Sri Lanka - Land of Tea and Turtles

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We arrived in Sri Lanka with no idea about the country, no guide-book and no idea where we wanted to go....4 months of travel will do that to you. Lucky enough in Sri Lanka the laid back approach works. Sri Lankans are the friendliest people, will do anything to help you, we were practically hand delivered from one person/bus to the next, until we arrived where we thought we wanted to be...Kandy...capital of hill country. Of course, where you find the good, the bad and the ugly usually aren't too far behind and came disguised as just another friendly local, he took us to a local market, where you could buy Sri Lankan tea and spices at the best prices in town. After talking about creating good karma by being a helpful, honest person, he'll come back as something great in his next life, he swifly ripped us off. We realised 10 minutes later that we'd paid more than 10 times the going rate, bear in mind that at this point money is in short supply and every pound/rupee is a prisioner we marched back, confronted him and after a few harsh words won back our rupees...result! Another lesson learned...never trust anyone who drones on about karma...he's coming back as a dirty rat in his next life...hehehe!

It didn't take us long to suss out the local dishes, there's not a huge tourist restaurant scene in Sri Lanka, which suits us as they're out of our budget anyhow, instead there are lots of local eateries all serving pretty much the same thing...with extra chilli. Our first meal in Sri Lanka was a fiery Kottu (roughly chopped up roti stir-fried), we also had our first egg hopper experience, which Aaron (who loves anything eggy) rates in the top 3 best food finds of the whole trip...big wraps!! It's basically a thin pancake shaped into a basket in which eggs are cracked and cooked inside...it's delicious...but later became known as the 'elusive egg hopper', as like alot of local dishes in here, you can't just demand what you want when you want you have to get the timing right!! Oh and don't ask for a menu...there are none...you just point and hope for the best.

After a few days exploring Kandy we hopped on a bus to Newa-Eliya further up in Hill Country to check out the Tea Plantations. We headed to the Mackwoods Tea Estate, had a tour of the factory at the end of which you get to sample a massive pot of the best tea we've ever tasted and a big chunk of chocolate cake to top it off...Mmmmm...I devoured mine and out of the side of my eye saw Aaron speed eating to try to keep me out of his...:-).

Our next stop was Ella, bus and train ride away. Buses are great for meeting people who are always interested in where you're going and what your doing. We met Iranga, a station master from the west coast, his sister and her fiancee, who we hung out with for a few hours while we waited for the train. They insisted we have breakfast with them...Sri Lankan style. We had avoided eatting curried brekkies the whole way through India, now we were cornered and served up a huge plate of spicy curry and roti, with (of course) a crowd of locals keenly watching the whities sweating it out. All i can say is thank god we managed the art of eating curry with our hands in India, a life long skill, as no-one was rushing to provide us with cutlery!! By the time we made it to Ella it was lashing, we just chilled out in our guesthouse and had a great home cooked Sri Lankan Curry that night which was delicious :-). Next day we did make a half hearted attempt at walking to a local waterfall, but the weather was pretty bad so we planned to travel south to the beaches that next day.

The south of Sri Lanka is beautiful, really low key, just perfect beaches with no real infrastructure around them, only a few guesthouses, you pretty much have the beach to yourself. Turtles wash up on the beaches around Tangalle and Mirissa all the time to lay their eggs, we spent our nights trawling the beaches in the dark trying to find them, all we found we're a load of old crabs and a few stray dogs...but we had good fun trying. We ended up going to a turtle farm, which was set up to stop locals poaching the eggs for the local delicacy of 'Turtle egg omelette', they are also poached for their shells. The farm pays local people to collect the eggs and bring them to the farm where they are buried safely in the sand until they hatch 65 days later, they are kept in tanks for four days, then released making their way down the beach to the sea. They are still pretty tiny at four days old however alot of them don't survive. We did get to see some older ones too...they are pretty cool! Along that coast you can see the stilt fishermen at work, pretty hard work, as well as lots of traditional fishing too, every morning a huge group of locals gather to pull ashore a massive net (hopefully) full of fish, takes alot of heave-hoeing to pull it in...but they seem to love it...its like a big social event!!

Our last stop was the beach resort of Unawatuna (the lively beach resort) although it's no Kho Phangan, it is gorgeous like all the other beaches. It has a few good eateries and local characters such as 'scary mike', local prankster, you never know when he's gonna pop out and scare you, or hang something on you. We got him back on the last day with a good olde thump on the back as we whizzed past on our tuk-tuk...hehehe!! We had a night on the tear in Unawatuna to celebrate Helen and Leons wedding, drinking Arak, the local poison, which i think is fernented coconuts, and gives you the best hangover you'll ever have!!CONGRATS HELEN AND LEON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next day we gathered ourselves together for a trip into the city of Galle which has a nice fort and as we discovered a large population of big angry ants. We sat down for a drink, and unable to resist Aarons charms, one big ant crawled right into his pants!! Well....he mustn't have liked it in there, cause he got nasty and started biting...hehehe...Aaron lept up and began running around trying to get shot of the ant. I half-thought he was only ligging about and couldn't help him for laughing. Of course we had to inspect the damage...and yes... that ant had left his mark...

Our time in Sri Lanka was coming to an end. Off to Bangkok next. We knew about the problems there and were a bit worried about not getting our flights. Lucky enough the day before our flight the airport siege ended. We phoned Sri Lanka Airlines as well as calling into their local office to confirm that our flight was still going and were given the thumbs up. One tuk-tuk, one train and two buses later, we arrived at the airport with no rupees to spare. FIGHT CANCELLED!! What a NIGHTMARE...and it wouldn't be rescheduled for another few days. We were raging we hadn't been told, and disappointed as we were all reved up to go to Bangkok, a great city to end the trip (apart from the civil unrest of course). How it turned round...They agreed to put us up in a hotel until our next flight. We were joking to ourselves 'wonder when the limo's arriving to pick us up?' imagining them saying 'now sir...would you like the steak, prawns or chicken for dinner', knowing it would probably just be a basic hotel. I could hardly contain my excitement, I knew it was good when we passed through high security gates and drove up a long tree lined avenue, past the clubhouse, pool and tennis courts. I nearly wet myself when he told us the times for breakfast lunch and dinner and asked us if we'd like sandwiches and refreshments sent to our room...hehehe...off they led us to a huge room, with satellite tv, massive bathroom, fluffy towels (bliss after months of smelly travel towels, or if you were lucky enough a dodgy thread bare one)..... You can imagine what a treat it was after 4 months of travelling on a budget of 12 pounds a day (thats between us), scruffy backpackers...with hardly a clean tee between us :-). Sri Lankan Arilines are now our favourite airline...we're off to Bangkok tomorrow, but if they want to cancel the flight again and treat us to ?star luxury...thats fine with us...

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Comments

[Carol]

Merry Christmas
Lisa and Aaron Merry Christmas from all at JD Hunter. We have been reading about all your travels and look forward to finding out what happens when you reach NZ. Good luck