The Road To Dalhousie

While in Mumbai I'd been thinking of heading to Rajasthan after my trip to Chennai, and then catch my flight back home. Which was way different from my original plan which had been to go to Nepal and then head back to Delhi.

But in the end I decided to head to Sri Lanka instead - and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made...

India can be hard work and there's a lot of hassle. Yes - it's an amazing place to visit and there are some great things to see - but still - it can be very draining. Which was really the last thing I wanted before heading back to the UK.

And on reflection - I wasn't really ready to call it a day.

The other reason for going to Sri Lanka was to meet up with Jo and Brock. Jo was going to be there for three days before heading back home, and then Brock and I were going to travel for the rest of my trip.

One thing I've found a bit frustrating about travelling is the constant goodbyes - particularly when I've met people I've really hit it off with. Travelling alone has it's advantages - but it also has it's disadvantages - and the chance to travel with someone else for a while was very appealing.

So I booked a Kingfisher flight from Chennai to Colombo in Sri Lanka. Luckily for me - I got a free upgrade to first class...I was really wishing the flight could have lasted a bit longer :-)

Sri Lanka feels very different to India. It's clearly more developed, and is a lot easier to travel around. At the airport - there are so few of the hassles associated with arriving in a major city in India. And the other good thing: it's cheaper than India...

Jo and Brock were in the hill country and I'd arranged to meet them at Dalhousie so we could climb Adam's Peak. It took an hour on the bus to get into Colombo and I headed to the train station to see what the options were. I'd had no sleep on the train the night before, and the only train to Hatton left in the middle of the night.

So I headed to the bus station and found a bus that would make the five hour trip to Hatton from where another bus would take me to Dalhousie.

But while we were waiting to set off, smoke started to fill the bus and everybody raced off it in case it was on fire. So I decided that the best thing would be to find the YMCA (which has the cheapest rooms in town), get some sleep, and catch the morning train.

The next morning I jumped on the train to Hatton where I met Jo and Brock...I must say - it was great to see them again...after coffee and cakes, and a quick catch up, we caught the bus to Dalhousie...