First stop - Sri Lanka

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We have a confession to make, we thought Sri Lanka would be the perfect destination for a relaxing first few weeks on the beach, it has been...but it has also been so much more. History, religion, food, geography, people - each has surprised us and reinforced how much we underestimated this country.

We spent a little over three weeks touring just the south west and central highlands. After an 18 hour journey from London via Singapore (don't ask, restrictions of a round the world ticket) we found ourselves in Colombo, then followed a hair-raising introduction to the ways of the Sri Lankan roads, within 20 minutes our taxi driver was negotiating a speeding fine with the police. We spent a couple of nights in the capital and then caught the train to the south coast.

It doesn't take long to work out the Sri Lankans, they tend to fall into one of two categories;
SL1; friendly, polite, helpful, happy. SL2; friendly, polite, helpful, happy, tries to sell you something or asks for money .
It would take a lifetime to distinguish a 1 from a 2 before buying a wooden elephant or having a tuk-tuk journey 3 miles out of your way. After a couple of days we had benchmark examples...day 1, passer by offers to show us the way into town as he's walking that way anyway, explains a few things about Buddhism and local history, then explains that the gems in his shop are the best in the country and asks me to help him "with the cost of a beer for tonight"...a clear SL2. Day 2, train journey to Mirissa, fellow passenger misleads us with lengthy conversation about the terrain we are travelling through with very interesting information on agriculture, vegetation, employment, acts surprised when he hears there are no elephants in the forests around London, leaves us with grateful handshakes and a happy smile... SL1, undoubtedly.

The nice thing is after an SL2 realises you're not going to budge they invariably turn into an SL1.

One thing they both have in common is that they ask (in order) - Are we? Why aren't we? When will we? Followed by telling us that we must. The subject was of course marriage and became so frequent that I had to ask if Rachel's Grandma had been in touch with them.

The beaches of the south coast are some of the best to be found, anywhere, and Mirissa has to rate as one of the best in the country. We spent a full 7 days here, with a couple of day trips to the local towns of Galle and Matarra. Galle's an interesting town surrounded by an immense fortified wall, with a history of rule that includes Dutch, Portuguese and British it is now succumbing to the fearsome English bankers (50 of the town's houses have recently been snapped up), there appears to be no bad feeling among the locals who see it as a reasonable way to preserve the town.

We found another beach paradise in Tangalle, the seas a little rougher than Mirissa but still there was an amazing beach that appeared to stretch for at least 10 miles. After 9 days on the beaches we were suitably relaxed and ready to see what Sri Lanka had to offer, so we caught the local bus inland to the Uda Walawe National Park.

Actually, now would be a good time to mention the local bus service. Erm, I guess the politest way I can describe this is maniacal, I don't want to be too sensationalist about it (remember we're in India next) but I can't remember the last time I was on a bus where the rear wheels left the road...

Uda Walawe is one of Sri Lanka's smaller national parks, with the largest population of elephants. You have to arrange a jeep and driver in the local town and then pick a tracker up at the entrance. I'm not really sure what we were expecting of this trip but it turned out to be one of the highlights, after a couple of hours spotting the odd one or two elephants our tracker noticed a herd by the edge of a lake about a mile or so away. He began to get more and more excited as we approached because the herd was far larger than he first thought, we counted 54 in total, very rare for this time of year. On top of this we saw 2 bull elephants fighting, 2 very rare tusked males and our accompanying Land Rover was charged by a very angry over-protective mother.....the passengers, a group of young IT workers from Colombo, were strangely very quiet.

Our next stop was the small town of Ella in the high country. The journey, by bus, showed us some of the most stunning scenery yet as the reasonably flat plains with jungle and paddy fields gave way to mountains, deep valleys and tea plantations. At our guest house the owner took a liking to us and invited us to witness the blessing of their new kitchen - so the whole family, and us, heated a terracotta urn full of coconut milk over a wood fire until it boiled over, this is a traditional Sri Lankan custom to bestow good luck and fortune on a new building, the family seemed very emotional and pleased that we'd spent the time with them.

Ella is a small town, with not a huge amount to do - apart from get lost on a six hour hike over the largest mountain, our hosts were perplexed when we told them where we had ended up, telling us that it was almost impossible to get there via the route we had taken, I tried to explain that Rachel had led the way but they weren't having any of it. Despite the detour the views of Ella Gap, the waterfalls and tea in a local farmer's mud hut were all very rewarding.

