After getting 3 hours of sleep the night before, spending the car ride talking with Dr. Susan about how it is common for NGO's in India to be fraudulent-thus causing legit Indian NGO's to jump through all sorts of crazy hoops to stay afloat-and almost throwing up off the side of the road, I made it to the airport. It was a lot to fit in all before 5:30 AM, and I am not exactly what most people would call a morning person-but in the end it got me to Sri Lanka so be it. After checking in, I set out to find some breakfast. India has some weird laws about leaving their country with a certain amount of rupees. I didn't know how much that was so to play it safe I left all my Indian cash at home-planning to use my card until I got to Sri Lanka. Turns out no one would take my card though, which was super frustrating because I've used my card at the airport many times. BUT--some nice French man was passing by and heard one of the food places tell me I couldn't use my card and promptly paid for my breakfast! How nice was that? There is a lot of horrible people in this world but this man definitely wasn't one of them. Merci random French man, merci, merci, merci.
The flight was super quick-like maybe an hour so before I knew it, I had arrived. One of the first things I noticed was that Sri Lankan's saris are slightly different then Indian saris (they have more frills and such) and that Sri Lankan is the Duty Free Land of the world. Besides the typical food and booze, they had TV's, washing machines, a whole smorgesborg of household appliances such as irons, blenders, fans and etc. One of the first things I saw when I got off the plane was a sign that said "Taking advantage of duty free prices is strictly prohibited" and it made me giggle until I saw how they do duty free-and then it all made sense.
I boxed out 14 grown men in the visa line, got my bags, exchanged my money and went out to find my taxi-which wasn't there. I had requested an airport pick up from my first hotel, but somehow it was lost in translation. In the end I was glad that didn't happening because I found one for way less money anyway. My cabbie's name was Kaitlin and he (yes Kaitlin was a he) was so sweet.
After reaching the hotel, I walked in the lobby where they greeted me with freshly squeezed juice and walked me outside where I saw this:
Ummmm, hello elephants. Everywhere. I was more then okay with shacking up at this place for a few days. The view from my room looked over the river too. Well river and jungle. Not a bad view at all:
Throw in the hot stand up shower and a TV with cable-I was feeling pretty fabulous. After dropping my stuff, I took my first shower of the night. And yes, I did end up taking two showers before the night was over, mostly just because I could. Don't judge me. Anyways, after shower number one, I went on an exploratory walk around the city, err through the surrounding streets of my hotel. It was very charming.
It was touristy in that there were little shops everywhere, but besides that it had a quiet village in the mountainous jungle feel which I found very endearing.
Two things, the arm on the left of the picture above makes me real mad, if only that man could of just waited for two seconds; And there was the funniest little mask shop with masks made out of coconuts. I could of taken pics of them all, but I refrained to two.
I wandered into an elephant poo paper factory and took a little tour and saw how it was made. Apparently that is a big thing here--making paper out of elephant poo. It was really interesting though. They will actually feed the elephants different types of natural jungle food depending on what color of paper they want to make. Sometimes they still mix in their own dyes when processing the poop paper to get the more vibrant colors such as reds, yellows, purples and blues. Who knew elephant poop could be so useful. Whoever figured it out was obviously very resourceful, although I am a little curious to what made them think of the idea. Maybe it is better not to know.
After the poop factory I hired a tuk tuk driver (who had some awesome middle age ear hair) who took me on a tour of a exotic fruit/tea plantation. I'm not so much a tea person, I always feel like I am drinking dirt or grass, but it was cool to see. And it was cool to see the different fruit plants. There were plenty I had never heard of before. Isn't that crazy that we live in world where even when having the blessing of education and access to information at our finger tips, there are still things you have never heard of? I absolutely love it.
This machine (in the picture below) was built by the same company that built the Titanic. Obviously, this machine has lasted a bit longer. :)
After the tea plantation I explored one of the local Buddhist Temples. I am still trying to figure out the whole Buddhism thing, but the best I can tell, Hindus see Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism, but Buddhist see Buddhism as only that, Buddhism. Either way, the temple was pretty fascinating. There were all kinds of different statues and groups of statues depicting scenes from Buddha's life. I can't really expound on it more then that though so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
I'm pretty sure this blue guy with fangs has to be the monster in every Buddhist child's nightmares
And we pulled over on the side of the road on the way home because the scenery was so stunning
The last highlight of the day was dinner---it was honestly so yummy. I had to take a picture of it it was so yummy.
