The trip started out easily enough.  I knew that we had to get a bus from Kithulgala to Ratnapura and that these buses left from the main street and were very cheap.

I always feel so bad for the poor birds stuck in these pet shops in tiny cages.

The trip went smoothly up to this point and we arrived in Ratnapura about 90 minutes later after making a lot of stops.  The instructions from our next lodge, Rock View Motel near Sinharaja were to take a Kalawana bus, then change to a Rakwana bus and hop out when we saw the motel on the road side.

At the Ratnapura bus station, we waited to see a bus with Kalawana written on top.  Soon, a bus with Rakwana written on top pulled in.  I thought we were being smart to avoid a change of buses in Kalawana so we hopped on and headed out of Ratnapura.

We saw another bus with Kalawana written on top so alarm bells went off but I ignored them thinking we were still OK.

We continued on and enjoyed more scenery.

We finally arrived in Rakwana and I was wondering why we didn’t see the motel on the road side.

I should have listened to the alarm bell!  As it turned out, the road to Kalawana and subsequently the Rock View Motel were different from the road to Rakwana.  On the map below, you see the road we were supposed to take in blue with the blue X marking the hotel location.  The red line represents the road we actually took.

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By the time we got to Rakwana and realized our mistake, it was too late to get another bus so we had to hire an auto-rickshaw to take us to the motel which cost more than if we had just taken the rickshaw from Ratnapura!  It was annoying to arrive after dark but lesson learnt!  Always check even the smallest towns on a map, listen to your gut feelings and follow directions!