Sri Lanka Series 3 - Days 2 + 3: Waskaduwa to Kandy

I've decided to bundle days two and three into one final blog post on Sri Lanka, not because it's been so long that I've forgotten what exactly we did (I remember it really well actually) but because I don't have a lot to say about either day and this post is pretty much long overdue.

I also want to add that despite the tone of the last blog post, which apparently came off as extremely negative, I really, really enjoyed this trip to Sri Lanka and the refreshing look at a different culture. The experience was a little not so great at times, but I would go back in a heartbeat (especially if I got to do Sri Lanka on my own terms) and overall, it was still a beautiful, worthwhile trip.
 

One of the many shots of the road to Kandy.

Day two of the Sri Lanka tour saw us getting up extremely early for our trip to Kandy, but with the added benefit of being able to get FRESH breakfast, and not the leftovers we were saddled with the day before. After a night of good sleep and a decent buffet meal, we hopped on the bus to Kandy - not realizing we were about to spend another good 3 hours of travel on this tiny bus with a bunch of strangers, albeit ones slightly less grumpy thanks to the sleep/shower/breakfast combo they actually got to have. The drive to Kandy was GORGEOUS, as we got to experience the change from the flat Sri Lankan coast to the inner mountains. Despite the long drive, I was really excited to be able to see Kandy - it wasn't on our initial itinerary, and it offers a wealth of different, authentic Sri Lankan experiences we may have never had if we'd just stayed on the southern coast. Kandy was the last bastion of the Sri Lankan kings, and as such, holds fast to its cultural heritage. Unlike Colombo which has become a fast-paced, modernized vision of a city, Kandy is a sleepy little place, without the nightlife and bustle of the capital. I loved it, even though we didn't get to spend a lot of time there in the end.

Our first stop was the elephant orphanage, which was a totally cool experience because we got to see the elephants at bath time, which means they'd been walked down from the main orphanage compound to the river to splash and play for a few hours. Babies and mommas alike were frolicking in the river, and as an added bonus, it was raining/did rain while we were there. It was lovely - unlike most of the tourists who ran for shelter, Jon and I just walked through it, laughing - it wasn't very hard at all, just a light shower that lasted maybe five minutes, and Abu Dhabi does make you miss the rain.

Unfortunately, it was RAINING, and this isn't the most well developed, pedestrian friendly of areas. Now I'm not particularly known for being clumsy or anything (the internet really needs a sarcasm font), but after three hours of being cramped into tiny bus seats and with the slick, rocky conditions of the road/sidewalks, I managed to trip and fall on the way down to the river, and landed hard on my left knee (I'm still convinced it hit a large rock). I came out of it with skint knuckles and elbows, but my pants managed to save my knees from blood. More than anything, initially, I think I hurt my pride a little, as several concerned locals and a police officer rushed over to make sure I was okay and help me up. After reassurances that I was fine and just needed a minute to get my feet under me, they let Jon help me (sidenote: he was walking in front of me so he didn't actually see it happen but he did immediately turn around and become part of the crowd trying to help) and I got up and powered through the pain so I could get down to the elephants (cute animals are powerful motivators).

Not only did I get to watch the pachyderms frolicking in the best way pachyderms know how, but one of the locals helped me over the rocks to pet one (of course, like the man with the monkey the day before, he expected a tip for this, and we did tip him, but come on you guys, it was an elephant). The mugshot of this extremely cute encounter is above. Excuse my awful hair, but keep in mind I did just suffer a fall.

Once we'd been with the elephants for a little while (and time was pressing us to head back to the shuttle), we headed back up the road from the river and I noticed that my knee was actually very much NOT okay (on second thought, climbing river rocks right after might not have been the best course of action). We bought a bottle of water to drink and used it to clean my open wounds (don't even judge, I'd fallen on a street that was littered with elephant poop) and I popped some Aleve, determined not to let it ruin my day of touring. It helped, but only to some degree.

We hopped into the shuttle and headed off to the next stop, because suddenly seeing elephants wasn't enough, and nearly the whole bus voted that they wanted to go somewhere to ride elephants. That's all fine and good, but you won't see pictures of me on top of an elephant for two very important reasons.

