4 week anniversary! Wow cant believe it! Its flown by!!! Well this morning, me sue matt and jenny all set off to meet vann in hikkaduwa and we went snorkelling – bar sue who was busy exploring the towns restaurants. We got to Wije’s shop – who i used last time and he wasn’t there so his wife put me on the phone to him and i managed to get him down from 14000 to 10000 for four people.. Perks of knowing the locals haha. We didnt see much out in the corals but when we came back to the shallower parts, we saw a bloody HUGE turtle. Like massive. Tried to take a chunk out my hand haha! That was good but it was a bit touristy and lots of people were round it when we found it so we left.. We then went to get lunch and i had carbonara again! Im in love, new fave food. Had to say bye to vann as well 😫 another goodbye!
Then we came back and i tried to nap because my stomach still is giving me grief but it didnt work so we had tea and now i will hopefully get some sleep!
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Well this weekend i think i shall be having a quiet one, today we worked the hatchery up until lunchtime and then we were supposed to be off work but ended up taking 90 kids round the hatchery! How that happened i have no idea haha but it was really good, the kids were well behaved and very interested! We had tea and ive got a random stomach ache, think its the 8 cups of tea i had today 🙈 so yeah just a normal day, sorry for the short blog but im just gonna try to rest my belly 😷
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

My name is now mychang… Dudley (the owner) always calls me mychang and apparently it means brother or good friend ☺️ we woke up and fed the turtles today.. Again! After that 2 HUGE buses FULL of CHILDREN appeared at the hatchery! We split them up into groups of 26 and i took my group to the babies first.. The kids were pretty interested but i had to keep telling them not to touch the turtles! Yeah that was fun, but they must have been only 6 years old so they had no attention span haha.
After that we chilled out to get ready for teaching and then we set off to the school ☺️
We started off by teaching them about turtles and sue drew the most beautiful drawing of a turtle to annotate 🐢 haha 😉 and then we taught them a poem and we went outside! They love to play, like LOVE to play. i think i have become the punching bag for most of them as all they do is cling to me and chase me. It is very fun playing games with them haha! After that we came home and released another 20 baby turtles! It suddenly started tipping it down haha so we all had tea and went to bed! Nice 👌
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Today we fed the turtles and went teaching the the afternoon.. I liked teaching the kids today it was fun ☺️ other than than i took a nap and have eaten 2 mounds of rice and just played a massive of trivial pursuit – best game EVER. me and jenny won. so im ready for bed haha apologies for the short blog but im so tired! I shall leave you with a nice photo of a train track i took today
With love from sri lanka, jack ✌️

Today was a good day! We woke up this morning just as normal but as we went into the hatchery THERE WERE TURTLE BABIES! We saw them all come up from their little nest and it was amazing! They are so little 🐢😍 they were olive ridley turtles and we collected them all and put them in the tank.. And then ANOTHER nest was hatching as well! We got 85 altogether which is bloody good going! It was really good ☺️
Then we went teaching (the monks) and i was so unprepared so i just winged it! I decided math. I started 1 + 1 and they got that easy so i stepped it up… I managed to teach them area of shapes and start on volume of 3d shapes! They are so good!!! I want to start on algebra next time ☺️ so yeah we came back and released half the new hatchlings! 30 of them! That was really special as well.. To see their instincts still intact was incredible. So yeah it was a good day! Just had tea and ready for bed again! 👌 except vann keeps accusing me of stealing his shorts WHICH I DID NOT DO. 😹

