I know...2015 came into your life and you didn't know what was missing, right?
Some void hung in the air as the ball dropped...
What could it be?
Did you leave the stove on?
Did you pay too much for that muffler?
No, you silly goose...you haven't had a chance to read my blog since last year!
LAST YEAR.
Golly, 2014 seems like only yesterday but it was last year. Crazy, I know.
So tell me what you've been up to no don't I don't care.
Better yet, why don't I tell you what I have been up to? Get your own blog, Chatty McChatterson.
So, what have I been doing?
Laundry. Sandwiches. Showering occasionally. Threatening ceiling fans. Traveling to Sri Lanka.
TRAVELING TO SRI LANKA.
IN MY DAY THERE WAS ONLY ONE USELESS SPEED! GET OFF MY LAWN!
That's right. I took a 2 week trip from one tiny island to another tiny island.
I was deciding where to go for the winter break, and was contemplating a few options. Since I usually travel alone, I really just stared at the computer screen switching back and forth between coolmathgames.com playing Bloons Tower Defense 3 and kayak.com looking for cheap flights at the same time.
I like to multi-task.
Being my first Christmas away from home, I finally ended up piggybacking on another trip some people I knew were taking to Sri Lanka. I figured maybe being alone for Christmas was a big jump, so this way I would have some company at least.
So off we go to the wild world of Sri Lanka. Since I didn't plan the trip, I kind of assumed it was all worked out. This is lesson one - if you didn't plan it, it isn't going to go well.
The flight over for me was uneventful, especially if you don't mention the medical emergency from the drunk guy, the three guys in front of me who were climbing the seats like monkeys the whole time playing "tag, the lady who had a crying fit behind me, the smell from the kid who crapped his pants in the first five minutes and then sat in his own filth for the remaining 4 hours and 55 minutes, or the fact that the crew sprayed lysol down the aisle every 15 minutes or so.
Pretty standard fare for the widely known Mihin Lanka Airways.
...
Little did I know that on September 1st, 2012 - my life would be changed. And disinfected.
I traveled with a co-worker, and we were going to meet her friends flying in from Kuwait. We arrive and much to my dismay, we have no way to find our companions. We had no way to contact the other people flying in from Kuwait. No one thought that through.
I shall repeat that.
NO ONE THOUGHT IT MAY BE IMPORTANT TO HAVE A WAY TO CONTACT EACH OTHER.
Okay, a little hiccup. A little wait and stress and scrambling and eventually I found them. Their plane had been delayed and the airport didn't register the plane was actually going to be showing up - the usual. But no huge problem, and we were on the road.
At this point I would like to issue an apology to the Kingdom of Bahrain for any slighted comments I have made about the driving here. Driving in this place is like a finely tuned machine compared with the way people drive in Sri Lanka, (though I feel "throw themselves to the whims of the traffic gods with no attempt to live through the next journey"would be more accurate than "drive").
I know they believe in reincarnation - hell, the word "car"is right in there - but that does NOT mean it is a challenge to see who can come back as a butterfly in the next life first.
I have done my rants on driving, so I will spare you the gory details. There is one bright shining light in the driving scene in Sri Lanka...if you ever get the chance to ride in a tuk tuk OH MY GOD TAKE IT YES AND BUY ME ONE PLEASE THANK YOU.
So let me start with our first destination - the second biggest city in Sri Lanka, Kandy.
Okay...get it out of your system now please. Everyone made one joke or another...go ahead...I'll wait.
Ugh. Yes. Very clever.
So we rented this place from airbnb.com - a website where people with vacation homes and extra rooms can rent it out for a price. You can rank them, and they rank you as a guest. All good - but I have heard some horror stories. But the place we got was AMAZING. And, on top of that, I spoke with people in cities hours away and they all knew the guy - and when you said "The Green House in Kandy", it seemed like everyone knew exactly who and what you were talking about.
I think what I am trying to say is that we most likely stayed in the house of a well-known Sri Lankan mobster.
But. despite the corpses in the fridge, the view was pretty epic...
That is the Kandy River. I don't know where they get these names....
But I was"not going to just relax! No! I was determined to go out and do stuff! So, the first thing we did was pile into a tuk tuk and go get drunk.
The place is called "Slightly Chilled" and is a pretty good place. We learned a lot, like you can't drink in a lot of places between 2 and 5 pm. This made us sad. The only remedy was to basically beg and plead and cry and beg until our waiter gave in and fed us more beer.
The view from the place is pretty epic as well:
In the second picture at the top of the hill just right of center is our next stop.
The first night was great - I ran up my first 15,000 rupee tab and all was well. We tipped about 5000% too much because at this point we hadn't gotten a grasp of the conversion. If you think converting from one currency to another is tough, we had 5 currencies in play. 100 Sri Lankan Rupees is about 75 cents, USA. However, I live in Bahrain, where a Bahraini Dinar is about $2.62 USD. The Irish guy was using the Euro, but he and his girlfriend both lived in Kuwait which has a different dinar, worth over $3 USD.
