Sri Lanka

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We arrived in Colombo airport a bit worse for wear. Our traveling had left us without proper sleep for 35hours. We managed to find a taxi desk and easily got transport sorted to Cinnamon Red ,our hotel, in the city centre. This hotel was proper fancy. We had tea and coffee in the rooms and an infinity pool on the 26th floor overlooking the city. We even treated ourselves to a buffet breakfast which was amazing.

We spent the first full day on the roof sunbathing, relaxing, recovering and mainly waiting for Jodi’s parents , Jayne and Paul, to arrive from their flight from London.
We did have a few walks around the city but we found it quite expensive in my standards. On the Sunday before we left colombo we took a lovely stroll down a road which had hundreds upon hundreds of art and painting stalls. The canvases and sculptures were amazing. We wish we could have bought some but our rucksacks are already overflowing with unnecessary winter clothes we hope it will be cold enough to wear at some point. We continued our walk through a park we saw loads of couples cuddling in every corner of the park. We thought we had stumbled upon some sort of love park. It was really nice to see .
Jodi and myself carried on to a small island in the middle of Gangarama lake. This also had hundreds of couples kissing under umbrellas, it was really difficult to find a place to sit down!! We then visited Seema Malaka temple which we noticed from ‘love island‘ which was also in the middle of the lake. There we saw a couple getting married which brought back some wonderful memories of our own wedding (minus the pontoon and lake). The adjacent Gangaramaya Temple was stunning. There were a plethora of sculptures inside the main prayer area. There was massive collection of many different Hindu statues and a massive elephant sculpture which we couldn't work out if it was stuffed or made of clay. In the centre of one of the court yards there were two vintage black Rolls Royce cars on display and a massive tree with lots of people praying against it and pouring water over it, that was particularly mesmerising. It's apparently a tree grown from a cutting from the tree that Bhudda got enlightenment under.

After four more days of relaxing/recovering we headed to Wadduwa which is a small coastal town 1 hour south of Colombo. The traffic was up to the usual standard of trying to get to your destination as quickly as possible and by using the brakes as little and as late as possible. We arrived to a lovely villa on the beach front with its own pool and beach access. We did have a big language barrier with the caretaker the whole time we were there. Sometimes smiling and nodding doesn't work and a few times we thought we had an understanding and then realised nothing got organised as discussed.
We spent a few more days swimming in the pool, cooking BBQs, exploring the local village and swimming in the very rough sea. We tried to walk as much as possible as the local tuc-tuc drivers were a bit over excited about driving on main roads.

We took two day trips, the first of which was to Galle. This was a long trip with a few interesting stops. We got an amazing boat ride on Bentota Ganga (river) which initially seemed like a normal river but once it turned off the main channel we entered a tree covered marsh with lots of Water Monitoring Lizards, King Fishers and massive fruit bats which looked more like Pterodactyls swooping overhead. The fruit bats were so amazing… even when they are hanging upside-down in trees they look like big black dogs.
We briefly stopped at a memorial to the victims of tsunami which occurred in 2004. Near that spot 1700 train passengers were swept away in the colossal wave that hit the island. It is amazing to see how the Sri Lankans have raised themselves back up into a thriving community again. Much of the geographic scars are gone but a lot of the locals still talk about the day the sea disappeared. The locals mistakenly thought that it was a good time to collect crabs and lobsters that were left stranded as the sea retreated. They even tried to claim the land that was suddenly available. Unfortunately they got washed away as soon as the water returned with a 5metre swell. It was heartbreaking to hear how 50,000 died within minutes of the wave hitting Sri Lanka.
Our next stop was a turtle sanctuary which helps preserve 5 different species of turtle in a safe environment. We got to carry newly born turtles from their hatching area to the large water pools where they grow to a size that allows them to be released into the ocean and have a greater chance of survival. We visited a lot of injured, blind and deformed turtles that are looked after permanently at the centre as they wouldn't survive in the wild. We all got to hold fully grown turtles which was amazing. We hope human contact doesn't harm these beautiful animals.
Our next stop was at the ‘original’ moonstone quarry. When we got to the village there most have been 20 original quarries. Each with its own mini quarry at the back. We watched dirt get hulled up though a vertical shaft in the ground which must have been 10m deep and an old man would collect some dirt in his sieve, amusingly jumping into a square pond and pan for moonstones. We were then taken to the gem shop where we were pressured into buying something the whole time. We left empty handed thankfully, Jodi loves sparkly things.
Our final stop was a brief look at Galle which had a massive Dutch fort on the sea front. We wish we could have spent longer there but it was a 3hour drive back to wadduwa and it was quite late now.

