Honeymoon Week 1: Sri Lanka - Back to Mount Lavinia

I was feeling a little delicate this morning, probably due to all of the curry, so I was a bit worried about getting on the bus for a long drive. After the bumpy mini bus journey back down to meet the bus, we had to pick up the other two members of our group who had stayed in the town so I was able to use the facilities before we set off! The trip back was long, around 6 hours (300 miles), as I don't think we had realised how far we had gone into Sri Lanka over the last week and the roads down from the hills were very twisty. The roads through the plantations were scenic so there was plenty to see on the way. We passed through the Edinburgh plantation then were able to make a quick stop for photographs, which was good since my attempts from the bus weren't working out too well!

We also stopped for a longer break at a waterfall viewpoint.

When we reached Kithulgala, we stopped for a buffet lunch at a local restaurant. This was where they filmed The Bridge on the River Kwai film. This was exciting for some but as neither of us have seen the film and we have visited the River Kwai in Thailand and seen the actual bridge, it wasn't that interesting, although a lovely spot for lunch.

Since everyone was going to different areas, there was a meeting point arranged not far from Colombo where we would get taken back to Mount Lavinia in a car. Everyone else was staying at different beach resorts either north or south of Colombo so they carried on in other coaches. Our luggage was offloaded and after a quick toilet break, we said our goodbyes and were off towards Mount Lavinia again. Before we left we tipped our guide, the driver and the porter as well; while it wasn't essential, it was suggested if you felt they did a good job, which they did all week for us.

It was sad to leave the bus as we had had such a brilliant week. We always sat right at the front of the bus so we could have more space and be able to see everything on our route. This seemed to suit everyone else as no one else wanted to see the interesting Sri Lankan driving on our way; think just barge through the traffic usually, never mind whether you are on the correct side of the road or not! It was just as well we weren't able to drive that fast.

After a short drive through Colombo we were taken back to the hotel we stayed at for our first night.

After checking in to our room, which was similar to the one we had the first night, we went to see if the spa was still open. Unfortunately it wasn't so we had a walk along the beach instead then enjoyed a cocktail while we watched the sun set and turn the sky red.

By that time it was time to get ready ready for dinner and our last evening in Sri Lanka. We were a bit sick of eating a buffet dinner by this point and we had already a buffet for lunch so we opted for the a la carte menu and something which didn't resemble curry, their grilled pizza. It was lovely but it was quite big and after our earlier buffet lunch I could only manage about half of it.

When we got back to our room we had been given a bottle of wine which was to celebrate the Tamil New Year. The main celebrations were due to start the next day, on the 13th, the day we were flying to the Maldives and then on April 14th, the actual New Year Day, it would have been a public holiday. We didnt get a chance to drink it though as we arent red wine lovers so didnt want to waste it and since we were flying we couldn't take it with us.

The next day we were off to the Maldives for the second week of our honeymoon...