Sri Lanka take 2

See all photos at flickr link

We decided to return to Sri Lanka after our visit in November in order to get a better look at the interior of the counrty. The second visit helped us to get more insight regarding the people, the culture and the land. Sri Lanka is surpisingly mountainous, something I never fully appreciated until we drove around the interior for 5 days ... can you say "switchbacks".

Our driver, Raja collected us at the airport. Raja was awesome, very knowledgeable and wonderfully nice man with a great sense of humor. We learned, later, that his real name is Anil but apparently many men in SL go by nicknames.
Raja and the girls

Thirty minutes out of the airport Raja got lost. Now this is the start of 5 days of driving so I had a pang of nervousness which lasted for about 10 minutes once we got back on the main road. After flying for four and half hours, the drive to kandy took 3 hours, the last hour in a monsoon downpour.

We arrived at the Nature Walk Resort as the weather cleared and were warmly welcomed. The Nature Walk is a very simple BandB with a killer view and a very nice emegetic staff

The view, better in person.


Entrance
Staff: Raja(driver), Shanta, Kumara(owner), Nana and Pradip
The layout of this little hotel really played to strengths, the being the view and the peaceful setting.
The food was delicious, this meal is the house speacialty. Its vegetable rice and curry and must be eaten with your hands! This was our last dinner in Sri Lanka, the flavors were varied and unique.
Our first day (Christmas Day) we explored the streets of Kandy which were busy, crowded and dirty. We managed to find a catholic mass and we caught the latter portion of it.
St Anthony's in Kandy.
Back into downtown Kandy I have to admit that I didn't enjoy that part of the day. It was very sad, lots of poverty, filth and hucksters.
The market was pleasant. We managed to pick up some batiks ( hand painted cotton fabric) to hang on our walls at home.
We then ran into 2 colleagues from ASD, Julie and Peter from Ontario. We spent the next 2 hours with them touring the temple of the tooth.
Later on that afternoon we took in a great one hour dance presentation at the local cultural center.



Our Second day we climbed Sigiriya. The rock is a huge chunk od metamorphic gneiss. With hundreds of steps the climb was making Lenore's knees weak and she had to keep her eyes focused upwards. There was a huge line all the way up, but everyone was relatively polite. We barely missed being soaked to the bone as we summited in between showers, literally by a matter of minutes.
Yeah yeah, I know, I didn't take this photo.

Metamorphic Gneiss - colliding continents
The Lions paws, the gateway to the Lion's rockHello hello ... I'm at a place called Vertigo !!
The steps were narrow and wet.
Ah, the summit!
Dambulla Temple was our next stop.


This temple built into the side of a rockface was in many ways more impressive than Sigiriya and a whole lot cheaper to visit. (12$ vs 28$ ea.) Foreigners pay 1st world prices for most tourist sights in Sri Lanka. You save on the hotel and food (about half to two thirds.)
On the way up to the temple people will sell you flowers to place at the various shrines. You have to be careful the monkeys don't steal the flowers from you as they are quite tasty (the flowers ... for the monkeys). As well, the monkeys apparently are not very polite about it all and there is also a local rabies issue too.
Day 3 we drove to Ella Gap -
which reminded me a bit of Dixville Notch in New Hamphire (sort of ... it also helps if you squint ... and try to forget its december 28). The road narrows treacherously along some steep hillsides
It passed through some narrow little towns
In Sri Lanka you drive on the left, like Britain. We had to fit between the lady above and the green landrover on the right. The tight squeezes we drove through would blow your mind. If you have been on the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier National park -Montana you'll know what I am talking about.
We stopped for tea. The hill country in Sri Lanka is covered with tea plantations. It is mind boggling, like Saskatchewan and wheat as far as eye can sea.
Hillsides covered in tea.
We stayed at the Ambiente in Ella. The scenery was breathtaking and we met many wonderful travelers, like ourselves, but the management was not very welcoming. They should spend a few nights at Nature Walk and take some notes.
Nana and Kumara, her pal.
Sitting on the veranda we saw this little guy. I have no clue what he is but I am pretty sure he's a bird ... wearing a hat ... or a wig... and a false beard ... birdy halloween???
And this guy looked like a regular BC woodpecker.
Sri lankan beehive... the size of a beachball ... makes you shiver doesn't it.
This is a wasp I believe. Our driver told us that 5-6 stings from this guy was equal the bite of a cobra .... fact/fiction?? ... I was not about to test the theory.
Lots of hills and rain mean lots of waterfalls ... We found a great hotel next to Ramboda Falls that you see below. Maybe next time..


Eye candy! It makes me want to ...
Sing!!! The hills are alive with the sound of music .... falalala....
All the items this gentleman sold were hand made from the the seeds branches and leaves that surrounded the tea plantations.

On the day 5 we went to Horton Plains national park. A comination of higher altitude grassland and Montane forest. It was quite cool at 6000ft altitude, but the forest you see in the distance was a very humid jungle.
We saw a group of monkeys on our hike, as well as deer but only the paw print of a leopard

Halfway through the hike you come to a precipice ominously called World's End. It was so misty that we couldn't see a thing. We were told to sit and wait. After 10 minutes the veil magically lifted and the view was startling. The drop was over a 1000m, you felt like you were looking down from an airplane.
This is a funny story. The fellow below with the flowers spots us on the road and waves the flowers trying to get us to stop and buy them.
We kept going .... So he races down the hill and catches us at the next switchback but its not a good place to stop, so we keep going. The next switch back he's there again but a little late. So we slow down aware that this guy is not going to give up and then finally on the fourth switchback we buy the flowers. Our driver informed us that there were a group of boys in the area that regularly go through this routine ... We laughed!

On our last day we visited the botanical gardens outside of Kandy as well as an elephant hospital for domesticated pachyderms.
The gardens were impressive. There were some plants like nothing I had never seen before,
This tree is a giant willow from Java, the branches touch the ground in all directions because the tree simply can't support the weight.

The tree below is Sri Lankan and produces those green footballs called Jak fruit. The fruit can weigh over 20kg. If Newton had been hit by ome of these it would have broken his neck. The fruit inside looks like little bananas. They are sweet with a unique taste. We had a jak fruit curry in Kandy that was delicious
The most impressive spot was the orchid house. The flowers were stunningly beautiful and I have to applaud Breana for her ability to take great shots.








The beak on this blue fellow seemed perfect for those deep tube shaped flowers.
Young love, young love, first love...
Cannonball tree!
Many big things in this garden, trees, roots, bugs ....
Black scorpion, some kind of spider
And then there were the bats. Hundreds of them, the noise was deafening. The wingspan on the big ones was over a meter.

Several of the trees were loaded with the bats like the one below.

World's biggest palm tree from southern India, they get really tall. One leaf could cover an SUV
These trees all twisted and turned upwards for no apparent reason. They seemed to be getting plenty of sun.
Our final stop was at an elephant hospital for domestic elephants. We had a great time feeding them...
riding them ...
And we bathed them (Breana elephant wash)
and they returned the favor(Breana shower)



There were no beaches on our second trip but I think the images that we will take a way from this visit will be more powerful than our first trip. The Sri Lankans are a very beautiful and kind people. We really enjoyed getting to know them better.