Monday, January 19

We arrived at Trivandrum airport at about 8:00 and got UL162 to Colombo at 10:15. The journey by car from Colombo to Hikkaduwa involved a puncture on the highway. Fortunately the driver had decided to travel so slowly that the possibility of danger never appeared. He seemed so shaken though that we invited him to pull in for a coffee at the service station. When he had stopped shaking we all agreed to drive on.

We eventually arrive at Bokka Almeida, where we stayed in November. This time we do not find ourselves alone.

After we have met John, a painter, writer, designer, and the co-owner, and put our stuff in our room/chalet, I take a photograph of it from the other side of the pool.

We chat with John and his partner Julia, who also own a marketing company called Vector 7, based in Honiton in Devon. We also talk with an Austrian couple and a Sri Lankan/German couple with a child called Charlie who seems to have become the communal responsibility of everyone staying there.

We feel much more as though we have come to spend a week with some friends in the country, than booked into a hotel.