Last days in Sri Lanka

February 2nd and 3rd

For most of yesterday we all relaxed in and around the hotel, and I caught up on all the blogs from Sri Lanka. It was too hot to do much except read and relax and we didn't even explore the bit of coast where we are staying, which is in front of a lagoon.Today after breakfast we found Marcus waiting for us, bless him, still looking out for the old folk  and taking good care to the end of our trip. Today we went along the coast to Mirissa, passing through the southernmost point of Sri Lanka, where there is a very tall lighthouse, and now a large and moving statue as a memorial to the 35,000 victims of the tsunami.

We stopped at Matara, just short of our destination, to have tea and cake and a last chat with Marcus. It is so sad to be saying good bye to him- he has been a real friend and we will miss his humour and his knowledge about all things Sri Lankan. He found us our next and last hotel. The Morning Star, on the road just across from the beaches of Mirissa. He made sure that we has agreed a time for the taxi that would take us to Colombo airport on Saturday, as he now had to leave to get back to Colombo in time for his next customers, on Friday. He lives in a village north of Colombo, with his wife and son, and I am hoping he will have had a day of relaxation at home at least. We had filled in the evaluation form required by Pradeep, and possibly Rajesh in India too, with excellent  evaluations and crediting Marcus with having made all the difference to our tour. With promises to keep in touch via email, we said our very grateful farewells to him.

February 4th and 5th

The Morning Star is a small family run hotel, with several generations of the family much in evidence in and around the hotel all the time, all of them very smiley and friendly. Our rooms are pleasant with A/c, thank heavens, since the temperature is rising all the time and we would have been very uncomfortable without it. Our bed is incredibly high and I have to do a kind of running jump and then climb up the wall, heaving my body using the headboard, to get into it! It is hung about with mozzie nets which just make Andy furious and irritated. With the bed so huge there is very little room left for any other furniture, so it feels a bit squashy. We soon discovered that five new 'Superior' rooms have been built, together with a very nice swimming pool, and these were only finished twenty days ago. Down beyond the Superior rooms and the pool there is a coconut grove which is much frequented by small brown monkies who leap about noisily in the branches. This morning a mongoose dashed across the tiles by the pool, and disappeared under the lounger next to mine and then off at great speed.

Our days here have been spent lounging and reading by the pool, mostly, apart from a walk along the beach to the larger Mirissa beach where there are lots of eating places  and hotels, some of them fairly posh looking. Pam and Brian found the one they stayed in when they came last, but it is of course totally rebuilt after the tsunami, which came right up and over the whole of this area, with waves rising to ninety feet- taller than the very tall coconut trees. Pam says that at first the government tried to prevent people re-building for quite a long way back from the coast, but this has obviously been ignored now as the coastal strip is highly populated. We also managed to find some shops at last, which sold tee-shirts suitable for our grandchildren, we hope. Memo to selves, we must get our boys' measurements before we next go on holiday as it seems impossible to guess sizes when one is away from them. In one shop a kind young Russian girl from Moscow offered to try on a tee-shirt for me as I thougtht she was about Lily's size. 

Pam and I also had a very enjoyable trip to a batik maker's shop, where we met Jezamel Mohammed, who has been designing and making her  batiks for more than fifty years. We saw where the designs are drawn and where the wax is heated and applied. She draws directly on to the cloth. Her helpers, who apply the wax and then dye and boil the cloth, are all getting on in age like her, because she just cannot interest young people in coming into the craft. She has many beautiful pieces and does orders which are exported to Europe. She made a long piece with elephants which she sent to the Queen for her Golden Jubilee and the Queen accepted it. We could have run amok here with our plastic money, there was so much that was really lovely. 

As I write, we have set alarms for an early start as we have a taxi at 6a.m for the airport. It is incredibly hot out on our balcony, but fortunately the room is nicely cooled by the A/C. We have just eaten our delicious special meal, provided for us by Rajesh, cooked by the main man in the family, who does delicious curried prawns. This was followed by his wife's top (Mary Berry award) buffalo curd and syrup. Tonight when I said Oooh that is REALLY nice, he took the hint (last night he did not and we were very disappointed) and offered us a second dish.

