23rd April - Sri Lanka -Kandy and Nuwara Eliya

We stayed at the Queens Hotel next to the Temple of the Tooth, across the road from Kandy Lake. Very old English style, little run down but quaint. I think this is the answer to one of the challenges. It says: Who lives in Queens House. We think it is visitors.
The challenge was :- Take in the daily pujas near The Temple of the Tooth. Puja is the entire ceremony where worshipers bring their gifts and offerings and lay them on the altar. This ceremony starts at 5.30 am. While we were standing in line without an offering other worshippers in the line gave us these locust flowers to use as offerings. They had a wonderful smell.

It is believed that one of Buddah's teeth now resides in this temple, the ownership of this "tooth" has been both political and religious through Sri Lanka history. Whichever city had ownership of the tooth had control over the country. Once a year the tooth is paraded through the streets on the back of an elephant with lots of pomp and circumstance. We had visited the first home of the tooth in Polounawara.

Loud drums beat and pulsate through this ceremony. At one point the temple door to the tooth area was opened and about 20 people were allowed to go into and inner sanctuary, the door closes and everyone else is left outside. The Sri Lankans really take their worship seriously.

We then went out of Kandy to visit the Elephant Orphanage. This is where they take hurt elephant and help them get recovered, they are not rereleased into the wild because they are too friendly to people. There are many wild elephants in Sri Lanka, their biggest enemy is the human and visa versa, every year many villagers are killed by elephants and many elephant hurt and maimed by villagers. One old boy was called Simari, he only has 3 feet as he stepped on a land mine and blew off the other. He looks very old and some of his skin looks like it got scorched but he is there in a safe home with 80 more elephants in his pack. If you look carefully you can see that Simari's front right foot is missing his toes and the bottom part of his foot. He does not put weight on it, he limps along.We were there for feeding time of the baby elephants and got to hold the bottles and feed them. How cool is that ?? This is Zoe feeding the baby with an enormous bottle. This was definitely a highlight but anything with animals always is for me.. It is so unbelievable we will be driving down the road and coming towards you is an elephant or swimming in the rivers below the bridges is an elephant. It's all so neat!!
We took the train down to Nuun Olyb which is very close to Nuwara Eliya. This town is also called Little England. It is amazing in the middle of nowhere in Sri Lanka is an English village with red double decker buses, Tudor house, strawberries and potatoes growing and acres and acres of tea. We are in the Ceylon Tea section of this island. We visited a Pedros Tea factory and the guy showed us which tea leaves to pick.

We posted a card at the post office and had tea at the Hill Club. To be allowed in we had to buy membership for the day.

They were a little reluctant to allow these rassy people in especially Lily as she is under aged. But with a little persuasion in we went to the Old English sittingroom decorated with a fireplace (which they offered to light for us) and pictures of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip hanging on the walls between stuffed and mounted animal heads. Again a very surreal experience. The temperatures up here at very much cooler and it is damper just like England.

Collect another TAXI to drive us to Adams Peak, which is a mountain about 3 hours away. When the TAXI driver discovered he had to travel so far he asked if he could pass home. He needed to get some supplies and a warmer jacket for the drive. He was a Tamil (one Hindus, this country has been in turmoil for many years as the Tamils and the Buddhist fought, I always thought that the Tamils were scary) in a Buddhist country. When we got to his house he invited us in (I did not know that Yoga was a Tamil until after we left his home) and gave us some dinner of rice and some kind of chopped up meat and vegetables.

There was no running water in his house but it had electricity and an older TV set and a sewing machine. They cooked on a wood stove in the corner of the kitchen. His family were so lovely and gracious. We were sorry to leave but we have to be at Adams Peak by 10.00pm because we are not allowed any intercity travel between 10.00 pm and 5.00am so we have to be in place in a rest house at the bottom of the mountain before 10.
We are to climb Adams Peak tomorrow. I am terrified, it is 4800 steps both ways. You have to climb it before dawn. I hope to get to the top. We have just spent hours on a train getting down here with all the people around us telling us the horror stories of climbing this beast. The climb is worth 400 points and we are going to give it a try. I hope I live to tell the tales of this scavenge. I think I am crazy to take Lily up there but she is determined that she can make it and wants to try. So it is Adam's Peak tomorrow in the middle of the night. Pray for me.

