{"id":15940,"date":"2017-02-06T16:45:45","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T16:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.geoffjones.com\/?p=15940"},"modified":"2017-02-06T16:45:45","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T16:45:45","slug":"puttalam-to-jaffna-biking-on-lifeday-25396","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/?p=15940","title":{"rendered":"Puttalam to Jaffna biking on LifeDay 25,396"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15942\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15942\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/6-2017-02-06-07.41.05.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15942\" src=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/6-2017-02-06-07.41.05-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"birds in Sri Lanka\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15942\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">For the birders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Juli Hotel managed breakfast OK although my coffee was tea and arrived just as we were finishing. Reception, or lack of it, caused a huge delay. I was just thinking of doing a bunk when Ashoka the naturalist\/birder guide appeared. He immediately rang them up and a guy dutifully appeared 5 mins later \ud83d\ude41 The hotel still has a lot to learn in western customer service!<\/p>\n<p>A small plug here for <a href=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/FullSizeRender-1.jpg\">Ashoka Jaarathne<\/a>, Eco tour Operator. \u00a0If any of my twitcher readers\u00a0fancy a trip out here to watch the birds etc I would recommend him. Very knowledgable and speaks good English.<\/p>\n<p>I felt really tired, probably the jet lag catching up, so ended up stopping for numerous drinks. A big difference to Cuba is that there are shacks selling junk food\/pop every few miles mostly with fridges \ud83d\ude42 A 300ml bottle of Coke is 50 Rupees (\u00a30.27).<\/p>\n<p>The road is in perfect condition except for a few places where obviously the bridges got destroyed in the war, this and a few burnt out buildings is all that you can see of that terrible time. I must have passed at least 10 army barracks as well.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15946\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15946\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/2-2017-02-06-14.20.39.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15946\" src=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/2-2017-02-06-14.20.39-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Mahadeva Causeway\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15946\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mahadeva Causeway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s very flat and reminds me of Titchwell RSPB, although they would die for the birdlife here \ud83d\ude42 The causeway over to Jaffna is stunning even with an ice cream van at the end.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t really explored Jaffna yet as I discovered the Old Park Villa for a very reasonable price on the way in!<\/p>\n<p>Really, in the end, an excellent day and I so love biking on smooth empty roads in shorts &amp; sandals. I truly am insanely lucky to still be able to do it easily at 69.531119 years old \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/sc\/ax7eumcc9u6ra8n\/AABkIcJcI1rMI3w4HEVuGjiia\">Todays pics are here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/857108223\">73 mile Strava is here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Juli Hotel managed breakfast OK although my coffee was tea and arrived just as we were finishing. Reception, or lack of it, caused a huge delay. I was just thinking of doing a bunk when Ashoka the naturalist\/birder guide appeared. He immediately rang them up and a guy dutifully appeared 5 mins later [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-sri-lanka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}