Welcome, avid readers (looking at you Mum and Dad) to travel blog #2, and what a winner of a country to write it from… Sri Lanka!

The bag is packed! Bronson has either been helping or desperately telling me to stay; it’s hard to tell with cats, but he’s a fan of the suitcase and everything inside it. I’ve packed fairly light: one week of clothes (to be washed three times on the trip), toiletries, swimming gear, 3 books, camera kit, laptop & walking boots. Still, I needed a hold suitcase… not sure how these young backpackers do it…

This blog will run across 3 weeks and consist of 8 posts (excluding this introductory one): Negombo, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Ella, Udawalawe National Park, Tissamaharama (Yala National Park) and Tangalle. Each one will hold something wildly adventurous or simply wild; we’re expecting to see elephants, monkeys and exotic birds. We’re HOPING to see leopards, sloth bears and blue whales.

Camera Kit

I have purchased a Tamron 70-300mm f/4 lens for my Canon 7D DSLR in the hope of capturing some extraordinary photos of these creatures, so we’ll see how that goes and I will share with you my struggles and triumphs in this particular field! Also with me is a Canon 18-55mm kit lens for the general stuff.

Books

Books… a wildly important aspect of the holiday, really. As much as I plan to be looking at the beautiful scenery as we wind our way around tea plantations in a rickety train, I also plan to be throwing myself into some varied literary works. In my daily London life I often just stick to fantasy books of a certain type by a certain circle of authors; they’re great and well written and often insightful, but on holiday I like to mix it up. This year I’ll be attempting two classic (in a very loose sense) authors of their genres, which I’ve never explored before. Then one book I know for a fact I’ll love.

1. John Grisham – ‘The Racketeer’ – “He was betrayed by the FBI. Now he wants revenge” is the tag-line… badass. Crime/law novel author extraordinaire, so I understand… This was his book with the highest Amazon rating, and in Amazon reviewers I trust. It’s a fairly recent one. I’m going to start on this one.

2. Stephen King – ‘Misery’ – “Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he’s writing to stay alive”. Who writes these tag-lines anyway? Hopefully not the authors… Phsycological horror, who needs it? Apparently the millions of Stephen King readers do… let’s give it a go?

3. Ben Aaronovitch – ‘Whispers Underground’ – The third book in his Rivers of London series, of which I have read the first two. They’re brilliant, and I will love this as much as the last two, I have no doubt.

See you in Negombo… where I will do my best to eat a samosa in the sunshine.