We have just returned from a 15 night bespoke trip to Sri Lanka - amazing time, great guide and driver for the trip! We travelled around visiting and staying in many different places. Birding was a challenge, we had to really look for some of the birds and photography was difficult given the light conditions and that most of the birds preferred the canopy. We did get lots of lifers and endemics. other wildlife was amazing and we had some wonderful encounters - including Cobra and Leopard and were also fortunate to watch a Green Turtle come ashore and lay her eggs on a deserted beach. It is a beautiful and diverse place and we hope to return sometime. The humidity was hard to cope with sometimes, 40 degrees heat and 98% humidity - phew!
The only down side was that halfway through our flight home from Colombo - Heathrow the volcano in Iceland began to erupt and a nightmare of a return trip ensued. We had to be diverted to Frankfurt in Germany, then had to travel on a coach for 140km to a hotel for 12 hours (nice place near a forest and the gardens teeming with Black Redstart etc
). The following day we then had to travel 800km(13 hours) on a bus through Germany, Holland, Belguim and France and caught the ferry from Calais to Dover. We were then transfered back to Heathrow (Sri Lanka Airlines did us proud, super communication and organisation). From there we were on our own and had to get a very expensive train ticket to Doncaster then an other to Scunthorpe. Once there a taxi picked us up to take us back to Barton, half way home the car got a puncture and we had to wait for another! Not a pleasant trip home at all!!We have set up a new website and pics from the trip are being uploaded daily - here is the link - http://www.mandyandmick.zenfolio.com
M&M