Category: Sri Lanka

Days 12-14

Galle is very different to the rest of Sri Lanka…. it was founded by the Portuguese in the 16th century and expanded by the Dutch, hence the Dutch Reformed Church and Old Dutch Hospital (now boutique shops). The best part was the Colonial old fort, enclosed by stone sea walls that you can walk on top of.

It felt like wandering around an old European town if you ignore the tuk tuks zooming around!

Lonely Planet advised caution walking the enclaves alone, warning of ‘hustlers’ and ‘small time scammers’. Each time we passed somebody we would ponder ‘scammer? Or hustler?’ 🤔 in actual fact all we noticed were canoodling couples under umbrellas making the most of the nooks and crannies!

Although some giggling teenage schoolboys made kissing noises at Helen the one time we had separated – this was the sole instance that either of us received any unwanted attention despite Lonely Planet’s other warning of non stop harassment. Everybody we encountered, male or female, was polite and quiet

The Sea Green Guesthouse was in a great location across from the sea and yes, a green, where there was either a cricket match or local PE class going on (atleast I think that’s what it was!) :

Galle is known for it’s pasta so we splashed out on a nice dinner. Most places do not serve alcohol and this one was BYOB. We had a very confusing conversation with the waiter. ‘Where is the nearest shop where we can buy a bottle of wine?’ – ‘We don’t serve alcohol. You bring your own’ – ‘We understand. But where can we buy it?’ – ‘White or red?’ – ‘Umm, white’ – ‘OK we have’ – ‘Umm ok’. The manager then came over to confirm that if anyone asked, we didn’t get it from them 😂 It was probably the most expensive thing I’ll buy on this trip!

It’s worth a quick diversion on The Food in Sri Lanka, which I love – lunch is usually noodles or rice with leeks, spring onion, grated carrot and a chilli sauce on the side. A variation is with roti (also known as chapati) shredded almost like noodles. The Sri Lankan breakfast includes the Hopper, which is like a bowl shaped pancake. I’m not convinced we ate it properly as it looks like it should be filled with something 🤔

Dinner is usually mix of three vegetable curries, often accompanied by Dahl, spicy coconut sambal and popadoms. You can easily eat well for just a few pounds – in the nicer places that we’ve been choosing, vegetable fried rice or noodles usually costs £2 (or half a Shoe Tip) I’m impressed that food is cooked from scratch – order fried noodles and you’ll hear the carrot being grated! We also solved the mystery of the random bursts of Fur Elise that we’d been hearing – it’s the Bakery Tuk Tuk! Like the ice cream man but selling bread.

Sadly this is the end of the Sri Lanka part of my trip with Helen. All that remained was to take the train to Colombo…. surely this would be an easier journey? Less tourists, no pilgrims, Monday afternoon….

Nope, we still ended up on the wrong part of the platform and we still managed to get on last, meaning yet again we didn’t get a seat. This was only 2.5 hours though, not too long to sit on the floor of a high speed train next to an open doorway – didn’t we want this coveted position on the Ella train?

For context, here is a photo that Helen stole from instagram of the serene tourists hanging gracefully out of the doorways:

And here is the reality – photo taken by me!

I wasn’t on the floor long as a lovely lady called me over to squeeze in next to her and her daughter (they were that thin). We had a nice chat about her husband’s love of bananas and the public holiday that was coming up tomorrow. The whole family desperately wanted Helen to have a seat too and didn’t understand that she was actually quite happy by the doorway.

And that’s it…

Final backpack selfie before Helen goes home (booo) and I head to India to continue my journey. Next stop Mumbai!

Days 8-12

After seeing our Leopard, we took the bus south to the town of Tangalle, only a couple of hours away. No flashing disco lights or music on the bus this time unfortunately. We arrived in a busy market place and wondered where the beach was. Even more so when our tuk tuk dropped us off at the end of a dirt track as the road was being repaired and he couldn’t drive down.

As we lugged our backpacks past a digger and signs for various lagoon guest houses, we both wondered if our hotel was really next to the beach or just a swamp. Then we turned the corner and found the Lonely Beach Resort, which proved true to it’s name.

One of only four rooms, we had a huge balcony overlooking what felt like a private beach with hammocks (the reason we picked this place).

A nice little restaurant was perched above the lagoon where we enjoyed Leisurely Breakfasts with pots of coffee and plates heaped high with fruit.

