8th March

TODAY CHARLIE WRITES THE DIARY

Farewell, Trincomallee

We were up at 7.30am, packed and ready for our journey to Batti! After visiting the IOM office to say goodbyes to Chandra and other members of staff, we bid a fond farewell to Trincomallee and headed south in the van for Batticoloa. The journey took 6 hours. The scenery was stunning! The road South passed through Khadulla National Park. It was very green and reminded us of home! We stopped to take photos of a king's palace, a huge lake and.... WILD ELEPHANTS!!! WOW!!!! The setting wasn't great - the elephants were picking through a huge rubbish pile next to the road - but we saw them and we certainly wont FORGET!! Our driver stopped at a roadside stall selling curd & honey, and I took a chance and joined him. YUM! Delicious - and healthy to boot.

Hello, Batti

After a quick lunch stop and freshen-up, we arrived in Batti at about 2.30pm. We stopped to ask directions to the IOM office, and a tuk-tuk driver helpfully pointed to a sign about 25m up the road. The sign was actually larger than the van we were sitting in, and it announced that it was the IOM office!! Quick hello’s with the Batti IOM staff and then we set off to find the hotel we had been booked in to, as we were longing to have a chance to relax and cool down. We were led to what can only be described as CELL BLOCK 117. Our room was tiny, with no window....... "No cat swinging in here then", chortled Paddy. We returned to the IOM office to re-arrange some timings for sessions and Paddy managed to send the diary for the last few days off to Bella in England at last for her and David our webmaster to put up on the web.

Hot, hot, hot

We returned to our hotel and found the manager. He appologised for the room (shed!) and said a bigger room with air conditioning would be available tomorrow ..... PHEW.....GOOD JOB!!! It is SO hot here (quite a bit hotter than it was when we were here with Bella, Jo and Holly in November and December for the bigger Tour) and aircon really is a necessity rather than a luxury. We did a quick shop for essentials and Paddy bought himself a nice shirt - nothing for the larger clown sadly!! We have 3 gigs tomorrow....busy, busy, busy.....HOT, HOT, HOT !!!! All is well though - shows are good, weather is here, wish you were lovely!

CHARLIE CHUCKLES.