Right! On Friday afternoon I tried to open the safe but three attempts later it had locked itself for 15 minutes. Quarter of an hour later, I tried again - three errors and locked out again - unnecessary as I was a.ready locked out! Despite my dear wife insinuating that I had put the wrong number in or had otherwise done something stupid, I called reception and they said someone would come over. ‘Someone’ it turned out was a team of 3 - duty manager, secur...

..... it must be Sigiriya. Up early for a 07.00 start (after the safe saga) to drive to Sigiriya. This is a rock citadel where the kings moved to after Anuradhapura - say 5AD. They stayed here for a few hundred years before everyone started dying of malaria! The rock is some 200 metres high. There was a palace on top and, at one point, an entrance through a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. We visited the museum and then commenced the climb. The st...

So. Anuradhapura (ignore previous spellings!) The home of the king around BC/AD (so I guess that means 0). And lo it came to pass that the king decided to build a giant mushroom shaped building (as you do) and said to his builder (Adrian) “Get it dome”. So Adrian designed and built a huge circular building out of brick - it was also solid and filled with bricks apart from a temple. It was called a Stupa. The first one we saw was the earliest and had since...

Had a great meal last night. Red chicken curry with 8 (eight) side dishes for ADO! LMA started gently with local fish and chips. Sitting in an open, but roofed, restaurant looking across the lawn with lights on and torches burning was beautiful. As was the curry! Following virtually no sleep on the flight, and having lost 5+ hours on the time difference we went to bed at 8,30pm! Slept like a log - which we needed to do because the alarm went off at 05.45!...

So after all that we arrived in Colombo only 20 minutes late. We realised during the flight that we have been spoiling ourselves of late. Turning left inside the door is definitely better than right. But the latter is cheaper! Straight through immigration and though we waited a bit for the bags (why do they never come together?) we were still out on the road with our driver/guide (Lionel - very Sinhalese!). The hotel is only about 20 minutes from the airport a...