match and the English five-day aficionados were unimpressed. There was also a live band, consisting of two trumpeters, two drummers and a cymbalist, who made the most unmusical noise that it is possible to imagine being generated with those utensils. The English initially raised an ironic cheer whenever the band paused between songs, but when the band failed to take the hint, they resorted to unambiguous booing. But the band played on and appeared to relish the animosity. After the first day, the DJ was more restrained and confined himself to playing out during the intervals, but the band continued undeterred until their countrymen had completed their victory.



Although, as I said before, I don't object nearly as much as most seem to, to paying 5,000 rupees per day for tickets, it's undeniable the Sri Lankan cricket has not made any friends amongst the England fans and many will not come here again to watch cricket. It is ironic that, unlike on English grounds, the food and drink were not unreasonably priced and souvenirs and programmes were almost unobtainable (they were on sale, but you really had to seek them out if you wanted them). It would have been possible, I think, to extract just as much money from the English fans, and yet retain more goodwill, by reducing the ticket prices, but increasing the prices of food and drink and providing more opportunities for the English to spend their money inside the ground.

The game itself was quite enthralling and worth putting up with the less-comfortable-than-I'm-used-to conditions to see. England, as is their wont this winter, bowled well and batted poorly, but they seemed at one stage to be giving themselves an outside chance of a successful run chase. My companions and I counted down the target, ticking off the primes and square numbers to relieve the tension. But it wasn't to be. England made too many mistakes and deserved to come second.



The match nearly had an incident of “lizard stopped play”, but sadly the reptilian spectator stayed beyond the boundary.



Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with Galle Fort. It reminds me, in some ways, of Dubrovnik. It is similarly well-preserved, has the same opportunities to get lost and come upon a new surprise around every corner, and the ramparts are a great vantage point from which to watch a sublime sunset.



Unawatuna is pretty good too, although its visual beauty is somewhat marred by the ubiquitous stench of petrol fumes wafting over from the nearby road. This was particularly bad during the aforementioned Barmy Army party when dozens of tuk-tuks descended on the place, coughing out fumes that seemed to hang in the air for hours.

Actually riding in a tuk-tuk is an even better way to inhale lungfuls of choking traffic fumes. It might also serve as a convenient way to induce an adrenaline rush should a suitable roller-coaster not be available. As a means of moving safely and securely from point A to point B, however, I am not convinced.

As is my usual policy, I got my postcard-sending out of the way early so that there is an outside chance the postcards might beat me back to the UK. Most of them I posted at the same place I bought stamps (25 rupees = 12.5 pence each, incidentally): the post office in the fort which claims to be the oldest in Sri Lanka. But I had one other which I took to another post office in Galle new town, where I was presented with a dilemma.



Of course, I chose the red one, but whether this was the correct answer, time will tell.

I have now left Galle and headed, literally, for the hills. But in Galle, alongside the test ground, the young cricketers of Sri Lanka play on.



Random picture of fishing boats that I liked:

Time works in a peculiar way here in the Tropics. I've been in Sri Lanka not much more than forty-eight hours, so it was less than three days ago, as the crow flies, that I was sitting in a traffic jam on the M4 in my already-late National Express coach realising how foolish I had been to allow only an hour's margin for error when planning a rush-hour road trip from Bristol to Heathrow.

That jam soon cleared, I made the flight quite comfortably in the end, and I must have slept more than I normally do on aeroplanes because it didn't seem long before we were on the ground in the Maldives where the surly Frenchman who had until then been my neighbour, was replaced by a chirpy Sri Lankan travel tycoon for the short onward hop to Colombo. We arrived there half an hour early and was I able to swiftly complete my exchange of currency and purchase of local SIM before hooking up with my pre-arranged driver to take me into Colombo.