The second day trip was to Kandy in the middle of Sri Lanka. This trip wasn't as good as the first and if we had done it first we definitely wouldn't have gone to Galle. We first went to a Elephant orphanage which was more like an prison. Elephants were chained to the ground, they were left in dusty enclosures without any water to cool themselves. I saw several elephants trying to climb out of their enclosures but couldn't as their legs were chained together. We had been told that we could feed the elephants but this wasn't the case. We got scammed when we first arrived at the orphanage and got forced into buying a bunch of bananas for the feeding while our tour guide watched on. Minutes later the same bananas were removed from us by the security guards. Not impressed. Even the best part of the show, the baby elephant feeding, wasn't that good. The ‘baby’ elephants were 3.5 years old. I'm pretty sure elephants wouldn't drink milk in the wild for that long. Seeing elephants in the national parks is far more rewarding. We feel that we were funding animal cruelty just for being at the orphanage.
We also visited a tea factory that was meant to be a plantation. We got a tour round the machinery by a young lady who didn't talk very loud. We spent the whole time nodding and pretending we could hear her. I hope she didn't ask us any questions... We were rewarded with a black tea without milk and biscuits. BTW I know black tea normally doesn't have milk but in Sri Lanka you might get some spicy horrible tea if you just ask for tea. Asking for normal tea doesn't work either as spicy horrible tea is normal there.
The highlight of the trip was the spice tour. A so called spice doctor showed us around a lot of trees and plants. All with health giving properties. Coincidently all these spices and oils could be purchased at the shop at the end. When the doctor put some natural hair removal cream on Paul’s leg we couldn't hold in the laughter. It got even worse when we all ended up lying on concrete benches getting back and leg massages. This time it was me with my top off and having a random man on my back. Paul had told us earlier in the week that he would never get a massage from a man. But he still lay down without any fuss. Jodi couldn't hold a straight face the whole time. We didn't mind paying the cost of the massage for the entertainment value even though we thought it was included in the trip.
We finally got to Kandy to see the Temple of the Tooth. Apparently where Buda’s teeth are. All of us but Jodi were refused entry due to our dress code, or maybe our dress sense. We were quite upset as the guide had seen our clothes in the morning and said nothing. We went to a café instead and looked at our own teeth with a nice cup coffee.

The rest of the time in wadduwa we continued to sun bath and chill out. On one evening we did reserve a table next door at the fish restaurant. We had to call in on the morning to order our fish as they never seemed to have any which is very odd. We did get a gorgeous barracuda between all four of us. I even ate an eye ball which was gooey, crunchy and terrible tasting. I think the crunch was the fish's contact lense.

Another highlight of the trip was when Jayne tried to enter the Indian ocean. Unfortunately for her the waves were petty fearse that day and poor Jayne got knocked flying to the ground several times before finding her feet again. We never laughed so hard. It got even worse when a massive wave managed to cause her a wardrobe malfunction without Jayne noticing. She wasn't amused when she saw the surprise (smile) on my face. ?

We flew out of colombo on 12 February at 3am. We however got to the airport at 10am on 11th February to see Paul and Jayne off. We hadn't realised that we couldn't get though customs until 3 hours before our flight and there was only one coffee shop and a corner shop to keep us entertained. Once again we were awake a lot more hours than we really wanted. All in the name of saving money.

We're now in the Republic of India for a month, thankfully Jodi is going to write that one.....

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Comments

[Jayne]

Memories
Loved reading this blog Rob just re-lived our time with you in Sri Lanka. We had a lovely time can't believe how quickly it went!! Thanks for the reminder about the wave incident I'm still blushing about that?. I can't wait to read the next blog. Keep safe, take care both of you sending lots of love xxxxx