Trincomalee, Sri Lanka - April 22



Trincomalee with ship in the distance

We visited Trincomalee, Sri Lanka today. This is another rarely visited tourist stop and is on our itinerary due to a few originally scheduled days in Myanmar that were pulled a few months ago. That means there aren’t very tourist friendly sites to visit.  That is just fine – and we are well experienced with stops not frequented by many tourists.  Not that the people aren't friendly - they are very, but the stop doesn't have much for tourists.  Apparently we were the third cruise ship they have seen in the last 3 years and they hadn't seen any for 30 years brfore that due their civil war.  There were also quite a few people to see the ship off as we sailed away.



Hindu temple



ancient Buddah

What we did visit was a Hindu temple which unfortunately paled in comparison to the one we saw in India, but interesting nonetheless. We also saw the ruins of a Buddhist temple from the 3rd century B.C. Visiting these 2 sites took us about 4 hours, but could have taken about an hour had it not been for the roads. WOW – these were in rough shape. The Indian roads (which I thought were pretty rough themselves) compared to these, were glorious. At one point I saw a sign that said 8K back to town – that took us at least 30 minutes, probably more. At another point a boy on a bicycle overtook us! 




Sri Lankan send-off





view of the bay





I tryed a sugar-type substance that comes from the coconut tree called jaggery.  Very tasty and sweet. 

It was an interesting place to visit to get a glimpse of Sri Lanka, but I’m glad we only signed up for a 4 hour tour.


the many free roaming goats

 We did see about 8 monkeys today - that was a huge thrill. Both times they just scampered across the road in front of the bus and up a tree.