Firstly, I object on principle. The elephants at this camp were not a part of the orphanage, so they weren't as carefully cared for as the others. it was pretty obvious to me once I saw them that the large metal chains that had been wrapped around their necks as "leads" were chafing their skin, and all of the operators had those horrid spiky poles with them as they walked the elephants around. I never saw a single person use one while we were there, but the elephants had the scars of former use. I have a big soft heart for all critters, and I couldn't abide knowing that these elephants were being abused for the amusement of some tourists. So I sat this one out (and Jon and I were not the only ones). Secondly, my knee was pretty painfully swollen by this point. I doubt I could've gotten on an elephant even if I had really wanted to.

At least I had some pretty, sweet smelling jasmine to keep me company.

Our next spot was a herb/floral garden, which I assumed would be a nice, open, airy place where we could browse around at our own pace and enjoy pretty flowery things. Alas, this was not the case, and where we wound up was clearly another tourist trap attraction put on by the ayurvedics, where they walked us around this hilly garden and explained the properties of the herbs they grew there and then how each one could solve some sort of problem. Then there was a hawking of wares process to endure. By this point I was pretty well over the whole forced experience and didn't really feel that climbing all of those stairs was the best move for me, so I sat on a bench in the lower garden - much to the dismay of the people who worked there who tried about five times to get me to go up with the rest of the group - I was missing the presentation, it really wasn't so far, the mosquitoes would get me here in the thick canopy of trees - which I all rebutted very politely until about the fifth time, and then I rolled up my pants leg and showed the person my swollen, red knee and they left me alone.

Our lunch view.

Our next stop after the herb garden was lunch, which was a very gorgeous restaurant nestled into the side of the mountaintop on the road to Kandy, and was a locally run Sri Lankan joint that offered curry. It was delicious, but spicy, and Jon and I very much enjoyed having lunch outside. I had to laugh at the experience of one of our fellow travelers, however, who made it abundantly clear he really wasn't into spicy foods, and asked the lady restocking the buffet if the food he was scooping hearty portions of onto his plate was spicy. She, of course, smiled very nicely and reassured him it wasn't, it was very mild. I managed to get back to my table and take a few bites before he did, and turned around just in time to see him sitting down. I warned him it was a bit warm, but still delicious, knowing that he definitely would think it was WAAAAAAY spicy. Sure enough, I turned around later to see him sweating buckets and with a plate of what looked like sliced white bread he'd clearly asked the waiter for. Poor dude.

Fog rolled in right as we were getting ready to head out. Gorgeous.

Our next stop after lunch was a tea factory. As jazzed as I was about getting to see this, because I LOOOOVE tea, and Ceylon black tea is some of the best in the world, I didn't actually make it past the front door into the lobby. Instead of driving up the hill to the actual place (it was rather steep), our bus driver parked at the bottom and we had to climb up several flights of slick stairs carved into the side of the hill, and by the time I made it up those, my knee was NOT having the next portion of the tour on the inside that required more stair climbing to the other processing rooms. So I sat in the lobby shop and looked at all of the delicious tea offerings as I sent Jon off to see the tour (he was going to stay with me, but I insisted because I knew he wanted to see this too - plus I sent him to take pictures since I couldn't go). Fortunately this place also lived up to the short 20-minute-tour-and-then-come-buy-our-stuff system, and he was back down quickly, pretty excited about how neat it was and how he was gonna grab us some tea to take back home. I'm drawing on his picture taking expertise below. He could give you a better accounting of the actual tea tour and what all goes into making this delicious beverage, but I only heard snippets and cannot accurately relay it here.

Thanks to all our little side stops, time was growing short, so we hurried into Kandy where we could visit the Sri Dalada Maligawa temple, which is also known as the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, one of the world's most popular and well-known Buddhist temples at the heart of Kandy city. It houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha, and has important historical significance because it is believed that whoever held the relic held governance of the country (Thus its current home in the heart of the royal palace complex in Kandy). The tooth itself is supposedly one of Buddha's that was recovered after his cremation. No, I did not actually get to see the tooth, so I couldn't tell you if I thought it really was his or not. Trust me, they keep that pretty locked up tight.

The temple complex was sprawling, gorgeous, and I could've spent hours wandering through it, but we only had an hour because the day was growing short. To make matters worse, it was slow going with my limp, and as is customary in a Buddhist temple, you are required to go barefoot. It was a really humbling experience, walking amongst all of the pilgrims to this shrine, barefoot. Instead of trying to explain the whole story, I'm just going to post a few pictures below to give you an overview.

