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Published: February 23rd 2010
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Friday 19th
His…
Woke up early and checked out of our guesthouse, ready for our two hour bus ride to Dambulla, an inland town surrounding the “Cave Temples“. Half an hour into our trip and Miranda needed the toilet, we had coped just fine up until now with the public transport because we had used trains with toilets, but on a bus we had no choice but to get off and then wait for the next one. All the buses coming past were too full to fit us and our massive backpacks on so we ended up opting for a tuk-tuk instead. About ten times the fair of the bus but meant we could stop and buy food, water, use the toilet and look at things of interest. The driver was a nice guy as well and chatted away to us and pumped his music through his sub woofer speakers on his pimped out tuk-tuk.
The “cave temples” are exactly what they sound like- some caves, up the top of a small mountain, with all sorts of budda statues carved out of the rocks. There are 3 caves in total. This was pretty impressive and definitely worth the $11AUD
we payed each. There were heaps of monkeys on the way up to keep us entertained as well. Scary, ugly looking things but they are very human-like to watch while they play with each other and fight and cheekily steal food from tourists and one other. We also ran into a German girl who we had met the night before at our restaurant in Kandy. She was doing the tour of the Cave temples with an elderly blind German couple whom she had met on the bus. We found this pretty fascinating and somewhat courageous considering the roads and paths here are not exactly designed with the disabled in mind. The German girl was describing the look and shape of everything to them to help them experience it all.
That afternoon we got back pretty early and had a shower and realised there was not much else to do but go for a wander, eat some food, come back to the guesthouse and just get pissed….so we did! We just sat around and drank and read our books and witnessed a local guy beat his girlfriend up, yup we really immersed ourselves deep in Sri Lankan culture!
Hers…
We also meet the family next door. We had brought some koalas, kangas and coloured pens along with us to give out along our journeys. We decided to give the 2 children some and then soon after another 5 children came out from hiding, totalling 3 families. The children were delighted with their gifts and although the language barrier was evident you could tell it had made their day. 5 minutes after they had gone back home the mother of one of the families came to greet us and brought along her baby to show us - kitted out in wollen beanies as all the babies have in this 30+ degree climate. Our guest house guy told us they were a very poor family and if we wanted to give them a donation that would be appreciated. We handed over some notes and hoped it could make a difference.
TIP OF THE DAY: Don’t donate to your neighbours - they know where you live (& WILL come back for more).
Saturday 20th
His…
Another early morning to beat the heat, as this day involved a two hour round trip walking up and down a mountain. We left
for Sigiriaiya, about 20km from our guesthouse, where the famous “Rock Fortress” is located. This is an enormous rock mountain with a moat full of crocodiles and big walls, that are quite crippled now, surrounding it. At the very top of the rock, which is quite flat, there are all sorts of walls, pools and brick structures. It was once thought that this was the home of a king and that a palace of some kind was at the very top but now archaeologists are saying that there is no evidence that pillars were in place that would have supported a roof and that it was probably just a meeting place of worship for Buddhist monks. Google it and save me time.
We got half way to the top when we were told that an active hornets nest was located near the only way up, and had attacked tourists just a few days before, so we would have to wear bee suits to continue the journey! We had just climbed up steep steps for about 45 minutes, in about mid 30’s heat, were sweating our asses off, and now we had to put these head to toe bee suits
on! This was one of the most uncomfortable feelings to climb the last 15 minutes in these suits, but we had no other choice. We got to the top and found that no hornets were around, and that most the people had taken there suits off first chance they had. We were absolutely dripping with sweat so we found some shade and dried off. We both decided that we were never going to become bee-keepers and were even more certain that we would never become firemen. Respect goes out to the above mentioned professions!
Again, we ran into our new German friend halfway up the rock...3 times in 3 days, thats worth a mention!
After the climb, we headed to a nearby, very upmarket hotel where you could use their pool for $2AUD each. A nice way to cool down after the mountain trip. We relaxed and swam in their luxurious pool for about 3 hours when we decided we were too much on a budget to buy their $20AUD lunches so we headed back to our guesthouse and wandered up into the town and paid 80c instead for our meal and 30c for a bottle of coke. You just gotta love the 3rd world country’s cost of living.
Tomorrow we are up again at the crack of dawn to head down south on another 4 hour journey. For such a small country it sure does take a lot of time getting from one place to another!
TIP OF THE DAY: Liquid hand wash, toilet paper wet ones, mini tissue packets (for toilet paper), & Anti Bac Paper soap are all required. Plus if you are anything like me I have now started a daily dosage of 2 Imodium before breakfast…sort of like my vitamin pills!
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Mandy
non-member comment
hi
Hi guys, very interesting to read of your latest exploits. Sounds like you're alreay having some pretty amazing adventures. Reminiscent of Bali - making me nostalgic. Lots of love xxox