Costa Rica Part 2 (Wildlife)

While eating breakfast I witnessed this green vine snake hunt down, stun, kill and swallow this terrified frog. I was naturally trembling and feeling nauseous whilst taking this shot (Alex).

This Boa was released outside my hut one morning. The farm nearby had complained that it had been eating its cows so the park rangers went over to bring it back into the park. At 4.5 meters long it is one of the most horrifying things I have seen. I stood a mere 4 feet from it!

Costa Rica Part 1

The deserted private beach we spent most of the day on for a week (a year ago). As park rangers we had more or less exclusive access to this beach, with nobody for two miles in either direction. No electicity either.

Sri Lanka Part 10

Alex, barefoot and happy, in the Temple of the Tooth.

This is me looking rather concerned at the prospect of getting into a traditional, wooden 'steam bath.'





Of course, moments later I would have a man's oily thumb in my backside so climbing into the wooden coffin-like thing was actually the least of my concerns.

Here's young Alex, seconds before his brutal raping.

Sri Lanka Part 9

Having trouble getting pictures on the site again.

As a test here is yet another one of me... this time at one of the ancient kingdoms.


And here are the breasts we travelled thousands and thousands of miles to see. Shame about the boat races. Jesus!

Sri Lanka Part 8

Being back in the UK makes it much easier to post photos (I'm trying to look on the bright side here!).

I (Alan) am going to go ahead and dump my favourite pictures of Sri Lanka here. No doubt Alex will want to come on later and put different ones up (of him striking David Hasslehoff poses on various beaches about the place) pero vamos a ver.

This first picture was taken at the summit of Adam's Peak just after the sun came up. This was the only time in our trip (apart from out surfing at Hikkaduwa) where there were several tourists about.

This second shot is what it was like travelling 3rd class (although 2nd seemed the same) by train in Sri Lanka. Alex and I took a turn at the door which was brilliant. Photos don't do justice to the smells though... it reeked there!

This picture is of me wandering around a tree shrine at the Temple of the Tooth. Everything is ridiculously colourful there... prayer flags everywhere.


And here we have our preferred mode of surf travel... Tissan's Tuk Tuk with our boards strapped to the roof. What a legend that man was. Prepared to take us anywhere in that thing.

Sri Lanka Part 7

Good Lord! It is our very last day in Sri Lanka and by my calculations we have but one surf session left to squeeze in before getting a van to the airport. Que triste!

We've been down in a place called Midigama for the last 4 or 5 days and it has been wonderful.

We came to Sri Lanka on a surf trip really ... so we had visions of driving down the coast with our boards on the roof of a Tuk Tuk ... couple of T-shirts in a bag with nothing much else ... finding places that no-one else knew of... that sort of thing... modern day explorers if you will.

Hikkaduwa does not live up to this dream... it is full of surfers from all over the world all in their complete Billabong outfits with bleached blonde hair smoking endless weed and recounting endless dull surf tales. The main road is the scariest thing to walk along in the world. It is awful. Sorry Hikkaduwa but you suck.

Midigama on the other hand is exactly what we were hoping for. Too many surf spots to name and hardly anyone at all around. We surfed different spots each day and all were incredible and we stayed at a place called Ram's (pictured below) where the only thing we had to worry about was being at the large wooden table at 8 each evening for dinner (curry of course) with the other 20 or so tourists (let's say foreigners actually) that had had the sense to head 2 hours or so further down the coast from Hikkaduwa. Alex and I did not shower for 5 days. Who needs to when you live in the sea? (Well, we did after 5 days when both of us had formed dreads!).










I will complain for one second. Surfing powerful waves at powerful (serious) breaks is not easy when you have a near broken thumb and are missing a toe nail. That's it... I'm done.

Actually, wait. These annoying injuries meant that I had a wonderful time BUT could surf only half as much as I wanted to... and when I did I spent an awful lot of time bouncing off the sharp reef because I couldn't

That's getting dull now so I'll leave it.

When you are out surfing in Midigama all you see around you are: coconut trees, large white temples, the old train heading to Colombo, fishing boats, Tuk Tuks along the small but busy road, more coconut trees, turtles, sharp reef, islands, more coconut trees, huge thunder clouds and lightning followed 10 minutes later by sun etc... etc... etc...

Glorious.

We spent our days surfing, swimming (with mangoes like B'dos), up coconut trees, BBQ'ing fish, playing with dogs, surfing... (Alex pictured left, although you can hardly see the backside cutback he is nailing).

But now we are back to 100 people in the water, small waves and Hikkaduwa once again...

I think I'll leave it here! Off to the UK once again! (and that isn't such a bad prospect really)...

Sri Lanka Part 6

Here is a picture of young Alex in the wonderful train that runs along the coast from Colombo to Hikkaduwa. By this stage (4 hours in) we managed to get a seat and one by the window.

The night we arrived we tried not one but two venues for Rottys (a crepe-like thing stuffed with whatever you desire). This was the preferred.

Here is a lovely photo of Alan's disgusting toe moments after stubbing the shite out of it on the beach during a 6am dawn patrol. Alan was obviously still fast asleep as we walked to the break in the dark.

As if a toe injury was not enough (skin but definitely no nail flapping about in the sea etc...) Alan somehow managed to break his poor old thumb. Some jackass girl surfed into it with her immense longboard. The result is a smelly oiled-up enormous bandage. As you can tell I am revolted. The good news is apparently it is not broken.

Sri Lanka Part 5

I would love to write a bit about Alex's first homosexual experience (we both had traditional, all over body massages and let's just say that the fella who looked after Alex left no stones unturned) and about our playing Tin-Tin in the most incredible Ancient Kingdom ruins that I have EVER seen... but alas this cafe is even slower than the one in Kandy so I think I will leave it for another day.

We are back in Hikkaduwa on the coast and people have been running up and down this evening talking about a quake in Africa and how it might lead to another Tsunami here. I've just checked things out and there is NO way that we are going to be hit by anything tonight. The quake was a million miles from anywhere AND was horizontal (whatever that means) which means we can sleep easy. This place is full of jitters though... understandably.

Over and out mum! Ha ha.

Sri Lanka Part 4

Alex has somehow managed to get pictures on here... in the slowest internet cafe the world has ever known. Jesus!










The first picture is actually Alex starting the walk down from Adam's Peak but it is the nicest picture of the lot so I thought I would put it in first.

This second shot is of the summit at about 6 in the morning. Everyone is waiting for the sun to rise and my God it is freezing up there.




The final photo is of me freezing to death moments after having my head bashed 3 times into Adam's ACTUAL footprint by an over zealous monk. Nice.