Anuradhadapura-Kanakarayankulam: Chased by a dog

Friday 26 January 2018 102 km – Total so far: 322,5 km

We didn´t sleep too well. Although the fan in the room was on the whole night, the air was sticky. This fan had only two speeds to go. If you turned on 1 it went very very slow and if you turned on 2 up to 5 it would go at maximum speed.

In between there were no diffrent speeds possible. So we decided to use the number 1 speed which was a little too slow to feel comfortable. Besides we had to use the mosquito net here, as there were a lot of these nice pets…

At 7 in the morning we left. Two hours later we bought some breakfast in a bakery and when we cycled a small secondary road we had a nice breakfast with curry filled bread rolls – so good!
As we cycled on I was chased by a crazy dog who at last managed to bite into my Ortlieb pannier! F….ing dog! Nothing really bad happend, but on a little hole from its teeth I had to put tape. First time something like that happened to me, but for everything there is a first time.
Besides that little incident cycling was easy, some road construction where you can get impressed how much traffic can pass a needle eye and how they organize driving simply with tooting in the right moment. At least there was no traffic jam…

We cycled on through villages with (for us) crazy names no one can pronounce, until we reached Kanakarayankulam, which was one of those.
We had planned to ride to Mankulam and stay there, but the only possibility to sleep was in Kanakarayankulam, about 10kms before.
First we checked some rooms at a filling station where the guesthouse was attached, and we already were ready to take the room. But after I had paid I asked for some beer as it was friday – shabbat – and I wanted to do the kiddush. They send me to a liquid store some 500m further on the road and – surprise, surprise, the shop also was a guesthouse with the attached liquid store.

I bought the beer and I checked the rooms. They could offer one to me at the groundfloor which is much more convenient for us, as we don´t have to unload the bikes! So I went back to the filling station, and talked to Anette.

We cancelled the room there, got back the money without problems, and on we went to the “Liquid-Store-guesthouse” what in reality was called “Guesthouse Aana”.

Of course the room also was more than basic – you rarely will find others in these small villages and rural areas – but these were the only two guesthouses we could find in the whole area. Small things like no water from the tab of the sink, no hot water anyway etc., etc. you have to accept. That´s how it is here.