So the first 5 days have been eventful to say the least…

Disclaimer: I am writing this post on my phone so apologies in advance for any formatting errors!

Flight drama

Our first issues arose in Stansted Airport where somebody tried to vape in a bathroom toilet in our terminal… this led to us being evacuated outside and further delays of 1 hour. We were lucky that we left a 3 hour gap between our connecting flights so in the end we had no issues.

Our travel so far

When we arrived in Sri Lanka we discovered that there is currently a rail strike occurring so most of the countries rail network is not working. This includes the famous Ella to Kandy train ride which is one of the countries main attractions, we have been told that services should resume in 5 days time.

This meant we had to change our travel plans up quite a bit to accommodate the 5 days that we need to delay for the Ella to Kandy train ride.

We finally all agreed on the following new itinerary:

Colombo -> Tangalle -> Arugam Bay -> Ella -> Kandy -> Colombo -> Bali.

Tangalle

A beautiful beach town but unfortunately we were unaware it was off season so it was pretty quiet, due to this we cut our time in Tangalle to just 1 night.

Next morning we set off at 5am to Udawalawe National Park.

Udawalawe National Park

After a lovely 4am wake up, we set off for Udawalawe National Park with the plan to head to Arugam Bay.

It was well worth the wake up though, as we ended up getting to see a family of 5 elephants up close!

Arugam Bay

After the early morning safari we had a 3 hour drive to reach Arugam Bay.

We arrived to a beautiful small little beach town with all the nightlife and accommodation based on one road.

We have spent the last 2 and a half days relaxing on the beach and surfing another beach called Panama Beach which is 20 minutes outside of Arugam Bay as it is more beginner friendly!

A group become a crowd

Once we had arrived at Colombo airport, we made our way to purchase local SIM cards, we found it only costs £22 for 43gb data, I have more data than I know what to do with!

It was at the stand for the SIM cards that we found our first addition to the group, Marco. Funnily enough he was staying in the same hostel as us that night so we all got a cab from the airport together.

Marco has stayed with us since then and intends to stay with us for the whole journey.

Once arriving in Arugam Bay we met a French guy called Constantin who lives in London. Sadly he had to leave use after 1 night due to further travel plans.

On the same day we also met Hessel, a Dutch guy who just finished his university degree, he will only be joining us for our time in Arugam Bay as he has already travelled the places we intend to go to so he will make his way straight back to Colombo to go home after this!

(I don’t have a photo of him yet!)

Next steps

So this is where we have gotten to so far!

Tomorrow we plan to set off to go hike Ella in the mountains and hopefully after that the train strike will be over and we can catch the train from Ella to Kandy.

Thanks for reading!