So far, so good. But that hour or so's ride from the airport was not so much an eye-opener as a case of reach in a yank your eyeballs out from their sockets. It was my first experience of the sub-continent and my senses were taking it in faster than my brain could process it. Most of my brain was occupied with being completely terrified by the way Sri Lankans drive. It involves much overtaking into oncoming traffic, much urgent tooting of horns and olympic standard games of chicken on a continuous basis. I suppose when you look at it, the philosophy that if someone has gone to the trouble of laying all this tarmac, I'm going to use every inch of it as and when I require, is not a bad one. And the whole thing just about works because at that crucial final split-second, everyone gets out of everyone else's way. You just don't think they're going to.(It is important to keep reminding oneself of this fact when attempting to cross a Colombo road as a pedestrian – the deal seems to be that anyone on the first half of a zebra crossing is fair game; once you reach the middle traffic will stop to allow you to get the rest of the way.)

The road all the way in from the airport to the centre of town was a seething mass of cars, vans, tuk-tuks (of which more later, or in a future post), scooters, push-bikes, pedestians, dogs, cows and other assorted fauna. Closer into Colombo there was the odd traffic light and traffic policemen to try to bring some semblance of order, but these seemed to be largely ignored.

My guesthouse called itself the “Colombo Haven” and it truly was an oasis of peace in the middle of a noisy, smelly city. And the Sri-Lankan breakfast of fish curry, dhal, coconut-milk based pancakes and fresh fruit, was delicious. That first evening I took a short walk (a short walk is all you can manage when suddenly dumped from a British springtime into a sweltering Sri Lankan fug) up to Galle Face Green where the people of Colombo come to sit and gaze out to sea and buy kites and inflatable animals of every species. There was a very posh hotel next to it, which had a reasonably priced and tasty buffet in its terrace restaurant where a sea breeze took the edge off the humidity and a group of acoustic guitarists interchanged Simon and Garfunkel covers with what I assumed to be Sri Lankan favourites. It was at that point that I decided I might come to like this country.

I wasn't so sure the next morning, when the rumours that the railway line down to Galle was closed turned out to be true, and I found myself on a small, cramped, uncomfortable and daringly driven but, mercifully air-conditioned, bus for the four-hours it takes to get from Colombo to Galle when everybody with a remote interest in cricket is trying to do the same thing and there are roadworks halfway down.

It was while on this bus that I got, via Jonathan Agnew's twitter feed, the first news of the Great Sri Lankan Ticket Price Swindle which was to unravel over the subsequent twenty-four hours, ending in my having to queue twice (once to get a ticket to enable me to buy a ticket, and again to get the ticket itself), benefit from a great act of kindness from one of the people I met in my guesthouse, patronise a dodgy money-lender in order to get the rupees I required after all the cash machines in Galle had apparently been cleaned out by England fans who got there before me, and, finally secure tickets to days one and two.

The Sri Lankan cricket board had decided to hike the prices up by a factor of ten from what they charged for the series against Australia last year. Many English fans were objecting to paying what was still, compared to UK prices, a snip (the equivalent of £25 per day). There were rumours of a two-tier pricing structure allowing locals to get in considerably cheaper. The Sri Lankan Cricket Board denied this and whether there is any substance in it remains to be seen. My view is that, post-Tsunami, the Sri Lankan economy in general, and Sri Lankan cricket in particular, is in need of an injection of cash and, if the money goes to the right places, I don't think a Brit who has been able to afford a £700 plane ticket and two weeks' accommodation has much cause to object to paying £250 for ten days' test cricket (assuming both games go the full length).



The cricket ground in Galle is famously just outside the walls of the seventeenth century Dutch fort which contains the old city. As recommended by the guidebooks, I wandered the fort's narrow streets aimlessly on two occasions and allowed serendipity to do its work. And I had a wonderful time. On Saturday I lunched in an intriguing little cafe at the next table from an England fan who lived in Borneo and worked there as an underwater photographer. I suppose somebody has to. On Sunday the cafe I had lunch at was, itself, called Serendipity. When I entered there was only one other person in it eating. I thought she was another customer, but she turned out to be the owner who is an Englishwoman who married a Sri Lankan and is famous (in journalistic and travel-writing circles) for her coverage of the Tsunami and subsequent guidebooks to the island. It was fascinating talking to her and glancing through her books.





