Sri Lanka - Part 1

Some friends of ours invited us to go on a group trip to Sri Lanka and we were super excited to go!  Four families from our compound, which totaled 9 adults and 9 kids set out for an adventure packed vacation around the country and we had the time of our lives.

 

Our goodbye message from Avery.

 

DAY ONE

 

The Hitts and the Guillorys boarded a plane to Colombo on December 15.  Jameson had just turned two years old so this was the first time he got his own seat.
 





It wasn't long before he was sleeping on my lap and Connor used that extra seat to his advantage!

It was quite a stressful start to the trip.  Our flight out of Dammam was delayed and we were starting to get nervous that we wouldn't make our connection in Dubai.  The flight ended up not being delayed for as long as they expected so we made it on the plane in Dubai with lots of time to spare.  While on the plane in Dubai, they announced that some passengers never showed up and their baggage needed to be taken off the plane so we had to wait for that.  That took so long that the flight request they filed had expired and we had to wait for them to do their paperwork (or whatever it is that they do) over again.  When we finally got to Colombo we waited, and waited, and waited for our stroller to show up at baggage claim but it never did.  At this point we were exhausted and tired of waiting so we decided we wouldn't bother with trying to track down a $20 umbrella stroller.  We had a heck of a time getting money out of the ATM.  Harry tried over and over, but it didn't work.  Finally I tried my debit card and viola...we had cash and were ready to go!  All in all we were running about two hours later than expected to meet up with the Reeds and the Borcks who had arrived earlier that morning and were already on the bus.

 

Then things got really interesting.  Since we were riding on a bus I was expecting to get carsick so I put on one of my motion sickness patches a few hours before.  I even got a puke bag ready in my seat just in case.  It wasn't long before I was feeling sick so I laid back and tried to fall asleep.  It didn't help that we were in stop and go traffic.  All of a sudden I heard someone say, "Connor is throwing up!"  Since I already had a bag I ran to the back to help him which made me feel even worse.  Harry got him cleaned up and we went back to the front.  Not long after that another kid starting throwing up.  And then shortly after that another one.  I was still feeling terrible and I was seriously worried that we would have to rent a car and follow the bus around.  We eventually stopped at a little shop to get snacks and use the restroom.  The smells in that place were so overpowering that I had to run to the bathroom and give into the motion sickness.  I'm pretty sure one of the other adults also got sick in the bathroom.  This all happened within the first 30 minutes or so of us getting on the bus!  It was like something straight out of a comedy.  It's hilarious when we think about it now, but there was nothing funny about it at the time.

 

After snacking on crackers and getting something to drink, we got back on the bus and were able to take a much needed nap!    



We woke up just before we arrived at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage feeling slightly refreshed and much better!  We dubbed it Sri Lanka 2.0!

 



The orphanage was established to provide care and protection to the growing number of orphaned and injured elephants in the Sri Lankan jungle.  They also run a captive breeding program. 

The elephants roam somewhat freely through the grounds, but they do have boarders managed by the mahouts.

You can see a mahout on the left side of the picture.  He uses the stick with a hook sort of thing on the end of it to make the elephant back up if it gets too close to its boundary.

The said aim is to provide a natural habitat for the elephants.  Other than when they were bathing here in the water, I don't think their environment is very natural.  Watching them bathe and play in the water was pretty neat.

What a nice looking group!

We didn't have any interaction with any of the elephants.  I guess it's not surprising given that these are animals that have spent most of their lives in the wild.  They aren't really trained and can be aggressive at times.  This place isn't anything like you'd expect from some of the other elephant attractions around Southeast Asia that I've read about.

After a kind of underwhelming experience at the orphanage we went across the street for lunch.  At some point the elephants are supposed to walk down the street to the river to bathe.  I'm not sure if we missed it or if they weren't doing it because the river was too high, but it didn't happen while we were there.  They also select a few volunteers to bottle feed some of the babies, but we didn't see that either.  Again, I'm not sure if it was because our timing wasn't right or because our tour guide didn't schedule us appropriately.

As you walk down the street you notice that they actually make things out of the elephant dung!  I think they made paper at this particular shop.

Beautiful views at lunch!

Connor and his buddy John.  After the vomiting episode he was no longer allowed to sit in the back! 

Sri Lanka is very green!



Next we went to The Golden Temple and The Rock Temple in Dambulla.

We just looked at The Golden Temple from the outside.  Our guide didn't tell us much of anything about it that I remember.

We had to climb I don't know how many hundred steps to get to the caves.

It wasn't the easiest thing to do after flying all night and not much sleep, but the views as we climbed were awesome!

We finally made it!  The temple is made up of five main caves that house 153 Buddha statues and 23,000 square feet of murals.  It dates back to the first century BC.

The pictures of the views don't do it any justice.

Jameson checking out one of the many monkeys up there.  This one decided to go spread eagle just as I was snapping what I thought would be a cool picture.

