The long train to Galle

When you travel on the trains in Sri Lanka you have 1st, 2nd, & 3rd class. The train to Galle didn't have any first class seats so we travelled in style in 2nd class. When I sat down in a seat & looked around I couldn't help wondering what 3rd class was like? Some of the seats were ripped, there was some rubbish on the floor and the smell of urine on a very hot & humid afternoon eminated from the toilet which happened to be opposite where I was sitting.Deep joy! For a moment I thought I was on British Rail! - Despite all this I would thoroughly recommend this train journey. As you pull out of Colombo City you start to see all the people who live next to the railway line, & I mean next to it! I remember the washing hanging on fences to dry and the "railway children" playing. As the train journey gets going very soon you experience some of the devastation caused by the Tsunami. Whole houses completely flattened close to the sea. Many of them have been cleared and all you can see is the concrete slab, foundations of where there homes used to stand.
Well it all seems to be pretty well sorted I thought.Some people had said to me before I left that with all the aid money that's been raised there can't be a lot left to do. Well, I can tell you that sadly that's far from the case. Can't be that bad surely, this was part of what I had come to experience! All this time I was looking out of the right hand window out to sea. The train track runs about 200 yards from the waters edge.There was enough room to get about 4 houses deep on the beach & it was what was left of these that you could see. You can imagine this giant wave just smashing into these homes and totally flattening them. It was then that I glanced to my left & looked out of the window on the other side. I could not believe it, it was then that I really experienced the devastating effects of the Tsunami. I'd read about it, seen the papers & the news but this was for real. This was Mother Nature at her worst.