I am staying a short tuk-tuk ride away from Galle in the beach resort of Unawatuna, which is a world away from the hustle and bustle of Colombo and Galle city centres (even if the music from the beach bars is sometimes a little loud and goes on a little late). The guesthouse is an ancestral Sri Lankan family home with a charming host and a nice selection of other guests. Rebuit since the Tsunami, it's built for airiness rather than acoustic insulation and security, but the mosquito net on the bed seems to be effective. I left organising my accommodation a bit late and had tried several other places first. I can't remember whether I knew that my bathroom had no hot water, but when I was reminded I was a little uneasy about the morning's cold shower. But it turns out that after a sweaty tropical night it is the most refreshing thing imaginable.

...and the 1209 Cross-Country service from Edinburgh Waverley to Bristol Temple Meads

And so home once more, and all I want to say is that Scotland is very nice, and travelling by train allows you to appreciate the distances involved and to enjoy the landscape, but when all is said and done, ten hours is a very long time to spend in a train.

I can report that the Far North line is just as good in the opposite direction, indeed perhaps the gradually descending twilight as you approach Inverness adds something to the experience. Our stay in Inverness was less than twelve hours long, but from a brief night-time stroll around the centre it seems a pleasant enough place. It's built on a wide stretch of river, which is always a good start when planning a city. There are plenty of interesting bridges and pretty riverside illuminations.

...and the 1038 First ScotRail service from Inverness to Wick

Disembarking at the stone barn that is Wick station you feel like you are arriving at the interchange for the end of the world.





But it turns out that the end of the world is a not unpleasant place to spend twenty-four hours or so and the four-hour journey to get there from the nearest city of significance is a delight. The line – a single track for most of the way – follows water for a large proportion of the route. The sea laps at the wheels for a long stretch and there are miles of white sandy beaches and the occasional basking seal. Elsewhere there are views across the brooding Dornorch Firth to the pine forested hills beyond. Occasionally an energetic, winding, tumbling river comes to meet the tracks, the water seeming to be racing the train to its destination. In between there are miles of bleak rocky undulations. And sheep. Lots of sheep. Stations come and go infrequently; most of them are request stops and some barely have proper platforms, just a gravel-topped mound up to the level of the doors.

The train performs possibly the longest three-point turn in the world, reversing a few miles out of Thurso and back to Georgemas Junction before continuing on the final leg to Wick, where the ticket-office keeps very precise hours.





Wick was once a town of some significance and opulence. It now seems, in the town centre at least, somewhat down-at-heal, though whether this is more due to the decline of the herring industry which was once its mainstay, or to the effect of the new out-of-town Tesco on the road to Thurso is not clear. Aside from herring, Wick's other claim to fame is the shortest street in the world which measures approximately 2.6 metres in length and is one of the most ridiculous concepts I have come across. The hotel which bears the street's only address, however, served up a very good evening meal with friendly Scottish hospitality.

A mile or so to the south is one of numerous castles in the area that date back to Viking times. The Castle of Old Wick is dramatically located atop an isolated cliff with sheer drops to the black water below. A very good defensive position, I would have thought.



Nearby, we stumbled across something that didn't really fit in with the rest of the landscape.



The bus to John O'Groats takes about half-an-hour and, as the guide-book leads one to expect there is not much there. This, too, looks like somewhere that has seen better days, though quite what has happened to make the bottom drop out of the being-at-the-other-end-of-the-British-mainland-to-Land's-End industry I am not sure, unless it is just an indicator of general economic malaise.



There are a number of retail units, most of which are empty; there is a hotel, which is empty and has been turned into an art installation pending redevelopment.



There is even a half-built building whose money clearly ran out and is now fighting a losing battle with the weeds.