We did attempt to be active by taking the free Canoes out on the lagoon.

When we actually managed to get in them that is, which our fellow diners found very amusing!

There were a few downsides to Lonely Beach:

1 – at night it’s a bit too Lonely as the restaurant shuts mid afternoon and the tide comes in. I wasn’t brave enough to wade through the lagoon in pitch black so we used our trusty head torches to wander the back roads until we found a woman willing to cook us vegetable fried rice.

2 – there is something weird about the sand. At first I thought we were just unfit but it’s so heavy that you get a sweat on immediately.

3 – the bully boy beach dogs guarding their patches! Helen went for an Early Morning Walk and came back 5 mins later having been chased off by a pack for dogs, of which the ring leader had her sarong in his teeth and was calling for dog backup – she managed to get away over the weird sand but I can’t print her choice of words 🙊

4 – the red flag for danger was raised so no swimming here… a fact which was in the book if we had bothered to read it.

5 – no photo evidence for this one but we arrived during a power cut so the only way to shower was to crouch on the floor under a tap in the corner of the darkened room Gollum style… 🤔

Looking for a slightly less lonely beach we continued West via tuk tuk to the similarly named Tallala, and our Sunshine Guest House run by a lovely Sri Lankan lady.

We were only a few steps from the beach and a iguana shuffling around the shrubbery.

Here we spent another two days mostly lounging around the beach. Although we did lie on the sand being attacked by flies for hours until Helen had one of her Bright Ideas and noticed there were actually sunbeds reserved for our guest house 😎

We left the guest house to walk to the ATM, a pleasant enough walk down the main road avoiding tuk tuks until that familiar sound of a dog barking. It’s important to note that we are animal lovers and not usually scared of dogs, but this one was barking and snarling at us with bared teeth. Being the strong independent women that we are, we walked/ran over to some nearby tuk tuk drivers who helpfully threw a stone at the dogs, which did the trick. Being an animal loving vegan, I thanked him and we continued on our way.

On the way back, the same two dogs saw us and perhaps they can smell fear or they really don’t like tourists, but we were forced to join some people at a bus stop. Yes we cowered behind some lovely Sri Lankan ladies who were laughing at us, essentially using them as a human shield until their bus pulled up. I was this close to getting on the bus regardless of where it went but another Sri Lankan man with stone was on hand. ‘I hope they get run over’ said Helen. And I agreed.

I retracted this statement when a lovely friendly dog came over to my sunbed and rested his head on me and I just had to pet him – my faith in dogs was restored!

Nice dog

And that almost concludes Sri Lanka… one more stop in Galle coming up!

Days 6-8

Sri Lanka is like several mini breaks rolled into one. We’ve done the Temples and the Highlands, now it’s time for Safari. But not before we made a stop at a tea plantation, something else that was on both of our Lists. Host Uncle suggested we go to a local tea shop to buy tea at wholesale price not tourist price, but being tourists we really wanted to visit an actual plantation and see how tea is made.

Uncle reluctantly drove us to the Uva Halpewatte factory where we joined a tour although they warned us there was no production at the weekend – today being Monday, we couldn’t actually see the full process (another case of not planning ahead!).

We were ushered into a ‘Lectures Hall’ where for the next 45 minutes, although it felt like a lifetime, an old ‘Tea Technician’ explained the tea process in great detail. All kinds of engineering are involved – computer engineering, mechanical engineering… ‘Quality, Strength, Flavour and Colour!!’ are of utmost importance, a point he shouted over and over, almost raising his fist.

We learned that the young tips of the plant are the best (although the tea pickers try to smuggle in the big old leaves which are filtered out) and 4kg of picked leaves makes 1 kg of tea. The tea leaves are dried and rolled and split into four groups, from tip (turns black when dried) to stem (turns brown). A mix is selected to achieve the Quality, Flavour, Strength and Colour. Stronger darker tea is produced mostly for us Westerners who ruin it by adding milk and sugar. Woebetide anyone who selects the wrong mix of leaves when this man is on Tea Taster duties as he will know! Just as we thought we were never getting out of there it was time for questions. This got off to bad start when somebody asked how Green Tea is made – which went down like a lead balloon as our Tea Technician is not a fan of the Chinese process. The next question ‘at what stage do you add the flavours to the tea?’ was met with further disgust. We had wondered what happens to the tea they export and what’s actually in our cup of Yorkshire but neither of us dared put our hand up. We did see the factory floor with all manner of equipment, some shiny and hi tech, some old and rickety straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

After an hour and half we finally got to try some tea in a bit of a free for all with everyone holding out their cups for Tea Technian to fill (more, please sir!!). Uncle was right about the prices and we bought nothing. Speaking of Uncle he was waiting for us downstairs and moaning that we had been there two and a half hours (we hadn’t, but Helen meekly said sorry anyway) and he was now very late. I’m not sure why he abandoned his guesthouse and took us there himself when we had only asked him how much a tuk tuk would cost, but by the time he handed us over to another driver to take us down to the town of Tissa he was back in a good mood again.

