Sri Lanka - the lazy way!
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2004
1
31
47
Trip End
Oct 01, 2005
Negombo, Sri Lanka
Sunday, March 20, 2005
We've had a fab time in Sri Lanka, it's such a gorgeous country and the people are all really friendly! Unfortunately it's a touch on the expensive side so we're off to India tomorrow in search of a cheap beach hut to laze around in for a few days.
When we got to Colombo, we booked ourseves into the cheapest place we could find - the YWCA (they let boys in if they're with a girl)! Well, it was different to say the least and I don't think they were too keen on letting an unmarried couple stay in the same room but we got away with it. We spent a day wandering around the various sites in Colombo - a park (where we found a random elephant munching on a tree!), a museum which included such fascinating exhibits as a human foetus and a massive whale skeleton and the waterfront. We accidentally stumbled into some sort of military zone complete with mean looking army blokes and guns and were politely asked to leave! That evening we watched the sunset whilst enjoying a beverage or two at the Galle Face Hotel (posh!) - it was very nice until we got the bill!!
The next day we got an early train to Kandy (inland) and met up with a driver that we'd hired for a couple of days (slight extravagance!). He took us to some very nice Botanical Gardens and then on to an Elephant Orphanage, where we had a tasty lunch overlooking about 50 elephants playing in the river. Then we wandered around Kandy for a bit before being taken to a 'Cultural Show', which was supposed to be an hour of traditional Sri Lankan dance, but we weren't convinced - it was a bunch of unenthusiastic porky middle aged men prancing around in dodgy outfits, but it was amusing all the same! Then we went to the 'Temple of the Tooth' - they claim to have one of Buddha's teeth in there, but it's all packed away in box after box, guarded by some bouncers/monks so we didn't get to see it!
The next day we drove up north towards some 'Ancient Cities'. We were taken to a spice garden on the way, which was surprisingly interesting and we got free drinks and a massage. It was quite weird though, we were just sat in a little hut, each having various oils rubbed into our arms and faces when I noticed that Guy was having a back/man boob massage! I couldn't stop giggling, the sight of a bloke in a skirt rubbing Guys chest was hilarious!! Ha ha, he also made the odd comment about a slight dandruff problem that Guy has acquired!
After that we went to the 'Dambulla Rock Temples', which are a series of 5 temples in caves that are about 1000 years old. Then we went to 'Sigiriya', which means Lion Rock. It's basically a huge rock, with ruins of a palace/fortress that was on top of it 1500 years ago - the climb up was pretty knackering but the views on top were incredible. There were some paintings in an overhang that have lasted really well because they're pretty much hidden from the sun, so no flash photography is allowed. Well, as so many people in Sri Lanka seem to do, the man that worked there insisted I take a photo of the paintings, but I forgot to take the flash off and he was sooooooooooooooooo annoyed, whoops!
The next morning we were driven between the various sites in Polonnaruwa, which was the capital city about 1000 years ago. It was basically a series of temples and palaces that are now ruins - it was quite impressive to imagine what it used to be like. We then drove south to a tiny place called Ella up in the mountains. There were some gorgeous views right down to the southern coastline from there, and we had a very nice lazy afternoon.
Yesterday morning we got up at 5am to do a walk to 'Worlds End' - it was an ok walk and the views were mediocre, but it was a bit of a rip off having to pay over 10 pounds each to do it! We then drove through some amazing scenery (tea plantations and rice paddies) to an old british town called Nuwara Eliya. We did a tour around a tea plantation, before getting the bus back to Colombo. We'd forgotten just how crazy Asian drivers are, we only narrowly avoided several head on collisions and saw other buses that hadn't been so fortunate! It didn't help when the heavens opened either, given that the bus had no windscreen wipers - the driver carried on anyway though!
This morning we got a bus to a beach resort called Negombo as it's near the airport - it's pretty grim because the water is too dirty to swim in, so we've just chilled out and read all day. We're flying to Kerala in southern India tomorrow morning so hopefully it'll be a bit nicer there. We had intended to stay in Sri Lanka for another week down on the south coast, but we've heard that the beaches are still a bit of a mess after the Tsunami and that the seas are really rough so have decided to give it a miss.
It was probably very lazy of us to hire our own car and driver for 4 days, and totally out of our price range, but we couldn't resist the temptation of air conditioning and not having to bother with our backpacks for a few days! We were a bit miffed when he decided we'd done enough enough kilometres on day 4 and wouldn't take us all the way back to Colombo - he shot himself in the foot though cos we hadn't paid him at that point so he didn't get much of a tip!
