So long Sri Lanka

Day 14 (Friday 8th)

Believe it or not today we went and saw Finding Dory at the cinema. It was pretty much just a day of chilling until we needed to head to the airport. You know what? It was pretty awesome... despite the interval in the middle of the film. 

And that concludes our trip to Sri Lanka. Upon reflecting on our time in Sri Lanka, Dav and myself have compiled a list of tips we thought might be handy for others who haven't been.

Tips

-Don't ever expect toilet paper to be in a toilet.

-Don't expect public toilets to be free.

-Don't expect visits to waterfalls to be a leisurely activity.

-Prepare yourself for sweltering heat but pack a jacket and pants for the hill country.

-Be prepared to be stared at blankly when you use English.

-Don't expect a tuk-tuk metre to work... ever. 

-The buses will be sweaty but come on, travelling across the country for $2 priceless.

-The trains are a MUST, alright?

-Samosa even out of a newspaper bag is incredible.

-Necto is the nectar of Gods.

-Fingers get dirty when eating but fear not there is always a tap (or cup of water) nearby to clean up.

-Be prepared to not see another white person. 

-Beers can be out of stock (shock horror).

-Curry and rice is a breakfast food... duh.

-Mangosteen... just try one ok.

-Sri Lankan time is at least 40 minutes after proposed arrival/departure I swear.

-Their KFC must have better secret herbs n spices. 

-Roti every damn day (as a friend told me)

-Wifi? What Wifi? Local sims are heaven.

-If you're asked to join in Ramadan celebrations you must. 

-Be prepared to need more than 14 days to explore this incredible country.

-You play cricket? Everyone plays cricket.

-1st, 2nd or 3rd class train ticket? Try them all!

-Take your shoes off wherever possible.

-Bathrooms shall now officially be renamed soaking wet rooms.

-And a cold shower's good right?

-A fridge is just a storage space for bottles not necessarily to keep them cool.

-You won't hit another vehicle I promise.

-A plastic bag over a plate saves dishes.

-And last but not least... Explore Sri Lanka it's beautiful from East to West, North to South. 

Thank you for having us Lanka you've been incredible. 

Pleasant surprises

Day 12 (Wednesday 6th)

Today Dav got up early to play 18 holes at the Nuwara Eliya Golf Course. It's a beautiful course in the middle of town with some challenging holes apparently. When I asked Dav to write something about his morning he said "the golf course was good." So that pretty much sums it up.

We had a change of accommodation location and settled in at our new spot. In the afternoon we headed down to Victoria Park the lovely gardens in the centre of Nuwara Eliya. I was adamant on finishing my book before we left because I can currently read without the guilt of not having a uni or yoga text book in front of me. To our surprise a sweet Muslim lady came over and kindly invited us to join her family for food. We politely declined but a plate of food was nonetheless brought over to us so we joined them for what we discovered was Ramadan celebrations. We ate with them until our bellies were beyond full and then played with the kids on the mini train and Ferris wheel in the children's park. Exhausted from the previous days' hiking and exploring we retired to bed early not before me finishing my book (yay)! 

Day 13 (Thursday 7th)

We rose early to catch the train back to Colombo and arrived in the mid afternoon (back in sweaty 31 degree heat again). Our friend took us to independence square where we saw lots of locals exercising and taking leisurely strolls. The building, almost like a shrine, was quite spectacular too. We had dinner and beers at our mates house and settled for our last sleep in Sri Lanka.

Nuwara Eliya and surrounds

It's funny how the winding roads don't seem wide enough for even a small car yet in Sri Lanka two large buses will be guaranteed to pass each other on these roads. When you're in a tiny tuk-tuk passing one of these it's pretty thrilling stuff. 

