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Published: March 12th 2006
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Greetings hungry blog followers. Apologies for the lack of travel anecdotes to munch on recently.
Where, oh where, have we disappeared to?
The answer... Sri Lanka!
We have been here for almost two weeks now and have covered most of the Island in that time. Sri Lanka is the same size as Ireland, so compared to travelling the length of India, it is a piece of cake!
We flew into Colombo, having joyously played with our tv screens and eaten mystery Sri Lankan pastry things on the 50 minute flight from Trivandrum. Sass caused a scene at the airport by (she says accidentally...) trying to smuggle her penknife on board in her hand luggage, but was (miraculously, in my opinion) reunited with it on arrival in Sri Lanka, equipping her to continue her criminal ways on future flights...
On arrival at the airport, we had fun and games with lots of very helpful people, all of whom told us different stories about how to get to Kandy. We ended up getting a bus to Colombo train station. Now, we have always considered our backpacks, by their sheer scale, as extra little people who are getting to
go on a big trip for free. Apparently, Sri Lankan bus conductors share this view in a much more literal sense, as here we are charged for an extra seat for our bags to sit in - amusing but financially wounding at the same time, especially as our bags seem unwilling to contribute any money towards their tickets!! We then had our first experience of Sri Lankan trains, sat on the floor of a very full 3rd class carriage. Mercifully, the ticket inspectors offered us an upgrade to 2nd, so the floor only ended up being our home for 1 hour of the 5 hour trip! We then enjoyed the rest of the journey basking in the sheer luxury of seats. For something which moves so slowly, the Colombo - Kandy 'express' train flings you about quite a lot - more like a theme park ride than a transport method. On arrival in Kandy we headed for a guest house south of the lake, a friendly place where we ended up staying on the basis that one of the brothers running it has a crazy afro and white boots and Sass decided that it was worth taking the room just so that I could see him! We had dinner there - a real feat of Sri Lankan curry & rice.
The next day, we were to meet up with Sass' parents, John and Sue, at a hotel in Kandy, where we were all going to be staying together. We were entertained that evening (not entirely by our choice, it has to be said) by a slightly cringey little gaggle of guitar / scraper / singing men, who served up a traditional Sri Lankan song with the perhaps not completely authentic lyrics of Sri Lanka la la la.... Anyway, it was certainly catchy, I'll give them that, because we haven't been able to shake it from our internal jukeboxes ever since (and probably never will...). We had a wonderful week with them, seeing lots of amazing things and being pampered wonderfully. We had lots of fun together and were very sad when they went home at the beginning of this week.
Having met up in Kandy, we explored the temple of the tooth, where there is supposedly a tooth of the buddha, enshrined in a series of caskets. Unfortunatelty, the guide who adopted us there was rather toothless himself, so I wouldn't say that I 100% followed every word of his commentary! We then took in a traditional Kandyian dancing display - there was some great stuff, with drum spinning and a completely insane and disturbing walking on hot coals section. Bits of it did feel a bit like watching someone's else's children doing a dance display, complete with a sense of nervousness over whether or not everything was going to go ok!!!! The following day we had a fascinating trip to a tea plantation and factory near Kandy. Whilst there was no one picking when we got there, some old lady saw the opportunity and lept out of the bushes having donned her headscarf and sack and promting picked some tea for us to take photos! The factory itself was really interesting and some of the rooms smelt sooooo good. It was all rounded off with a nice cup of tea - all very civilised! In the afternoon we went to the botanical gardens near Kandy, which had lots of beautiful trees and flowers, and, most strikingly, absolutely loads of bats. There were just thousands of them, hanging from the trees, flying around all bat-like as if in a creepy movie. Little known fact for you - bats smell just like cannabis, and there was a musty smell in the air because there were so many of them. Craziness...
The next morning, we met up with Anthony and Pradeep who were to take us round the cultural triangle.
And that, my friends, is another night's story.
To be continued.....
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