I ate outside, listening to the river, and was the only one in the hotel restaurant. Just me and the jungle and my food--followed by my second warm stand up shower of the day. Sometimes people ask me if the reason I'm still single is because I am picky or high maintenance, but I think the amount of joy simple things such as a good meal and a second hot stand up shower in one day brings me proves that theory dead wrong.
The flight was super quick-like maybe an hour so before I knew it, I had arrived. One of the first things I noticed was that Sri Lankan's saris are slightly different then Indian saris (they have more frills and such) and that Sri Lankan is the Duty Free Land of the world. Besides the typical food and booze, they had TV's, washing machines, a whole smorgesborg of household appliances such as irons, blenders, fans and etc. One of the first things I saw when I got off the plane was a sign that said "Taking advantage of duty free prices is strictly prohibited" and it made me giggle until I saw how they do duty free-and then it all made sense.
I boxed out 14 grown men in the visa line, got my bags, exchanged my money and went out to find my taxi-which wasn't there. I had requested an airport pick up from my first hotel, but somehow it was lost in translation. In the end I was glad that didn't happening because I found one for way less money anyway. My cabbie's name was Kaitlin and he (yes Kaitlin was a he) was so sweet.
My first hotel was in Kandy, which is in the mountains and quiet a ways away from the airport. It was cool to see the the countryside--for what I could keep my eyes open for that is. At one point we stopped by a little coconut stand off the side of the road. They were different coconuts then what I'd had before-I liked this coconut water better. There was a cute little family at the coconut stand that had the sweetest daughter with big beautiful eyes. It took a little prompting from her parents but she eventually turned to me and said "Welcome to Sri Lanka"-all bashfully while hiding behind her coconut. Most adorable greeting ever. After drinking the water we scooped out the insides as well, using a slice of the shell as a spoon/scoop. I felt so native. :)
Ummmm, hello elephants. Everywhere. I was more then okay with shacking up at this place for a few days. The view from my room looked over the river too. Well river and jungle. Not a bad view at all:
Throw in the hot stand up shower and a TV with cable-I was feeling pretty fabulous. After dropping my stuff, I took my first shower of the night. And yes, I did end up taking two showers before the night was over, mostly just because I could. Don't judge me. Anyways, after shower number one, I went on an exploratory walk around the city, err through the surrounding streets of my hotel. It was very charming.
It was touristy in that there were little shops everywhere, but besides that it had a quiet village in the mountainous jungle feel which I found very endearing.
Two things, the arm on the left of the picture above makes me real mad, if only that man could of just waited for two seconds; And there was the funniest little mask shop with masks made out of coconuts. I could of taken pics of them all, but I refrained to two.
I wandered into an elephant poo paper factory and took a little tour and saw how it was made. Apparently that is a big thing here--making paper out of elephant poo. It was really interesting though. They will actually feed the elephants different types of natural jungle food depending on what color of paper they want to make. Sometimes they still mix in their own dyes when processing the poop paper to get the more vibrant colors such as reds, yellows, purples and blues. Who knew elephant poop could be so useful. Whoever figured it out was obviously very resourceful, although I am a little curious to what made them think of the idea. Maybe it is better not to know.
After the poop factory I hired a tuk tuk driver (who had some awesome middle age ear hair) who took me on a tour of a exotic fruit/tea plantation. I'm not so much a tea person, I always feel like I am drinking dirt or grass, but it was cool to see. And it was cool to see the different fruit plants. There were plenty I had never heard of before. Isn't that crazy that we live in world where even when having the blessing of education and access to information at our finger tips, there are still things you have never heard of? I absolutely love it.
This machine (in the picture below) was built by the same company that built the Titanic. Obviously, this machine has lasted a bit longer. :)
After the tea plantation I explored one of the local Buddhist Temples. I am still trying to figure out the whole Buddhism thing, but the best I can tell, Hindus see Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism, but Buddhist see Buddhism as only that, Buddhism. Either way, the temple was pretty fascinating. There were all kinds of different statues and groups of statues depicting scenes from Buddha's life. I can't really expound on it more then that though so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
I'm pretty sure this blue guy with fangs has to be the monster in every Buddhist child's nightmares
And we pulled over on the side of the road on the way home because the scenery was so stunning
The last highlight of the day was dinner---it was honestly so yummy. I had to take a picture of it it was so yummy.
I ate outside, listening to the river, and was the only one in the hotel restaurant. Just me and the jungle and my food--followed by my second warm stand up shower of the day. Sometimes people ask me if the reason I'm still single is because I am picky or high maintenance, but I think the amount of joy simple things such as a good meal and a second hot stand up shower in one day brings me proves that theory dead wrong.
