A Trust Supporter writes.....

"We're back", (writes Lisa Sheehy, left above, who is touring Asia and an unpaid unofficial roving reporter to the Trust). "End your computerside vigil!" (We were literally glued, matchsticks in place, Lisa, but the discomfort was a small price to pay! - Peter)

Lisa continues....

Next stop was Sri Lanka. Just 20 miles by sea from India but a very different story. Most notably there is considerably less cow dung and car horns and more men wearing skirts (sarongs) than lady-boys in Bangkok! Known as the pearl of the Orient or as the dutch say 'a leg of ham in the sea' (?) Whatever you want to call it, some weird quirk of fate meant that it cost less for us to book a package including a flight and a stay at a 4 star hotel for 3 days with a chauffeur driven car than a flight alone!......Backpacking can be such a drag. So for 3 days we stayed in the lap of luxury in Kandy a beautiful, holy city set in rolling green hills. The hotel was very friendly but they did play Cliff Richard constantly !! It seemed to emanate from everywhere in the building , secret speakers would suddenly blast out Devil Woman as you opened the wardrobe, Daddy's Home would be warbling through the soap suds in the shower. So after 3 days of Cliffs greatest hits and several mojitos ( Cliff gets better after about the second or third ! ) We reluctantly put our backpacks back on and headed to Pandana, a nearby beach town. We had seen adverts on the television every five minutes depicting all the sexy young things of Sri Lanka having the time of their lives at a music festival there and naturally we just had to get in on the action ! Will even bought himself a new outfit ( well tee shirt. )

We rushed to get the train but unfortunately, were squashed next to a toilet and the tea man, this lasted about an hour so we alighted smelling strongly of piss and pj tips .

Even worse, not a soul had heard of this mini-Glastonbury. Not even Cliff was playing !

Was this an elaborate attempt at attracting ageing wannabe rock stars or had we had one two many of those cocktails? We will probably never know....

Luckily our trip was not to be a complete waste of time....

After combing the beachfront for our usual 1 pound 50 hovel we settled on a charming place owned by a friendly man with teeth like an explosion at a domino's factory. Escaping his hugs and invitations to his future offspring's weddings, we went for dinner at the sumptuous 5-star hotel next door.

To Will's amazement, this was the very hotel in which his friend had sworn his undying commitment to his ( then) wife 4 yrs earlier! He recalled the pictures of the couple, accompanied by 20 dancing boys and a carriage pulled by two horny bulls and reflected on what an elaborate waste of money this had been, as the ill fated relationship ended by the time the flannels were handed out on the terse plane-ride home...

Nevertheless after surveying the 4 gorgeous swimming pools and cocktail list he still wished he had been there.

Waking the next day we were determined to party one way or the other and were delighted to discover that a 'perihara' - a sort of local procession with dancing and elephants, was passing through today! With the usual confusion about the location, we headed out into the baking midday sun, where we were immediately accosted by a wild eyed hairy gentleman driving a tut-tut.

Due to our confusion about where to go and imminent heatstroke, we jumped in and were thrusted back into our seats with the g force of a fighter jet, as he wheelied and screeched along leaving a cloud of dust, and scattering a few lepers in his path. This madman then claimed to be 'The Sri Lankan Jackie Chan'.

To our terror he turned completely around to proudly show us a tattered, bloodstained stunt-mans license. He also pointed to some film posters in the back of the vehicle, which he claimed were from his latest blockbuster. We politely tried to take this all in while clinging to each other for dear life!

Coming to an abrupt stand still we arrived to the arresting sight of brightly costumed kids dancing barefoot, skinny men on stilts and a mad chained monkey all moving to the sound of a drum beat. After the procession passed, 'Jackie Chan' convinced us to come back to his 'studio'. Thinking he was clearly a delusional psycho we reluctantly agreed to get back into the death mobile.

Imagine our shock then, upon pulling up a what can only be described as a shrine devoted to his image! We stepped into the shop and were immediately presented with his latest album (Oh, did I forget to mention that he was also Sri Lanka's answer to Robbie Williams?)

We left the tut-tut driver/stunt-mans/actors/singer-songwriters shop in a state of shock and I think Will was secretly a little envious of this one-man entertainment industry.......( please see picture of album cover )

Next day we woke to beautiful sunshine and birdsong .

But we were covered from head to toe in itchy bleeding welts! To our disgust, we realised that we had been a bed bug feast for the last 8 hrs. We screamed and itched our way down the corridor to reception, were the orthodontic ally challenged manager tried to persuade us that we had sunburn. Unconvinced about our joint cases of nocturnal over exposure we made a swift exit.

Onwards to Galle, a beautiful, colonial dutch fort, were we spent a few quiet days, window shopping and caking ourselves in tiger balm to ease our wounds. Fully healed, we went down the road to Unawatuna a funky, hippyfied beach resort were we met an eccentric yet kindly Buddhist man who invited us to meditate. Arriving at 6.30am the next day,we were slightly taken aback when we were greeted by him, stripped to the waist, wearing a sheer white sarong (micro mini!)

