Most Inspirational Moment
A Little Doggerel on the Occasion of the return of the Sixteen from Sri Lanka. (With apologies to J. Milton Hayes, Rudyard Kipling etc.) There's at least a hundred Buddhas on the road to Kandy Town, Where the locals all smile broadly as they wish us ayubowan. Yes! Welcome to Sri Lanka! We're here to see the sights! Just sixteen cheery travellers for sixteen days and nights. There's Graham, Neil and Jason, Big Andy, Jo and Steve - Two Lindas, Charlie, Rob and Kevin make a move to leave - Two Alisons and David, Ron and Anna swell the throng And Sujan takes us all in hand to jolly us along. We clamber over boulders, we march through Horton Plain, We trudge up dusty mountains and scramble for the train, We bounce through raging waters and creep through temple prayers And ride upon the elephants and sweat up rocky stairs. We cycle by the river, we wonder in the caves, We gaze at tea plantations and gambol in the waves, We picnic in the jungle and sample Sujan's fare And watch the whales and fruit bats (and the leopards - if they're there). We see the sea, the waterfalls, the forests and the plains, The pools and 'tanks' and rivers, the sun and (sometime) rains, The trees and crops, the flowers, the birds, the turtles and the crocs And thirty dusty elephants who bathe amongst the rocks. There's at least a hundred Buddhas on the way back home through Galle - Some are very short and fat and some extremely tall, But when we all wend homewards we won't forget this isle - 'A Land of Milk and Honey' - an island with a SMILE. (But what will we all really remember - ancient cities - distant views? No - Charlie dancing frantically in his hotel room in his sexy mankini ……)