29th April 2010 - Central Europe - Freiburg

When we first looked at the train schedule we thought that we would have to be in Freiburg until 1.30 pm so we could sleep in. But I finally discovered that if we could leave the town by 10.15am we could actually fit in another town called Basal. Freiburg is a bonus city which had about 4 or 5 parts to it. If you don't do all you lose all the points but because it is technically one challenge the two teams could do it together.
The only think that had a time limit was climbing the bell tower of the church. That did not open until 9.30am, could we climb it, run back to the hotel, collect our bags and be on a 10.15 train? Well we decided to try. The first part was to get to the top of a certain walk, see what was there and visit. Well this was a 20 minute hike up hill at the top was a spiral staircase, ice-cream cone shaped tower with 200 steps to the top. Well we huffed and puffed up the hill through the woods.
This was a lovely experience early in the morning. The woods were green and crisp with the dew still sitting on the leaves as the sun had not come up as yet to burn away the dew. The climb up the tower was a little stressful on the legs after the uphill climb but if we wanted to catch that train we had to book it to the top and back down. The tower was very neat from an artistic point of view as it ws a spiral stainless steel staircase being support by these enormous, extremely long and thick tree trunks.

We took a different path down hoping that it would bring us out close to the city gates, the bachles and the church. On the way down we passed this cross just randomly standing there, it was so beautiful backed by the brilliantly blue skies.

We then walked and found the city gate as was required. We had to find some bachles, these are the small little steams that wander through the town . We were also required to learn the legend of the bachles asn as legend has t, if you dip your foot into the backles ( stream) you will marry and remain in Freiburg forever

. We made sure that Lily only pretended and she did not actually get her feet wet, we don't want to lose her to Freiburg:)

Freiburg houses look like something off of a postcard. They have the little streams, the climbing literia flowers and the pastl paint and the shutters etc. So peaceful looking.

The church was still closed so we sat in the town square as the morning market was being set up and eat the food mandatory of currywurst sausage in bread.
We were the first in line to climb the very narrow spiral staircase the 350 steps to the top. The church actually has 3 levels of which you can choose how high you can climb.

We had decided to go all the way to the top to be on the safe side but the church is under restoration and the last section at the top of the steeple was closed. The view was still stunning .

We ran down the steps and ran back to the hotel and caught the train with 2 minutes to spare but we were now on our way to another town called Basal where we could pick up some more points. This day is just clicking together absolutely like clockwork. Basal here we come, suitcases, backpacks, cameras and all!!!!!

28th April 2010 - Central Europe – Munich

We arrived so late in Munich; we were tired and miserable and had to find somewhere to stay for the night. We walked out of the train station and tried a couple of the places nearby... One wanted to charge us $300 euro for the night. No way, Bill will actually reimburse up to $200.00 US per night. The second place had no rooms available and finally the third had 2 rooms for $85.00 Euros each including breakfast, but no air-conditioning. Outside was very cool so we left open the windows and were extremely comfortable. It in fact had in 3 beds. I guess this is used by backpackers and groups. The beds were comfy and the bathroom clean with lots of hot water. What else can anyone ask for?

Lils and I went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Lily gets up calling out for e, telling me we have missed the bus and she opens up the hotel room door and starts to head off. I jumped out of bed, hauled her back in and settled her back down. The game is getting to her. She got up again in the night worried that she was late for Zoe. It was so funny and she knows she got out of bed in the night but she can't really remember what she did. It was funny but also scary.

We got up early next morning and went all altogether to visit Dachau the infamous Nazi concentration camp. We rented audio guides and walked around for hours reliving the horrors of the war that took place there. How can any human treat another human in this manner is besides me. Below is the memory wall with the promise for all nations that this monstrosity will "never Happen Again", in he square box in front of Lily is the cremated remains of an unknown Jew who lost their life at Dachau.

There is also a photo of the gate of no return, once you were matched through this gate you lost all of your dignity, property, rights and ultimately your life.

