Sri Lanka win Tri-Series at Dambulla

As you can imagine the locals are ever so slightly happy with this. Still raining out.

http://www.asianage.com/cricket/sri-lanka-thump-india-74-runs-win-tri-series-219

Raining. Well it's Bank Holiday

Previous day

And then today. Stair-rods.

                                                           

Goodbye SL

From Hikkaduwa we jumped back on the train and went further up the coast, stopping at Beruwala, staying in a lovely spa hotel http://www.taprospa.com/Footprints.asp#Rule  managed to get a cheap rate as we are out of season, plus some how via the booking process they thought Dave was a Sri Lanka resident (we were 2 of 6 guests!).  High season in SL is November - March, it is currently the monsoon season.  We have had a few grey days and light rain but the temperature never drops.  It is also wedding season.  We must have seen over 10 weddings.  The average SL wedding lasts for 2 days, with the bride wearing white on day 1 and red on day 2.  They certainly know how to party. 

Our last chunk of train journey was from Beruwala to Mount Lavina.  Another hour on the train for about 50p.  The train line hugs the coast, which is nice but you also get see lots of signs of poverty.  Litter is a real problem here, which is such a shame.  Our final hotel is a bit of a blow out, 5* luxury but we are classing it as a goodbye SL manoeuvre style: http://www.mountlaviniahotel.com/front/index.php  it has real colonial charm, check out what the porters are wearing. We even splashed out on a bottle of South African red with supper, our first taste of wine for a month. Total outrage.

We have enjoyed our 3 weeks here in Sri Lanka.  Have seen so much and experienced plenty of the culture.  The locals are really friendly always wanting to chat, so you can image what its like when they get chatting to Dave!

Miss
D - The feel of a country that does identify tourism but isn't totally overrun by it. But i do feel that mass tourism will be the next step but it well be interesting to see how they deal with it !
F - The curry, its amazing, although I draw the line at having it for breakfast.

Won't miss
D - At the moment everybody wants your Rupee
F- People feeling the need to clear the nostrils via their throat, oh and the litter.

Hikkaduwa, heading north to Colombo

Most people head from the south coast straight to Colombo, but as we have more time than most we decided to pick a few places along the coast for some beach action.  All being linked by the trusty train (built by the British).

First stop was Hikkaduwa, Drifters Hotel.  Owned by the most switched on Sri Lankan, Lalith, we had yet to meet - happy to work hard.  Whilst here we got a tuk-tuk to the Tsunami Museum, which consisted of 2 shacks on the beach.

No entry fee, just a donation box.  The museum was mainly of donated photos from volunteers and organisations that helped with the clear up.  It was extremely moving, some were taken as the first and second waves hit.  Fe was in tears and I was holding them back, trying to do the man thing whilst surrounded by women survivors who were showing us round.  The photos were very graphic and captured the moment as you can imagine.  The beach front is scattered with shells of houses left and gravestones and memorials.

Tsunami stats for this area - 40,000 deaths (with 1500 killed on the train alone.  After the first wave came when the train stopped at the station, everyone clambered on for safety but then the second wave hit.  This resulted in the biggest rail disaster in history) 20,000 children orphaned, 5650 people missing.

  

Next, a little more light hearted, was the turtle sanctuary.  A local guy ran this, doing what he thinks is the right thing by protecting this little critter as the locals seem to think they have the given right to steal the eggs and sell them on for a rupee of course.   This little fella was only 1 day old, Big D didn't want to drop him!

Whilst we were staying at Drifters a Poson Poya day, full moon day, fell.

The Poya Day of each month is classed as a holiday in Sri Lanka. On Poya Days all places of entertainment are closed and no alcohol is sold. Lalith, Drifters manager has given this one some thought though as once dark, 7pm ish, he was more than happy to make special arrangements for guests to order booze. This came in the form of Amstels being served up in tea sets. The man was hailed a genius. It was a very clear night and the brightness of the moon lit the sea with splashes of silver.

Galle

After a epic journey South we end up at The Lighthouse Lodge. Wahoo what a trip that was. The Lighthouse Lodge has a couple of rooms above a local familieses house,  Uma and Eresha were very sweet couple and always willing to help.  We were a little apprehensive to have gone from The Grand at Nuwara Eliya to a place we found on Hostelworld.com but it was lovely.  

 The fort was built by the Dutch in 1663 after they captured Galle in 1640.  They then handed it over to the British in 1796.  It is now a World Heritage Site and provided a calm haven for us two for a couple of days.  The walls of the fort protected the town and its businesses from the 2004 Tsunami.   You can also witness the sun set and rise given the fort's southerly location. 

Our time spent here was mainly relaxing and a haircut for Dave.  He hooked up with Milton, a barber at the Young Buddhists Centre and in his words "if it wasn't for the 12 hour flight, Milton would be replacing Franco".  I think the 15 min head massage with tea tree oil finished him off!  Resulting in numb sensation  almost to the waist! The electrics in this place just had to be seen to be believed, although I noticed Dave opted for the dry cut only!

