Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

While in India, we spent most of our time roasting in low-mid 30 degree weather and knew that Bangladesh was going to be even hotter.   Taking a look at our itinerary, we evaluated what it would be like gallivanting in Bangladesh in nearly 40 degree weather and decided that it just wasn’t going to be any fun.  So we looked at a world map, spoke to some people and decided on a couple of alternative destinations.  

Top on our list were Palawan (Philippines) and Sabah (Borneo), but after checking out flight costs, we discovered that getting a flight to the Maldives from Colombo was relatively cheap compared to flying anywhere else in Asia.  Taking into consideration that we were in the area (only an hour flight as opposed to 8-9 hours for the other places) and that the Maldives is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, we decided to cast our backpacks aside, crumple up our trip budget and throw it in the trash (because unfortunately, this kind of beautiful is expensive). 

After our short flight to Males, the capital of Maldives, we take a private speed boat ride from the airport to our resort.   Surrounded by European tourists carrying fancy luggage who are also staying at our resort, I lean over to Vic and whisper “these people must be looking at us and freaking out about what kind of place they are staying in”.  We are still in backpacker mode and are mourning at the thought of leaving Sri Lanka.  Thankfully, that mourning is short lived.

There is something surreal about transitioning from a state of mind of being excited to find toilet paper in your room to stepping off a speed boat onto a beautiful island and having a guy hand you cold towels and a fruity drink.  Luxury seems all the more luxurious.  And for the most finicky of travellers, Maldives does not disappoint.  With its crystal clear turquoise waters, white sandy beaches and abundance of tropical fish, manta rays and dolphins that swim right up to the shore, if this place isn’t paradise, then I don’t know what is. 

                          Passing a group of dolphins while en route to snorkeling site.

Ode to the People

Sigiriya Rock

After our day trip to Sigiriya Rock, we take a 4 hour bus ride the next morning from Dambulla to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.  It is our last day in in this country and we spend the afternoon walking around Colombo and taking in dinner before grabbing drinks at a patio overlooking the ocean at the Galle Fort Hotel.  While listening to waves gently hitting the shore, we end up doing a run through of our entire trip thus far, picking out our personal highlights and least favourite moments.  And while talking about Sri Lanka in general, we both agree that there was one item in particular that deserves an honourable mention.

Sri Lanka is a country with wonderful food and a wide variety of lovely things to do and see, but one thing that was a surprise was just how wonderful the people are.  The people as a whole are kind, friendly and generous in nature and you get a sense that the locals really do want and like to see foreigners in their country.  I can’t count the number of times that a stranger gave up their seat for me on a crowded bus to let Vic and I sit together because we must have looked uncomfortable; or how many times someone would stop and offer us assistance.  Now we can’t say that there aren’t some locals who only see dollar signs when they come across a foreigner, but I think it would be fair to say that that would be expected from any developing country.   

While Sri Lanka was in the running for winning the world cup, the country was alive with people excitedly riding around, honking and waving their Sri Lankan flags.  And when Sri Lanka was defeated by India in the finals, the people we talked to were very uncritical and still very proud of what their team had accomplished.  And so, despite the fact that the country has suffered from a decade of civil discord and devastation from the 2004 tsunami, you have a people who are still remarkably happy and exuberant.   

So with all that being said, that's a wrap for Sri Lanka folks!  Stay tuned for our next destination.  We had a little change in plans.

Happy Wife, Happy Life

Though our calves and legs are still aching from climbing Adam’s Peak, there is no chance to rest due to the hectic schedule planned for the rest of our time in Sri Lanka.  We spend a morning in Kandy walking through its huge botanical garden and an afternoon visiting the Temple of the Tooth, one of the most important Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, as it claims to hold the tooth of the Lord Buddha himself.  And in the evening, we take in a cultural show of Kandilayan dancing.

Botanical Gardens

Temple of the Tooth

Buddhists lighting candles at the temple

Kandy Dancing

After Kandy, we make an early morning start to head north to the small town of Dambulla.   Dambulla in itself is not a particular interesting town, but it is the jump off point to visiting some of Sri Lanka’s ancient attractions.  We end up staying approximately 10 km away from the town, at a small guest house by a nearby lake.  The place was recommended to us by some American travellers that we met way back in Tissa.  After checking into our guest house, we go back to town to do a little more temple hopping.  We start off at the Golden Temple and then take a steep 15 minute hike up a mountain to the Rock Temple, an ancient site home to a series  of cave temples near the summit.  There are 5 cave temples altogether, each one of them housing a collection of standing, reclining and seated Buddha statues carved out of rock as well intricately painted murals decorating its walls.  When we are finished, we eat an early dinner before retiring back to our guest house.  We have an early start for the next day as we are planning on doing a day trip out to visit Sigiriya Rock. 