But ignore all of these man-made eyesores and gaze out to sea, towards the Orkneys. Hike the forty-minute path to Duncansby Head – the very north-eastermost point – in the miraculous sunshine, and the visit to John O'Groats feels worthwhile after all.



While I was doing this, Amit joined a conference call with the MD of an Italian telecoms company.



Sadly I didn't have enough time before the train back to Inverness left to fully enjoy the delights of the Wick Heritage Centre. I suppose in a town whose best days are behind it, you would expect a certain amount of effort to be devoted to preserving past glories, but the curators of this collection have excelled themselves. One of the most amazing things is its size. If the museums in London were a similar size relative to their town, they would surely extend across several boroughs.

Amit said that it would be “immoral” if we let a day pass on this trip without travelling by train, so before heading off into the hills for our not-too-taxing walk, we did our bit to assist the conservation efforts of the Strathspey Steam Railway and took their train to the end of the restored line and back. Broomhill station was also labelled as “Glenbogle” because it is used in the filming of “Monarch of the Glen”. This momentous news was completely lost on Amit and me because I think we had only ever watched a total of ten minutes of the programme between us.

On returning to Aviemore we took a bus to Glenmore and went for a four hour walk in the forest. Amit, misled by the early morning sunshine, dressed over-optimistically and was trouble by both rain and midges. I found that if you kept moving, the insects seemed unable to catch up with you. It was only when you stood still for thirty seconds or more that they swarmed in on you. We passed a green-coloured loch where allegedly (and I personally give this story little credence) the fairies come to do their laundry. Just above the tree-line we came upon a “bothy” which seemed to be a Scottish equivalent of New Zealand's excellent network of trampers' huts. This one was what an estate agent would have described as in need of attention. It was a stone-built two-bunker which had seen better days and whose toilet consisted of a spade. Its only redeeming feature was that it was tastefully decorated in a railway-related theme. I was grateful we didn't have to spend a night there. Amit wrote something in the visitors' book that will have future visitors questioning his sanity and we returned to the visitors' centre, which, unusually, as Amit remarked, for information centres, was full of interesting information. Specifically, information on pine martens, red squirrels and fluorescent mushrooms.

The train, barely half full, crossed the famous Forth Bridge and initially hugged the north shore of the Firth of the same name, then passed through gradually more Scottish-looking scenery: hillier, craggier and with more sheep. The Leisure Society and then Elbow provided my soundtrack, the writing of postcards my occupation, and the three hour journey flew by.

Lonely Planet describes Aviemore Youth Hostel as spacious and well-equipped. It was certainly the former, and in many ways also the latter, but I had issues with the showers. The ones I tried were both of the push-button variety designed to save water by denying the showerer a continuous flow. But the water pressure was such that they wasted more water when they were on than a well-regulated shower would have saved when it wasn't. The first one only operated for about three seconds on each press of the button while the second went for a more sensible fifteen seconds or so, but its flow temperature varied throughout each cycle in a sine wave, peaking at comfortably warm and troughing at icy. By the end of the shower I had perfected a hokey-cokey inspired manouvre to avoid excessive discomfort.

Aviemore itself is one of those linear places, where no-one dares to build anything a greater distance from the main drag than they can heft a walking-boot. The Youth Hostel is at one end. We walked to the other in a persistent rain shower and found the site where they are building a new primary school which looks like it will be the largest primary school in the country. We also found a bijou Tesco, and a tiny Waterstones. The Kiwi-run Mountain Cafe was every bit as good as the guidebook said it was when we went there for breakfast on Wednesday. So much so that we returned before our departure on Thursday morning. The Cairngorm Hotel provided an excellent dinner on Wednesday evening, with a real live piper playing outside in the garden, sheltering under a table umbrella from the ubiquitous rain.

A path alongside the hostel led to a tunnel under the main road, beyond which there was a nature reserve which provided a pleasant forty minute walk before dinner and introduced us to the fluorescent highland mushroom (probably not its real name).