It was a thunderstorm last night and i watched the lightening from my room, it also rained which meant it was very humid this morning.. We fed the turtles some small silver fish – but we had to take them out their tanks and put them in smaller ones (to prevent uneaten fish rotting in their own). Ofcourse i was given the task of the huge ones.. They are so heavy!!! Attached pics of me struggling. I took my first tour round today!! An Australian couple 🙂 think it went alright. We then went to a buddhist temple to teach english. Me and kayla took the monks. There were 3 of them and the other volunteers said they don’t speak much because they had been chosen by their parents to be a monk and had no choice – so they didn’t really want to be there.. Kayla and i prepared a lesson to teach them some words and words with silent letters. We went to the temple and there they were, 3 about 12 year old boys waiting. It was a slow start but i started off, trying to get them to speak to you is really hard. I think because majority of the volunteers are girls they didn’t really connect as well as a boy would. After about 20 minutes of confident goofing around trying to keep their attention then it became a lot easier when they started liking me. Kayla was really good with them as well and it really felt amazing teaching them. Never expected it but it when they started enjoying being taught just the best feeling. I loved it, i think I’m going to take the monks every week now and because I’m here for so long and teach twice a week thats 24 lessons, i can really make a difference in their language.
We then travelled back to the village and we went to the supermarket, of which i bought literally so much stuff. Including a pot of this magic cream stuff.. Its a small bottle of this herb cream that fixes literally ANYTHING. Its going to come in handy. The town was so busy! Just walking along the road and your stepping over dogs and dodging tuk tuks 😳.
It started raining on the bus back, TORRENTIAL RAIN. Just lightening everywhere and absolute downpour. We still ate tea outside though and that was amazing as usual, pita with creamy vegetables and a korma curry 😍😍😍 just amazing. Lea said that chandra (the chef) said she doesn’t like boys, but she said she likes me haha so i get big portions and that makes me so happy.
Whilst in the town we got this liqueur called blue arrack and its like a coconut spirit, when you put it with lemonade it tastes godly. Just getting slowly drunk haha so much for tea total 👍 all in all a very enlightening and feel good day ☺️
With love from sri lanka, Jack ✌️

Two more volunteers have arrived! Both sound. We buried 261 eggs this morning!! Then i went sand crab hunting AGAIN. but caught 4 and one was snatched by a bird 😫 its a scorcher today, absolutely roasting. We then had lunch and the hatchery was very quiet so wije decided to take us to a gem mine and a boat trip.
The gem mine was very interesting because the village is the only one in the world that has blue moonstoons! They showed us round and tried to get us to buy some jewellery, but each piece was like $500?!?!
Then we went to the boat trip, didnt know what to expect but it was on a river… We set off and literally 30 seconds after a boy on a small boat grabbed onto ours and stood up… HE HAD A MONKEY. he let us all play with the monkey and it was so cute. We then went down the river and saw king fishers and even crocodiles! But didnt manage to take a pic of the crocs 😪 after about an hour we went for a ‘fish massage’. Basically its the sri lankan equivalent of the tiny fish that nibble on your feet – like the ones you see in meadowhall. But my god the fish were huge! There were different sizes, obviously i went for the massive ones and it was such a surreal feeling, took a couple of minutes to get used to but soon i had my feet in there for ages, but if the big ones take a bit it kind of hurt hahahah. But then, the guy brought out an actual crocodile. I held it, yep with its mouth open. That took up most of the day so we came back home, ate tea which was rice and curries 👌 now I’m definitely ready for bed!! Shattered.
With love from sri lanka, jack ✌️

Landed safely in abu dhabi 🙌 the airport is so nice.. That plane was AMAZING. own touchscreen tv.. Watched 3 movies .. Now heading to maccy d’s haha

I am now sitting in manchester airport, just eaten a salmon uppercrust.. Nice. Waiting for the flight. My emotions are somewhere between excited and nervous but I haven’t woke up properly yet so just chilling at the moment… More to follow.

The point I open this site was to document my travels.. up to now I’ve only posted a couple of things just to get used to the site. However my great travelling experience is soon! I will be flying out to Sri Lanka on 2nd January 2015 where i will be spending 3 months on a conservation project with sea turtles 🐢 I’ve paid for everything now and sorted out my visa (although the one I have only lasts for 1 month.. Lets hope I can extend out there).
So on the project I will be working midweek with the turtle sanctuary as well as teaching english, but I have weekends off so I can do a bit of travelling then!
Stay tuned for the run up to my trip, should be a good’un 😊

Here’s a mountain I want to climb when I’m there!