The shrine containing the tooth relic

The temple from the outside, complete with monks' robes out to dry.

I took a panorama of the actual shrine to Buddha in the main room. All of those Buddha statues come from all over the world, and are either brought to or donated to the temple.

 

Some pretty lotus flowers to leave for Buddha.

We semi-reluctantly cut this visit short to head back to the shuttle, so we could head back to the hotel and make it in time for dinner. Once again, we arrived really late and barely made it in time for dinner service, as the trip was probably a good three and a half hours on the ride back. Jon and I were really grateful, however, that I had managed to add an extra day onto our stay and we didn't have to get up at 2 a.m. to make the trek back to the airport with the rest of the group, because we knew we'd have the next day to rest and recover from the whirlwind of the past two days. And I really knee-ded to stay off of my feet (haha, get it?!)


So that's precisely what we did the third day. I leave you with some pictures of us enjoying the hotel on our final day, and will avoid telling you the whole story about how this was a five star rated hotel that wasn't even finished with half of its promised facilities and how the Rotana Jet flight back to Abu Dhabi was only slightly less miserable and pointless than the flight to Sri Lanka.

Because you have to have a Coke in every country.

Ahh, rainy pool days.

Yea, I'm just gonna leave you with peace and sunsets.

Sri Lanka Series 2 - Day 1: Waskaduwa to Galle

We landed in Sri Lanka about an hour late, which was worrisome because I knew we had to, according to the itinerary, make it to the hotel in time for breakfast and "freshening up." We wandered out through immigration, passing duty free shops selling electronics such as TVs and refrigerators (puzzling - how did one get one of these home?! and were the deals in duty free really that great?), on out into the main arrivals lobby where a man with a sign for our tour group was waiting. We happened to be the first ones to greet him, so he sent us over by the door to wait for the other sixteen, while the main tour guide, Chris, came over to greet us. He asked us if we knew the other people in the group and when they'd be along, but we shook our heads and said we had no idea because as I said, this was an organized tour group of a bunch of strangers who'd never met. It created an odd bunch, who met for the first time in the Colombo airport even though we'd all clearly been on the same flight (it was relatively easy to guess who was coming along for the tour, but no one ever introduced themselves). Once everyone finally arrived, we were ushered out into the Sri Lankan morning to wait for our tour bus to come around and pick us all up.

The group, as I have said before, was a bit of a mixed bag - there was a larger group of friends who were all traveling together, and then several pairs, and one brave younger gentleman who'd decided to undertake the trip on his own. I'm not sure if it was a product of the horrid flight and the exhaustion, but to make things even stranger, not one person ever introduced themselves when we were standing there together waiting, and then even stranger, never really did over the entire course of the trip. I can't recall one place on the tour where anyone knew anyone else's name that wasn't a part of their pair or group until well into the second day of the tour, and then only briefly, for a few hours it seemed. The group dynamic was odd, and definitely part of the tour's less than wonderful moments. It didn't help that the first day, and really the first few hours (a discussion of which is forthcoming), seemed to immediately bring out the worst in just about everyone, and they showed their true colors fairly quickly. There were no lasting friendships made here...more of a tolerance of each others existence.

Once everyone had finally grouped up, we waited outside for our shuttle to come along, or rather, for our guide to take us to it. Once on the shuttle (a Toyota minibus that looked a whole lot like a old VW van) we were told that it would be a two hour ride to our hotel. Uh, what? Jon checked the location of the hotel before we left, and he swore the website said it was only 35km or so from the airport...which does absolutely not translate to two hours. Not to mention, having landed late, two hours would put us at a major breakfast setback. No one was really pleased about this discovery, but we put up with it, and headed on to Waskaduwa and the Citrus resort. We made it in time for breakfast, just barely, and managed to catch the buffet sheer minutes before it closed, which meant we pretty much got the cold scraps of the breakfast. Also, having arrived at 10:30ish meant that we were there well before check-out/check-in time, so we knew we wouldn't be able to get into our rooms, but were ASSURED this had been planned for and a room/a few rooms had been set aside for "freshening up" which was a nice thought after a miserable 5 hour plane ride. Really, all I wanted was my luggage, so that I could get to a fresh set of clothes and my medicine. It's not like I've never sink washed in bathrooms before (flashbacks to January, anyone?). Yet this is where the major problems began, because apparently the hotel and the tour guide were absolutely not on the same page with this plan.

Traveling Sri Lanka in style.

