So now we step back in time to when I first started my trip on September 11th 2015 leaving Heathrow airport for the island of Sri Lanka.
I can not even begin to describe how bloody nervous I was! I mean don't get me wrong the excitement was there but as it drew nearer fear started to kick in! Especially having Sri Lanka as my first country, it was so unknown to me. I had read, watched documentaries about India but knew nothing about the complete separate island south of it, only small information I had researched on the Internet.
However to make life easier this was where I was to meet Emma, the girl I had travelled Europe with and the girl I hadn't seen for 10 months because she had already been gallivanting around the globe. When we finished interrailing we both had discussed that we absolutely loved traveling together but we could totally rock doing it on our own. Of course it would still be incredible to cross paths with your best friend in an awesome country!
So 10 hour flight, 3 hour taxi journey costing £10 and I arrived at my hostel in Colombo.
The heat was intense, the smells so varied and strong, and I wasn't prepared for how green this island would be, this place really hits your senses!
Colombo
Fruit was the first thing that I tasted in Sri Lanka, the incredibly sour taste of passion fruit, whacked my tongue. I couldn't even really remember what passion fruit tasted of i hadn't had it in so long!
Then there was bananas, half the size of the regular banana you get at home and a thousand times sweeter!
Breakfast done at 4pm! (Time difference and all)
The hostel we stayed at was called Colombo Beach Hostel, so guess what, a 2 minute stroll to the beach, over a live train track which you had to judge pretty well when to cross. A few of the guys that were at the hostel were already there waiting to watch the sunset and well it wasn't a disappointment
Unfortunately that night I struggled with the heat, jet lag and I couldn't see my ankles with how swollen they were! It did take a week or so for me to full adjust to the differences! A lot of funny emotions but I was on top of the world knowing that I was actually doing this trip for real now!
Weligama
2 hour train ride sat inbetween a mother and her son on a 2 seater costing 46p!
1 and a half hour on the loudest colourful buses I have ever been on! These buses were the regular buses we took around Sri Lanka. They love their music so were going to bellow it loud so the whole world could hear, definitely a change to the quiet, reserved buses you get in the UK!
Click below to get an idea of what kind of music we watched and listened to on the buses.
Arrived at Raja's Guesthouse! One thing you need to know about Sri Lanka they only have hostels in Colombo & Kandy, the rest are Guesthouses! If you decide to travel this country, to make it cheaper I would try latch onto people! Weligama was the first time I met Emily (from the UK) & Calle (from Sweden). Emma had met them a few days previously and we all ended up staying together for 3 weeks! We always tried to stay in family rooms to lower the price and tried never to pay more than 1500rupees / £7 altogether.
So back to Weligama, it is a small beach town south of Sri Lanka just below Galle. It one of the surfers paradise in Sri Lanka, and home to the best banana muffin I have ever tasted! All I can say is they love sugar over here, remember me saying how sweet the bananas were already, well they dump a whole load more sugar on top of their cakes. If you love sweet things like me it just melts in your mouth. For Emma it was just too sweet, so I had to eat hers!
This was also the first day that I tasted Sri Lankan curry.
Curry and rice - dhal (lentil) curry non spicy
Side dish of pineapple, lime, tomato, chopped spring onions, ground salt
Side dish of chopped vegetable & potato curry, which had a slight spice to it.
Poppadums - thicker and more of a crunch than back at home, you could tell they had been freshly made.
The combination of sweet and citrus complimented the daal and the kick of the spice, enhanced the flavours, put it all on countless amounts of poppadums and you have the perfect dish! Very happy with my first taste of Sri Lanka.
This was also the place Emma and I tried to surf for the first time, with no instructor...well I basically paid to be beaten up by waves. 90% of the time was spent battling the waves rather than actually riding them! Although I must say the waves were especially tough for a beginner! I think I tallied standing up on the board as twice in 1 hour haha! Ah well there is always Indonesia for that!
