Crap sleep last night again, not as bad as I thought but we were both dripping with sweat all night in the sweat box, couldn’t wait to get up and have a shower! We had an early morning start for home made breakfast at 7.30am. We had the Sri Lankan famous dish - egg hoppers (a thing crepe made into the shape of a bowl with a fried egg inside. Very strange but tasty! And a Sri Lanka crepe each rolled with shredded coconut and bee honey inside it. The crepe looked like it was made out of pot noodles, again very strange but tasty!

8.30am we left for the mountain climb, still very hot already and busy busy at the vegetable market in the main town that we went through. Never have I ever seen so many trucks and tuk tuks filled with different vegetables and fruit! Krishna (I think that’s his name, well that’s what I’m going with anyways) said that Dambulla grows 95% of Sri Lanka’s fruit and veg because the climate is so good all year round and because it’s central so they can take it to the big food market and sell it to ship onwards to everywhere else in the country. We went passed so many farms, the mango tree farm looked the prettiest!

We got to Pidurangala rock which over looks the famous Sigiriya rock, it was much quieter and cheaper because you would never have guessed it but another Buddha cave temple at the bottom of it which you had to pay for AND cover your ‘prerogative’ bits up before you could even get to the mountain walk. At least it was all included in the price that Krishna quoted so it didn’t seem to much of daylight robbery. And bonus... we didn’t have to buy our shoes back we could just carry them!

After the temple with the laid down Buddha we took the excess clothing of and headed up the what definitely seemed like vertical steps (I crawled up on all fours it was much easier) I’m not so sure you could call it a mountain hike or walk but rather a rock climbing activity, ups and downs ins and outs of the bloody boulders, Ellie got a little Wobbly on her feet at the top because it was literally just a sheet rock face that if you slipped you could definitely fall overboard. The views were incredible and well worth the sweaty climb up!

Afterwards Krishna took us to a herbs and spice garden which we got shown around, didn’t know that turmeric and milk (golden milk) prevents heart attacks. So many natural remedies they use instead of manufactured chemical drugs. He used some cream they made out of random plant oils and jasmine flower and rubbed it on my skin, within 10 minutes my hair was gone. Hair removal cream made out of herb plant oils! Apparently if you use it once a week for 8 weeks ‘no more hair ever’ so me and Ellie bought a pack of them and we will half it. Laser treatment eat your heart out! (If it works)

We both got given a neck and arm massage for free from the students there using the herbal oils they had made.
note to future self- Sandalwood oil is the cure to stretch marks!

Next up the exciting part - Safari time! We got dropped off with a safari truck and driver (all to ourselves).
We weren’t overalls confident we would see anything but that’s expected on a safari in a ma-hoosive National Park I suppose.
Within the first hour we spotted a few lonely wandering male elephants that were huge and that had big tusks, just wandering to the lake.

Then a few more super close to our jeep and a family of around 6 with babies and toddlers. Absolutely surreal moment. Just to see them doing their own thing not being bothered by humans or abused like being ridden on or asked to do a circus trick. Another hour or so in and we seen around 100 of them in a herd at the lake washing, eating and tiny babies playing. It was such an amazing experience to just watch them and be so close without interfering. Absolute Goal!

We were shattered on the ride back, being jiggled about on a truck and elephant spotting is hard work in the sun. Could not wait to get to the tuk tuk with Krishna to get back and have a shower and to lie down.

We stopped for a fizzy drink, never do I ever drink full fat Coca Cola but my god did it go down good!!

Krishna has different ideas for us, he took us to a gems museum where we watched a film on how they find them in Sri Lanka, we both had a few head bobs to sleep and it was freezing cold in there, they wanted us to buy gems - we however had different ideas, shower time.

Spotted a few more wild elephants roaming around the forest and one crossing the road on our way back which was pretty cool, Krishna had another idea for us. To stop in the food market on the way back to see how it all works. I admit it was cool to see and the smells in there were so good from all the different veg. The size on the spring onions and carrots were huge!

Couldn’t wait for dinner time, we had a chat with Krishna again we told Him our plans about going to Hatton to climb Adam’s peak, he didn’t think it was the best idea because September is one of the worst months for rain and visibility down there, so we googled and made a new plan which was a b***** but wasn’t worth travelling all that way to see nothing. So we re-jigged our hotel’s a little and we will go to Nuwara Eliya tomorrow in the tea plantations and have more time on the coast at the end.

We were so tired I’m not sure how we managed to change everything and it all make sense we rarely spoke proper words to each other everything we said was coming out mixed up or goo-goo-gaa-gaa.

Bed time with a sexy lighting before we tried to sleep in the princess bed as Ellie would call it (with the mosquito net draped over us) in the sweat box.