Inside the Cave Temples

Back at our guest house, we play a game of chess out on our veranda when all of a sudden, the power goes out.  Luckily, we have candles and torches on hand for just such a scenario.  Just moments after rummaging through our packs and lighting our candle, a girl in the distance holding another candle is walking towards us.  It is Sawartha, the daughter-in-law of the owner of the guest house.  She takes a seat beside us and shortly thereafter, her husband comes over to join us and lies in a nearby hammock. 

We start chatting and find out that they, like us, are also newlyweds.  Only how they met and got together could not be more different as their marriage, like many in Sri Lanka (about 50%), is an arranged one.  When we asked about details of how they got together, they tell us the following.  When Ravi felt he was ready to get married, he informed his parents that he wanted a wife and his parents contacted a local town matchmaker to help them look for someone who would be suitable (someone from a “good family” and is a “good girl”).  Meanwhile, at the age of 27 years old, Sawartha’s parents thought it was about time for their daughter to get married and had also contacted the same matchmaker.  The matchmaker, having his little rolodex of boys and girls within the town to match up, eventually made the successful connection and was paid 5,000 rupees (about 50 dollars) from each family, for his efforts.   

Like many arranged marriages, Ravi and Sawartha were not allowed to be alone together until after their wedding day, which for them, was only 3 months after they met.  Up until then, their pre-marital get togethers were always in the company of Ravi’s mother.  I ask Sawartha how married life is, and she gives me a look of mixed emotions.  It is good, she says, her new family is good to her and her new mother treats her like a daughter.  But she misses her own family tremendously and it was difficult to leave her family when in all of her 27 years, she had never even left home for a day.   I sympathize with her and realize in that instant, how difficult it must be for not just Sawartha, but all of the young girls in these arranged marriages who, once married, are suddenly uprooted from everything they know and are left to live forever with a coven of strangers.

On a lighter note, I ask Sawartha how she likes her new hubby and she laughs.  Sawartha has an animated personality and tends to laugh often.  “He is good, I guess,” she says “…..but….he doesn’t keep promises.”  

Now I laugh.  “And what promises does he not keep?” I ask. 

“Well,” she says, “before we get married, he promise he would give me everything I ever wanted and make sure I’m always happy.” 

“And now?” I ask.   

“And now, he’s so lazy!” Sawartha sighs with exasperation.  “The New Year is coming up in only 7 days and he hasn’t bought me anything!  Every New Year I would get new dress, new shoes and some money” Another sigh.   Ravi is still lying in the hammock without much comment.  I turn my gaze to him.

“Did you hear that?” I say.  “Sawartha is not happy.  The New Year is coming up and she has nothing to wear!  Please promise me you will get her a new dress, new shoes and….”, I rub my fingers together with my thumb for emphasis, “…some money.  Remember, happy wife, happy life.”  Ravi looks at me and then slowly nods his head.  I’m not convinced that he understands me, so I slowly repeat myself again.

“Remember.  Happy Wife.  Happy Life.”  Ravi nods again and grins.  Sawartha is ecstatic.

Looking back at him, I can’t say I would put money on this kid coming through with a new dress anytime soon, but I am satisfied I have done all that I can.  It never ceases to amaze me that despite how different people can be in terms of their culture, their customs and their religion, that when you boil it down and let girls be girls and boys be boys, that we are all much more similar than we are different.

The Elephant Orphanage

Our next stop after Adam’s Peak is Kandy, a pretty bustling colonial town centered around a large lovely lake. 

From there, we make a day trip out to one of the most popular tourist attractions in Sri Lanka, the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage.  Pinnewala started out many years ago as a mission to rescue 5 orphaned baby elephants during the war and has, since then, blossomed into a group of over 80 elephants making it the largest group of captive elephants in the world.  Among its many residents is Sami, a 3 legged elephant who, heartbreakingly, lost his leg due to a bomb from a land mine.

Sami the 3 legged elephant, a mother and baby

We take a local bus for an hour drive out to Pinnewala and spend an afternoon watching the elephants eat and bathe.  Of particular interest, are the many adorable baby elephants, some of them who are newborns and only barely come up to our thighs.  Some of them greedily drink milk from their mothers while others drink out of giant baby bottles handheld by people.

