One Last Thing About The Train

"Please allow the departing passengers to exit the train" Friendly recorded woman's voice that plays in the Washington Metro trains.

Arriving at the station I could see the crowds. Judging by the group building up in back of me both the departing passengers and those awaiting to get on board were anticipating a quick turnover.

As the train slowed down to a safe speed I grabbed by bags and stepped down from the train, that's about as far as I got. The crowd at the station was attempting to board the train, of course hardly a soul had left the train. It was mayhem. I thought Chris would turn to fist a cuffs but she just pushed through as did I.

On a small note when you reach the exit there are two men who take your ticket, which results in a traffic jam of sorts as tourists start digging through purses and pockets looking for tickets that they never though they would need anymore.

What fun!

The Train Experience

As promised I would post a little bit more about the train trip south. We have found the trains to be a very affordable mode of transportation to near most any part of the island. There was some hesitation at first, mostly how confusing it might be to purchase the tickets and figure out the schedules etc, but as it turns out there was nothing to worry about. Purchasing the tickets is easy enough as it's just a matter of deciding what class seat you want, and even the, that doesn't matter (More on that). And regarding the train schedule, pretty much anyone you ask has a little bit of knowledge of when the train is coming or going. There are some web sites with the schedules but we find them kind of questionable.

So after you buy the ticket you head for the train. At smaller stations that could be just a matter of heading towards the one and only track, but at the bigger stations like Colombo Fort you have to know which track to go to which usually means dragging your bags up and down a flight of stairs that goes over the other tracks, did that make sense? I really need to take pictures.

There is no one to take your tickets or show you what car to get into, it's pretty much spelled out for you in big numbers on the door, 2 and 3, 2nd and 3rd class. Thus, anyone with a 3rd class ticket can enjoy the comfort (sic) of the 2nd class cars.

Comfort? Hardly. Think Washington Metro, more dirty, no climate control and open windows. The2nd class car has 2 seats per row the 3rd class car has a bench seat on each side. The cars get very filled, 2nd and 3rd. Standing (Squeezing) room only.
When the whistle blows and the train starts rolling people will jump on board and fill in and nook and cranny on the train.

I have found the best spot to be is in the doorway, just sit down with my legs on the stairs, grab a hold of one of the hand rails and enjoy the breeze.

Now I'm not the only one who knows about sitting in the doors, in fact, it's a coveted spot. So if we get on the train when it's crowded I have to wait for the cars to thin out before getting a seat, until then it's sweat and be miserable.

Of course getting to the station early will afford us a seat and we do plan on that next time.

The nest thing about sitting in the door is I get to take it all in. Listening to the train increase in speed, seeing all of the cars as the train goes round a bend, waving at the children along the tracks, occasionally smelling food being cooked, watching orange peels being thrown out the windows of the train (Men go through the cars selling oranges, water and other snacks).

The sad thing is seeing all of the tsunami damage and people living in shacks or barely that. I often gripe about the sounds of the rains that go past our apartment, we are 5 floors up (4th floor apartment + ground floor) and the sound of the trains can rattle my nerves sometimes. Well the train was passing by a shanty-ville and I realized that some of these shacks were less than 10 feet from the tracks! Actually it seemed I could just reach out and touch some of them. I could hardly even fathom what it much be like to live in them. That pretty much humbled me.

Beautiful Beaches Around Sri Lanka

I stumbled on this forum with great pictures of some of the beaches here in Sri Lanka:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=48242413

Hope we get a chance to visit all of them during a time here.

The Hikkaduwa Mini-vacation

Beaches, palm trees and sunshine, well maybe too much sunshine. So was our weekend in Hikkaduwa. Hikkaduwa is about 2 hours south of Colombo by train, probably get there faster by car. It caters to two types of people, surfers first and foremost and then German's.
We were able to stay at a nice guest house that totally surpassed our expectations. Guest houses are a cross between a room for rent and a hotel. This one had just recently opened and everything was new to include a rain shower head in the bathroom, king sized four poster bed, hot water, a/c, free wifi and breakfast served on the beach all for a tidy sum of less than $34USD per night (Everything except for the breakfast is pretty much unheard of at most guest houses). Mind you this wasn't the Hilton and there is no TV, radio or carpet but its sole purpose is a place to crash after a day on the beach.

Thankfully our guest house was right on the beach, but just about all of them are. Hikkaduwa is one BIG guest house, they are there one after the other with colorful names, of course I can't
remember a one.

On our first morning out we walked along the road then went through a beach access road to the beach. While walking we came across some fishermen waiting by their big wooden boat.
They waved us over and asked us to help move it up the beach. So we both turned around
and grabbed the outriggers and lifted and pushed backwards when the shouts of the men
reached a crescendo. I wish I had pictures of the fishermen and their boat, but we didn't
take many or any photos. I was breathing rather hard when we finally got the boat to a point where it wouldn't move any further,

Aaah, the beach. After the tourist filled beaches of Berewula and the man crushing waves
of Matara we found the perfect medium. Long expanses of mostly uncrowded beaches as
all of the (German) tourists are hiding under shady cabanas.
My goal was to boogie board and there are two surf breaks, one was for the surfers as I found
out through much intimidation by one of them as I rode the waves (Tried to crash into me a few times on purpose) so I relegated myself to the other surf break where surfing lessons were being taught. Not as much fun as the other surf break but wasn't going to get clocked by a surfboard either.

We visited a rotti stand that there are many of here in Colombo but this one served banana chocolate and pineapple coconut rotti's. Would help is I had a picture but we didn't take any! DOH!

You know I couldn't find one picture of what we ate via Google, tag people, tag! LOL
We both enjoyed vegetable rottis and a desert rotti, Chris banana and chocolate, me the pineapple. With drinks it was all under $6USD. Great deal! And a yummy and filling one at that!

We enjoyed a long conversation with a Brit traveling through Sri Lanka while at the rotti stand.

Nights were punctuated with fireworks and star filled sky's with the occasional tourist bus driving dangerously fast down the narrow main road.

We returned on the 11:20 train to Colombo with many, many German tourists.

I should and will blog about the train ride.