Ella is one of the last few stops on the Sri Lankan Eastern Railway line, which must rank as one of the most scenic in the world. We travelled east on this line to the town of Haputale - the view from our balcony in the morning was more than enough reason to stay in this town, but we were also able to visit a working tea factory established by Thomas Lipton in 1890. We both liked the town as it had a good "working" feel about it, a kind of frontier town with the main street appearing to run straight off the edge of the earth.

After a night in Haputale it was back on the train again for a three hour journey to Nanu Oya, the station town for Nuwara Eliya our destination. Nuwara Eliya seems to play with your head a little, the climate, buildings, street names, local village called Blackpool and even down to the "Ascot" racecourse and Hill Club all conspire to place you back in England. To top it off our guest house even had a tv, luxury indeed...national geographic channel looked interesting, so we settled down to see who staring back at us? Arghhh, bloody Backshall, that's who...we were in England, Marlow in fact.

We had our best meal in N.E., cooked by the youngest chef we'd seen, it was fantastic. Sri Lankan food is delicious, it's generally influenced by Indian and Chinese but the traditional rice and curry (a large plate of rice surrounded by 4-6 medium bowls of vegetable curries, sambols and your choice of meat curry) and hoppers (rice flour pancake cups served with egg, curry, jam or plain and eaten at breakfast or supper, depending on the region) seem to be unique.

After our overnight stay in England we made a train then bus trip to Dambulla via Kandy. The main reason for making it here was to view the rock citadel of Sigirya. Dambulla appears, at first glance to have developed around the centre point of the island, acting as a natural crossroads it's a very busy town with the country's most important agricultural market. On arrival we were a little bewildered with all the activity and asked a bystander directions to our chosen guest house, he insisted that his friend's three-wheeler was the best way to go and introduced us. I was a little nervous as although his friend was facing us, his eyes were looking elsewhere, in opposite directions, if you know what I mean. Anyway, my fears were unfounded as he appeared to be at an advantage in the early evening traffic, with the closest thing to eyes in the back of his head. The guest house was the worst yet, so we proceeded with our pre-arranged solution to this very problem....we had many beers, on returning the guest house seemed palatial...our solution worked.

Early (7am!) the next morning our all-seeing driver picked us up to take us to Sigirya. It's touted as the eighth wonder of the world and is truly spectacular - a 200m (that's 1250 steps) granite outcrop protruding from the jungle, with ornate water gardens and moats at its base and the remains of a palace on top, a fair proportion of the features had not been built but hand carved from the rock. The citadel was built and occupied around 1500 years ago by King Kaspaya and his cult, it has amazing attention to detail with fresco galleries and ingenious gravity and pump fed water features including a cooling system around the king's throne. Although expensive to enter the visit was well worth it, and we were amazed at how accessible each of the features were.

The rest of that day we spent touring the Dambulla Rock Temple - almost as impressive, five caves make up the Buddhist temple dating back to the 1st century BC, each has numerous cave paintings and sculptures - and then we relaxed at the Katagama hotel, a 5 star jungle paradise, overlooking a lagoon with views of Sigirya in the distance. The best day so far was rounded off by helping to clean a couple of elephants in the lake just below the hotel and then sharing too many beers with our three wheeler driver (not the original but a charming very intelligent young man called Dull - it's in the pronunciation).

Kandy smacked us between the eyes as our first taste of urban life for three weeks, it's a bustling city with a good feel. We had 2 days here and managed to visit the temple of the tooth relic and the national botanical gardens. It was then another amazingly picturesque train journey back to the capital and 2 nights in the luxurious YWCA (don't worry, they seem to accept couples as well). We spent the last day in Sri Lanka touring the streets and several luxury hotels for our final taste of local food (fish and chips next to the pool), Colombo is so vastly different and more busy than the rest of Sri Lanka that it could easily be in a different country.

So that was Sri Lanka, so much more than we expected and so much more that we could have seen and done - Anuradhapura, Trincomalee, the Northern Province all look interesting...next time.

December 8th we caught a flight to Trivandrum...Kerala...India...gulp!

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Photos

Elephants Up Close
Uda Walawe National Park

Haputale
The early morning view from our balcony

Sigirya
The frescoes

Sigirya
The lion's feet, just before the final ascent

Sigirya
View of the water gardens from the top of the rock

Dambulla
One of the caves from the rock temple

Kandalama
A taste of luxury at Kandalama hotel

Kandalama
Giving the elephants a bath

Kandy
View of Kandy lake in early evening

Comments

[anonymous]

You jammy gets
Bob, you should be a journo! What a fantastic travel log, sounds absolutely amazing and the pictures confirm that. Pleased to hear you're still enjoying a few lagers. Really looking fwd to the next update to your travel journal. Love to Billy. Nat.x P.S - Bilson's Grandma asked me to ask you.... - Nat H