It's been a super five weeks in India and Sri Lanka, hot, busy, tiring, but never dull and always exciting and very very rewarding. Can't wait till the next time!

Wild life and some R and R

January 31^st

 

An early-ish departure today to set off for our stay at Tissamaharama, from where  we would be doing two safaris into Yala National Park. As we drove out of Ella we stopped at Ravana Falls, which is another site of pilgrimage and evidently a beauty spot also, for a bride and groom were walking perilously on the wet rocks to pose for photos. We had seen the same phenomenon of fully-ornamented brides being photographed in the Kandy Botanical gardens. Later in the journey, which involved a lot of windy-woo roads as you, unfortunately, would have to expect when descending from the hills to the lower plains, Marcus stopped to show us a stall where amazing fruits and vegetables were on sale, including the wood apple, the garden egg (a kind of aubergine) and an amazing fruit called a rambutan, which had a red furry outer and looked and tasted quite a lot like lychee. As we got much lower down the agriculture changed with the terrain and there was paddy for miles and miles all around. As Marcus explained the Sri Lankans have managed their geography well over the years and learned to cope with the lack of rain at some seasons. There are 103 rivers which rise in the highlands and a large number of reservoirs of water have been dammed along the course of these rivers. As you drive through the country the strong sense you have is of a very verdant and lush countryside.

Rambutan

All along the wayside as we got down to the plains we could see stalls and Marcus stopped at one for a comfort break and refreshment. A lovely smiley (typical in this country) woman was offering us drinks and her homemade buffalo curd with palm syrup. Absolutely delicious! She has also made a box full of sweet cakes, for an order for a celebration, and she let us try this. Finally she gave us a sweet, made this time with cow’s milk, which to me tasted very much like my mother’s wonderful home-made fudge. The others weren’t keen- too sweet said Brian, as he often does- so I asked the kitty-keeper for enough for four pieces.  Just before we got to our destination Marcus stopped to show us a site of archaeological interest in the Buddhist tradition, where there was a very large stupe and a museum of artifacts. I have learned for the first time on this trip what a stupe is, ie the large dome/bell shaped construction in front of Buddhist temples. Apparently it is meant to represent a bubble, to remind us that Buddha said nothing is permanent. 

Garden eggs and buffalo curd

Arrived finally at Hibiscus Garden, a lovely modern hotel in beautiful gardens. We had rooms in a chalet building set around the pool. I showered and lay down for a rest after the long drive but it was soon time for the first of our safaris. For this we had a guide/ driver called Priantha, who took us in a large jeep, emblazoned with Leopard Safaris. The ride to a park entrance, which is not the most popular entrance, took an hour from the hotel and for the most part was on very very bumpy roads. However, it was all worthwhile once we got into Yala, for although on this occasion we didn’t see much in the way of mammals, we saw the most extraordinary selection of birds- over forty different species. We did see several mongooses and an elephant at a distance. Amongst the birds, we saw three different types of bee-eaters, the green (which has a turquoise bib), the chestnut-headed, and the blue-tailed and all close enough for a good photo even on my iphone. We also saw three different kinds of stork- the open-billed, the painted and the woolly-necked; a huge number of peacocks; many kingfishers, all the white-breasted I think; two different eagles, the sea-eagle and the crested hawk; two different hornbills; an amazing Paradise flycatcher; lots of weaver birds and their nests;  and an oriole (of which we were to see several more the following day- they are just glorious!).

Hibiscus gardens hotel

 

Painted storks 

  Green bee-eater

 

 

Blue tailed bee-eater

 Storks roosting for the night

 

 

The trip was exhausting, because of the bumpity ride really, but so enjoyable and made much more so by the expertise of our man Marcus and especially of Priantha who is extremely knowledgeable. Back at the hotel we enjoyed a buffet meal which allowed those of us who wanted curry and those of us who wanted a more western meal all to be happy. Bed and sleep early that night as the next day meant leaving the hotel at 5 a.m.