Day 11 (Tuesday 5th)

We left Diyatalawa early this morning to head to Horton Plains National Park. At Horton Plains we made the 3.5km hike via the Baker's Falls to World's End. World's End is the portion of the National Park that drops at a sharp cliff edge that literally seems like the end of the earth. Not so surprising to us anymore, the views here were insanely good. It's a shame that photos just can't to justice to the height and depth of the countryside you could see but we soaked it in with our own eyes over a long rest and some bikkies. As we climbed early we got a clear view of the south east provinces of the country but being renowned for it's cloud forest the mist was beginning to settle over the tops of the trees as we were leaving. Then the 3.5km hike to loop back around to the beginning passed the Little World's End (a smaller and lower cliff face) with a stop in the museum before we headed off. It was beautiful to see there were strict policies to avoid littering of the park lands and to prevent human impact on the environment. This did however mean the tracks were not well formed and we were skipping from rock to rock and avoiding tripping on tree roots for most of the journey. A challenging walk but totally worth it. 

I look like an oaf but it was cold and these
were my only warm clothes, don't judge too harshly.

We headed into Nuwara Eliya afterwards, first having lunch and a look around the shops in the main streets then heading for a paddle in a swan on Lake Gregory. From there we checked into our hotel "The Golf Green" which precisely as it might seem, backs straight on to the famous Nuwara Eliya golf course. We had a walk around all afternoon and are about to head back out for a bite to eat. Sri Lanka food is the bomb diggity if I hadn't mentioned in any previous posts. Much to my delight they have mangosteens here which I was told were rare outside the Colombo area. If roti is king, vegetable samosas are a humble queen served in recycled paper bags (newspapers, old math text books etc.).

The Hill Country

So our train ride was over and we were in Diyatalawa after dark greeted by a friend of a friend (standard). Instantly it was noticeable that the temp had dropped nearly ten degrees in the mountains. After a few beers with dinner we were placed in our accom for the next couple of days ready to sleep off the train ride and be on our feet... a lot. 

Day 10 (Monday 4th)

This morning we first journeyed off through the endless tea fields winding our way higher and higher until we reached Lipton's Seat lookout. A massive 2km above sea level this place offered close to 360 degree views of Sri Lanka, namely, the extensive tea plantations that flood the hills.

We took a pic with the man himself, Sir Thomas Lipton and had a cuppa with a pretty darn good backdrop. A monkey nearly jumped into our tuk-tuk and took our backpack whilst we were having a feed, so it was back down and up and down and up the winding mountains to visit stacks of waterfalls. 

The first waterfall we visited was the tallest one in Sri Lanka with a sheer 260 metre drop, Bambarakanda Falls. From there it was a 2km trek to Lanka Ella Falls. This was a tiny, overgrown, ill-defined track that began in the forest and opened on to the side of a mountain winding down into the water. I would be surprised if more than 10 people were on this track each day, it was so untouched. Next was Diyaluma Falls and our tuk-tuk driver certainly challenged us to climb as high as we could to the top. Finally after winding through half the country side we finished at Rawana Ella Falls in the late afternoon. Pretty epic but challenging for a girl with a bung knee to climb, I happily watched Dav and our driver climb higher as beneath them locals were bathing in the chilly shallow waters. 

Note: the tea fields surrounding Lipton's Seat are Rainforest Alliance Certified
and had the nicest quotations (like this one) scattered throughout. 

Unwind midway

Day 7 (Friday 1st)

Friday was a day of huge travel by local bus from Minneriya to Colombo. A seven hour journey, no A/C of course, and sat next to a young Muslim boy who was very curious about everything to do with us. Most notably asking me if my freckles on my arms were a medical condition. We finished at our friends house for an early sleep. 

Day 8 (Saturday 2nd)

It was the assembly in Kalutara of all the Aussies post wedding and travel and prior to everyone (except us) leaving. We had a huge lunch feast and drank copious amounts of beer, wine and scotch with the party moving to Colombo and continuing into the evening.