Then we went back to the city centre of Munich, had lunch together and encouraged a bunch of people in the beer house to first teach us a beer house song and then to sing the Barbados National Anthem with us. We laughed so much that tears ran down my face. It was so funny to see a bunch of Italian young men singing along with us. unfortunately all of my pictures are in video form. We had to eat the mandatory weisswurst sausage. It looked so unappetising when it first arrived. It looked like 2 white intestines floating in clear water. It tasted better than it looked but still very very bland.
We ate and sang in the oldest and biggest Beer house in tow. This was where Hitler held his first meeting back in the 1940's. Evidently back then around the base of the chandeliers were painted with the red Nazi symbols but those have been painted over with Bavarian scarves. If you look you can see that the scarves do follow the lines of the original Nazi symbols.
Once again because of the rules and regulations we split up and scavenged the city separately. Lily and I walked for miles and miles. One of the challenges was to find all 3 old city gates, well by the time you find all three you have circumnavigated the city. We visited ST. Peters Church and we climbed up 14 flights of stairs ( yes up more steps) up to Old Pete's bell tower which gave us a crows view of the city. Where we could see all the clock towers in the area plus the entire city.

We watch the dancing clock turn midday in the town square. We bought the required items in the market and finally found the staute of Julia ( Juliet from Romeo and Juliet's) statue. This staue was given to Munich as a gift from the city of Veronna.

We lost a lot of time searching for a museum of odd collections which we finally discovered closed about 18 months ago. We visited "the devil's footprint in Frauenkirche church.

We finally visited the Dutch Museum and had to locate one of the earliest globes of the world made by Christopher Columbus , there is one big mistake on the globe and that is it is missing the Americas because they had not been discovered as yet.

When were ready to get a TAXI back to the hotel to meet Zoe and Rainy there were no Taxi's in site so our poor tired feet had to walk another mile or so looking for a TAXI. We were supposed to rent bikes and ride out to a park but we could not find any where to rent the bikes from. Had we rented bikes we would have saved our poor tired feet and made more points. We saw Kit and Joanne on one of our walks. We think they are so neat and are fun to hang out with whenever we get the chance, which isn't often as we go off in different directions every day.

Well we haul all of our luggage back to the train station and off we set to the town of Freiburg. We will again get in too late to scavenge but we will be in place to get going early in the morning. At this point our plans are to leave Freiburg and head for Paris. If we stay in a hotel that costs less than $100.00 tonight we will get 150 points. Freiburg is many hours away by train.

When we arrived we managed to get another hotel for $83.00 Euros which makes us the bonus points. Tonight it is me that gets all confused. When we got into the room the window that we had to leave open was very big and I was worried that Lily might have another dream and climb out so I barricaded it with chairs, suitcases and back packs. Because the windows are open you can hear the trains, people talking and cars going by. I like to hear the sounds so that does not bother me. In the middle of the night I woke up and thought I heard Zoe and Rainy outside the window, so I scramble over the barricade and look out. Three stories down is a blonde woman and a dark headed man putting their luggage in a Taxi. I was so confused that my confuffled brain decided that it was Zoe and Rainey and I started to scream at them through the window asking them if plans had changed. Lily jumped up at all of this commotion and the poor couple down below looked up at me like I was a crazy woman (which at the moment I certainly was). I guess this game is getting to me as well.

27th April 2010 -Central Europe – Linz and Salzburg

Linz is a beautiful city very picturesque. It was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite places and he spent his school days there. His Nazi movement built a massive iron and steel works there which still employs many of the locals. It is a very prosperous town.

We were only in Linz for about 1 hour. We had to go to the middle of the city and take a photograph of the Dreifaltigkeitssaule or Trinity Column. This is a 2o meter tall column of Marble that was carved in 1723 to celebrate the town's deliverance from war, fire and plagues. It is carved into a spiral shape and covered in little angels and creatures. So not what I had expected. It is very whimsical.

We got a bonus in experiences because also in that square was an large art piece that as erected by the Art School in Linz as an example f there work as they have open week at t5he institute next week. This was a huge piece that looked like an eye; the unique thing is that it was made out of T-shirts. Thousands of T- shirts in different colors were hung to create this art. We thought it was so neat the cab driver thought it was an

abomination

.