February 1^st

Up with the lark after a 4 p.m wake-up call, and although the journey again took us the most part of an hour, the ride to today’s entrance was much smoother for the most part. The hotel had provided us with a packed breakfast, which we ate whilst we waited for Marcus and Priantha to get our tickets for entrance and for the park to open at 6. There were huge numbers of similar vehicles containing foreign tourists like ourselves!  Many more than I have ever seen when doing safaris in Africa, and of course this park is much smaller than most of the parks we have visited in Zambia, Botswana or Namibia, being 230 square miles. Priantha was somehow able to get us into very nearly pole position as the gates opened, and off we roared to get away from the masses. 

A rare mongoose who was prepared to pose for the camera! All the others ran off the minute they heard us.  

Alas we were not to get closer to any leopards this day than the paw mark tracks we saw in the sand. Last week Marcus and Priantha saw a mother with two cubs and there is no doubt that leopard-sightings can be very good in this park, but no one seemed to have made any on this day. However, thanks to Marcus’ sharp eyes we did see a Sloth Bear, which my guide book said is fairly hard to spot. We also saw several groups of elephants, some passing very close in front of our vehicle, many mongooses close up, water buffalo, crocodiles, wild boar and monkeys. We also spotted Lotta and Mariella in another jeep, whilst we were taking photos of elephants, so we know Lotta will have been happy. It was another super safari, with yet more birds, beautiful terrain and some good photos, despite our rubbishy phone-cameras. The flash bright yellow orioles seen really close up was a highlight for me, this being the first time I’ve ever spotted one, though Andy has seen one near Hounoux years ago. We stopped for a comfort break (ie a wee in the bushes) right where the park runs down to the Indian ocean, where there is the remains of an old bungalow which was washed away and a memorial to the 33 Japanese tourists who just happened to be in that spot as the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 struck.

Sloth bear

 A monitor lizard

Nests of weaver birds

 Kingfisher

Back at the hotel we were able to shower and rest briefly before we checked out. The ride to our next destination, Tangale, on the coast, was not far and we arrived by mid-afternoon. Pam by now had a serious headache, triggered by the jarring of her neck in the safari vehicle, so we sat down and ordered ‘medicinal chips’ which helped her quite a bit, though the high temperature and humidity down here on the coast is not good for the headache-prone. There are fans here but no A/C and their fan just appears to swish round high in the ceiling, but with little effect on the air. They have now obtained a fan on a stand, which has helped greatly. The staff here at Serein Beach hotel are so very kind and helpful. I think we are going to be able to rest up a bit after all our travelling and at last I can catch up with this blog!

It's hot and a bit humid here by the coast at Tangale.

From Kandy to Ella

January 29^th

 

Two more days of travelling and amazing sight-seeing since I last wrote this  journal of our holidays in Sri Lanka, and I realise just how important these accounts are going to be, as in such a short while I forget so easily what we’ve seen and done, as so much has happened. I am saved, fortunately, by the many hundreds of photos I’m shooting like a mad woman, on my old iphone. 

Scorpion!

We left Indra’s lovely place at Forest Glen early and went straight to the botanical gardens in Kandy, managing to negotiate the horrific traffic well, thanks to the wonder that is Marcus. He hired us a buggy, which might well be a reflection of what he thinks of our general fitness and mobility levels! It proved invaluable for whizzing round the whole gorgeous estate, which is large and full of so many trees and flowering shrubs. The orchid house was a real highlight just before we came out. From here, back in the lovely comfy vehicle and off to the station on the outskirts of Kandy, to catch the train up into the hills and the tea plantations. The journey up, which took over two hours, was just beautiful. Miles and miles of unending tea plantations covering the stunning landscape of hills and rocks, in terraced fields, in some of which we could see the tea-pluckers working. Andy was designated tour leader for this journey and he had to count the small stations stops to be sure that we alighted at the correct place, where our anxious mother-hen Marcus was waiting for us. As Pam says, she thinks he thinks we are very old and decrepit, but if one can go with it, (and he is after all just doing his job as he sees best), then it is very restful and reassuring to have someone thinking of your every need. I think this says something about my ability to sit back and be looked after, which may indicate that in a previous life I was a princess. Or possibly I’m just plain lazy!

