Mount Lavinia, last day riding

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Our last cycling day today. TDA is good at doing all those end of the trip rituals: handing out jerseys, group photo, last evening dinner, etc. As Ezhil joked, this group is so used to following the routines (follow the white boards: drop your bag, follow the route, dinner, etc) that we’ll now transition from that.

It is Wednesday afternoon and my plan is to depart Thursday night at midnight. That gives me some time to explore around here before departure.

Today was another warm ride. Only 77km so many riders were done early. While we saw some of the busiest roads on the A02 highway, most of our cycling was again on quiet roads. That also explains why we finish here rather than cycle the last 15km to middle of Colombo.

A picture last night from our beach resort.

This morning a group photo before breakfast

On the road while it was still cool temperature.

These folks were harvesting grain. Many of these white birds hanging around.

Sri Lanka coke stop. Still a lot of dogs. Early on they seemed to be sleeping. One or two gave chase but most were bored to see us pass.

Just a few spots of drying grain

Coconut stop

Lunch, by now pretty warm. A little less than 30km to go. The last ~6km were chaotic but before that small roads.

Finish celebration, I was one of the later to arrive.

One last whiteboard with logistics. I’ve boxed my bike and made a booking to get to the airport.

Greg and Eve with one of their bikes boxed.

It has been a fun trip. I will still write out a summary with reflections but overall (1) very much enjoyed my ride (2) Sri Lanka is an interesting destination – not quite as chaotic as parts of India I’ve been but still rather different than cycling in the US (3) for me heat/humidity is on edge of tolerance, mountain areas were a nice variation and glad to finish early afternoons (4) TDA did a good job with this inaugural trip, well organized and not many surprises for first time riding; my first TDA hotel trip which is pretty luxurious compared to the other trips I’ve done.

Hotel room view, beach with Colombo high rises in the distance

Bentota, country roads

Mike Vermeulen's web Posted on by

A few busy stretches along the coast and through Galle but otherwise quiet roads. It was another hot/humid riding day today. The weather forecast said “feels like ~105F”. Not sure it was quite that hot with occasional shade from trees but I did  make three coke stops before lunch.

People continued to be curious – mostly standard “where are you from” and “where are you going” questions. There is a good amount of “hi” and “bye bye” as we pass.

Below was the beach from our hotel.

A little beyond that were signs for stilt fishermen.  As best I can tell, fishing season is May to October (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1189030-d15074232-Reviews-Stilt_fishermen_Sri_Lanka-Koggala_Galle_District_Southern_Province.html) so there wasn’t any real fishing going on now. I got a picture of the stilts and also saw a sign that for 5000 Rs ($16) someone would climb up on the stilts to pose for photos.

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These folks were busy hauling in nets from the sea. In the rest of the day we passed several fish sellers.

Galle was a large and busy city. There is a historic fort here but I bypassed to get through the city before it got warmer. Soon enough we were on roads that looked more like below.

A coke stop

More of our quiet roads

Victory memorial

Do you want to learn Physics, Chemistry or Accounting?

Mosque

Lunch stop near where they harvested cinnamon. After removing the outer bark from the cinnamon tree, the cinnamon comes from the inner bark.

Hooray, nice to get through a warm ride and to a cool hotel with air conditioning. Tomorrow we finish our tour with a ride to a little ways south of Colombo

Ahangama, a little further up the coast

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Today we took back roads as we traveled a little further clockwise on the coast. We started at a beach resort, ended at a beach resort but didn’t take the direct (busy) road.

It is interesting to see where the tourists come from for these beach resorts. The last day or two, I’ve heard more Russian and French spoken. Occasionally, I’ll hear German or Dutch. I haven’t noticed as many Chinese or Korean signs as Japanese. English speaking tourists I’ve met are more likely to be British than American. As a whole it seems more like a destination for Europeans than Americans.

It was only 69km but the afternoon was getting warm so nice to avoid some of the heat.

Example of a typical road starting out. Some traffic.