Salzburg – the land of Mozart and Sound of Music
We hustled back to the station and went on to the city of Salzburg. One of our Bonus challenges for big points was to cross the border between Austria and another country and prove it. Well when I was reading the guide book I found the neatest thing. It is a tour of a salt mine in Austria that stretches in Germany and during the tour you take a small boat across a lake and into Germany 300 meters below the surface of the earth. So we decided that was neat plan and off we set after a 2 hour train ride.
The most important industry in Salzburg between the years 1587 – 1612 was the mining of salt from the salt mines. This business was run by the most influential archbishop Wolf Dietriech von Raitenau. He fell from power when he lost a dispute with Bavaria over the salt mines. He died a prisoner. We were worried that the salt mine might have been closed when we got there but for once luck was in our favor and we did the tour.
The first thing we did was put on our white Oompa Loompa style boiler suits on top of all our own clothes. The mines are 10 degrees in temperature so these outfits help keep you warm and stopped the dripping salt from wetting your home clothes. Then we got on these funny little trains, they looked like a toy train and descended into the bowels of the earth.

Once we got off the train our guide told us some of the history of the mines and showed us a movie about the archbishop. Then we walked a distance and had to slide down these funny wooden slides. This slide was 27 meters long and looked scary but they were fun.

Then we walked some more and climbed onto a boat on the end of a small lake way down below the earths surface. This boat slowly glided across the lake and into Germany. The lady guide teased us and asked if we had our passports.

Then it was a couple more movies, another 47 meter slide which slide us back into Austria and then back on the funny train to the surface. This was a wonderful experience. It was so well done. I was very impressed. We also saw a replica of a man that they had found buried in the mines. He had been perfectly preserved because he was pickled by the salt. They removed him and took him out of the mines and within days he started to decay and smell. Well they have cleverly replaced a replica in the mine and tell the story.

We drove back to Salzburg city center and split up the teams to scavenge and made arrangements to meet at the required mandatory restaurant for dinner. Lils and I managed to visit the St. Peters Church, ride the funicular up to the old fort, find the chess game in town, took a picture of Lily holding up the world, tried to visit Mozart's house which was closed because we were too late, found some banks and found the first restaurant to eat apple strudel but they were sold out so went to the next for dinner. We met up with Zoe and Rainy, had dinner and then back to the train station to catch a train to Munich. We will get in too late to scavenge tonight but we will be in place to start first thing in the morning...

26 - 27th April 2010 -Central Europe – Vienna Austria

This is another 6 pointer leg of the competition. At present Lily and I are in first overall in the competition but we are only ahead by 1 point which will not save us in this leg. This leg is where we are given 100 odd challenges and 5 days to make our way across Europe from Vienna Austria to Paris France. We have to be in Paris by 10.00am on Friday. Bill does not mind how we do this but we cannot use an airplane or a private car, no car rentals, no helicopters and we must travel between cities by public transportation i.e. bus or train NOT by TAXI.

When he handed out the booklets in Austria he put a limitation on us and said we were not permitted to start scavenging until 4.30, we had to sleep in that hotel that night. We could not check out of the hotel before 8.00am and we had to have a photo of the clocks behind the reception area to prove we had left after 8.00am. We didn't check out until midday so it was a moot rule for us but we still had to take the photo if not he was docking 300 points. We wait until the required 4.30 pm and set out to find a guide book and a train map etc. We took a TAXI down to the city centre by St. Stephens Church, we werfe suppose to visit either the bell tower or the catscombs but both were closed. The guide book said they closed at 6.00pm but they actually shut at 5.30- zero points. Then we went to Secession museum – closed. The Museum Café – closed in fact it had gone out of business. Then the Kunsthauswein which stated it closed at 7.00pm- you got t it was closed as well. We begged and begged but to no avail. In there was so different it had wavy floors and walls that were covered in bright mosaic art work. The people there were so rude. The problem was that all of these things were mandatory so if we didn't do them we couldn't get the points.

