Getting to travel is a great perk of my job, but never quite as glamorous as people think it will be. There’s lots of travel between sites (so this typical journey is between 4 and 6 hours minibus ride each way 🤢). As we were in Sri Lanka for longer than usual we had a full day off – a colleague and I used the time to make the journey by train instead.

This isn’t “that” journey – the Kandy to Ella route that is hugely popular with tourists – so I was doubly surprised at how breathtaking this journey was. Starting the in cacophony of Colombo, before heading out into the flat countryside, and then making the slow climb into the mountains into Kandy, I think we were very fortunate as the train arrived roughly on time.

What makes these images particularly poignant now is that the next day, Cyclone Ditwah hit Sri Lanka. As well as taken the lives of hundreds of Sri Lankans, the cyclone also swept away a huge part of the mountainside that supported part of this route – it is not expected to be repaired for at least a year.