We arrived at our hotel in Tissa and agreed this was the nicest place we had ever stayed together (we stayed in an actual junk yard in Hawaii), complete with gorgeous pool. We also seemed to be the only guests other than one couple.

Leopards are the reason this place is on the map. Yala national park is reportedly one of the best places in the world to see them and the leopard is the last of the Big Five to tick off for me.

All the hotels organise jeep safaris and we were surprised to find we would get our own jeep – the sheer number of vehicles in the park could be cut dramatically if people shared, which we would have been happy to do. Jeeps are either ‘basic’ with inward facing seats i.e. rubbish or ‘luxury’ with forward facing, height staggered seats (unnecessary when there are only two people in it) and comes with a warning that some seats might be broken 🤷🏻‍♀️

Our luxury jeep picked us up at 5am and off we went in the dark – soon realising our driver was a bit of a speed demon as he overtook jeep after jeep, all heading to the same place. When light dawned I also realised he was about 12 (or are we just getting old?) and we took our place in the queue until the park opened at 6am, now appreciating his speed.

We had been forewarned by Lonely Planet that this could turn into chaos as the race is on to find a leopard and secure the drivers tips. It’s a bit different to African safaris as the part of Yala that you can visit is like a series of potholed lanes between scrub instead of open plains, making it harder to spot animals unless they are chilling out by the path. Our driver informed us that the first hour is best for spotting the leopard (no pun intended) so he wouldn’t stop for other animals. What he actually meant was he wouldn’t even slow down for other animals – even the buffaloes that were in our way.

As we raced down the tracks and passed the couple from the hotel for the 3rd time I wondered how we could possibly spot a leopard at this speed to which Helen remarked that we’d probably run it over.

We came across fresh leopard prints and the excitement grew. This is not a trip for anyone with health conditions as we were almost thrown out of the jeep a few times. Suddenly we started reversing furiously back the way we came – kudos to the driver’s skills!

We screeched to a backwards halt next to loads of other jeeps – a leopard had been sighted!

Naively we looked around for it until realising it was so far away it could barely be seen with the naked eye, and we did not have binoculars 🤦🏻‍♀️ Luckily our driver borrowed some for us and there it was! A majestic leopard lounging on a rock… The jeep next to us had a very expensive looking camera through which their driver took some amazing photos – I took a photo on my phone of their image, as an iPhone camera cannot compare 😂

Leopard sighting complete, our driver relaxed a bit and stopped at the point the sea meets the park, and the tsunami monument to honour those who died in 2004. Finally we could also stop for the toilet, only 2.5 hours of racing over bumpy tracks after I had asked 🤷🏻‍♀️

We saw lots of crocodiles which was the other animal I really wanted to see, monkeys, buffalo, spotted deer, the beautiful bee eater bird (green and blue tailed), horn bills, the national bird of Sri Lanka, elephants, mongoose….

And we were allowed to stop and take photos now!

The rest of the time was spent chilling by the pool, afternoon beers and pre dinner cocktails. And playing Bananagrams of course, as I am on holiday with Helen, the Queen of travelling games! With some chess and Connect4 and my new favourite Monopoly Deal thrown into the mix 😎

Next stop, the beach…

Days 3-5

Sri Lanka was awarded Lonely Planet’s destination of 2019. This is a double edged sword – lately my newsfeed has been full of friends all posting the classic selfie hanging out the open doorways of the famous Kandy to Ella train. This is apparently one of the most beautiful journeys in the world and was on our list from the start – but did not quite go to plan!

