Sri Lanka Belly

I’m dedicating this post to my belly. Something went terribly wrong in there last night which led to a pretty interesting morning. I’ve not had to sit quite so close to a toilet for fear of accident for a long time!

I really have been so careful too. Eating only vegetarian food, drinking only bottled water, washing my hands with hand sanitiser and avoiding touching my face. I guess its just an inevitability of traveling through hot countries which serve only spicy food. I’ve actually really enjoyed the food. One of the few things with which I was super impressed with Mumbai was the Curry, and since being in Sri Lanka we’ve lived like kings.

As part of the Lanka Challenge, we stayed first at the Hotel club Dolphin – a large complex of beach huts by the sea in Negombo nr Colombo, which served western-style food such as lasagne and roast meat, as well as traditional Sri Lankan curry dishes which I stuck with. The following night we moved onto the Kassapa Lions Rock Hotel, near Siguriya, where we ate by a large pool to several chefs who cooked in front of us. One cooked on a griddle with these two big rectangular knives with which he beat the food (onions, chillis and beans I think), which was delicious.

On day 3 we camped with an Aboriginal tribe called the Veddah (who greeted us with three two-handed handshakes shouting ‘hanamai hanamai hanamai!’. This is possibly the only avenue I can think of where my Belly health could have been compromised! We ate very traditional Sri Lankan curry dishes with our hands (no cutlery), and there were no washing facilities. Liberal quantities of hand sanitiser were used, but nevertheless – it wasn’t the cleanest conditions.

Finally, last night we arrived at the Amaya Hills resort high above Kandy; which is truly palatial. The hotel has a large pool overlooking Kandy and the surrounding hills, a large restaurant area with the same breathtaking views and even a nightclub. We have a rest day here today – so no Tukking – which is very fortunate as my Belly certainly wouldn’t cope well with 8 hours of bouncing around. It’s also given me a chance to use the internet for the first time in 5 days.

The Lanka challenge has been awesome so far. I will write more about the actual race later, but for now it’s stopped raining so i’m gonna go out and sunbathe and maybe ride an elephant!