Back at Raja's Guesthouse they bought some strong arrack which is a distilled alcoholic drink made from made from either the fermented sap of coconut flowers, sugarcane, grain (e.g. red rice) or fruit, depending upon the country of origin. Sri Lanka have become the largest producer of the coconut arrack. The drink is best mixed with ginger beer. However compliments well with lemonade, Coca-cola or soda water and lime.
And WOW it was strong, especially if it's the first alcoholic beverage you have consumed that day, after the 3rd, 4th glass it definitely softens out, we had it with coca cola & sprite. The night consisted of us dancing and singing Sri Lankan folk songs with the locals who worked / lived at the guesthouse.
Tangalle
Yet another beach paradise, however this time I don't think we could've got any closer to the beach!
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| Lunch time: Fresh fish & Chips slap bang on the beach |
We only had the one night stay here before we headed north for the national park, so we decided to explore the local town. Walking along the seafront we noticed torn down buildings and fishermen sorting out their nets in worn down shacks. This is when we suddenly realised that this place still hadnt fully recovered from the tsunami that hit on Boxing Day 2004. It was so strange to see a town that was so beautiful and quaint that was once ripped apart by this disaster and how after so many years on still hadn't fully recovered. Just shows the mass difference between countries and how some can easily repair from disasters like this and how others have it tougher.
Once back at the guesthouse we asked the owner how life had been in Tangalle since the tsunami. He said that now tourism is picking back up and they have managed to repair a lot but it has taken a long time as their was so much destruction. He then went on to tell us his events of that day in 2004.
Christmas was high season in the south of Sri Lanka so all the hotels and guesthouses were buzzing. He just completed the night shift at his guesthouse and so went to bed. He awoke to water at his feet, he had wondered if it was one of the water tanks that had blown but when he put his hand in the water and tasted it, that's when he realised it was salt water. Managing to get out of his bedroom the first thing he thought was that he wanted to try to get to his parents, he swam to where they lived which was about 200 metres away but then he came face to face with a python and wasn't able to find a way to get past it.
He lost 9 members of family that day. 250 people died per 100 square metre. Not only had he lost his family, his entire guesthouse was destroyed. The whole town was destroyed and he recounted seeing dead bodies everywhere. I asked him how he managed to survive and he said because he was a good swimmer.
I couldn't believe the stories, I mean we all heard about it on the news, but sitting around a table right where it happened and listening to a man who had experienced this. It felt raw and incredibly heartbreaking.
You could tell by looking at the now rebuilt immaculate guesthouse, he had worked hard, as I guess he had no real choice but to pick himself back up and get on with life. Feels so wrong to say that but that's the harsh reality out here.
Dinner time we wandered along to the restaurant of the guy who had shown us the guesthouse in the first place. He was the tallest man we met in Sri Lanka, this may be an odd thing to say but everyone over here is a lot shorter than back at home, so it took us by surprise especially Calle who was 6"1.
The food here was probably the best we had eaten over the time we were in Sri Lanka.
It consisted of (recipes attached):
Fried green beans - Bonchi themparaduwa / Bonchi Thel Dala
And rice of course!
What I learnt with Sri Lankan food is that the curry's are practically the same but each place that we ate at had their own twist on the food so it is hard to determine exactly whether these tastes match the one's in the links I have attached. They like to be spontaneous with their spices and what they mix together in each dish. However you will never be disappointed with the flavours and spices, and because you eat with your hands you can mix all the little dishes together with the rice to make explosive flavours of goodness. Also I am not one for spices but they managed to balance the spices well so it doesn't over power the flavours.
Udawalawe
5am, its time to go to the National Park of Udawalawe! We barely slept, it felt like Christmas knowing that we were going to see elephants!
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| From the left: Me, Calle, Emily & Emma with our jeep |
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| Sunrise |
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| Safari Ride |
And they did not disappoint, because out of the bushes came 4/5 of them, and 1 baby elephant (which unfortunately I couldn't quite grab a picture of as it was hidden behind the bushes and didn't show well in the photo). We learnt that the male elephants wander alone and the female and babies stay in a pack.