Day 9 (Sunday 3rd)

Today was an even bigger day of travel into the hill country from the capital. We were on a nine hour train from Colombo to Diyatalawa and do you think we minded? Not. at. all. This train ride was frickin' epic. This time we bought first class tickets to sit in the viewing carriage. This pretty much involves travelling backwards in the last carriage looking out a giant viewing window. Fear not, first class still had the perks of hanging out the windows whilst winding through the countryside. 

So reasons why this train ride is epic... well you only need to Google it. It is considered one of the best train rides in the world. Weaving through jungles until reaching the hills, diving through the mountains via awesome tunnels beneath waterfalls, sharp turns on cliff faces and all the while the best views of the tea plantations you'll find in Sri Lanka's hill country. It may be slow but the samosas, wrapped in pages from an old math text book, we bought out the train window half way were totally worth it. 

Train, Safari, Rock.

It's absolutely ridiculous how excited two twenty-four year olds can get over catching a five hour train across a foreign country in 3rd class. But... it was totally WICKED! 

Day 5 (Wednesday 29th)

We hung out the open doors and windows of the train from the east coast, Batticaloa to the middle of Sri Lanka to stay with one of our friends (fast become best bloke of all time) at his army barracks in Minneriya. He has been the most welcoming and generous person to us, it is absolutely breath taking. With a grand room for us to stay in he fed us to the brim upon our arrival and sat up late with us having beers and answering every single one (there's been so many) of my curious cultural questions. 

Day 6 (Thursday 30th)

Today began with a tuk-tuk trip to the ancient rock fortress known as Sigiriya. The further into the heart of Sri Lanka we venture the more lush and scenic the journeys become. Sigiriya was a large maze of brick work, sculpted rock and lush green lawns, speckled throughout with water gardens and pools. As we made our way along the ancient paths, past numerous climbing monkeys we eventually reached the stairs. There were so many stairs and it was hot and we both have shoddy knees but we didn't come here to look at he rock from below. Totally worth it. We sweated our way to the top for incredible 360 degree views of Sri Lanka with a large Buddha statue and temples just a few things you could sight in the distance while standing on the top. With wobbly knees we hiked back down the stairs and rewarded ourselves with a cooling icey pole.

 

Back to our room for a freshen up and quick rest, we then head on an elephant safari tour. An open-roof Jeep is of course what navigates us through the Minneriya National Park at dusk. We first spot a lot of monkeys hanging high in the trees above us. Soon it becomes apparent that there are hundreds of different bird types in the park, peacocks being the most exciting to spot in my opinion. The water hole (or tank as they call it) is the home to crocodiles and water snakes both of which we spotted as well. But most importantly hanging around the perimeters of the water were elephants. Elephants eating grass, bathing, covering themselves with dirt, feeding their young and play fighting. We counted more than 80 in our sunset cruise and were mere metres from them in our vehicle. The youngest was estimated to be only 10 days old and the oldest almost 80. I didn't have high expectations as I'm not huge on wildlife but man-o-man it was incredible.  

Sri Lankan sun, skin, surf.

So after our big Buddhist festivities we headed to the coast, literally straight across to the other side of the country. Why, do you ask? Tis the season for the east coast. How did we get there? Overnight, local bus. Yep, left at 9pm and arrived at 5am. Nope, no A/C and no other tourists.

Day 3 and 4 (Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th)

We spent the last two days in Arugam Bay, a famous surf town on the east coast of Sri Lanka. The days pretty much comprised of: sun, that made our Australian winter skin pink; sand, that gets everywhere (absolutely everywhere) and surf, that was super salty and hard to master.

We hired a board on day 4 and attempted to hit the waves then realised we have absolutely no surfing experience and both have shitty knees. So the board ended up in the flats most the time, with us just mucking around on it. Other than that, I hit up an interesting yoga class taken by a local whose teaching standards may have steered slightly from what I've learned as a teacher in Aus. But when in Arugam Bay right?

So all in all, a coastal getaway with lots of Aussies around for surf and cocktails and just soaking up this warmer weather. A lovely time was had in Arugam Bay. Great food, good vibes and warm sea baths.