Fitness center

Lions at the gates

Drying grains, but this time in the field and on sheets

Battle mural

Quiet lane. More of our riding was on lanes like these

Make way for the herd

Cinnamon

Afternoon coke stop

An Egyptian themed beach hotel in Sri Lanka

Welcome white board with references to the Egyptian theme…

There is a standard rhythm and organization to things: park your bike, find your luggage, get your room, rider meeting to discuss the next day, dinner and then early to bed.

The medic and bike mechanic have their office hours. I had one mechanical issue (bent derailleur hanger) and no medical issues.

Tangalle, sleeping dogs and freeways

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A variety of roads today – some were quiet enough for dogs and cows to settle and sleep on the road

Others were broad freeway style with three lanes each way, though also not very crowded – and then some sections of one lane each way with moderate traffic

We were headed along the coast and could spot the ocean a few times. The first 37km was on quiet country lanes and beautiful riding.

Also a lot of wetlands and birds

In the tourist areas some advertise for driver rooms

Mosque

Country lane…

Large lizard

Waiting for the water buffalo

Bird and buffalo

After 37km we came to the expressway section. Lunch was beside the road

After a while it became more of a normal busy road. I passed two of these fish markets. As the afternoon got later, it was also hot.

Roadside stand including corn.

Our endpoint is a nice hotel on the beach. A little warm but otherwise a reasonable riding day.

Tissamaharama, relaxing rest day

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A relaxing rest day in Tissa. I walked to the old Buddhist temple and otherwise hung around the hotel.

The place we are staying is nice with a pool and large rooms. The places we stay are generally fancier than I would have picked on my own. Larger resort type places that can accommodate a group our size. Nice and relaxing.

Breakfast buffet: french toast, scrambled eggs, papaya, potatoes, chicken sausage, chicken bacon, juice and tea.

It was a nice walk out to the temple.

The Tissamaharama Raja Maha Vihara temple is one of the ancient temples and has a giant stupa. It is described more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissamaharama_Raja_Maha_Vihara

Shoes off by the gate. I saw very few tourists

Temple

Walk back, multiple fruit/vegetable stalls

The best way to carry coconuts?

Safari vehicle. The town seems oriented towards taking tourists on half day safaris in these vehicles to spot animals in the parks. TDA riders report seeing elephants, birds, lizards – and many other safari vehicles. Sounds like fun trips though the thought of squeezing into a jeep to chase animals wasn’t as much for me.

We see these posters advertising classes. Often the subject (Business, Accounting, Chemistry, …) is in English and surrounding text in local language.

From here the trip back to Colombo. Less climbing and not as long distances, though I expect hot and humid.

Tissamaharama, down from the mountain

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Today was an easy ride descending from Ella back to the coast. Yesterday the mechanic, Baba, straightened my derailleur hanger and that made a huge difference for my shifting as well as avoiding gear skips.

Most of the descent was in the first 20km. It was more gradual than yesterday. Around 10km was this large waterfall.

This area seems more touristy than the northern parts we cycled. This means many signs for hotels/rooms as well as cafes. Today I also had a few cases of kids yelling, “give me money” as I passed, unfortunate, since that was much less in other areas.

Tall tower along the way.

A nice spot for a coke stop. Most of these places, I go to the refrigerator and then see what is cool.

Lunch stop.

In the afternoon we came past people selling these. Earlier in the trip, this was custard but not sure what it was this time.

The Buddha TV and radio tower.

We are now at a rest day. We are next to Yala National Park. These vehicles are safari jeeps and   the main attraction seems to be safaris to spot animals. I’m not that excited about sitting in a jeep chasing animals so still seeing what to do tomorrow – perhaps more of a walk around the town.

Ella, up and down…

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Today we descended ~2000m and climbed ~1000m as we went through a hilly region. Overcast all day and slight rain so nice cool riding weather.

Headed to the end of the world

We were mostly on small roads, with occasion water falls

Terrace farming. Mist coming down from the mountain

Temple

Mosque

Slightly larger road

Emissions testing

Despite what the web site says (King Supers is mostly a Colorado Supermarket chain and now a subsidiary of Kroger), I found a little one in Sri Lanka…

A lot of climbing brought us to the tourist town of Ella. I went in search of the Nine Arches Bridge…

Here is a description of the bridge – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Arch_Bridge

Apparently the tracks are normally live, with regular train service. I don’t know if it is interrupted right now with tracks down

An example of tourist shop

Another tourist shop. Overall a nice long ride.

