We are back in Hong Kong after 10 days in tropical Sri Lanka!! We had been looking forward to this trip for so long, I can't believe it is already over! I had been hoping that after the crazy travel and meeting schedule I had had in October and November that there would be a long, slow downhill to Christmas, but it was more like full throttle until the day before we left, and then coming to a screeching halt as we got onto the plane. Regardless, it was a nice time to sign off of e-mail and Facebook for a few days, and just rest and recharge our batteries. We needed it!!
Flights going West from Asia are all at pretty crappy times. I'm not sure what the logic is behind that. You leave at a crappy time, and you arrive at a crappy time, so I'm not sure where the advantage is... anyways, we left Hong Kong around 8pm, connected via Mumbai/Bombay, and got in to Colombo, the former capital of Sri Lanka, at about 4am local time. Our driver, Jayantha, who was with us for the entire week, picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel, where we crashed for about 3 hours before going out to see the city.
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| This is what we woke up to - a view of the old legislative building and the ocean - gorgeous!! |
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| In most places I have visited, you have a Bible in your bedside table. At this hotel, there was a book about Buddhism, the New Testament, and the Quran - I thought this was a good illustration of the blending they have in society. |
Just for a little background, Sri Lanka is mostly Buddhist - about 80% of their population practices that faith, with the remainder being Hindu (it is very close to India), Muslim, and even some Christians (Sri Lanka was a Portuguese, then Dutch, then British colony). Despite being an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, it was one of the most open-minded places we have been. Jayantha told us that his family used to celebrate Christmas even though they were Buddhist, because "they had some neighbors who were Christian". It was just a very well-blended place.
It wasn't always this way... and not all people are this open and accepting. Sri Lanka just ended a civil war that had gone on for thirty years in their country. It was not really a religious war, but a lot of people will say that. You may have heard of the "Tamil Tigers"? This was a minority group in Sri Lanka trying to fight for their independence. About three years ago, their leader was taken out, and it seems that the peace will stay. However, for this reason, we think, the tourism industry was not really that big until just recently. Not a ton of people want to go as a tourist to a place in the middle of a civil war. So, since they are just really starting up, there are a lot of things that we take for granted in other places that are not a given in Sri Lanka. Such as... getting a cup of coffee in the morning... or getting fresh towels the first time you call for them... or having your bottle of wine delivered to your table before you finish your meal. You know... things like that. I will say that we are extremely spoiled, so perhaps our definition of "reality" is getting a bit warped. But, as far as recommending going to Sri Lanka or not, I would recommend going for sure - but maybe in 5 years when they have a few more things ironed out. Oh, and a few more highways built... there is currently only one highway in Sri Lanka, and it is only 100km (~60 miles) long. So, getting anywhere is on tiny country roads, and max speed is maybe 50kph (~30mph).
Anyways, back to the trip...
We spent the first day in Colombo, just doing a short tour with Jayantha, and then exploring on our own a bit as well. That was one thing we really liked about this trip - we were free to walk around, and didn't feel like we were in any danger at all.
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| We stopped by a Buddhist Temple on the lake - just gorgeous |
Our second day, we were up early so we could get on the road to go to the elephant orphanage. I learned that morning not to ever ask in Sri Lanka how far away something is, because the estimate is always wrong! Traffic is insane on these country roads, and a one hour trip can take as little as one hour, or as much as four. For this planner, that was a little frustrating... but it was still nice to look out the window and see all the beauty that was around us. Sri Lanka is such a green, green country - it is gorgeous! And, it is SO CLEAN. Being so close to India, it's hard not to compare everything, and this was one area that Sri Lanka won hands down. There was hardly a scrap of litter anywhere, whereas in India I couldn't really find a place where there wasn't trash!! :)
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| We visited Pinnawalla Elephant Orphanage, where there were about 40 elephants all taking a bath in the river when we arrived! Fun to watch! |
After the elephants, we made our way to our hotel, which was another several hours. It had been raining so much that the main road was flooded, and we had to drive across this scary bridge that was only really made for tuk-tuks and motorcycles. We thankfully made it across!!
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| Not for the faint of heart |
Spending Christmas in Sri Lanka was kind of entertaining... every place we stayed at had their own interpretation of what Christmas was supposed to look like, and all of it made me giggle.
