Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) means "Resplendent Land" in Sanskrit.  We managed to miss both monsoon seasons!

This trip to Sri Lanka was just heaven.  It started well when, on the Thursday we were leaving, only 2 students in each of my classes came to school.  Because attendance was so low school-wide, they called the buses back and sent the students home.  Then, they let us leave at 11:00.  I went home and packed and just rested up for the trip!

We left at 10:00 Thursday night to get on a plane in Dubai at 2:00 a.m.  Then, when we arrived in Colombo, our driver picked us up and drove us straight through to Dambulla.  Since I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, the day ended up being almost 40 hours of awake time for me!!!

The first place we stayed was very nice:  Heritance Kandalama.  It was built by Geoffrey Bawa, considered Sri Lanka's greatest architect. He tried to leave as much of the natural environment as possible, so the hotel snakes along a rock outcrop overlooking Kandalama tank (an ancient reservoir).  Here are some pics.

The greenery almost looks as if it is growing out of the hotel.

Morning bird on Kandalama reservoir

Sunrise over the mountains

This hotel was in the middle of the Cultural Triangle, so it was convenient to the lion rock of Mount Sigiriya, the ancient city of Polonnaruwa, and Dambulla Cave, which are all UNESCO world heritage sites.
The first night we did an evening climb of Sigiriya Rock.

View from a distance

Cave frescoes of the celestial maidens

Sitting at the Lion's claw feet
 (I am exhausted at this point. The total climb was just over 1200 steps!)

At the top....with the sun setting and a storm about to hit....
You can just barely see the white Buddha statue way off in the distance (to the right of the crook of Heather's elbow).

5th Century:  Called the 8th wonder of the world
Quick view around at the ruins of the palace and then we high-tailed it before the rains came!

On the trip back to our place, we stopped and watched how wood dyes are made and bought a wooden elephant carving for our flat.

The next morning we had a breakfast buffet where we watched the monkeys play as we ate!  Then we headed out to ride an elephant named Kamari.

Kamari picked up a small tree branch and hit me in the head with it!

Heather feeding Kamari a banana

Heading out into the river

Kamari loved to play in the water!

Getting much deeper!

Kim takes control....

Then we watched the feeding of the Water Monitors.

Yummy!

Heading back to the river

We continued on our way to visit the ancient ruins of the city of Polonnaruwa.

12th Century:  Ruins of palaces and monasteries

Large Dagoba (dome-shaped structure) where they buried the dead

Rock carving of Meditating Buddha.  You had to take off your shoes to approach this.

Cory is trying to decide if he has enough rupees to donate.

Taking a break from the heat for some "King Coconut."  It was supposed to be good for you.

 After our morning trip, we headed to the Golden Temple and Dambulla Cave Temple in the evening.  They are over 2,000 years old--what history!

Golden Temple
You climbed many stairs to reach the Cave Temple at the top of the mountain.

Cave Temple
This was built into the rocks over 2,000 years ago.  Inside are many Buddha statues carved into the rocks.

Some of the many statues inside Cave Temple

We also got a "massage" at a spice garden from an herbalist.  Then we headed home for a late-night swim in the pool.

Infinity pool overlooking the lake

The next day we left Kandalama to head to Kandy.  On the way, we visited the Pinnawala Elephant orphanage.  This is where they take care of injured or orphaned elephants that would not survive in the wild.  The elephants roam freely within the Sanctuary, except when their Mahouts (keepers) shepherd them to the river for a bathing session.We watched them feed the elephants and then saw how they use elephant poo to make all kinds of unique gifts.  Heather now has a poo magnet on her refrigerator....ha-ha!  You will see the picture of one elephant who lost a leg to a land mine.  We ate lunch overlooking the river where the elephants walk down to bathe.  As the elephants started their walk down to the river, I was video-taping the whole thing.  When one elephant got to me, he decided he smelled bananas, so he took his trunk and started feeling all up and down my legs, trying to find them.  It's pretty funny to watch now.

Kim the Elephant Herder

Injured elephant

The babies were the cutest!

River crossing

Playing in the mud

Lunch with a view

Dried elephant poo

As we headed back to our van, we watched a cobra dance, and Cory stopped to play with a python.

We also looked at how they mine gems and then cut and shape them into jewelry.  Kim bought me a star sapphire and blue topaz pendant.  Love you, Kim!  :)

Gem Hunter

They dig deep wells and men climb down into the wet earth beneath to bring up baskets of
rocks and soil which are then sorted for gems.

The gems are handcrafted and sold separately or set into jewellry.

We drove through numerous small villages like this

We decided the white lines were just "suggestions" for the drivers to follow.  Even when there were only 2 lanes of road, there might be 4 cars wide traveling opposite directions!!

We got to Kandy and checked into the Earl's Regency where we would be staying for the next 2 nights.  It was very nice.

It's right on the Maheweli River, and you can see the Knuckles mountain range in the distance.  Kandy was where the last kings of Lanka ruled.

We relaxed by the pool and then took a tour of the Botannical gardens the next day.  We saw huge trees full of bats!

Our room

Looking off the balcony

Ahhhh....sunset!

Avenue of Palms in the Botannical Gardens

Suspended Bridge

The trees were packed with hanging bats!

Close-up of one little guy....

A few were flying around.  All of them were squeaking....eeeeekkkkk!

