AUSTRALIA
Leaving home May 4th 2016 we both appreciate this may be our final long trip overseas, given that the world is as it is, sooooooo........why not go out with a BANG!!!!!! And we are!!!!!
First stop Crystal Creek Australia to catch up with Adrian, Eleni and the very fast growing-up Maya. Only a few days here this time but we will be returning in November for her 3rd birthday. It was so amazing to see how far Maya had come in the 4 months since we had last seen her .....maturity wise, speech wise but most amazingly watching her capability to use her imagination to the max. Think she may possibly have an imaginary friend in tow one day??? It is always difficult and emotional saying "goodbye, see you soon", although it does keep Maya's memory of us alive as we visit often, so we slipped out, with Adrian's help, in the early hours of the morning to start our epic journey to Sri Lanka via Singapore.
SRI LANKA
We actually had no preconceived notions about Sri Lanka and we were both glad of this. Sri Lanka is such a beautiful, colourful, friendly, clean country with plenty to see and do around the island. The people are generous, helpful and extremely friendly. Food is in abundance and a lot is eaten three times a day. There is no Social Welfare handouts and everyone is expected to do something to provide for their families and themselves and support one another.
We hired a driver/guide for our eight day trip which is the only way to see Sri Lanka and is very reasonable. He organised our trip and accommodation in advance and the whole 8 days were perfect. No one can account for mother nature and unfortunately the rains did fall but we also had equal sunshine and high temperatures.
Our first epic event was a safari through Minneriya National Park in Habarana seeing elephants in the raw. We thought this amazing - little did we know that we would see something even better later on in our journey.
From here we drove to Sigiriya and in the early hours of the next morning, before sunrise and without breakfast, we attempted to climb Sigiriya [the Lion] Rock - 900 steps of sheer hell but oh so worth it in the end.
Ancient Sigiriya rock was obviously a majestic Fortress at one stage with a Palace and a swimming pool balanced on the top and "man caves" for Buddhist monks dotted on different levels all the way up. The sides of the rock were festooned with colourful frescoes and you entered the last level of the hike, up very narrow steps to the palace, through the mouth of a roaring lion sculpture. It was occupied by the King and his family almost 2500 years ago. It boasted 360 degree scenic views, tranquility and beautiful gardens all fed by an intricate water collection system which originated from Sigiriya Rock itself . At its base a city and more gardens grew but sadly this is all ancient history and now it just boasts enchanting ruins but still all the beautiful views. It took us almost a week to get over this hike - believe me it was very hard we saw young people being hauled to the top????
After tottering back down the 900 steps Charlie Chaplin style and eating breakfast we took a cart pulled by an ox on a bumpy journey to a lake (yep gluttons for punishment) where we boarded a small rowing boat to get to an original Sri Lankan village house. On the way across the lake with frogs jumping all around us, the oarsman made us each a necklace from a water lily and it's stalk - fascinating to watch and still I am unsure how he did it. The village lady in her house showed us all the traditional ways of drying, husking and grinding rice and millet, eventually making roti over an open fire and sambal from scratch for us all to eat. I have to say it was delicious.
Next we drove to Kandy, a chaotic city of traffic jams and noise and here we visited the "Temple of the Tooth Relic of Buddha" which I think speaks for itself. We also managed a quick visit to the Botanical Gardens in torrential rain but declined a look around Kandy as the chaos and traffic jams were overwhelming, opting to have a beer or two at our guest house overlooking a very swollen, muddy river and watch a thunder and lightning storm. Our attention was drawn to a man and woman washing their clothes on the other side of this river, beating them against rocks to get them clean?????
After two nights in Kandy we continued on to Ella via Nuwara Eliya passing awesome waterfalls and visiting a tea factory on the way. This is a very pretty part of Sri Lanka where a majority of the tea bushes are grown and touring through the factory, where old manual driven machinery is still the norm, it was incredible to see how hard the Sri Lankan men and women are willing to work. This includes the pickers who go out in all weathers to pluck those little green leaves. Anyone heard of "White Tea"? Well it is gorgeous and by far the best tasting tea ever!
And now to the highlight of our trip - our Safari in Yala National Park, Tissa. Soooo exciting, not just for us but for Lucky, our guide, and our tracker too. Man that van was rocking with all the high fives and everyone trying to get closer to capture our luck on camera and video. And lucky we were to see; 3 leopards (unusual to see 1 let alone 3); 1 Sloth Bear (very rarely seen at all); Mother Elephants with babies (so cute); Grey Langur monkeys; Mongoose; Spotted and Sambhur Deer; Wild boar; Crocodiles with their mouths wide open sunbathing (saw so many of those we thought maybe they were concrete); Horn-bills, White Egret, Little Green Pea eaters and many many more beautiful birds. The weather too was sunny and warm. This is a wild park where inhabitants fend for themselves so our experience here was extremely memorable. In our hotel that night we were the only guests and were thoroughly spoiled.
Next day, passing through Galle we visited the walled fort city which, to our surprise, was very English with obvious Dutch influences. Some of the buildings were quite amazing but our next two, and last, nights were spent at a beachside guest house in Hikkaduwa where we hoped to chill out on the beach, swim in the sea and catch some sun. Unfortunately this was not to be as the monsoon rain seemed to be following behind us causing flooding and huge mud slides in the Kandy and Colombo regions. Before this caught up with us again however, we did manage a brief swim in the pool and a long walk on the beach but the sea was unusually rough for this part of Sri Lanka.
So to finalize Sri Lanka - we loved it!!!!! Thank you Lucky for our amazing 8 days, for all your effort and your friendship. We didn't eat for a while after we left - what we ate in Sri Lanka carried us for a good few days. Yes, good food is cheap in local restaurants (5$ to feed 3 for lunch), very tasty, very fresh and a lot of it. It is of course our kind of food .........Curry, rice and String Hoppers!!!
Sadly on our way to the airport we witnessed first hand the plight of the people in the Colombo region with many houses flooded up to their roof line. We understand you are a resilient people but our hearts went out to you and we hope you life has by now returned to some sort of normality.
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