Mistake number 1 – this is high season and we should have reserved seats several weeks ago. Mistake number 2 – this is Pilgrimage Season and at the weekend the locals take the train to climb Adams Peak. Mistake number 3 – the journey is at least 7 hours long, a very long time to stand 🤔

We asked our Host Mum who simply said ‘tomorrow? There is a problem’ i.e. you’ve got no chance. Host Dad was kinder and suggested we go for the slightly later train. We got a tuk tuk to a different station in the hope of beating the crowds and naively thinking we could get on and nab a seat. Mistake number 4 – every other tourist had the same idea. We bought our unreserved 2nd class tickets (about £1.30, or half the amount we tipped the maybe toilet attendent) and took our places on the platform poised to jump on, wondering why a local man was wandering the platform asking where we were going – just being helpful?

The train pulled in and we watched in dismay as packed carriage after packed carriage went past. The only empty carriage was the reserved seats which only smug tourists who had the sense to reserve were allowed in. Think rush hour London overground when there is a tube strike, with the doors open and people hanging out because they can’t fit in. I couldn’t take a photo because we were running down the platform with our backpacks looking for a space but it was futile. As the train pulled away we realised every single other person had in fact got on other than a German couple 🤷🏻‍♀️ It now became clear why the helpful man was there – he’s a taxi driver happy to drive stupid tourists who hadn’t reserved, all the way to Ella 😂

Long story short, the four of us paid £8 each to share the taxi half way (after the German woman gave up her pointless haggling over £1 split four ways) to Nanu Oya where the Pilgrims should have already got off, determined to get on this damn train. 3 hours later after a conversation about Brexit we were back on the platform while the taxi driver no doubt waited for us to get back in. History repeated when the platform filled up, the same train we failed to get on earlier pulled in and we were somehow again waiting on the wrong part of the platform… We were literally the only people left, standing there pathetically when the station guard shuffled us down to local 3rd class and we got on!!! Woohoo!! Only 3 hours standing and it wasn’t too packed. How expectations change!

The coveted dangling legs out of doors and heads out of windows spots were already taken and we didn’t want to be like the tourists we saw asking locals to move and clambering over them to stick their head out, pose like they were having the greatest time for an identikit selfie then get back in again. This is the best we could do:

A sweet family with a granny and kids tapped us to say they were getting off and we could have their seats… until three men barged past to claim most of them then spread out to stop me sitting down?! Luckily a kindly old man noticed and motioned me over to sit next to him.

Eventually we reached Ella, which was not the small quaint town we had imagined – with elements of Kuta in Bali and so many tourists!! I probably had too many expectations for Ella and a picture in my mind that did not match the reality.

But things turned around the next day as we went for a hike recommended by our Host Uncle up Little Adams Peak, rewarded by some stunning views.

The best was yet to come – you are allowed to walk on the railways tracks in Sri Lanka!! I felt like I was in the Railway Children as we scrambled down the bank and stepped along the wooden sleepers.

Host Uncle had written down the times the trains would pass through the tunnel so we could make sure we weren’t in it – ‘very dangerous, if train comes you lie flat!’ – we timed it perfectly as we had a drink and watched the train pass.

After the tunnel the crowds thinned out and we had a lovely walk down the tracks, feeling naughty approaching the station this way. It was beautiful clear day and we got all the views we didn’t get on the train 😎

We spent the evening walking around trying to reserve a cooking class for tomorrow – apparently we should have booked in advance 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ As it turned out we found the lovely Ruwini just down the road who welcomed us into her kitchen for a private lesson in cooking dalh, coconut sambal, pumpkin curry and aubergine modju (turns out the order you add the spices in are important) and then we got to eat it all at a table set for two. It was the most delicious food I’ve tried so far – this is what vegans eat! We left full of promises to buy claypots and spices and recreate it at home – travel goals!

And that’s it for the Highlands part of Sri Lanka – next stop south for safari …

Sri Lanka, days 1-3 : Temple time

Travel companion : Helen (ex flatmate, holiday buddy for 3 years, sometimes accused of being my sister)

Wildlife : 10 wild elephants on the road, herd of cows on roundabout, frog emerging from sink plug hole, bird stealing Helen’s breakfast, vicious monkeys trying to steal everything, cute little street dogs.

Day 1: Colombo to Kandy. We are in Sri Lanka! After a 10 hour flight we got straight in a taxi for the 3 hour drive north to Kandy, the first stop in the Cultural Triangle. First impressions – very green, lots of tea, tuktuks and monkeys!

