May 9 Hambantota, Sri Lanka (Ceylon)

Now until now, I had been keeping my blog pretty well up to date. Updating mostly everything before the day was over. Most unfortunately, I did a particularly stupid thing during the excursion and did not protect my eyes sufficiently while taking a jeep ride through the national park
and I sat in the front of the jeep, with the window open right in front of us. This allowed the jeeps in front of us to kick up a lot of dirt and dust into my unprotected eyes.
Course, I could have put sunglasses on, but then I wouldn't have been able to take pictures. And of course I did not anticipate, the problems that I created for myself. By the time we got back to the cabin my eyes were fairly sore and I dashed right into the shower, thinking that I would wash all my problems away. Unfortunately found that not to be true when I woke up the next morning and my eyes were still glued together.
Because I was leaving the next morning to go on the 3 days excursion to the Taj Mahal, I didn't really have time to take care of my eye issue and just hoped that it would resolve itself. That of course did not happen, and although the guide did get me some eye drops, I was now stuck with the vampire red-eyed look for the next couple of days.
Two days since I'd come back from that excursion, and although I thought that maybe I was starting to feel better yesterday, just to make sure, I figured I better go visit the doctor's office to ensure that I wasn't going to go blind. I got a clean bill of health or in other words, no sign of infection appeared to be present and the next morning, I finally opened my eyes with my eyelashes fluttering freely away.
(think that they dug this info up from 30 years ago, or for those intrepid travelers going out on their own)
Unfortunately, waiting a few days to bring my diary up to date means that if I had had any keen insights during the excursion, they are now permanently lost.
But it IS difficult to forget the water buffaloes and cows on the roads.
Seeing the animals freely roaming the roads accentuates the poverty
in the country of 22 million. Sri Lanka is a lush island
separated from India by only 55 km but is heavily Buddhist and in a short distance we passed many stupa (round structures containing relics and used for meditation). 
Enroute to the Safari, most of the roads were bordered by electric fences, to keep the elephants out. Not that they're particularly effective, because the elephants have been seen knocking down trees and using them to bring down the fencing.
Before going on the safari, we were taken for an  impressive buffet lunch at a hotel.

Then we loaded up, 6 to a jeep, in a convoy, with the hopes of seeing leopards and elephants in the wild. Although not unheard of, because there is a very healthy population of cats living here,
had no real expectations of seeing any because they would normally be sleeping during the day. In that respect,   I wasn't disappointed. Didn't expect to and didn't see any. And we saw one solitary elephant.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BDMfVnMLqkLDN5Bc9
 
I was immediately suspicious that this was a token elephant chained near the road to ensure that the tourists saw SOMETHING. I was indignantly assured that this was not the case.
Plenty of crocodiles, deer, wild boars, monkeys, saw a mongoose, a couple of jackals and many beautiful exotic birds.
And loads of termite hills.

And many sand dunes.
And soldiers...
As usual, was not able to take good pictures with my little cellphone and will have to patiently wait until able to access Michael's pics (a few weeks from now).
It drizzled on the way back to the ship and it was nice to be welcomed back with a canopy of umbrellas.

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