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Monday to Thursday involved all the regular duties of working with the turtles and teaching English. On Wednesday I managed to convince a group of tourists that we were doctors of marine biology and Lucy convinced them that Amy had been knighted by the queen.
On Thursday we started teaching at a new temple which was quite challenging as all the students spoke only a small amount of English so we were starting from scratch.
We left on Friday after breakfast for Kandy. We took the train from Colombo which was a very sceneic as it wound all through the highlands however there were some scary moments where there were sharp drops next to the railway track. We got to Kandy and then spent a couple of hours looking round the town, in the evening we went to a cultural show where we saw traditional kandyan dancing, drumming and walking on hot coals. It was really entertainging and quite different to anything I have seen before. We went for dinner and had chocolate cake for dessert that was less than 25p!
We decided to have a lie in on Saturday morning before being driven to a spice and
herb garden, where we learnt about all the different uses of lots of herbs and spices. We also got a free oil treatment for our hair and a face, head, shoulder and leg massage. We then moved on to an elephant safari where Emily, Lucy and Amy rode an elephant. I decided not to as it was quite expensive and I have done it quite a few times before so I took pictures for them instead. The lady from our hotel drove us around all day and after the elephant place she took us for lunch. We then went to a tea factory and saw all the processes involved with making tea before getting to try some. On our way back to Kandy we bought some corn on the cob from a road side seller which was really tough and chewy and actually not that great. As we were climbing back into the hills the tire became slashed so we had to pull over and a man helped us change it, we also got stopped by the police as they wanted to meet the ‘white girls’! Once we were back in Kandy we went to a gem factory and a
batik factory where we saw how they make the different batik fabrics by covering them in wax before dying. After a hectic day we went to the Temple of the Tooth for the evening Puja which involves a lot of drumming and people worshipping. We queued up for ages just to get a glimpse of the casket that contains the tooth which was actually quite disappointing. We got to look around the temple and there was even a stuffed elephant that had been the main elephant used in the Esala Pereha (Festival) for over 50 years. We had dinner that evening in Pizza Hut which was amazing and such a nice change from rice and curry however a lot of a the toppings were spicy still!
On Sunday we had a lie in again as the area is such a cool temperature and the beds were very comfy compared to Kosgoda! After breakfast which was toast and really good eggs, we got a tuk tuk into town and spent a couple of hours going around the markets. We met a great stall owner who let us try all the different fruits on his stall which included mangoosteens which tasted
great. We bought lots of spices, and souvenirs so it was a good day! We then got the bus back to Colombo and changed onto a second bus in Colombo. As we approached the house we range the bell to stop the bus however it turned out it didn’t work and as the bus was so rammed we couldn’t get the message for the bus to stop till 3km later. So we had to catch a tuk tuk back to the house as it was a bit too far to walk! For dinner we had pumpkin curry which is my favourite and was definitely needed as I was very hungry.
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