You see...there were no rooms ready/set aside for us. This was pretty crappy, sure, but as I stated before, I could've just as easily taken my luggage into the bathroom and made do with what I had, only the luggage hadn't come in the same shuttle, and was on a separate truck that was a bit behind. So we had to wait. Firstly, while we waited, we were promised that a room would eventually be made available for us all to use. THEN we were told that if we waited long enough, they would have rooms for us all to check into. Now, this caused most of the group to be grumpy, but in an interesting turn of events, for different reasons. A handful of us (and I could be wrong here, it could have just been Jon and I) were put off about having to sit at the hotel and wait, knowing we were simply losing more hours on our tour itinerary and that we'd have less time to actually explore places. Surprisingly, at least to me, more people were upset about the fact that they couldn't take a shower in a room and freshen up. I mean come on people. You're in Sri Lanka on vacation for a tour. Don't you want to just jump into the tour as quickly as possible and see what you came to see instead of whining about being tired/"dirty"? Clearly my opinion was unpopular and so, we waited. I want to say it took about two hours before the tour guide just gave up and realized we would never get rooms this early and encouraged people to go use the restrooms to change (what a concept!). Only...

This was me, in the lobby, having changed but still not happy about waiting.

Someone got a room. While we were sitting patiently in the lobby for this fiasco to resolve itself and then planning out how we would change after the luggage arrived, the tour guide flagged Jon and I over and proudly announced he'd gotten a room for us to check into and we could go now. Since this was after the hotel promised they'd have all our rooms ready, this wasn't a temporary room we'd have to share for "just cleaning up." It was our room. Ready. Jon and I snuck away with the key and enjoyed having a place to change and relax that was our own, until the tour guide came knocking and said that we were leaving within the next 15 or so minutes because none of the other rooms were ready and we needed to leave and to please not tell anyone we'd gotten a room (trust us, we never did). I like to think this was karma paying us back for being the only people who weren't yelling unreasonably and without success at the tour guide, hotel, or anyone else who came within earshot. Anyway, we left the room and met back up with the group, having changed and been refreshed, and eventually we did get away from the hotel, albeit with a black cloud of discontent lingering over (most of) our tour.

The turtle hatchery.

Our first stop along the tour was a turtle hatchery, and it wasn't *quite* what we'd expected, but I learned very quickly nothing in Sri Lanka ever really is. This was literally just a bunch of pools sheltered under a shed, with a sand pit for egg development and a path to the beach where the turtles were set free. Our "guide" took us around and showed us the turtles in the different pools, which were both different species and different ages. He explained that the rescue was in place to buy eggs picked up by local fishermen, so it offered not only a haven for the turtles but also local economic support. The turtles were then kept for a few weeks after hatching and released back into the sea, except for the few lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) who were allowed to stay longer and age in the pools, kept for educational purposes. Our little group went through the quick tour, which was mostly only good for turtle selfies, and then wandered down the beach for a few shots of an upcoming thunderstorm until we were finally wrangled back into the bus for travel to our next stop.

The turtle beach.

Cleaning the cinnamon.

Our next stop was the Madu River Boat trip, which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The scenery was breathtaking, and though we had to opt for the shorter version of the river trip because of time constraints, the boat ride was wonderful. We packed all 20 of our little group onto boats and headed up the river, meeting locals along the way, either fishing or river cruising or trying to sell something. There was one guy who came over with an adorable pet monkey that got passed around, but of course, for the luxury of a monkey photo op, it was expected that you tip the monkey owner. Poor monkey. Once we'd gone up river a ways, we made it to a small island in the middle, where we were given a tour of a local cinnamon producing operation. It was really neat to see the process from tree to dried spices, and also to learn how they extracted the oil.

A panorama taken on the river. Google's not bad at this.

Is it working? My skin clear yet?

We also got to finally try the famous King Coconut, which had been talked about a lot earlier in the day by our tour guide Chris in one of his various random information chats along the highway. King Coconut is sweeter than regular coconut, and the water is considered to have all sorts of different ayurvedic healing properties. it's considered to be the "king" of coconuts and is mainly used simply for its drinking water. Our tour guide offered up the legend that the coconut got its name from when a king of Sri Lanka had a terrible eczema rash that nothing could cure, but was told to drink king coconut water for its cooling properties and was miraculously healed. Not quite sure if that's entirely the case, but it made for an interesting tale. Another odd local cure offered up around the river was a fish pedicure, but I passed that one up. It's essentially exactly what it sounds like - you stick your feet in a pool where a bunch of little fish come up and nibble on them, supposedly taking away the dead skin. Gross, I'll pass.

