Sri Lanka is marginally smaller than Tasmania, with a population roughly the size of Australia's (about 20 million people). The red line shows our route, from the capital Colombo, down to the south coast, and then roughly north into the hills (and tea growing country).
Early morning at Unawatuna, on Sri Lanka's south coast.
Roadside fish stall at Unawatuna, on Sri Lanka's south coast.
The Dondra Head lighthouse, on Sri Lanka's southern most point.
Shadow cast by the Dondra Head lighthouse
At the top of the Dondra Head lighthouse. (I didn't realise how dirty my face was until I saw this photo. Oops).
Lang and his ride, which we nick-named You Bastard.
Random cyclist in the middle of nowhere #1
Random cyclist in the middle of nowhere #2
Sri Lanka: where the buffalo roam.
Wellawaya - our last stop before entering the hill country.
Wellawaya.
Visiting the Buduruwagala (Buddha images of stone): "Please remove your hats and shoes before enter"
The giant Buduruwagala (Buddha images of stone) are believed to date from the 10th century.
Tea at the Little Rose guest house in Wellawaya. The slightly wild-eyed look on my face must have been because the poster in the corner of the room was sending me subliminal messages ... KANDOS! CHOCOLATE! ... Hey, Lang, I have a BRILLIANT idea ... let's move to Kandos and make chocolate! No, really!!
The long and winding road.
Hopefully that sign doesn't say "No Parking"
A Hindu temple in the hills.
A Hindu temple with creative wiring solutions.
Me and Son of a Bitch.
A tea garden. The workers' accommodation isn't great ... but, hey ... at least they're nice and close to work!
Tea pickers picking tea.
The mirror shot!
Tea pickers.
A roadside tea stall.
A roadside tea stall, invaded by local boys.
A friendly lady wearing a smile that was almost as bright as her polar fleece.
We stopped to watch an entire school worth of children watching a baseball game - but we quickly became more interesting to the children than the baseball.
World's End - where the Horton Plains come suddenly to an end and drop almost straight down for 700m.
When I peered over the edge of World's End, I was chuffed to see a rare Rhododendron arboreum (ssp zeylanicum) - in flower. These trees are native to the Sri Lankan highlands, and apparently they only flower from June to August (this photo was taken in February).
This was the first Theobroma cacao (a.k.a cocoa tree) we ever laid eyes on, at the Peradeniya Botanic Gardens near Kandy.
Errol Kemps - one of the most awesome people I've ever met.
Monkeys doing monkey stuff.
Kandy Lake, created in 1807 by the last ruler of the kingdom of Kandy.
Our local friend, Errol, took us to meet some tea pickers who gave us guided tours of their homes. As far as I can tell, every kitchen bench in Sri Lanka has a coconut grinder attached to it (this one has a coconut splitter, too).
Cooking with a wood-fired stove is less like fun (and more like hard work) when you have no alternative.
This lady was keen to show us her home and garden - and we were keen to see her cocoa tree.
Looking through the kitchen doorway. There was no running water here: you can see the collected water, sitting in a motley collection of containers in the bottom left corner of the photo. (It's easy to see why people in Third World countries often end up using old pesticide drums to hold drinking water).
The dirt-floored kitchen was nearly pitch black. I couldn't see a thing ... but the flash on the camera was obviously working!
Our friend Errol climbed the cocoa tree to score us our first ever cocoa pod (which, I should add, we paid well above the going rates for).
Our next stop was an unscheduled visit to the hospital at Kurunegala.
This was what my right knee looked like after I landed on it at about 50km/hr. I can't make any sense of x-rays ... it looks pretty normal to me, but in fact the damage was serious enough to warrant immediate surgery in an operating theatre straight out of MASH. It was pretty scary, but I had morphine, which has a way of making everything seem just fine.
So, this was how I spent Valentine's Day 2004. Lang brought me Kandos chocolate and read a Katharine Kerr novel to me. It could have been worse - and it was certainly memorable.
Saying farewell to the fabulous nursing staff at Kandy hospital. Little did I know that the worst still awaited me. The flight home to Sydney was hell (courtesy of Cathay Pacific), and when the injury got infected I had to spend 15 days (including two more operations) in Westmead hospital. But at least I got to keep my leg.