We decided to go to the Fairground nearby which has a giant Ferris wheel, similar o the London eye, called the Riesenrad. This was built in 1897, weighs 430 tones and takes 20 minutes to make a full circle. The cars that you sit in look a lot like train cabooses and the view of Vienna was outstanding with the river Danube running through it. It evidently became famous after the movie "The Third Man" was filmed on it.

We headed back into the city centre and manage to find another mandatory called the Ankeruhr clock. This was very unique created by Franz von Matsch in 1911. The clock does not have hands that tell the time, across the top turns a wheel which carries Roman Numerals and those depict the time the history of Vienna is told by the moving figures that change every hour. Evidently at 12.00 noon all the figures march around and the organ plays. We only saw it change on the hour of 7.00pm. It was very neat.

We called it quits after this because every single thing we tried to do was closed and we were only spinning top in mud. We set out to find the Naschmarket. This is a mile of restaurants so we decided to do our eating challenges there. We had .wiener schnitzel which is a breaded and fried piece of veal (this use to be Zoe's favorite when we use to go and ski in Lech as children) and a non alcoholic drink called Almdudler which is a washy washy tasting drink that is a cross between ginger beer and lemonade.


That ended our frustrating day and we decided to call it quits, head home to bed and start again in the morning. I forgot to tell you guys that we have only been given 3 scavenges a day to do with another team on this leg so Rainy and Zoe and Lily and I are going to scavenge the city until 12.00pm separately and then meet back together to catch a train to the town of Linz. It felt so good to get into bed and know that we could actually sleep without worrying about a wakeup call.

We got up had breakfast and set out at bout 7.30am. Lils and I started by going to the Brunnenmarket which is a Turkish market. It was supposed to open at 6.00am but it was most certainly still being set up while we were there. It had stalls of cheeses, spices, Turkish candy, flowers, breads etc. We had nowhere else to go that early that would have been open so we hung around for awhile and then took a train back to the town centre.

We took our ride on the tram that was a challenge and went back to the Secession to try and get in to see Beethoven's frieze, we were a little early so new sat and waited. About 9.30 we saw some ladies putting up a sign on the top step and went to ask some questions to discover that the museum was closed for renovations and it was not going to open. This was big trouble for us because the clock was ticking and this was one of the mandatorys. I talked and talked and talked to the lady and begged her to let me in. Finally she did and boy was inside a mess of ladders, paint tins, carpet padding etc. She took us down to the basement and showed us where the frieze was but it was covered for its own protection during the renovations. She wrote us a note verifying that we had been in and downstairs. Thank goodness now all our other points will count.

From there we went to the Haus de music. What a wonderful place. It is an entire museum of hands on things for you to play with and make music. We spent "too long" there just having fun. This is a place that Lily will never forget. She got to "conduct" the Austrian Viennese Orchestra. She messed up the first time but actually completed the entire song on her second try. We saw Bill there and he was impressed with her effort as well. I also tried conducting as the below photo shows....

We had to visit to visit the Kunsthistorishes museum and find the painting in room XI to do with Good Friday. It was a painting of the Lamintations, it depicted Mary holding Christ after his body was removed from the cross. It was painted by Casper de Crepe somewhere between the dates 1649 - 1656.

We scurried around and saw a couple more museums; we walked miles to accomplish this. During our walk we came across the discovery of a Roman city that was buried beneath the city of Vienna. How does an entire city disappear and diapper to the point where another whole city is built on top? I find this fasciating.

Then we hailed a taxi and hustled back to the hotel by 11.30 to meet up with Zoe and Rainy to take the train to Linz. They were running a bit late but we still managed to make the train.
We had so much fun and Vienna is really beautiful.

