Having had half a beer and a sip of red wine last, I may have passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow (bloody travelling is totally ruining my ability to manage my alcohol!!), but I woke up around 3am unable to get back to sleep. Jayne couldn’t sleep either so we both tossed and turned until it was a reasonable hour to get up, washed and dressed. Decided to walk to the entrance to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary and work out where we needed to met for our full days hiking tomorrow. Stopped en route at a French restaurant where we had local vanilla coffee and French baguette sandwiches filled with coleslaw and fried chicken. They weren’t anything like French baguettes but after nearly four months without French bread, they were pretty good!!! 
Kept walking through the town, admiring the new hotel being built to resemble a tree house compete with wobbly bridge to get into reception and avoiding the taxi jeeps speeding back and forth to the park entrance. Saw a black monkey sitting in a tree near the entrance of the park, watching us with great curiosity – clearly to see if we had anything worth climbing down and stealing! Also saw 4 or 5 wild pigs run through the hedged fence in someone’s garden – at the speed they were charging we half thought a tiger would be coming crashing through the hedge seconds after them! Couldn’t see the place were we are supposed to meet tomorrow so we headed back to the tourist information centre to double check. Turns out we were at the wrong park entrance! Ten minute walk in the opposite direction and we found the bamboo hut that will be our meeting point at 7.45am. Decided to have another lazy day back at the guest house, using the hammocks on the veranda to take a must needed rest. 
Spent the rest of the afternoon planning our next travel steps and booking our flights between Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar and Australia (with a little detour for Jayne back to England). Can’t believe we’ve managed to get ourselves organised and booked our flights to places I’ve only ever dreamed about visiting! Went up to the roof top to watch the bats ‘fly home’ for the evening. Saw one turn around mid flight which led to a silly conversation about the bat forgetting its handbag – maybe you had to be there!!! Celebrated our successful day (and our Visa cards taking the strain without too much complaining!) by treating ourselves to a nice meal at the ‘posh’ restaurant in our road. I had cauliflower cheese with brown bread whilst Jayne ate an Israeli mezzo of hummus, falafel and pitta bread. 
Chatted about our upcoming travel plans and the need to up our training regime if we are going to seriously consider doing the Everest Base Camp Trek in Nepal. Had an amazing fruit platter for pudding – a quarter of a pineapple, watermelon, orange and banana – which is the first time in ages we’ve had so much fresh fruit. 
Friday 22nd January 2016
Trans Travels 