We stayed in a little homestay / guesthouse with a lovely mum and dad that we immediately wanted to take with us for the rest of the trip. Not so much their teenage sons who were reluctantly helping out. No rest for the wicked so we dropped our backpacks and went to visit the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. This is the current home of a fragment of The Buddha’s tooth that was rescued from a fire. We stood in a queue for 10 minutes before asking ourselves what are we actually queueing for? You can’t actually see the tooth, only worship infront of a closed casket. The building itself is impressive with its gold roof, smell of jasmine offerings and monks playing drums and what sounded to me like snake charmer music.

Here we had our first encounter with two things that would prove very important. 1 – to enter a holy site you must cover your shoulders and knees, remove your shoes and hat and never ever turn your back on The Buddha. But only when taking a photo – so no selfies. It does not mean you have to back away slowly. 2 – to get your shoes back at the end a man might ask you for some small money. This does not mean you need to give him 1000 rupees as that’s the smallest note you have, the equivalent of £4.30 🤦🏻‍♀️

Day 2: Kandy to Polonnaruwa. The next day we hired a taxi (because we are grown ups now and that’s what people do in Sri Lanka) to take us around the Three Temples Loop outside of Kandy, visiting the Lankatilake (brick), Gadaladeniya (stone) and Embekka (wood) temples. The driver was lovely but kept calling me Ma’am.

Lankatilake temple is on a mountain top and appeared to be closed with only a cow grazing outside when an old monk materialised and unlocked the shrine inside the 1000 year old temple. Inside are both Hindu and Buddha images – this is a shared place of worship.

I was struck by how peaceful this place was. Although when we paid our entrance fee and looked at the information leaflet they gave us on the way out we realised we hadn’t see half the things mentioned but I couldn’t be bothered to take off my shoes again to go back in. We also paid double as we thought out donation inside was our entry – we should be due some good karma! I get the feeling we might never get the full picture of what’s going on here.

We stopped off a spice farm where a nice young guide showed us ginger, turmeric and curry plants which we enjoyed. I volunteered to try the ‘special balm’ not realising he was going to massage it vigorously into my forehead and pull my eyelids open. Cue tipping cockup #2 – a man outside the toilets holding a broom, who did not even ask us for money, received over £2 for his trouble 🤦🏻‍♀️ As we left we saw him showing his mate the note in glee.

We also stopped at Sigiriya (the famous big rock in all the Lanka photos) to climb neighbouring hill Pidurangula with it’s lower entrance fee. The book said it takes 20 mins, the entrance leaflet said 2 hours with warnings of an uncharted scramble at the top not for the unfit – we did it in the one hour that our driver told us to be back within although I chose to sit by the huge sleeping Buddha statue (making sure I didn’t turn my back) whilst Helen conquered the scramble to the top, aided by a few shoves from her fellow climbers in a few places! This seemed less impressive when an old woman sauntered past in flipflops.

We made it to Polonnaruwa a few hours later after spotting several elephants on the way right by the road – no need for a safari! Had an awkward moment calculating the tip for our driver who had ferried us around for 8 hours – surely he should get more than a toilet attendent!

Day 3: Polonnaruwa. The first few days are the Temples part of the trip so we know it will be hectic but we plan to sleep on the beach in a week’s time. We hired old rust buckets of bikes with no gears and set off to the ruins of the 11th century old capital. No need to download maps said Helen, it’s straight down the road. An hour later we were still biking up and down the same potholed road being overtaken by tuktuks and honked at by every single vehicle even in the opposite direction, looking for the museum to buy tickets which is conveniently located in a different place to the entrance to the ruins.

Unfortunately half the road was being dug up by women road workers in normal clothes and flipflops. We decided to walk not cycle around the roundabout with a herd of cows sitting in the middle.

It was worth it though, as we spent a couple of hours cycling from site to site admiring huge Buddha statues and temple ruins, sweating in our ‘suitable for religious sites’ clothing in the midday sun. Around each corner seemed an even larger relic. Also around each corner was another possible home of the Sacred Tooth Relic – that tooth got around!!

We didn’t enjoy so much trying to eat a huge orange that was more like a grapefruit whilst fending off vicious looking monkeys! Highlight was the four Buddha’s carved from the same granite.

And then it was back to Kandy on the local bus for 4 hours, crammed into a row of seats made for smaller people than us. The pimped up bus had a sound system blasting Sri Lankan pop music and flashing lights which made the journey more fun 😎 next stop, the train to Ella …