But the highlight comes in the afternoon, when all 80 elephants are led down a small road, past shops and restaurants, where they eventually come to a giant lake to wash and bathe.  Vic and I have drinks at a terraced restaurant directly on the lake, as we watch in utter delight as adult elephants shower themselves with water and baby elephants turn somersaults while snorkelling with their snouts up from under the water. 

Here they come!

Happy Bathers!

  

Adam's Peak

Soaring 2243m high above the surrounding hills, Adam’s Peak is one of the most celeb rated places of pilgrimage in Sri Lanka.  It has a curious natural depression at its summit which has been dubbed as the Sacred Footprint by many religions.  The Buddhist story claims that it is the footprint of Buddha himself, Muslims claim that the footprint is that of Adam, Hindus claim that the footprint is created by Shiva and Christians claim it to belong to St. Thomas.  

During the pilgrimage season, thousands of visitors make the climb up Adam’s peak, typically making the climb during the night to catch the awe inspiring views at the breaking of dawn. 

Our guidebooks tells us to allot 4 hours for the climb, but we meet a lot of travellers along the way who have done the climb and say that it can be done in well under 4 hours.  All thoughts I have of a pleasant stroll up the hill, taking relaxing stops at the tea stalls along the way are dashed when, after talking to a number of people, Vic decides he wants to do the climb as quickly as possible.  

We get up at 3 am to start the 7 km climb on the lit and mainly stepped footpath (there are around 5500 steps) up the mountain.  The climb is gruelling, with the last hour essentially being a wall of non-stop stairs, but between seeing elder villagers going up barefoot and mothers making the climb carrying babies, it’s hard to complain. 

3 am

When we finally do make it up to the top in just over 2 hours, panting and out of breath, we find a quiet ledge away from the rest of the people at the side of the mountain and enjoy the views offered by the first sunrise of our trip.  

Ella

Ella is a quaint and tiny colonial village in the hill country in Sri Lanka and it’s our favourite place on our trip thus far.  The climate is cool and perfect and the hill country in general is stunning with its huge rolling hills filled with giant pine trees, waterfalls, steep cliffs and tea plantations.  We are only supposed to spend two nights in Ella but we end up staying for four.  

We start off each day with a big Sri Lankan breakfast (a meal Vic and I are addicted to) consisting of string hoppers (patties made out of noodles), roti, hoppers (sort of a thin roti made with egg), coconut sambol (coconut mixed with onion and various spices), dahl, fish curry and tea/coffee.  We then spend the morning and afternoon trekking and exploring the hill country, climbing up various peaks, cliffs and waterfalls. 

In the evening, we come back for a big traditional dinner consisting of rice and chapatis, accompanied by 5-7 curry and vegetable dishes.

On our last morning, we depart Ella on the cutest tiny toy train, travelling ever so slowly across the beautiful hill country with each little train station we pass reminiscent of what you would you would have pictured to see on a postcard in 1940’s England. 

Transport Fiascos

Taking local transport is one of the fun experiences when backpacking.  Trying to get to point A to B on a rickety bus or tuk tuk while watching your driver weave in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds and witnessing four vehicles passing one another on a two lane road can be quite the adventure in itself.  But that doesn’t mean that the journey isn’t sometimes fraught with difficulty.

On our journey to Tissa from Galle, we have to take two buses, making a change in a small town named Matara.  When we get to Matara, we end up having lunch in a café by the bus station and get directions from a guy in the café who tell us to wait for the bus at the convenience stand across from the bus station.  As we walk towards the stand, a local also gives us the same instructions. 

The guy working at the stand gives us a couple of chairs to sit in and quickly strikes up a conversation with Vic.  He mentions that the buses are unusually slow today because of cricket (locals are driving around, honking horns and waving flags) and that our journey will take us more than four hours. 

There is a Russian trio waiting at the stand with us and Vic points out that the guy who gave us the directions from the café is also helping the trio into a private van.  How nice of him.  But as time passes and the convenience stand guy rattles on about how there might be a problem with our bus, I all of a sudden get a funny feeling about the situation. 

“Something doesn’t feel right.” I say to Vic, and no sooner do the words come out of my mouth does Vic jump up and run to the bus station.  He comes back in less than two minutes and tells me they’ve all lied since the bus we want to catch is waiting at the station.  We hop on the bus and miss getting trapped in a transport scam of getting lured into taxi/van at an exorbitant price.  Instead, we end up in Tissa in the early evening and quickly find a guest house and book a jeep tour to visit Tissa’s major attraction, Yala National Park.

