One item eagerly awaited at the rider briefing is the weather report. As we’ve slowly turned the corner to follow the coast, our NNE winds were likely tailwinds! Hooray. There was of course also a chance of some showers.

A church by the sea. The route wasn’t as busy as other days as we crossed slightly remote areas.

More military bases.

A village along the coast.

We left the coast to go inland, passing a more extensive area where they were demining (clearing mines). This link https://www.halotrust.org/where-we-work/asia/sri-lanka/ says they’ve cleared 300,000+ mines so far…

Watch out!

Sections marked off.

Once we left the mine region we came across this area with some damaged but passable road.

Welcome coke stop. Today many were curious where we were going.

This project cost $150k. In my opinion, development projects from the World Bank, UN, USAID or direct government initiatives or the peace corps are worthwhile. On a per-capita GDP, Sri Lanka is slightly richer than the average in India (but perhaps on par with wealthier southern parts of India), similar to Indonesia and behind Thailand. So it doesn’t come across as Madagascar was (very poor) but still developing.

Mixture of shrines and mosques today.

Our lunch stop.

No photos after lunch because it started to rain. A drenching thunderstorm for a bit and then lighter before stopping. Still warm so other than coming in soaking wet it was a welcome change from a hot afternoon

We now have a rest day tomorrow. We’re slightly away from Trinco, so will have to see how to get there.