That night we watched a cultural dance show that included fire-walking.

The finale, with all the different performers on stage

I didn't catch the men who walked on coals except on video, so I can only post pictures of the fire-eating.

Then we went to see the Sri Dalada Maligawa, or Temple of the Tooth, where a sacred tooth relic of the Lord Buddha is enshrined.  The gold container that holds one of Buddha's teeth is only on display for 15 minutes, so we got in line at exactly the right time to be able to look in the small window to see it.

Looking down on the Dalada Maligawa (gold roof) where the tooth relic of the Buddha is kept

Rajah--the elephant who carried the relic on his back for over 20 years.  He is now "taxidermized" and on display.

Our van was having trouble, so we got in a "tuk-tuk" to ride back to our hotel.

Heather and Cory in their "tuk-tuk."  It's named after the sound it makes....
We couldn't resist saying, "We took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel, but their tuk-tuk overtook our tuk-tuk!"

The next day we drove to Nuwara Eliya, up in the hill country. We stopped at Ramboda Falls along the way to have some tea.

At the bottom of Ramboda Falls.  It was quite a hike, and as usual....
Heather and I didn't have on the right clothes or shoes for a hike!!

Looking out at another waterfall from the small place we had tea

We toured a tea plantation and enjoyed a cup of afternoon tea.

This is the shed where they dry the tea leaves.  The top 2 leaves and bud are all that are picked,
 and they must be picked by girls who have gentler hands than boys.

Here's the final product.
Heather is a McKinley through and through:  she has to smell everything!  ha-ha!!

Mackwood's Finest Tea:  POB  (Pekoe Orange Broken)

The tea house

Later that day we arrived at our hotel, the Grand Hotel. The area is a famous hill station:  it is more than 6,000ft above sea level.  The area is nicknamed Little England. The Grand Hotel is like an old English Inn, built in 1891. It was once the residence of Sir Edward Barns, a British Governor of Sri Lanka. The hotel has Pidurutalagala mountain to the north and Single Tree mountain to the south.

The landscaping was gorgeous!  Sri Lanka was in the semi-finals for cricket, so they had a huge screen set up on the front lawn for crowds to watch.  Cory got to play golf.

Our quaint English room with its little bay window

Heather:  What is this?  A hair dryer??

Garden fountain
 You can see the tents in the background where they have set up for the cricket match.

Taking a tour

As Cory was playing golf and we were watching the cricket match, a sudden rain came up.  Kim and I ran for safety, but Heather got stuck under one of the tents.  Then, a hotel guy decided to save her with an umbrella...

The next day we were driving to the coastal town of Galle.  Unfortunately, we had car trouble again, and stopped for lunch at a small hillside place where our driver got someone to work on the car.  We had been fortunate up to this point that the car problems had not delayed any of our sight-seeing.  This time, we were not so lucky.  We spent about 3 hours at this lunch location waiting for the car to be repaired.

Then, after lunch, we took up the route again, breaking down once again in front of a house alongside the road.  The residents invited us to come in, so we spent a couple of hours inside their house watching cricket on the TV, while drinking hot tea and eating fruit.  The father had worked with U.S. soldiers in Iraq, so he told us he knew we liked "Rip-It."  All the soldiers drank it.  I had no idea what he was talking about, but he sent his daughter running to the store, and she brought back small cans of energy drinks called Rip-It.  Yuck!  But it was so sweet of them.

We are so excited to be having more car trouble.....
On the table you can see the can of Rip-It.

They were trying to offer us anything they thought we might want. I hated that we were disrupting their afternoon, but from the stares we received from everyone (all the neighbors came to peek in at us), maybe we will be the talk of the neighborhood for the next few days!

We arrived at Galle around 10:00 at night, and then spent the next 2 days lounging around on the beach.  We stayed at The Light House, a little seaside boutique hotel near the historic town of Galle.

Add a thick cushion, beach towels, and open the umbrella:  this was my spot for 2 days!!

The Light House Hotel on the cliffs

View from our room

Our favorite hotel room

We could have stayed here forever!!

Infinity pool overlooking the Indian Ocean

Ahhhhh......the BEACH!!

BIG waves!!

Wildlife 

My favorite shot....this was the view from my lounge chair....

A private little spot where we had our lunch:  this is right below one of the pools at the hotel

This is the life.....

Sunset (you know I love these sunset shots!)

We visited the 17th century Dutch Fort, and walked through the old Dutch part of the town. We also visited the Galle museum and lighthouse.The tsunami that hit in 2004 damaged the city, but could not get past the fort, so it detoured around.

Museum
That's our driver, Prasad, between Kim and Cory

We really enjoyed seeing all the wildlife!  We saw deer, sambur, elephants, anteaters, and water monitors.  There were so many species of birds that were amazing and beautiful!  We also saw large troops of monkeys all over the island.

This is a gray langur.  Doesn't he look like he's posing??

This is a macaque.  We saw TONS of these:  they are very prolific!!  

How can you not love this baby's face?!

This guy needs a good dentist!!

As disappointed as I was not to be going to Egypt, I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed this trip to Sri Lanka!!  We saw so many ancient temples and carvings.  It's hard to believe things are still around and still in such good shape from so many centuries ago.

Aren't we a mature-looking crew?  The hotel staff was having a good laugh.....