The following day, we have a 4:30 am wakeup call as we hop into a covered jeep to go on a safari to look for leopards, elephants, wild boar and water buffalo, amongst many other animals.  Dawn is apparently the best time to find animals feeding and despite feedback from other travellers who did not witness any leopards, we are lucky to get not one, but three separate leopard sightings.   We have a marvellous morning, spotting more than our fill of different animals in their natural habitat.

We get back at our hotel at just past noon and decide to immediately head off to our next destination, Ella.  We hurry out to the bus station to catch a bus to a small town named Wellawaya, from which we are supposed to catch another bus to Ella.

The bus station is very small, with only a few locals milling around as we end up getting a number of different responses as to when our bus departs.  The first guy we speak to tells us 1 pm, the second guy we see says 1:30 pm and then the last guy says 2 pm.   After some time and a little more confusion, we eventually find out that there are no buses going out to Wellawaya at all. 

Plan B is to take a bus to crossroad named Pannegamuwa Junction, about 5 km west of town, get off at the crossroad and then take another bus to Ella.  When we ask which bus takes us to Pannegamuwa Junction, we get directed to probably the oldest and most run down bus we have seen in Sri Lanka.  We say to the driver “Pannegamuwa Junction?” as we climb in and he quickly nods yes.   I stand near the front of the bus so that we don’t miss getting off at the junction and the driver directs me sit on a metal crate right behind him.  

When we get to a crossroad to what feels like approximately 5 km away from town, I ask the driver if we should get off and he quickly says no.  At that very instant, a flood of over 40 Sri Lankan school kids come onto the bus and as a group of little kids crowd around me in excitement from seeing a foreigner, I get completely distracted.  

After twenty minutes of playing around with the kids, I look up and suddenly realize that we’re on a residential road in the middle of nowhere.  Instead of being along the main highway, we are on a bumpy little road passing by tiny local homes and shops.  I stand up, try to find Vic across the huge sea of schoolchildren and when I do find him, mouth the words “I have no f---ing idea where we are”.  Vic shrugs and gives me his “Oh well” look just before I sit back down.   

As we continuing driving and I see us going further and further into nowhere, I start looking around for potential places to sleep just in case we really do end up getting stranded.  No such luck.  No signs of any sort of guest house or accommodations anywhere.  I take stock of our inventory and resolve that if worst comes to worst, we could sleep outside in our sleeping bags.

What was supposed to be a short 5 minute ride ends up being over two hours before we drop off the crammed school bus full of schoolchildren and locals, hit a main road and finally pull into a small bus station.  Fortunately, when we get off the bus, an ice cream vendor tells us we are two buses away from Ella, our final destination. 

We gratefully buy two ice creams and eventually climb onto those last two buses without further mishap.

You Japon?

There is a conversation that we have at least 10-20 times a day with the locals that is usually a variation of the following:

Vendor: You Japon?
Us: No.
Vendor: Where from?
Us: Canada.
Vendor: Canada? (look of confusion) But you look Japon.
Us: Our parents are Chinese.
Vendor: Ahhhhhhhhh. Chiiiiina. I see. (look of confusion disappears) You wanna buy hat? How much you pay?
Us: No, no thank you No hat today.
Vendor: I give you good price.
Us: No thank you. We already have hat.
Vendor: How about scarf? Best price.
Us: No, no thanks. Don't want to buy anything today.
Vendor: How about fan?
Us: No thank you. No money. (starting to walk away)
Vendor: How about tee shirt?
Us: No.  (walking away)
Vendor: Pants?
Us: (no response)
Vendor: (calling after us) Massage? My sister's shop gives good massage
Us: (still no response)
Vendor: Ok, no problem. You come back tomorrow?

And then we meet Majid. Majid is Iranian born but has been living in Sweden for the past twenty seven years and has also been traveling around Sri Lanka for the past couple of weeks.  While discussing the topic of bargaining with the locals, Majid mentioned how he always gets accommodations for a bargain price by saying that he's from Iran and has no money instead of being from Sweden. 

And so we decided use use his logic to our everyday situation and now our conversations go something like this.

Vendor: You Japon?
Us: No, not Japon
Vendor: Where from?
Us: China.
Vendor: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Chiiiiiina. I see. (pauses for a second). You see hat? Made in China. 
Us: Ah, yes. (feigning recognition)
Vendor: How much in China?
Us: (pausing to look at item). About 50 rupees.
Vendor: I sell for 100.  (smiles)
Us: Yes, China very cheap. (walking out). Have a good day.
Vendor:  Yes, yes, have a good day!

Problem solved!  Now the only question we have is, where do we say we're from when we get to China?