Lost GPS

January 9th continuing
At 8:45 in the morning we started for the Botanical Gardens by tok-tok again. From yesterday's experience we bought some bread in a shop outside of the Gardens.
A house crow with greedy eyes came to us while we ate our bread on the grass.


We went straight to the colony. As it was still early and cool, they hadn't started fanning themselves yet.

In many countries, we were annoyed by people who would clap their hands to show us the bats in flight. Here we met a person who drove the flying foxes to flight for unknowing tourists and then asked for tips. He asked us once and after we rejected him he never talked to us again.

We went to the city center of Kandy by bus again. But as we took a different bus from yesterday's one, it cost 15 rupees. The bus ran a different route and passed through the Kandy station and got to the bus terminal near a clock tower.
Again we had difficulty in finding the correct bus to go back to the hotel. Suddenly a lady behind us patted my shoulder and said "dowandala" pointing to a red bus. We got on the bus expressing our thanks but it turned out to be the wrong bus even though I said "Hotel Tropicana" to the conductor intending to confirm the destination when we got on the bus and he didn't say anything.

The hotel was far on the hill and this bus only passed throught the road at the foot of the hill. We got off the bus at the corner of the road climbing to the hotel. The roadside sign said Hotel Tropicana was 3km away.

A little after we started to climb up I found that the GPS I put in the pocket of my shoulder bag was missing. I have no idea if it was lost or stolen. The lady who pointed us to the wrong bus was suspicious but we were not sure if it was her. Fortunately our travel insurance covered it after we returned to Japan and we could buy another GPS. Since then I have always hooked my GPS to my bag.

3km was a considerable distance as the hill was quite steep. Particularly, the last 500m was very hard. But as we saw five electrocuted flying foxes on power lines and found another large colony of Indian Flying Foxes on a river bank on the way, the walk didn't turn out so bad.


That evening we saw flying foxes flying from the hotel terrace again.

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