Well here I am travelling for a while :-) I'm in Weligama typing this & its HOT outside! I arrived two Mondays ago after a great last night out in London with a few good mates(& a continuation of the random Cardiff friend theme-there was a random someone I knew in the club, which was odd 'cos London is normally 100% anonymous). After a bit of flu I'm having a ball. I've spent a week in Hikkaduwa surfing a fast break there & lying in hammocks with lots of Pembrokeshire folk.

Now I'm staying in Midigama, which is a much smaller village & is more basic. I'm sharing a room with Fen, a girl from back home & its costing us RS700 a night - that's roughly three pounds fifty! Its a great little place. To get to the beach from our guesthouse you cross a river on a home-made bridge, walk down the railway for about 20m, cross a coconut grove then the road & you're there. Its cool :-) In Midigama there's a really long left reef break with a big, scary take-off. Apparently its deep enough that you won't hurt yourself if you get the take off wrong, which is nice to know ;-) Its not too busy (unlike Hik on a bad day) but it is highly populated by French people.

Today I've been surfing the beach break in Weligama which (today) is very big but not at all scary. It closes out pretty quick so its not the longest ride & makes it difficult to get back out, but its still good.

With all these waves, what am I doing here at a computer I here you ask? Well, there's tonnes of sun & its strong. I'm hiding from the midday heat so I don't have to deal with severe sunburn. Its been cloudy a few days, which is nice, athough it will still burn you given 1/2 a chance. There was a great thunderstorm yesterday, bright lightning & crashing thunder.

The wildlife I've spotted so far is pretty cool: two small snakes, some 'Water Monitors' (Big Lizards that swim), geckos & lizards, some little tropical fish in the river & some big fish in the sea, turtles, a Bittern, some stork-like things, a kingfisher type thing, some big bird-of-prey things, loads of cool butterflys & ants, a giant click-beetle, etc. etc.! There was a thing a bit like a giat gerbil in the bathroom the other day; I left him to it! The other night Fen had a couple of cockroaches inside her mozzie net. She didn't like that much! Read about it here.. www.overthehillsandfaraway.blog.co.uk

Thoughts on Sri Lanka? Beautiful & jungley; a little choatic; very friendly, smiley people; cheap to live in. There's not too much wrong with it so why they insist on having a civil war I don't know :-( Come on everybody, let's just get along :-)

Niall

Pictures to follow!