Train, Safari, Rock.

It's absolutely ridiculous how excited two twenty-four year olds can get over catching a five hour train across a foreign country in 3rd class. But... it was totally WICKED! 

Day 5 (Wednesday 29th)

We hung out the open doors and windows of the train from the east coast, Batticaloa to the middle of Sri Lanka to stay with one of our friends (fast become best bloke of all time) at his army barracks in Minneriya. He has been the most welcoming and generous person to us, it is absolutely breath taking. With a grand room for us to stay in he fed us to the brim upon our arrival and sat up late with us having beers and answering every single one (there's been so many) of my curious cultural questions. 

Day 6 (Thursday 30th)

Today began with a tuk-tuk trip to the ancient rock fortress known as Sigiriya. The further into the heart of Sri Lanka we venture the more lush and scenic the journeys become. Sigiriya was a large maze of brick work, sculpted rock and lush green lawns, speckled throughout with water gardens and pools. As we made our way along the ancient paths, past numerous climbing monkeys we eventually reached the stairs. There were so many stairs and it was hot and we both have shoddy knees but we didn't come here to look at he rock from below. Totally worth it. We sweated our way to the top for incredible 360 degree views of Sri Lanka with a large Buddha statue and temples just a few things you could sight in the distance while standing on the top. With wobbly knees we hiked back down the stairs and rewarded ourselves with a cooling icey pole.

 

Back to our room for a freshen up and quick rest, we then head on an elephant safari tour. An open-roof Jeep is of course what navigates us through the Minneriya National Park at dusk. We first spot a lot of monkeys hanging high in the trees above us. Soon it becomes apparent that there are hundreds of different bird types in the park, peacocks being the most exciting to spot in my opinion. The water hole (or tank as they call it) is the home to crocodiles and water snakes both of which we spotted as well. But most importantly hanging around the perimeters of the water were elephants. Elephants eating grass, bathing, covering themselves with dirt, feeding their young and play fighting. We counted more than 80 in our sunset cruise and were mere metres from them in our vehicle. The youngest was estimated to be only 10 days old and the oldest almost 80. I didn't have high expectations as I'm not huge on wildlife but man-o-man it was incredible.