Marcus then drove us just a few kms to Nuwara Eliya, which is full of architectural reminders of its colonial past, and here we took tea and cakes in the down-market café, in the grounds of the Grand hotel. Pam and I sampled the high-life when we availed ourselves of the hotel’s posh loos. Then we were off again to drive to Ella, which was a further interminably winding road. Maybe all credit to Marcus that Pam and I survived this without too much car sickness. The hotel here was called Ravana Heights and is high up, coming out of Ella, and facing Ravana rock. The Hindu legend of Rama and Sita, and Ravana (the baddie who abducted Sita to Sri Lanka) is much referenced in the landscape here and for this reason it is a site of pilgrimage for Hindus. To summarise, hotel top comfort with A/C as well as fan, and lovely food, situation, views etc. Hotel owner arrant snob, self-aggrandising and name-dropping. We took agin, as you might detect, and when we came to leave after two nights here Marcus told us that he had a sign in the entrance to the hotel saying that no Singhalese could enter, only foreign visitors. Owner himself is Singhalese but believes in True British Values and that Singhalese have ruined their own country. Marcus took a photo of the notice, but basically ignored it and came up the drive to help us. 

 Breakfast on the terrace at Ravana Heights and the view across the valley

That first night after a long day of travelling we went down the road into Ella and had a meal in the Chill café, which, like Ella itself, was rammed with backpackers. Lovely European food in a hippy atmosphere and we got talking to a pair of Dutch girls, cousins, who are travelling in Asia. One of them (Lotta)  is mad on elephants, having volunteered in an elephant orphanage last year in Cambodia (I think); the other one, Mariella, is mad on Myanmar, where she spent some weeks, whilst her boyfriend was travelling with her. She had found the people entirely unspoilt by the effects of contact with tourists, and really lovely. So interesting to meet with young and intelligent travellers like this, who appeared to be quite happy to spend time talking to us Olds. 

Pam and Brian, known by their family as 'the Easies'...

January 30^th

Marcus allowed us a bit of a slower start today as we were visiting a tea factory around lunch time. Interesting visit, to Finlay’s factory, to see where they were processing green tea. Lots of drying and pressing and drying again and then picking off the stalks from the leaves by hand. The powdered, dust-looking stuff is what goes into tea bags- unsurprisingly. 

From here we went to the start of the walk to Little Adam’s Peak. The real Adam’s Peak is a walk uphill, up many, many steps for 7kms, which Pam and I had rejected as an idea when we were planning the tour. It is another pilgrimage site and it is apparently common to see able-bodied people carrying elderly or disabled family all the way. Since being here we have met several young people – e.g Lotta from last night- who were still suffering with muscle ache days after doing this walk, so definitely a good decision to just do the Little. This was a beautiful walk and did mean quite enough steps for my liking, but super views from high up of the landscape all around, and sightings of lots of beautiful bird en route- bee-eaters, kingfishers etc. 

Little Adam's Peak

That evening we had elected to eat back at the hotel, where the lovely staff – three always-smiling Singhalese women who are also strong enough to heft our cases up hill- had prepared a wonderful meal of Thai curries. We gritted our teeth and bore the boss who would have liked to engage us in long and one-sided conversations. We had also encountered a really nice couple from Perth, Maurice and Megan (Megan is S African by birth) who had come to S.L to celebrate the 60^th birthday of a friend, and had been a large party of friends and their own family also, staying at the coast and learning to surf whilst here. Megan had an Ayurvedic massage whilst we were there and had broken out in an allergic reaction to the oils, which she said had been mixed with some kind of spice like turmeric. Not a nice experience!

SRI LANKA!

Sri Lanka 2016

January 26^th

 

I’m going to blog in much briefer style whilst we are on holiday in Sri Lanka because I want to have the log of what we did, places we visited etc, but we are travelling around a lot and we don’t always have access each night to wifi. So a brief summary of highlights,hopefully.

We left RUHSA at around 9.30 in the posh and comfortable taxi driven by Vijayakumar, whom we’ve encountered for the first time this visit. Two and a half hours to get to the airport, which is brilliant. Vj managed to avoid much of the horror of Chennai traffic which we endured with the RUHSA driver when we arrived. Definitely one to use again! He has a Hannuman hanging from his mirror and that plus his reasonably skilled and un-lunatic driving did the trick. We had long hours to wait even before we were allowed into the airport but there was a decent coffee shop outside and comfortable seating. It’s just a short hop across the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka and we arrived around 5 in the evening, to be greeted with garlands of orchids by Marcus, our driver for the tour, and Pradeep, the tour organiser and associate of Rajesh (last year’s travel man, from Kerala, who organised this tour for us, in association with Pradeep).