With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Dammit i missed a day! Literally just chilled today, had to say bye to bryony and bridie in the morning.. Saying goodbye is just becoming the norm now 😫 but yeah the rest if the day was just chilling and taking tours and stuff like that ☺️
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Woke up in my ‘hotel’ this morning to the usual breakfast meal, said bye to my hosts and headed off to mirissa again! Spent from 10am to 2pm in the sun then got some lunch, very into pasta carbonara for some reason.. Its so good here! So then i thought it best to head back home.. Hardest thing ever. I hate travelling alone 😫 tried to get about 5 buses but none stopped then decided to get a tuk tuk to the nearest train station (which was about 15 mins away) and try my luck at a train.. Ofcourse none stopped at kosgoda (my stop) so i had to get one that stopped in a village nearby. Im kind of glad i got the train though, its pretty fun.. Obviously got the highest class you can get haha. It is a good way of seeing the country 👌
After two buses, a train and three tuk tuks (and being asked if i want to buy some drugs about 100 times) i was SO HAPPY TO BE BACK AT THE TURTLES. literally so tired and drained. Travelling on your own is so hard! Ready for bed (after applying a whole bottle of aftersun)
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

I dont know what happened to day 20 and 21 and why they randomly swapped places :s very strange – i blame it on the crap wifi! God i miss good wifi.. Last night at the hotel it was actually a pretty good night’s sleep! Im the only guest and the hosts are very nice and can speak very good english which is such a massive bonus. I got up and they gave me breakfast, bread, tea and pineapple – standard. So then i headed to the beach to catch some rays! I spent from 10am til 2pm in the sun and i dont even think ive tanned 🙈😫 it was so overcast today i think a storms brewing.. JUST MY LUCK! So yeah i got a nice chicken sandwich for lunch and fresh mango juice 👌after that i went back to the ‘hotel’ and wow i realised i am BLACK. a little burnt but i can handle that, but its just my front haha so tomorrow will be back day. It also started torrentially raining for about 15 minutes haha this sunny getaway isnt turning out! Hopefully its just got it out of its system and tomorrow i can really focus on that tan!
I walked back down to mirissa and ate tea at a lovely beach front restaurant, walked back and went sleep! Having a lot of sleep this weekend ready for a week of work ahead! Also i noticed that a guy from the BBC will be filming a programme to include the hatchery that i work at! Hopefully become famous from that haha thats in february near my birthday though – so really they HAVE to let me be on tv! Watch this space
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Well, you may get this a day late because the wifi was crap last night but… today we just did the same thing and fed the turtles and took tours. But in the afternoon we went to a new school to teach! There was a class full of children! Thank god Sue was there otherwise i think we would have failed completely hahaha yeah it was really nice and because both sue and i are here for so long we can help the kids a lot ☺️ We also made two trips to orphanages to distribute yvonne’s play balls! It was just so amazing to see all the kids faces! Go to myball.ch to find out more!

after that we went home and lit a bonfire on the beach which was also beautiful so all in all a very good deed type of day 👌

with love from Sri lanka, Jack ✌️

So this morning we worked the hatchery (as normal) it was yvonnes last day! 😪 she was SO NICE. Volunteers literally come and go its so sad to say bye!
after lunch i set off to a relaxing evening at mirissa… A very touristy town with a gorgeous beach. I set off and managed to scrounge a lift off bryony and bridie because they were going in the same direction! WIN! So yeah i got into the centre and got an extremely overpriced tuk tuk to my ‘hotel’. Very loosely named as it was a homestay which was to the extreme of the word basic. Yeah not that great but i only payed £15 for two nights including breakfast woohoo i love being POOR! Well i guess you get what you pay for 😹🙈 i went to the beach for tea at about 6pm and went to this restuarant that seemed alright but once i sat down it was the only one without wifi, gutted. So yeah i just ate and had a couple of drinks there then moved onto one without wifi AGAIN. losing this battle. FINALLY! 3rd time lucky got one with wifi!
The beach is actually really nice and i could see an island that you could possibly swim to? Dunno if i will try it because im not risking drowning my phone 😷 the one thing i realised tonight is how crap travelling alone must be, i know i went to sri lanka on my own but thank god i did a conservation project with other volunteers! Just having dinner and drinks by yourself is horrible! I mean in the day its fine because mostly i just lie on the beach and tan and listen to music but at night… Wow i could see this becoming very lonely very fast! Note to self: never travel a country on my own without volunteering!