Author: Rob Ainsley

A short day today, entering the flat, green Northern Province (pic). Until 16 Jan this year, you needed a permit from the Ministry of Defence in Colombo to enter. I queued up there to get mine, and two days later they abolished them. The checkpoints are still there, but the army officers now spend the…

A pleasant, easy day on the bike, exploring Anuradhapura’s extensive ancient ruined sacred city, dagobas and stupas. I wasn’t sure what a dagoba was, but here is one (pic). When this was built, about 1200 years ago, only two Egyptian pyramids were bigger. I’m still not entirely sure what it is, but it’s solid, and…

Another pre-dawn start, as I slipped through cool dark forest roads, accompanied by the remarkably diatonic calls of Sri Lanka’s melodious birds. This is the sort of twitter feed I like. And it wasn’t just the birdsong that proved I wasn’t in Britain: it may have been the A9, but you don’t get road signs…

Sigiriya is Sri Lanka’s big-ticket tourist attraction, its equivalent of both Australia’s Uluru (being a rocky outcrop of national identity) and Peru’s Macchu Picchu (being a ruined hilltop capital). It towers over the forested plains (pic) with a breathtaking, almost arrogant, size – just like the admission fee. There’s a very steep walkway glued to…

Thanks to another very early start in the cool Kandy dawn, and a cloudy daytime keeping the temperatures down, this was the most enjoyable cycle so far. I’m now following the A9 up north for the last section of my End to End – a concept familiar to domestic LEJOGgers – and out of Kandy…

A day biking in town, going past Kandyesque sights such as this GR-period British post box in front of a Buddhist temple (pic). So you can pray for good luck, for instance that the postcard you’ve sent will actually arrive. I cycled up a steep back road into the hills to the well set-up Tea…

Today was a treat: 50 miles of mostly downhill – cashing in on 1400m of descent – including 20 of freewheel. There were more hairpins (pic) than in a hairpin shop that sells a lot of hairpins after a fresh delivery of hairpins. Progress actually wasn’t that fast, despite the hurtling downhill speeds of up…

A day off the bike exploring Nuwara Eliya today. Created by the English, it’s still got a colonial feel to it: racecourse (pic), golf club, half-timbered villa houses, High Tea at the Grand Hotel (more of this later). And the A5 goes right through it, though the one from London to Holyhead probably doesn’t go…

A beautiful, tranquil dawn start, with awesome views of Hill Country peaks sticking up like islands above the layer of cloud a thousand feet below (pic). Down there in the clouds, at Bandarawela, it was cool and damp and felt more like England, except my breakfast muffin from a bakery only cost 25p. It was…

A rest day today, but I was still up early, rewarded by some stunning views of the hillscape mists (pic). It’s chilly at night up here in Hill Country: there are actually sheets and blankets on the bed (elsewhere there’s nothing), the windows had condensation this morning, and I needed my fleece to go out…