So, basically it was like this for the first 2 or 3 days:
And they were more than happy to do so...
There is a lot of discussion about the Sri Lanka way of doing things. In SL, they usually have two prices. The local price, and the tourist price. Now, this is true in most vacation spots, but in SL it is actually government sanctioned. There are temples and sites you visit that directly have the price for each on the board. Is this right? I can't say if it is "right" or not - I know that a dollar will go a lot farther for a local Sri Lankan than it will for me, but charging double, triple, and even more to unsuspecting tourists? I can't say I completely agree. I saw a tuk tuk driver charge 3000 rupees to take some girls to the Galle Fort, which I just paid 200 to get back from, (and 200 is way more than local price).
By the end of the trip I was fairly adept at negotiating. I knew I was paying too much, but that was fine because I know a little bit of money for me means a lot for them. But I would also walk away from a ride or a deal if it was blatant gouging of the price. I am a tourist, not a sucker.
That being said I paid way too much for the white linen shirt with these blue elephants on it. SO GOOD. I may be a little bit of a sucker...
However, it was December 20th at this point....and what happened next was akin to this:
IN THEIR DEFENSE, Sri Lankan Rain only lasted for 7 days...
The first full day in Kandy it started raining. We didn't know it wouldn't stop, but we were determined to at least do some cultural stuff. So first we visited the Bahiravokanda Vihara Buddha Statue, the one I mentioned in the picture from Slightly Chilled.
It was torrential rain, and this quickly soaked us. But I bought an umbrella and some things from the little shop, made faces at the kid wrapping my copper etching and pretended I was Charlie Chaplin with my new umbrella. On a clear day, you can climb up into the 80-some foot tall Buddha and see the view, but the guide suggested it was too slippery and the fog meant the view wasn't going to be there. So I snapped a few pictures and we headed out.
It was really impressive, and if I go back it is definitely on my "to climb into the head of a giant white Buddha and look at the view"-do list.
The rain was intense, and we headed back early instead of doing the other little things on our itinerary. One member of our little group was already starting to grumble about not wanting to do things if it was going to rain, but our spirits were still high and we returned home to get some food and some drinks and catch up to the time change.
The next day, believe it or not, was even more rainy. But, we had a driver for one more day so we asked to go to the Ancient City of Sigiriya. Now, this place looked amazing - It was a city built atop this GIANT rock in the middle of the forest. The climb, the old ruins, the artwork on the walls, it was all going to be amazing!
I mean, look at this place!
Look at the view coming up the walkway as you approach!
Amazing, right!?
Well, for us, it looked like this:
See it? Here, lemme zoom in for ya...
There it is!
Now, do NOT get me wrong - I was all set and really excited about the climb - not everyone was but we all went. Yeah the clouds were in the way, but it kind of made the site more mysterious and you couldn't see as many other tourists. I do wish I had been able to see the place in sunny weather. May have to return one day....
The steps, like most places in Sri Lanka, were lined with people offering rides and guides and umbrellas and you name it. If they can get money for it, they will hawk it in Sri Lanka. There was even a snake charmer on the way off the mountain. The rain meant for the most part you had to keep your eyes down - small steps and the other people made it a little tricky and falling would have been a bad thing.
So, we climb.
We pass the rock garden. Boulders that were placed by the hands of man and carved in what seemed to be impossible steps.
And we climb. We pass the mirror wall - an incredibly smooth wall they used to cover with beeswax to make it shine.
And we climb. We pass a section where you can climb straight up to see a shallow cave they somehow painted murals in...
There were so many boobies...
And we finally reach the main level. A huge lion statue used to house the path to the top, (I was led to believe) but now all that remains is its giant paw:
Claw paw
But the next part really excited me...
You had to climb the last bit to the top - and lets just say these steps were a bit more...vertical...
They go up. And down. Was fun meeting someone coming the other way.
Now, once again don't get me wrong. Kids and older people were climbing this stuff...and I didn't come all the way here to stop now. The other three retreated into a small hut while I went the last way up. The best part was, about halfway up the stairs it stopped raining. Turns out - we were actually in the rain cloud...
The view was obscured at first, but it immediately began to clear when I reached the top, and I am very thankful for that...
I GUESS it is okay...if you're into this kind of stuff...
I spent maybe 20 minutes atop the mountain. Walking around the ruins and watching the clouds pass beneath me. It was pretty epic. And while, yes, I do wish it had been clear, it seemed like the trip up and the way it cleared just as I got there was enough reward for me to be 100% satisfied with the trek.
I worked my way back down the steps and caught up with the other three, and we started the walk back down the mountain.
They even had a couple little friends to help see you safely down the steps...
All in all it was a great start to the trip. We were having fun and going out and seeing stuff and I was soaking up all the sights and history I could. We had another 2 days in Kandy which would take us to the Botanical Gardens, to the Cultural Dance Show, some fire walking and fire eating, and even watching an elephant poop on the bed of a truck.
But, you will have to wait...
A real cliffhanger, I know!
I'LL SELL YOU THE WHOLE SEAT BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EEEDDDGGGEEEE!!!
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