Sri Lanka, exactly the same age as  my friend Clare!

From the first Sri Lanka made a very different impression from Chennai/ India. It is so much cleaner and the roads are decent and there is lane discipline! Over the coming days we were to learn a great deal about the history, geography, language, politics etc of this beautiful island, from Marcus, who is a wonderful guide as well as driver. Much has changed since the tsunami in which 33,000 lost their lives. Since Pam and Brian came just before the tsunami much seems to be unrecognisable to them. As in India there has been a huge explosion in car ownership and everywhere, although the roads are good, there is phenomenal traffic congestion, a real problem. 

We spent the night in a boutique hotel by the coast, to the south of Colombo, after we had struggled through rush hour traffic from the airport. Super hotel, wonderful clean hot showers and an electric bidet should we choose to brave it! Run by a Sri Lankan business man with a strong American accent who has clearly lived for a long while in the States. He told us that he runs a charity for children with cancer, in SL, and which also helps tackle the problem of suicide amongst the young, the stats for which he believes to be even more horrific than in India. We ventured out for food and fell eagerly upon a western menu, ie fish and chips. Brian especially is heartily sick of rice and curry, so he was very happy.

January 27^th

Up and out of the hotel by 8 for what was to prove a long drive ahead. We went into Colombo and Marcus showed us various colonial buildings and the independence monument. The whole place looked far cleaner and better kept than anywhere in India and the Morrises again failed to recognise it from their memories of a squalid city.  It took us most of the day to get to Kandy, our next stop, and specifically the Forest Glen hotel. In a congested island it seems that Kandy has the worst problems of all. We couldn’t take long to settle in as we wanted to get to the evening performance of dance and drumming. This turned out to be a wonderful spectacle, with eight or nine different dances and some wonderful music as well. Some male dancers did a fire dance which involved eating fire and running a burning brand up their arms. My favourite from the women was the peacock dance, but I also enjoyed one which had basket spinning and balancing. The whole performance ended with two dancers walking across flaming coals. A super hour’s worth of entertainment. 

Off then to see the temple of the tooth, a World Heritage site in which several relics of the Buddha are to be found, including his tooth, rescued after his body was burned, according to legend. This is a very important place for practising Buddhists and there were very many among the crowds who thronged who were there clearly as believers, not just tourists. An impressive and beautiful site as the sun was setting, by the large lake. The day ended with another very nice meal in a hotel offering western cuisine, up on a roof terrace. As we were eating, a large moon, just waning from full, climbed up from behind the hill opposite- magical!

 The Temple of the Tooth

Lotus flower offerings at the Temple of the Tooth

January 28^th

Another early start as we were off to another World Heritage site some several hours away, at Sigirya and then on to Dambulla cave temples and frescoes. Sigirya  is a huge inselberg mountain which rises out of the plain, a dark reddy colour. At one point it was the stronghold of the king, who put steps all around the rock to climb up in a spiral, and who also installed water pools at the top. At that time it was decorated with hundreds of frescoes of very buxom young women, some of which still remain. We opted out of the climb up huge numbers of steps, what with the intense midday heat and our various bad knees, etc. There is a recently- built museum, donated by the Japanese, which is very informative about the history of the place.

  Sigirya

 

Then on to Dambulla where there are three huge caves housing temples to Buddha and a large number of Buddha statues. To enter the temple area one has to remove shoes and as we hopped over extremely hot stones I was even more in awe of the fire walkers. From here it was back home to Kandy, another drive of at least an hour and a half, so we were well travel-weary by the time we arrived back at Forest Glen. The lovely Sri Lankan meal prepared for us by Indra, the owner, was extremely welcome and rounded off the day wonderfully. She runs a nursery school, attached to the home stay, and has done so for about twenty years, I think. We had a really interesting talk about early years education. She is in a bit of despair because the education authorities, including the teacher-trainers in Sri Lanka appear to have failed to grasp the idea of learning actively through play, even despite her best endeavours to spread the word over the years. 

Two of the Buddha caves at Dambulla