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PHOTOS: The Sri Lanka Tour 2003

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The Elephant Polo tour of Sri Lanka was preceded by a minibus tour of Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress.

Sigiriya is pretty cool. There is not much left of the original palace at the top. The team was still bonding at this stage and therefore didn't concentrate on reading the brochures about the place. So all we remember about Sigiriya is how to spell it, that there was a prince or king involved at some point and possibly a harem of dancing girls. If you avoid all chicken curries within 100 kms of Sigiriya (unlike the team) you'll probably enjoy the excursion.

The Touring Ticklers at the top of the rock shown in the photo above.

The intended pose was of course to have Megsy seemingly holding up the overhanging cliffs of Sigiriya. It didn't work and the exposure isn't great but she does have a jolly nice smile !

The tournament was held on the beach in front of this little island. Clearly tournament schedules and tide timetables were linked.

This island is not called Pulau Pangkil and does not have a website. Pangkil is in fact in Indonesia and does have a marvellous website and this sentence is in fact the link so click it.

These were the core six (playing) team members. This is a fairly lame caption and will be upgraded soon ...

Sponsors banners were used to mark the edge of the field at low tide. At high tide they provided the team with a giggle, mainly because we didn't have any sponsors ourselves for this tournament and therefore weren't obliged to play the suck-up game !

This is like one of those email puzzles circulated around most offices on a Friday afternoon. How many mammals can you see ? How many legs do you count ?

Note the Tickle Sticks. Vital equipment for fighting crime for all Super Heroes. The common beach Tuk Tuk was the team's preferred mode of transport. Serious discussions took place about a Beach Tuk Tuk Polo Tournament ...

The Tickled Pink look was actually the team uniform for the tournament, stumbled upon in a dodgy shop in Colombo. Warning: The Moiré Effect you are probably seeing on your screen right now as a direct result of viewing these shirts can be damaging to your health if viewed for more than 2 seconds.

One of the Ticklers can clearly be seen hitting a plastic bottle through the goals. There are no points for being silly in the deadly serious world of beach elephant polo ...

Even if this was a video clip rather than a photo, the elephants still wouldn't be moving. Everyone knows where the ball is, including the two Ticklers in the middle but getting to it was never going to be easy.

The locals came from near and far. The amazing tales that some western women have really big bottoms had been circulating since the days when Sigiriya was party central. But the assembled villagers and fishermen just wanted to see for themselves ...

Where's Waldo the Sri Lankan Prime Minister ? Hint: He looks like a local and isn't carrying any video equipment.

Four Ticklers can be clearly seen, one is hiding behind a trunk and the sixth didn't show for the photo.