The mountains in a minibus

If we thought a 4 hour journey in a tin box with no seat was epic.  We now had a 8 hour journey down south to  Galle in a minibus.  Tourists seriously underestimate the journey times within SL.  The route was only 170 miles but was going to take the whole day. 

  However our lovely driver did break up the drive with a few stops, one including St Clairs Waterfalls, Adams Peak (one of the higest points in SL) and the very spot where they filmed Bridge over the River Kwai.  Of course whilst here we had a pot of tea.

Nuwara Eliya. Any chance of a brew ?

Our train tickets to Nuwara Eliya (Middle England) cost 120 rupees, so about 69p for a 4 hour journey which took us  into the mountains, central SL - so as you can imagine we didn't have high hopes for the journey!  As expected no seat and certainly no buffet cart!  Didn't even try the loo.  We stopped at many stations on route and each time we pulled away it was as if the driver was doing his best to pull the front end compleely away from the carriages. The locals seem to find this quite amusing ! Boarding and ilighting the train in SL never takes very long as if there is a door, it is never closed (like the windows).  Each time we went through a tunnel everyone would scream at the top of their lungs as if they were on ghost train at the fair.

We arrived at The Grand hotel in Newara Eliya which was 2000 ft above sea level.  They call it Middle England. Within the villae there is a race course and golf course, all very bristish (although our caddies don't wear skirts).  It even smells like Britain, must have been the rain!  The first night we event wore our long sleeves!!  The hotel was lovely and had a billiards room and a bar with a open fire.  Felt like a ski lodge, very strange. 

The mountains are home to many tea plantations that SL export all round the world.  We drank the odd pot or two here!!   We did a tour of one of the factories, Mackwoods in Labookellie. 
http://www.mackwoodstea.com/aboutus.asp  

They have been producing tea for some 160 years. Not a bad drop we
thought. Bee gee we've drunk some tea over the last few weeks...

Some tea facts: 75 % of the pickings turns to water.  Only 2 leaves and a bud are hand plucked from the tea bush, this is the first stage of making tea.  Most bushes last 100 years although they have started cloning which reduced the life of the bush to 60 years but has an increased yeld - typical.

We must........

......Stop eating curry for breakfast. As although very nice it does feel a little odd.

Kandy - post The Esala Perahera

Again another slower day planed sorted our train tickets for heading south, its going to be a bit like British Rail, seat not guaranteed!


Gotta go, SL v India just came on in the lounge….

Kandy - The Esala Perahera

So today is the first day of the Esala Perahera, a 10-day festival honoring the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha, the whole town is buzzing. We bumped into Denzil our tooth relic guide and he could fix us up with some good seats, for rupees of course. I must point out at this stage that the health and safety aspect of the festival was up there with the bull run we went to in Quarante, France – totally non existent, but equally very exciting and great fun.

To get an idea of the scale of Perahera madness, think St Paul’s Carnival, Ottery St Mary flaming barrels and the bull run in Quarante all rolled into one wth a load of elephants and flames thrown in the mix you’re kinda close.

Kandy - Botanical Gardens

Quieter day today, with a stroll round the Botanical Gardens, and our final day with our fixer. The gardens were lovely, very peaceful in the middle of a crazy busy city. Sat and had tea overlooking the lawns.

We moved hotel today due to the Perahera (big festival). Our new home is the highest hotel in Kandy, The Swiss Residence. Great views and no traffic noise!

Kandy - Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic + Elephant Orphanage

Wow that was some lunch!
Once settled into the hotel our fixer suggested we check out the local community hall for some for some tradional sri lankan dancing. It was great, but we couldn’t work out were all the tourists had come from because up till now we seemed to be the only Europeans around town.

That evening a lovely Sri Lankan family seemed to adopt us over dinner and help with tips and info. Mum, Dad and daughter were a constant help over the next 3 days. Dad, Major General Lalin Fernando, retired, gave us his card and asked us to get in touch at any time if we needed any help whilst in SL. He was a fascinating guy, had been to school with Lord Mountbatten's son!

We headed to The Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic – an important shrine for Buddhists as it holds the tooth relic of Lord Buddha. Hooked up with a guide, Denzil, who showed us around. The temple was bombed in 1998 by Temal Tigers. Again shoes off and shoulders covered. We would have really struggled to figure everything out in this deeply religious temple without his help.

Next stop was the Millennium Elephant Orphanage, busy day or what! We bathed (with a coconut husk), rode (hanging on for dear life!) and fed (for the cost of a few rupees of course) these amazing huge but gentle giants (although during our ride a guy told us there were about 150 deaths per year due to elephant rampages). Each elephant has a ‘mahout’, his trainer who sticks with the same elephant for life until they pass down to their son. Our elephant was called Poojah and was 24 years old and was the first to be born in captivity.