Sri Lankan Thrill Ride!

Oh dear! Today I went on the longest scariest thrill ride that I've ever been on...a 9.5 hour long bus trip from the center of Sri Lanka (Polonaruwa) to the southern shores (Koggala). Man oh man was this an adventure! We started out at 6:30am, heading into to town from our hotel. Once we arrived at the bus station we were directed to a bus that was headed to a town just out of Koggala where our hotel is located. Soon after our driver left us to catch our bus, that bus left. Herm, maybe a different bus we needed? Long story short we barely caught the correct bus because it not only had no name, but it was in a completely different area! Once situated on this bus (we got the last two seat, together thankfully!) it pulled away headed towards our destination! One thing you must know about Sri Lanka to really understand my thrill ride metaphor is that Sri Lankan's are the craziest drivers that I have ever seen! (For Casey and Court, that time I almost killed us coming back from the mountains...that was happening every 15 minutes or so!) But the way they drive is as fast as they can and swerving in and out of traffic lanes to get ahead of cars, busses, and motorcycles they deem too slow! Really, I think the center line is more of a suggestion then anything to follow! Also our bus driver seemed to be the most trigger happy horn honker that I have ever seen (heard I suppose). At one point I counted the times he honked up to 100, which only took a half an hour. And by honk I mean each burst of honks I would count as one (he would usually honk at least three to five quick blasts...and really long blasts if he was really annoyed with a slow motor bike). Averaged out, with 200 honks per hour (HPH) he must have honked his horn about 2000ish time in our long journey! Mind you this bus so packed much of the 9.5 hours that there were at least 3 to 10 people standing in the bus as our driver weaved in and out of the lane (which by american standards would have been a one way road, not two ways!). I remember one interesting moment where we were following another bus in the oncoming traffic lane passing not one, not two, but three other busses all while going uphill in a particularly curvy area! All we could see was the other bus, all the while our expert driver was blaring his horn :P Really this man was the best driver that I've ever seen...must have been an ex nascar racer or something! Really though, the train would have had much more leg room, but this experience was very exciting! I can say that I've never been in anything quite like that before! All in all after the long journey south we arrived at the closest bus stop to our hotel, popped out happy to be on solid ground, and only had a block or so to walk to our hotel. We did however enter through the wrong gate to find the hotel completely empty!!! Whaaaa? never fear though, because this was the other part of the hotel that was under repair...a short walk through that area to the next had us sipping welcome drinks and soon in our amazing room right on the beach! It didn't take long to hop into swim suits and col off after a very long and cramped day of bus travel! I'm quite sure that my dad and I were one of a very small group of westerners to take that form of transportation today, but it was well worth it once soaking in the pool overlooking some amazing waves! Tomorrow? Hopefully some surfing and wildlife...or something to that extent! More later...and pics to come of this great place!