Nuwara Eliya, transfer day

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No cycling today. Instead we transferred by coach up to the hill town of Nuwareliya. We are around ~1900m elevation and considerably cooler.

It was a relaxed start. Unlock my bicycle at 7am so it could be loaded into a renter truck. Breakfast buffet at the hotel, load our bags onto the baggage truck.

Originally the idea was for the tour to take a train. While that would have been fun, Cyclone Ditwah knocked out several railway bridges and made that impossible. The staff weighed having us ride but there is a *lot* of climbing and hence a bus day with lunch at a tea plantation.

The process for tea is summarized above. What surprised me was (1) while there are ~300 species of tea plant, most of the tea in the world comes from two species (2) it seems like a very mechanical process of drying, rolling, breaking, sifting the leaves into different uses (3) fermentation might distinguish black tea from others but physical characteristics like leaf size, size of the tea powder make for differences in tea

Some more info here: https://teasrilanka.org/tea-grade

As we got to the right altitude to grow tea (soil PH, sunlight, rain and other factors also at play) there were many plantations catering to tourists. We stopped at one of the larger ones. We had lunch first, then the tea tour.

First step, drying ~500kg of tea to leave ~250kg

A lot of rolling, shaking and sorting to get different coarseness of tea powders sorted into bins

Next was the tea tasting. We got to sample four different teas.

Last step here was the sales center where one could buy tea. I didn’t get any here but many other riders have some tea to carry home in their bags.

Sign boards also told some of the story.

Nuwara Eliya is a tourist town with horse rides.

Sign pointing back to Kandy down the hill.

Gasoline is approximately $4/gallon equivalent here.

Classic looking hill house.

From here the plan is two days cycling – back down to sea level. Still some uphill tomorrow as well.

Kandy, rest day

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A rest day today to see sights in Kandy. These included the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, the Museum of Buddhism, the palace and generally walking around town.

The Temple of the Tooth Relic, has hidden away the left front tooth. There is a sequence of ~20 panels that starts with the history of Buddha and then explains how the tooth ended here with references to kings, the British, etc. There are also small alcoves with different deities. Photos prohibited in many places but got a few to give a flavor.

The Museum of Buddhism was well done. It gave a good history of founding around ~300 BC in northern India and then the spread through the world. There was a sequence of halls, one per country that highlighted unique strains of Buddhism and country specific highlights.

The palace wasn’t as interesting to see but did have some nice dioramas.

Kandy is a town otherwise catering to tourists.

One does need to be careful with monkeys here. One from our group had the door/window unlocked and monkeys decided to get in and create a mess.

Otherwise a quiet and relaxing day. The afternoon had some more rain.

Tomorrow we transfer to the next town  (rather than bicycle) so a bit of a break before continuing the trip in the highlands.

Kandy, climbing into a rest day

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Today I rode in to lunch and took the afternoon in the van. It was a hot ride and my GPS told me the full day would have 6000+ feet of climb. I have it showing distances in kilometers and climbs in feet.

We have reached Kandy and will explore here tomorrow as a rest day. We’re at 500m elevation and the next town is 1900m elevation. The original tour plan was to take a train – but Cyclone Ditwah knocked out some tracks so plan is to transfer by bus.

The day starts with bringing our bags to the truck and then breakfast

We cycled briefly along this reservoir

Looking backwards we fortunately could take the cycle path across. Motor vehicles took the road which seemed to have minor flooding

We followed this path along the canal for several kilometers

Bus stop and memorial to a special forces soldier.

Small shrine near lunch

Maurice getting a photo with the kids

Lunch stop. Several short steep hills before this and hot sun had me decide to take the van. It was a tough ride and kudos to those who rode it.

World cup cricket tournament going on. Australia is playing Sri Lanka at a stadium in Kandy about 11km from here. Australians on the trip are excited though may not be able to get tickets.

A few first images of Kandy