He led us through to his peaceful tree house studio where the sun shined brightly through the branches. Unfortunately, the sun also shined brilliantly through his sarong giving us a full view of his pendulous 'chakras'. Needless to say our attempts at clearing our minds were not as successful as usual, consumed as they were, with this unforgettable image....

After a few days of swimming and being knocked over by the monsoon tide (which stole Will's watch) we decided to watch some turtles laying their eggs.

We almost gave up after 3 hrs in the dark and rain but were eventually rewarded, when the most enormous animal I have ever seem ambled to the shore. Each turtle only does it once in their lifetimes so we were very lucky to see it. It was an amazing experience.

Next, due to an explicable case of homesickness we headed to Nuwara Eliya, known locally as 'Little England' There were not kidding. It was freezing and rained constantly for days. This was a horrible shock after the baking heat and we had no warm clothes. We were also staying at the most unusual guesthouse of our trip and to be honest our lives! Instead of a brick wall there was a patio window on one side. The side which looked directly out onto the owners dining room! Who was a pervert. Just to make it even nicer the window was covered with lovely see through curtains which almost, but not QUITE closed properly. I think my favourite moment of the stay was waking one morning to see the manager and 3 of his friends staring in at us and politely bidding us good morning! We soon became experts at dressing under the duvet cover, probably much to their disappointment....

We finished the trip with the Kandy perihara. This is world famous as it involves 100s of elephants parading the sacred Buddha's tooth relic through the streets using more lights than Blackpool pier. It didn't disappoint and was a great way to say goodbye.

Next stop Bangkok, sex capital of the world! However, we stayed in Thai lands answer to Fawlty Towers. With a huge sign outside screaming 'Zero tolerance and sleaze free zone, no sex tourists, junkies, louts and other degenerates.' This charming hotel called The Atlanta was started by an German, ex Nazi arms dealer, who delighted in terrorising his staff, displaying endless lists of rules and an enormous signed picture of Margaret Thatcher. Fortunately for the staff, he died years ago but his spirit lives on in heart warming pearls of wisdom displayed on beer mats. Like... 'The staff are nice, I am not nice - which is why the staff are nice. Anyone who expects me to be an obliging, hand wringing sort of innkeeper will be sorely disappointed.'

After being thrown out for rule breaking..( ie splashing in the pool ) we moved onto ChaingMai, then up to Pai, a lovely haven of artists and musicians where we did an excellent thai boxing course (www.true-bee.com) and met some great characters such as a professional gambler, a drug dealing Thai with a only fools and horses accent and a one legged, spaced out Vietnam vet!

Feeling fitter than Rocky, we headed over the border to Laos to live with some gibbons (www.gibbonx.org) This was simply out of this world. For 3 days we lived in a tree house, high above the jungle floor, waking to the sound of these amazing animals and spending the days with nothing but a harness and a wire rope between us and the jungle canopy 100 meters below us.Go to you tube and type in whw68 to see Will flying through the air....We were also very lucky that that the 4 people in our group were friendly and easygoing as the word 'semiprivate' in the brochure was an understatement! Listening out for the sound of a neighbours turd as it whooshed 50 meters to the floor is a bonding experience, we will never forget.

Next we took a (very) slow boat through Pak Beng to Luang Prabang - a gorgeous, sleepy, temple filled town where we sampled the high octane brew 'horsepower' - the strongest whiskey in Asia,peddled by a merry, red-faced Swedish man. At 65% you could feel the effects just by walking past him.

This gave us a bit of 'Swedish' courage for our next destination - The infamous Vang Vieng.....A beautiful craggy, mountain ed town where bizarrely,every restaurant plays 'Friends' from dusk till dawn.

This has a bizarre zombie like effect on the travellers who sit there transfixed after sampling the 'happy' pizzas. However, the real reason people visit this town is to go tubing.....This involves sitting in an inner tube tire and floating slowly down the river, stopping off at the numerous bars along the way. How this highly dangerous combination does not result in more fatalities is a mystery , especially to the bar hands who hook you in with a stick to ply you with cheap,lethal booze! Sensibly (well, sort of) I floated back to the hotel,after losing the power of speech. Three hours later, I was faced with a mud-caked, seaweed entangled creature (Will) carried by two concerned Danish babes - old enough to be his daughters! Unconcerned by his disgusting appearance and odour he gamely tried to persuade us all to carry on the festivities in a local nightclub....Luckily he fell asleep in a heap, dreaming of Jennifer Aniston. Probably.

P.S The only downside of our trip, has been seeing sad tourists posing in traditional dress and getting their photo taken. When will this exploitation stop?

P. S. S. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Next installment: Good Morning Vietnam!!!!

Blogger's postscript: unfortunately, only two of Lisa's pictures could be uploaded to the blog, but each is a veritable cultural feast in itself and/or a bold expose of the worst kind of commercial exploitation of indigenous peoples, and who could seriously ask for more? Courage mes Braves!, Bon voyage!, A bas les Bogues de Lit !(that's "bed bugs" to you), Lisa and Will, and may the Shades of Jennifer Aniston, Sir Cliff and Jackie Chan be with you as you fly with the rising sun to Vietnam! Write soon!

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