On our drive to the hotel we stopped for snacks at a roadside fruit stand.  It seemed like everyone sells fruit on the side of the road.  They are everywhere! 

On our way to the hotel our guide pointed out the rock that we would be climbing the next day.

Finally we got to our hotel, Elephas Resort, in Habarana.  It was a decent place, but not really somewhere I'd stay again.  We traveled a long 110 miles that day!

 

 

Day Two

 

The next morning we set out to climb Sigiriya Lion's Rock, an ancient palace.

 

Before climbing the rock we walked through the beautiful gardens.

 

These guys were working on the brick walls in the garden.

That's where we're going!  The rock is about 660 feet high and has over 1,600 steps to climb in order to get to the top.

We're ready!

Stairs, stairs, and more stairs.  Endless stairs!  These aren't just your average stairs either.  They are very narrow so my size 7.5 foot didn't even fit flat on the step and some parts were very steep.

At this point I don't think we were even half way up and hadn't even started to climb the actual rock section.  I decided that we needed to be responsible parents and not carry our 2 year old up the sketchy looking staircase and scaffolding that I saw up ahead.  Oddly enough we've never really "worn" Jameson in those baby backpack carrier things when we travel.  This would have been to perfect time to have one, but we don't so I took Jameson, turned around, and started to go back down.  I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of Connor doing it either, but I knew he was having a good time.  Candice was a great friend and came with me.  We stopped at a flat spot on the way down and let Jameson run around a little bit.  This old guy came up to us and showed us where we needed to go to make it down to where the buses are.  We didn't ask for his help and there were signs telling people where the exit is, but he kept walking with us, telling us stuff about the site.  We knew that he wanted money from us but we didn't have anything to give him nor did we ask him to show us around.  We tried to lose him a few times, but it didn't work - he kept following us and talking.  Finally we told him that he didn't need to follow us and of course he asked for money and said that he doesn't make much money and it's hard for him to find work.  This type of thing was a common occurrence as we traveled in Sri Lanka.  It is a very, very poor country and the people will do anything to make a buck.  They expect you to give them money for any little thing they do for you, even if they just point you in the direction that you need to go in, even if you didn't ask them for help.

 

We'll meet ya at the bottom! 

 

***Harry and Connor Climb the Rock***

 

Connor and I were now on a mission. We had to climb this "mountain".

 

 

The higher we climbed the more amazing the view became. Coming from Saudi the miles and miles of green were nice to see.

 



 

About half way up, looking down at the gardens that we walked through to get to the bottom of the rock. 

 

 

Very large Buddha perfectly aligned with the center of the gardens below. 

 

 

There is a cave section with frescos of the king's wives. I am definitely glad that Connor was not paying attention at this point - the king had a lot of wives.

 

 

Some of our comrades in the group weren't too happy about the heights and the sketchy spiral staircase did not ease their journey. The stairs didn't bother Co or myself too much other than the fact that if I let Connor get hurt on our journey, Jolie' would most likely inflict equal amounts of pain upon me!

 

 

 

 It was really cool to see how symmetrical every structure was, and to think about the crude tools that were used with precision. 

 

 

Almost there!

 

 

Two lion paws are at the base of the entrance to the palace.

 

 And this is part of the reason why we all laughed so much on this trip.
 

 Originally there was a giant head to go with the paws, but it fell apart over time.
 

Looking down at the base of the palace entrance.
 

 WE MADE IT! The view was 100% worth it. My man felt quite accomplished!
 

 View of the gardens from the top.
 

 The royal pool.
 

Water didn't look very....healthy, but then again I've swam in Bayou Lafourche.
 

 The king's throne.
 

View from the throne. I can understand why the king chose this spot.
 

On the way down, ohhhhh look...more sketchy steps, and they're right next to a drop off.
 

This is "cobra head rock". The rock naturally broke away to leave what looks like a hooded cobra.
 

 We made it back to the bottom.
 

 

***The End***

 

Of course there were people trying to sell stuff as we got closer to the exit.  Jameson would tell them no and no thank you when they came up to us.  It was so funny!  We just let him talk for us.  Haha! 

Our tour guide wasn't the greatest, but our bus driver Shanta was awesome!  He loved Jameson and Jameson loved him right back because he got to pretend he was driving and honk the horn.

Our next stop was a really cool spice garden in Matale.  They grew tons of things here.  The guy started off by showing us the cocoa tree.

He showed us the cocoa powder they make which is pretty much just like the unsweetened Hershey stuff used for baking.  The kids weren't impressed.

We were able to taste a lot of stuff they grew!

The Three Musketeers!  One of the best parts about this trip was that the kids were able to have all these experiences together.  

They brought out hot chocolate that they made from their cocoa and some kind of banana extract.  It wasn't all that great, but some people enjoyed it.

A pepper!

Citronella

They let us sample a lot of the different products they make.

I think this one was for under eye circles or wrinkles or something like that.  It left a nice yellow color on the skin lol!