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| Male elephant |
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| Female elephants, One teenager, one mother and a baby |
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| Buffalo |
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| Attempted selfie with an elephant |
We then parked by a lake area, and suddenly out of nowhere we heard loud squealing noises, we wondered what it may be, then we saw a stampede of buffalo's on one side of the lake and a baby buffalo on the other side. The baby buffalo looked as if he had been separated from the pack and we clearly had arrived at perfect timing as they had finally found each other. However the river was infested with crocodiles which was stopping them from being reunited. The baby tried to make its way across but by the loud squealing didn't look like he could, so that's when the big buffalo of the pack decided to edge his way into the water, behind followed the mother it seemed and another buffalo. They every so slowly made their way across the deep river, they finally managed to get close enough to the baby buffalo for it to latch onto its mothers tail and be taken back to the other side. As soon as it reached the dry land it went crazy for it's mothers milk. It was incredible, just like we had sat and watched a David Attenborough documentary only a million times better.
Adam’s Peak
Arugam Bay
Ella
After our 5am start at the
safari we then took a 5 hour journey on 2 buses further up the mountain. I was
feeling very tired but not for long when a group of school kids clambered onto
the bus in their bright white uniforms, it baffled me how they manage to keep
them so white when everywhere is dust and dirt. After all were tightly squeezed
on the bus they all dumped their bags on our laps as if it was normal then
would continue to stare at our every move the whole of their journey in
fascination. It was quite comical and sweet to watch their big eyes, their
gawping mouths and sudden roar of laughter.
Sri Lankan buses never close the doors when you get on, they will always
be freely open and a lot of the time people hang out of them. They have no fear,
we all came to the conclusion that across South East Asia , they never
question: What if? They just do it anyway. As the road started to wind up the
big mountain, I suddenly started to feel a little unnerved, as the road began
to thin out and there were no protective barriers just a sheer drop. I do
remember however feeling at ease when we went round one of the bends and were
faced with a stunning cascading waterfall that fell into mist and monkeys
climbing through the ever growing and vibrant green trees, it was as if we had
stepped into jungle life half way up a mountain. The excitement grew as we came
once again into civilisation arriving in Ella.
The sun sets up here were just as beautiful as they were on the
coastline, yet as soon as the sun left there was a definite chill in the air.
Up the next morning to explore the area, we had heard of a famous 9 arch
bridge that you could only reach by foot with the train tracks as your guide. Jumping
from the train station onto the track felt very strange. From how overgrown it
was we didn’t believe that it was active but seeing the locals fixing the
tracks we thought that it must be, soon enough the distant sound of a train
whistle confirmed it and it wasn’t long until it past by us.
We then approached
a tunnel which confirmed to us that once we go through we would be close, felt pretty
nerve racking going through but reaching the other side and finally seeing the
bridge was incredible. The drop was much bigger than I had imagined, and the
greenery had started to grow over the beautiful stoned arches making it appear
even older.
We had heard that if you stand on it whilst a train goes over
it, it begins to shake which for somebody who is terrified of heights I was not
willing to try. I left the others to clamber all over the bridge whilst I
decided to sit in the little café that sat on the edge next to the bridge. This
was where I had my first try of a coconut, I was never too keen on the coconut
water back at home but I knew this would taste different and I wasn’t wrong.
Refreshing, light and flavoursome, not quite the taste of coconut that I was
expecting, but better. I asked the owner of the café if he could cut open the
coconut so I could scrape the jelly substance from inside, which was delicious
and held more flavours.
Nuwara Eliya
Now if you ever get a chance to visit this place, I highly recommend
taking the train it may take you a while to get there, so don’t go by time. However
if you look on google you will see that it has been voted one of the most
scenic train journey’s in the world. The tracks wind up the picturesque green
mountainside, passing cascading waterfalls and crossing over rickety old
bridges, leading up to the land of tea. Along the way you see the tea plantations
grow, until the everywhere is covered with neatly aligned rows vertically going up the mountain and the
ladies collecting the leaves with their big bags. Once we arrived at Nuwara Eliya
we had already put our jumpers and leggings on, the temperature had dropped
even more and the grey clouds of rain appeared.