24th April 2010 -Sri Lanka – The Missing Day

As my last Sri Lanka blog said we are going to attempt the following Bonus which is worth 400 points. I had to put a few days between this experience and my blog so that I could regain some perspective on the situation!!!!
Adam, Alexander the Great and Buddha are said to have done it but Idn Batuta and Marco Polo did do it!! Climb Adam's Peak and explain a foot prints on the rock at its summit. (Note the stairway to the top is believed to be the "longest in the world"
The guide book says: - Adam's Peak is the 5^th largest mountain on the island standing at 2,243 meters (7,360 ft). Adam's Peak is easily the most dramatic, rising in solitary splendor above the surrounding hills. The strange impression on the bare rock at its summit is claimed to be a footprint made by Buddha himself during one of his legendary visits to the island. Thousands of pilgrims haul themselves up thousands of steps to pay devotions to the footprint. ….."Men, women, old and young some almost decrepit, some who actually die on the way, many have to be pulled or carried up…. People from every way African, priests and laymen, princes and paupers, may be seen striving, toiling, perspiring upwards...The climb is done at night in time for dawn, one has the best chance, weather permitting, of seeing the extraordinary sunrise and the associated spectacle known as the "Shadow of the Peak", whereby the rising sun casts a perfect triangular shadow of the peak's summit, which hangs miraculously suspended in m id – air for 20 minutes or so. This bizarre phenomenon has yet to be satisfactorily explain… but visiting Buddhist take it as proof of the mountains extraordinary supernatural qualities.
You can't read this clearly but the number that followed the Adams Peak line is 4800 steps.

The hotel rooms were clean but definitely different. It was also extremely hot as I was afraid to open the windows, our room was below ground level but you could walk up to the window and climb in easily. There were no fans and some mosquitos so we pulled our mosquito nets which ade it even hotter. We had normal toilets and hot water. This still scores a high grade in hotels for me.

Well the guy who was suppose to wake us at 2.00am never knocked, thank goodness Rainy awoke by himself and in the dead of night in pitch blackness we departed the hotel to find the start of the climb. Needless to say it was cold and yes you guessed it, it was raining just a fine drizzle but just enough to make things slippery. When you looked up the mountain you could see in the distance the path out lined in lights. We stopped and bought some cheap (rain coats – they look like a garbage back but one 2 sides are cut open. You place your head in the bottom corner or point which made the hat and then jus wrap yourself in the rest of the plastic). It was a fashion statement these purple rain coats

Well we started to walk; nobody tells you that for the first 3 miles you walk in through a small "village" of shops etc and yes you guessed it that walk goes down to the bottom of the valley of Adam's Peak. So when you see photos of the mountain understand that the climb starts at the very bottom in the valley. About 10 minutes after you start the steps start and at first you very gently start the incline upwards. At this point I was last in the pack with Lily and Zoe out front, Rainy in the middle and I bringing up the rear. I knew that if I was ever going to complete this challenge I would have to pace myself. Once the steps started I started to count in groups of 100. Needed to know how far I had gone when I couldn't go any more. I didn't want to quit 10 minutes from the top of something. We knew that it was suppose to 4800 steps. Very quickly I pulled into the lead with the others lagging. I was just counting and climbing. I was determined to get to half way before I took a break. At around 2000 steps the group started to lag and by 2400 steps Lily started to panic. She was nauseous, dizzy and very afraid that she could go no further. Zoe was also very exhausted and Rainy later admitted that he didn't think he could possible make it either. I sat Lily down (n we had done about ½ the climb in 1 hour and we had 2 more hours to dawn when you had to be at the Peak. We could slow down I gave her water, some crackers and as Lily calls them "miracle beans" or sports jelly beans, very sweet and she uses them on marathons. We all had 2 beans and I made a deal with Lily when she started to feel better. We would go up 100 steps at a time and we would take a break. The steps vary in size, some are parts are harder because they are very deep and steep and others are shallow and shorter, some are slippery stones, parts are gravel, parts are muddy and some are concrete. So some areas are easier than others, but all are hard. We started back our climb with me out front like the rabbit. I would go ahead and count 100; the rest would come behind, depending on how difficult the area was sometimes I would push to 125 or 150. Sometimes the places we wanted to rest were filthy and we would aim for a little higher or Lily would decide she could make it to the next light pole. We helped encourage and drag each other up this beast. It was grueling, we had to buy numerous bottles of water, we were all soaking wet with sweat even though the night air was cool.

The sobering parts was as hard as it was for us, if you looked around they had all types of people attempting this pilgrimage. One lady was going up on all fours- that's right on her hands and knees. I think she must still be up there. The elderly are being helped up by the young. Men with only 1 leg were climbing with crutches. Some people take days to do this climb. The closer you got to the top the narrower the staircase became and the more crushing the crowd, in fact it was very claustrophobic at times.