Vanilla beans!

More things made with their spices for us to sample.

Cinnamon



At some point the guy put this cream on a spot on John's leg and said he would show us what it did after a few minutes.

 



Yep, just like Nair!  Haha!  I guess he took one for the team!

Smooth as a baby's bottom! LOL

Massages all around to show off another product.

The boys wanted to know why Harry had hair all the way down his chest.  Ummmm....HAHAHA!

 

They guy showed us some stuff we could use on Connor's eczema and other skin rashes.  Surprisingly it really worked!

 

John and Konrad wanted to smell it!  Ha!

Of course there is a shop where you can buy their extremely overpriced products.

More shots from around the garden...

This lady really took a liking to John.  When we walked out he said, "I think that lady fell in love with me."  It was so cute :)

We had a pretty decent, super cheap lunch at the spice garden before leaving.

On our way back to the bus and off to our next adventure!

I was so glad I didn't get carsick again and was able to look at the scenery as we drove.

It had been a long day and it was only half way over!

We noticed almost right away that there are stray dogs everywhere!  They will just lay in the middle of the road without a care in the world.  Sometimes they don't even move for traffic because they know the car will go around them.

Of course we saw lots of monks.

And a cobra!

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy was our next stop.

This is a temple that holds the relic of Buddha's tooth.

People bring these flowers as an offering to the Buddha.

After leaving the temple we walked down the street to a cultural show.  As usual, we were hassled by someone to buy junk while we waited for the show to start.

The show was sort of weird yet a little entertaining and definitely touristy.  The drumming, singing, and dancing weren't exactly in sync throughout the show.  Overall it was a pretty nice way to end the day.

Jameson was highly entertained for the whole hour.

I can't lie, the fire breathing and walking at the end was cool!

 

We settled in for the night at the very nice Earl's Regent Hotel in Kandy.  They even had a gingerbread house and tree up to get us in the Christmas spirit!

We traveled 77 miles on day two as we started to make our way south.

Day Three

 

We woke up to a gorgeous view!  Sri Lanka may be an extremely poor country, but it is beautiful.

Ready to tackle the day!

 

All the kiddos waiting to get back on our bus.

 

I didn't know this, but Sri Lanka does a lot of gem mining.  We stopped at a local gem museum to learn a few things and buy gems that I'm sure gave our tour guide a nice commission.

Model of a mine.

They have a small makeshift mine in the museum to give you an idea of what it looks like inside.

They have a play area in their showroom.  This is a great idea on their part!  The kids were occupied which allowed us to shop without distraction.

Lots of beautiful stuff!

Playtime with Hans!

Who could resist this gem salesman?

I ended up getting a simple gold band with white sapphires.

After the gem place we stopped to grab lunch to go.  While waiting for the food we went out on the balcony and took in the sights.  Of course there were lots of tuk tuks.

Not only does Sri Lanka have a lot of tuk tuks, but I think they have just as many of these old buses.

Twinsies!

We think these people were waiting for their kids to get out of school.

Police tuk tuk!  First and only time we saw this.

The red ones are government buses.

On our way to the train station!  Every so often we would go through these little towns and they all looked pretty much the same.

We were a group of 18 white folks in a fairly large, pink tour bus so we kind of stuck out lol!  A lot of people would get excited and wave.  The cutest thing was when we'd pass a group of school kids waving to us like we were celebrities or something!



We got to the train station and waited for our trip from Perideniya to Nanu Oya.

The trains there are a little bit crazy!  They are very open and you usually see people hanging out of the windows and doors.  Thankfully we had prebooked seats in a closed air conditioned car more appropriate for little kids.

Still waiting.

 

Here we go!

 

I'm often amazed at how much we've done with this little guy.  He got the first stamp in his passport when he was three months old and we haven't slowed down since.  He's been to 14 countries in his short two years of life and is such an awesome traveler!

This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful train routes in the world and it didn't disappoint.

It was wild to see the random places that are basically in the middle of the jungle.  I think this was a daycare or a little school.  Of course the people were excited to wave to everyone on the train.  

We had a private open viewing platform right outside the door of our car.

It was really neat to see what everyday life is like for the people.

We started to see lots of tea plantations!

Every so often we'd see people working in them.

Traffic on the rails!

There is a little car hooked onto the train with guys on it!  I'm not sure what they were doing, but they're slightly crazy in my book.

The scenery was exceptionally beautiful, but I was glad when we got to our destination.  The tracks are really rough and after a few hours I was tired of being bounced and thrown around.

The views and weather were gorgeous here!

It wasn't very surprising, but the train stations were pretty old school.

Back on the bus and headed to the hotel.  We stayed at another nice place, Heaven Seven in Nuwara Eliya.  We were actually staying at this hotel for two nights and we were all very excited about that!

Selfies with Connor.

We traveled about 57 miles that day, most of which was by train.  

Stay tuned...the best is yet to come!