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| This was our tree on Christmas eve - not quite sure what it was made out of... |
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| This was the kind of scary Santa at our last hotel... he is lasso-ing flying saucers. That was a new, and kind of creepy, one for us! |
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| We did manage to find a place to hang our stockings though... :) |
On Christmas Day, we went to Sigiriya, which was a kingdom built on the top of a huge rock around 500AD. It actually means "Lion's Rock", because the King thought it looked like a lion and even built lion's feet and a head for it. I have to admit, I was not in a great mood this day. It was hot, there were lots of people and bugs, and, I finally put my finger on it at the end of the day - I was kind of melancholy about not being home on Christmas. Brian and I had a talk about this later in the day, and we decided that even if we aren't in the States, we will at least stay in Hong Kong for Christmas so we can have a real celebration. Christmas was always such a special day for me growing up that going sightseeing in a tropical location just made me kind of sad. So, there you have it...
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| Brian with the Lion's Rock behind him |
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| Some of the frescos on the wall at Sigiriya |
The next day, we made our way to Kandy, which was the site of the last kingdom of Sri Lanka before it became a British colony. In Kandy, there is the Temple of the Tooth, which houses one of the most sacred relics in the Buddhist faith - the tooth of the Buddha. We went to the temple at night, and it was just gorgeous with all of the lights on. The doors to the room where the tooth is kept are opened three times a day during the time when the meal offering is made, and we just happened to be there for the evening offering, which involved a lot of drums, and a lot of tourists!
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| Temple of the Tooth |
In Kandy, we also got to see some traditional Sri Lankan Ddancing and fire walking. It was so cool to get to see all of the beautiful costumes.
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| These dancers were awesome! They did all kinds of backflips on the stage! |
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| And then there was the fire dancing/walking! Crazy! |
For our last part of our holiday, we just wanted to relax, so we went to a resort on the West Coast of Sri Lanka. It was nice to just hang out by the pool for a few days. There was plenty of people watching this year (similar to last year), as this resort was also full of Russians. They provided a lot of entertainment for us. :) For New Year's Eve, the resort put on a kind of strange show... all of the servers were sort of dressed like astronauts, and they built a big rocket ship. We were kind of creeped out by the whole thing, to be honest, but you can't say they didn't try. Brian and I made it just barely to midnight, and then went to bed about five minutes later.
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| Greetings, Earthlings! |
Our last day, we had to check out, but our flight wasn't until 9pm, so we went to Galle, which is on the Southern tip of Sri Lanka. Our tour book had made a big deal about seeing the stilt fisherman while in Sri Lanka, and I was excited to do so... turns out, most of the fishermen just use nets now, so the art of stilt fishing is dying... our driver found one guy on a stilt, however, he had just done it for us since we were tourists and we had to pay him. Not exactly the picturesque scene our book had made it out to be. I'd definitely cross this off the list if you are thinking of going to Sri Lanka.
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| The lone stilt fisherman |
Finally, we got to the airport, and made our flight to Mumbai without a hitch. It was on our flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong that things got a bit dicey. We had boarded the plane on time, when an announcement came on that security needed to check the flight manifest one more time before we could be cleared to take off. Then, another announcement came on that three people needed to present themselves to the onboard staff. Three people that I had been watching earlier and thinking "why do these people look so shady?" got off of the flight. Then, security boarded our plane and started asking everyone what bags belonged to them. By this point, I was completely freaked out and thinking that I wanted to get off of the plane. Eventually, at around 3:30 in the morning (we were supposed to take off at 1:50), they made an announcement that 12 people had been on the flight with fake passports, and one had been caught at security and ratted the others out. I do not think that they were terrorists, just people trying to get out of their country and start a life somewhere else. Still... it totally freaked me out. There was unfortunately scheduled runway maintenance then, so we were not able to take off until after 4am... needless to say, we were wrecked when we got home and have been still trying to get into a normal sleep schedule since then.
I have to say, I know this whole post has a bit of a negative slant to it, and I'm normally not a negative person... so I apologize for that, but I do try to write the truth. All and all, the trip was fantastic, because Brian and I got to spend 10 amazing days together. But, as for being totally relaxed and recharged, well, I'm not sure if that mission was accomplished. Would we go back? Maybe... but, not for another 5 years at least. There are too many other places we have been that "get" the tourism thing that I wouldn't want to go back to a place where you have to practically launch a flare to get a cup of coffee in the morning.
For now, we have a couple of days back in Hong Kong before we go back to work, so I am thankful for that. The year will be already off to a busy start with a lot of travel for both of us in the first quarter. Our next trip for fun will be at Chinese New Year, when we will be going to Singapore and Cambodia. I'm already looking forward! :)
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| Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Olivers!! :) |