The good news is that we reached the last stair case as dawn started to break out in the east. At this point we were actually climbing through clouds.

We got to the top WE HAVE DONE IT!!!We reached the TOP of THE WORLD. I never seen such a wide grin on Lily she was so proud to have actually make it.
We finally pushed, shoved and got to the top in time for the punja ceremony start. I had taken 3 hours to do this very arduous climb. Some pilgrims carried bottles of water up the steps and when they got to the top they poured it over a flame as seen below. This is the second time I have seen this in action I just don't know the significance.

The drums started to beat, people started feeding the monks and we realized that we had another narrow staircase to climb to pass by Buddha's footprint. This picture is taken on the exit before the shoving started.

The people on that staircase were so aggressive. They shoved, pushed elbowed you and squeezed until you felt you couldn't breathe. It was NOT a pleasant experience. When we got to the top to see the footprint, a monk forced you to your knees and shoved your head down on the ground 3 times ( as respect to Buddha) the problem was that the footprint was covered with a cloth. You see people through money on the footprint and to prevent it getting damaged they cover it in a cloth. 4,800 steps later and the footprint was covered and the cloud coverage was so heavy that the sunset was minimal and not enough to create the "shadow of the Peak" I was so disappointing. The view was fabulous though so we had a small trophy for our climb. Then guess what 20 minutes later we had to go back down all 4,800 steps. I really had anticipated that the down climb would have been much easier, not so at all. In fact I rather climb up. There are very few hand rails and the steps are so uneven and deep that it was absolute hell on your knees. My legs were trembling and shaking and half way back down is when I finally felt I had reached break point. Lily, Zoe and Rainy managed to get much further ahead than me so I had no encouragement from the. Every so often I sat down and felt I could go no more but that is when the strangers in strange lands became my encourager. Every time I felt I was finished someone would come along, touch me on the head and pull me up and encourage e again. When I finally got to the bottom of the valley the final 3 mile walk out of the valley seemed to like one of those nightmares you have when you can't ever get to the end of a task. Every time I thought had reached the road twisted and turned again. On the way down a monk blessed Lily and Zoe, he gave them the red dots on their foreheads and tied a red string on their hands which you are not suppose to remove, you are suppose to wear it until it drops off. Lily is still wearing hers. This photo is taken at the END of the entire ordeal.
I had not even remembered that we had walked that far the night before. Finally almost exactly 5 hours later our ordeal was over. We were back at the storage little guest house, having a shower and breakfast while we started at the mountain in the distance that we had just conquered. I learnt from this experience 2 things I climbed that beast twice, the first and the last time. And I CAN do ANYTHING that I put my mind to do. I am STRONGER than I think. I CLIMBED Adam's Peak in 5 hours from start to finish another young girl at the hotel said she took 12 hours to do it. So I felt like from now on nothing can get the better of me.

We packed up from the hotel and started our 4 hour drive back to our hotel in Colombo. We stopped and watched a street cricket match and took a photo with the team that was a scavenge.

We tasted the wood apple fruit. This fruit is rock hard on the outside, it smells like a sapodilla on the inside and tastes like a tamarind. The shell s so hard that you have to crack it like a nut to get inside to taste it.

When we got back to Colombo, Lily and I went to take our bags back to the room and then took a variety of tuktuk to complete a few more challenges in the city e.g. visit Pettah market and find 3 streets and tell what is sold on them. It is spices, jewelry and whole sale.

Visit the Dutch museum. Find Cargils which is a department/supermarket and then Lils and I went back to the hotel so we didn't miss check in at 4.00pm. Bill had us for an Italian dinner and it was wonderful to sit and eat "normal" food. What a day. What a night!!! We were told that we were off to Amman – Jordan and we were leaving at 2.30am.
The Adam's Peak climb is like childbirth when was in the middle of the climb it was the hardest thing I had ever done physically in my life but as I look back now I having bragging rights for climbing it but the experience does not seem as nightmarish as it did at the time.