Roughing it in batti but railcard trumps

Hello good evening from the banks of the river thingey in batti which is short for a Sri Lankan bunch of squiggles which alternate between Tamil and Sinhalese as you please . The hotel was specialty selected to annoy us but being chilled out after our days adventures nothing co old deflect from the wonderful experiences on the way here. We set off from the tourist ghetto of chyaa blue this morning before the masses had appeared for breakfast, as it was this suited us and I selected carefully from the previous evenings left overs some pancakes with syrup and Danish pastries which I covered with flaked white and dark chocolate much to the astonishment of two young Japanese honeymooners who marvelled at this latest western manifestation of dining delights.we boarded our little palace on wheels with our trusted mahout who had recently graduated from elephant training college the gears were obviously not in the first lesson but no doubt will be taught later. Thrilled with the diversity of the scenery Martin and I laid odds on the first animals to obstruct the road although dogs and cows were excluded due to be ubiquitous I picked monkeys and Martin shrewdly he though picked crows. Actually it was chameleons which appeared and they grew larger as the day went on . We passed numerous army and airforce bases leaving trincomallee and they were patrolling the roads and bridges but they all smiled and no trouble at all. The atmosphere in batti despite the troubles is superb and at the railway station we spent many happy hours in the blistering heat witnessing the shunting of locks and even the climax which was the Ashok leyland tailcoat twin set which arrived only very slightly late and the staff at the station including the stations porters ticket sellers crossing attendants drivers points men and all the other several hundred were superb and the goats cows and dogs were all happy to join in our adventure. More tomorrow from that lovely te splendid isle of Sri lanka