Sri Lanka 2025

 Well things seemed completely different today. For a start we woke up to blue skies, and then the guide told us that we might be able to get out today or tomorrow – and that he’d report back later. We’d heard that we could get phone signal on the hillside at the hotel’s farm garden, so after breakfast the group of us walked up the hill, following a stream of hotel staff. At the top we got some mobile signal. This was patchy at best – some of my texts went through, others didn’t, and there was still not mobile data. This was frustrating so after a while we gave up and walked around the town. It was very different from yesterday there, too. The ground was mostly dry and the cleanup was in full swing, with trucks carrying away the litter and debris that had accumulated. There was a long queue for petrol at one station, so either they were running out or other places had already run out. But on the walk back there was a food market that had largely resumed normal business. Aroun...

  We got up this morning fairly optimistic that we’d be going today; it was very windy overnight but the rain had stopped. However our guide had been to the police station and the one place in town with Starlink satellite internet and over breakfast he reported that it’s still not safe to travel. Very disappointing as it means we won’t get to Yala at all, which was our chance for another safari and to see leopards. But that may well not have been possible anyway, we have no idea what infrastructure is intact. Luckily the hotel isn’t running out of food. Apparently the problem is that the same staff have been working for many days now, as they can’t get home and other staff can’t get in. We’re also unable to pay for things as we don’t have much cash and the ATMs and hotel credit facilities are down, so we are relying on the guide’s personal cash reserves. That means we’re spending as little as possible. As the weather is better the group went for   walk around town at 10am....

 This will need to be posted when internet is restored. This morning things were, if anything, less clear than yesterday. No wifi or mobile signal, and our guide had walked down to the police station but they were also cut off. Over breakfast he got word that the road to Yala was clear, presumably from a car that had come that way, and so we were off at 9am. And back at 10am to check back into the same rooms. We tried two ways out of town and both times our bus driver talked to people coming the other way, who said the roads were closed. There was talked that they’d open up in a few hours but with no certainty they’d be safe or would stay open, so a decision was made to stay in Nuwara Eliya another night. The day was spent re-packing, reading, there wasn’t much else to do as we can’t really leave the hotel and we still have no internet access. It could be worse – the reports are of record rainfall and people dead or missing. The day we arrived there was about 420mm of rain here, ...

 Today hasn't run quite as expected. The plan was for a scenic train ride then to visit a couple of waterfalls. However the rain has persisted - the road we took here from Kandy yesterday is now closed due to a risk of landslides. As we st off, our guide explained that he had checked the warnings and the route we were taking was all okay. I suppose it's okay until it's not okay; the bus was fine through some mildly flooded streets but as we left the town a small landslide occurred right in front of us and we narrowly avoided a displaced tree. This was a warning in itself but also sufficiently blocked the road that we couldn't go on. We turned back to the hotel at that point - and on our way back the road flooding was visibly deeper than when we set out. So by necessity we had a quiet day. There was a high tea in the hotel mid-afternoon – the hotel is known for it and the restaurant was quite full. Wifi was intermittent during the day, but by late afternoon it had stop...