After the sad end of the river boat trip, we headed to our next stop, the Moonstone Mine. This was pretty much the disappointing part of day one. The mine itself was little more than a 5 minute talk at the entrance to the mine about how moonstones were mined and what other stones, both semi-precious and precious were prevalent on the island, a two minute demonstration of the cleaning of stones, then a cursory walk through a polish and setting area right into an air conditioned, well maintained jewelry store where there was an abundance of clerks ready to follow you around like a hawk while you browsed, taking any opportunity they could to sell you something. To give you an idea, there was a clerk for every group/person that was on our tour - everyone had someone hawking. This was a mild disappointment because I'd expected to learn more about moonstones and the moonstone mining operation, and less about Sri Lankan sales tactics. It was clear the place was designed as a tourist trap, and it's not on my recommended visits.

This is about the time the group started grumbling again, sadly. Having left late from the hotel, it was probably about 4 in the afternoon and we hadn't stopped anywhere for lunch, which left some people with a less than cheerful disposition. It was generally agreed upon that after the moonstone mine we'd head to lunch, and we sat out again in our little van towards Galle and our promised lunch stop. About halfway there, we suddenly came to a dead stop in the middle of the road, and no one could figure out why. Traffic was at a total standstill in most places, and in some, it was little more than a very slow crawl. This didn't improve moods, until we suddenly realized why - the traffic was being rerouted around a street parade. Our tour guide wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but there was some sort of ritual procession/celebration combining both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. We were incredibly lucky to catch this, and all clamored for a stop, but our tour guide mysteriously kept on going (concerned about time, perhaps, or just ready to get rid of grumpy passengers) until we'd eventually passed the presentation and were on the road at a normal pace again, thus the only pictures I have of this beautiful and captivating ceremony come out of a bus window. I stopped trying about halfway down the line - the bus was picking up speed again so it was hard to capture things, and there was something horribly wrong about a bunch of people gawking from a bus and taking photos of a culture that has a rich history of condemning photography. The gorgeous spectacle isn't something I'll easily forget, however.

We finally made it to the place our tour guide had picked out for our very late lunch in the city of Galle, only to find that this place had stopped serving food hours ago and the chef had gone home. Oops. Bad move on the part of the tour guide, and it definitely had an effect on some of the already grumpy passengers. Half of the people demanded that we immediately found a place to eat, while half of the group was arguing that it had already become too late, and we wanted to see the fort, and we could eat when we got back to the hotel. The compromise was that the bus dropped us off at a restaurant at the fort where people were told they could either go and eat or go and visit the fort, but that they had an hour and they had to be back because the bus was leaving for the hotel. Jon and I set off to explore what little bit of the fort we had time to, enjoying the break from the group and the opportunity to branch out on our own.

Galle Fort

Galle's fort is a remnant from the Dutch occupation of Sri Lanka, and is filled with gorgeously breathtaking architecture, museums, monuments, and spectacular views. Jon and I sadly only got to experience the last when we walked along the fort's seaward wall for the sunset, to take in what we could before we had to head back to the bus for the 3 hour trip back to the hotel. We grabbed some Sri Lankan street food from a side of the road vendor as snacks for the trip back, anticipating the long drive crammed into the tiny bus seats. It's worth saying here that like every stop we made with this tour group, we left late because people arrived at the set meeting points way later than agreed upon, which of course made the itinerary and the stops suffer by cutting off time. We felt this keenly in Galle, it being the end of the day and us only given an hour to explore. Thanks to the late folks, we made it back to the hotel just in the nick of time for dinner before service closed (which of course caused people to complain - I'd never heard so much complaining as I did on this trip, and half of the time it was their fault!), and then after our meal headed promptly to bed where we crashed, knowing we had an early wake up call for our trip to Kandy the next day.

A Quick Update!

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I've just been rather lazy when it came to posting, and then the past 10 days I actually had an internship (!!!) that kept me at work from 10-6 and sometimes longer hours without a break. However, I absolutely loved working for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and there is surely a post coming about it soon, but first, I need to finish the much anticipated Sri Lankan blogs before I get too caught up in planning for our next adventure - Christmas in Thailand!