The uphill battles of Sri Lanka

Hi!

Once again, sorry for the delay in posting!! After getting back from Sri Lanka I was so busy trying to finalize plans for the rest of our trips (some of which are still up in the air :s ) that I have had very little time to write!! Nevertheless, I have a few free hours right now so I’m going to take full advantage! Also I know I promised pictures but I forgot to bring one of my memory card readers so it might be a while before any pictures off my camera gets posted (thank God I stilly carry my phone with me though!)

Sri Lanka was an interesting and tiresome journey. We got into Colombo pretty late (sidebar, the airport is called Colombo International but its almost two hours away from Colombo! Wtf?!) on the 11^th, but I wasn’t too stressed; this was my second trip to Sri Lanka and last time we spent a lot of time in Colombo so I knew I wasn’t missing much. After a good night sleep in the city we left bright and early for our hotel in Sigiriya. What we didn’t realize was how far Sigiriya was from Colombo and ended up spending close to 5 hours on a bus. As if my derrier was not already frustrated with the amount of time I spent sitting down on my journey to India. Anyways, by the time we got off the bus we were a little worried since we were in the middle of no where but a short tuk-tuk ride (it’s a three wheeler or auto-rickshaw, pronounced took-took for some reason) we were instantly relieved upon arriving at the resort. It was beautiful and peaceful! We had our own villa which had a very cool open air shower (don’t worry, there was mesh so no bugs could fly in but sadly you had to make sure you showered before the rain otherwise you’d never get dry!).



Dad just chilling :)

The bathroom!

The next morning we decided to check out some of the sites. During our last visit, my Dad and I spent most of our time in the southern part of the country so this time we decided to go a bit more north. Our first stop was the Sigiriya Rock Palace. When I read up on this UNESCO World Heritage Site online it sounded like something I wouldn’t want to miss; the ruins of a King’s palace situated on the top of a giant rock sounded pretty cool and they said it gives you amazing views of the surrounding areas. What I didn’t totally realize was how much pain I’d be in after climbing 1,200 steps. We started out ascent and after it a few steps it all went downhill (…or uphill??). Needless to say I don’t plan on ever doing that again in my life!! It took us about 3 hours to get up and get back down!! Looking back, it was pretty cool and the views were breathtaking but that could just have been because I was so out of shape I could hardly breathe at the top. Sadly most of the pictures are on my camera so here is one random shot I took on my phone.

And this was only half way up!!

Once we were back on solid ground we grabbed a quick bite and were off to our second site, the Dambulla Rock Temple. I had heard a lot about Dambulla and was quite eager to see it. It is essentially a series of caves each of which contains a dozen statues of Buddha. I don’t know exactly how many caves there are but most people say the first three are the most amazing. As tired (and sweaty) as I was, Dambulla seemed like a good idea to me; not only would we be underground but the caves would have cooler temperatures! Boy was I wrong. For some reason, Sri Lankans in the past liked to put everything up a hill. And so we began to climb again (by this time my Dad had sworn that he’d never travel with me again if I kept making him walk up hills! But I really thought that the caves would be underground!!!). After multiple stops and some time wasted watching monkeys run around, we got to the temple caves.  Shoes off, we headed inside with my phone in had (I was too tried to pull out my camera so I just settled for my phone. Later I learned that we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the caves…oopsies!)



This picture isnt the best but check out the ceiling!





When we finally returned to the resort (after my Dad once again vowed never to travel with me), we decided that we would not do any more sightseeing because neither of us could move. Instead tomorrow, we’d spend some time getting ayurvedic massages to help our sore muscles recover. The massage was a nice change of pace. After a full body rubdown and some time in the sauna we felt like whole new people (whole new people with the smarts not to climb 1,200 steps ever again!) We spent the rest of the day lounging at the resort.

We decided to spend out last night closer to the airport so we wouldn’t have to rush to catch our flight the next day. So after we checkout of the resort, we headed down to Negombo, a quiet little tourist beach town that was right on the beach. It was an amazingly relaxing way to end the trip. We spent quite a few hours just lying on the beach chairs (people kept looking at us because we were the only people in the shade!).

The beach was just steps away :)

My view from the beach chair!

 We strolled around the city before dinner and it became evident that this part of Sri Lanka was huge attraction for German tourists! I have no idea why but almost every storefront had something written in Sinhala (one of two of the national languages-the other being Tamil), English and German! We also noticed that everyone was kind of fascinated by me and I couldn’t figure out why for the life of me! I think it was because people thought I looked Sri Lankan but definitely didn’t dress Sri Lankan (either that or I may resemble a Sri Lankan star of some kind??).

We arrived back at my Dad’s place on the evening of the 17^th and I was so thankful for be back home! But as much as I was glad to be out of the super heat and in cooler weather, getting all the way up to Ooty from Chennai is such a pain in the butt!! That is the part of travelling which I hate the most right now. Thankfully I believe our next few mini trips leave from Ooty so that a relief! I think in the next two weeks we’ll be going to Kerala (to visit my Mom’s family), Bangalore (to visit my friends from high school) and maybe Pondicherry (it used to be a French colony and I’ve wanted to visit for a while) or maybe Goa!

Well, that is what I’ve been upto for the last little while! Hope everything is going well back home! Don’t forget to email me and update me with all the exciting happenings of your life as well!!

Love & miss you lots,

-Arlene