Mandy and I had another earlyish start as we had booked to go snorkelling at 8am. We walked down to the dive centre and were fitted with flippers. Although I had my own snorkel and mask, I ended up borrowing one of their masks as they were glass, so don’t steam up so easily.

The guys had to do the whole routine with the boat again to get it in the water. This time, it was only Mandy and myself, along with the dive instructor and the driver.

This photo is looking back to Uppuveli Beach.

We motored out to Navy Island, which was only about 15 minutes from where we were staying. Mandy and I immediately got into the water and started snorkelling.

My underwater camera wasn’t working, so I put my phone in a day bag and tried taking photos and video on that. It kind of worked.

We saw lots of different colourful fish, and there was some really pretty coral as well.

We were in the water for quite a long time. At one point, I went too far around the rock and got called back.

Once we were back on the boat, we had some water and watermelon and headed to Angel Reef, which was quite close by. On the way, the dive instructor spotted a turtle, so we all jumped in the water. I saw him from above the water but not actually in it. Mandy jumped in the other side to me and actually managed to see the turtle in the sea.

We then swam to the reef where we saw a lot more fish and coral. The dive instructor dove down and picked up a starfish.

From the water, you could see Seruwila Raja Maha Vihara temple. This is an acient temple and is amongst the sixteen holiest buddhist shrines in Sri Lanka. The stupa was originally built  in the 2nd century BC and was restored in the 1920s. It is said that the frontal bone of the Buddha, as the sscred relic, is enshrined in the stupa.

The Seruwila region used to be a vast swamp or villu where the flood waters of the Mahaweli Ganga collected. This villu was the home of large flocks of teals (seru) during the migratory period. That perhaps was how the place came to be known as Seruwawila.

After around another hour of snorkelling, it was time to head home.

On the way back, we were quite close to the rock where the Koneswaram temple is situated. This is a classical medieval Hindu temple complex on top of the promontory overlooking the Indian Ocean and the Trincomalee district. It was originally built around 1580 BC.

We had a similar beach landing with the boat as the previous day, and this time, I took a video of it.

We met Karen and Zoe at Cafe on the Eighteenth for breakfast. This time, I had the poached eggs on avocado toast. It was delicious.

We were originally going to stay another night in Trincomalee, but as we had already done everything we wanted to do in the area, we decided to move on.  I meant to have a kettle shower on the beach but never got round to it.

So after breakfast, we packed up and organised a driver to take us to Kandy. We said goodbye to the lovely family who had looked after us.

It was a good four to five hour drive from Trincomalee to Kandy. On the way, we saw an elephant on the road.

When we got to Kandy, we had to sort out the rooms as we had made separate bookings for the two different nights, which caused some confusion. We were given an executive suite for four,which was very spacious. We were staying at the Queens Hotel, which must have been amazing in its time, but was now moe like faded grandeur. It had a very old-fashioned lift in it.

It was raining quite heavily so we decided to go somewhere quite close for dinner. The hotel staff recommended a place called ‘Delight’ so we headed there.

We had a mixture of chicken kottu, seafood kottu, and a house special, which wasn’t so spicy. Kottu looks like fried rice but is actually made from broken up flatbreads, roti. It was quite spicy but very tasty, the chicken was better than the seafood. The house special was really nice too.

We had heard about a place called ‘Slightly chilled lounge bar and restaurant’ so after dinner we walked to it. It was about a 15-minute walk, and it was raining quite heavily. I completely soaked my feet, through my trainers, in a massive puddle – it’s really hard to see where you’re going as there are no street lights.

Eventually, we made it to the bar, which was also not easy to find as it was up a hill down a side road.

We had some cocktails, but they weren’t that great. But the bar had live music and they were really good.

I tried to take some night time views of the city from the bar and on the way home.

Once we got back to our hotel and into the dry, we decided to call it a night.