“Little England
Mackwoods Tea Plantation
The smell of home!
I was very excited about visiting this place, one reason was because I
had been to a winery before and I wanted to see the comparisons and
similarities between both but mainly because a place selling tea and cake?!
This was British heaven!
We had a guided tour from the lady there who gave us an insight into how tea came from the leaf to the final product. The interesting part was that all the different flavours of tea all come from
the same leaf but just the process is different and the flavours are added.
The other interesting factor was the tasting room, back when I worked at
the wine company I was the one who organised the tastings for our Technical
team so seeing the layout for tea brought back memories. It was a lot
clinical than I thought it would be but the layout was basically the same including the spittoon.
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| Rolling of the tea to bring the juices to the surface of the leaf, for about 20-30 minutes |
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| Sifting and refining the tea |
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| Extremely hot oven used to heat the tea to dry the tea out, temperatures starting at 120 Degrees F(50 Degrees C) and is finished off at a temperature of 200 Degrees F (93 Degrees C) to 220 degrees F (105 Degrees C) |
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| Bags of tea ready to be packed |
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| Finished product & CAKE both tasted incredible, Emily, Emma and I were smiling and reminiscing about home whilst drinking away, whereas Calle just couldnt understand this, guess it's just not the same in Sweden. The only difference between the tea drank here and back home was they don't add milk to tea but actually I preferred it. |
Long craziest bus journey to the top, even crazier than the one up to
Ella. Heavy rain, slippery roads so many open narrow bends and dodging other
traffic. Finally we arrived and were guided to a guesthouse by a 80 year old
lady called Brenda. The guesthouse sat on the top of a waterfall and overlooked
Adam’s Peak , one of Sri Lanka
After that eventful journey we decided to reward ourselves with a beer, the popular beer in Sri Lanka is Lion Lager well Lion Stout but I thought I would just go lightly this time round, as the stout is 8.8% ABV. The taste was a bit fruity, malty and very refreshing just what we needed. A nice night cap before an early rise for Adam's Peak.
Woke up at 2am : torch, jumper,
waterproof jacket, trainers, packed lunch, trainers on and we were off. It was pitch
black, rain was falling which meant that we had to be careful of the leeches,
thankfully they weren’t that bad and I managed to flick one off my sock before
it reached my leg. There were no lights going up the steps, just our torches to
guide the way. We were only 50 steps in and I was already starting to feel it
in my bad leg but I was reluctant to let it stop me.
After 2 hours the light still hadn’t appeared and it became very
difficult for us all to not feel exhausted with how tedious the trail was, step
after step with no change. We weren’t alone though, other people also were venturing up to see the sunrise also the street dogs joined us they would be
our guides stopping and starting waiting for us to catch up.
By this point I started to only be able to do one step for both feet at a time,
but I persisted on, just taking my time. I couldn’t have asked for better
people to help me through it than Emma, Emily and Calle, the encouragement was
pretty overwhelming actually and made me more determined than ever to reach the
top. A little time went by when we heard someone mention that we were 1000
steps from the top, we got excited a little but unfortunately these were the
toughest as the steps became uneven and were practically vertical. Thankfully
they had handles to grab onto to make you feel a bit more secure especially in
the dark.
Suddenly we started to hear cheers from other people who had reached the
top and soon enough we were there too. We had successfully made it, now to wait
for the sunrise which felt like a lifetime in the freezing cold wet air.
Munching on our soggy vomit tasting sandwiches the sun finally came up.
Unfortunately, nature wasn’t on our side and the mist had blocked our sunrise,
we were to expect this as it wasn’t the right season to climb this mountain,
but the achievement of reaching the top was enough for me, it was the toughest
challenge I had encountered since my operation 3 years ago and it gave me such
confidence.
So as they say what goes up must come down, now for the decent and what
a decent it was! As we had walked up in the pitch black we had seen the beauty
that lay before us on our way down. If any of you have seen the film Up, it was
exactly like that, the mist fogged our view but every so often it would pass
and the colours of the blue sky, greenery and glistening waterfall would just
appear. It would only last a matter of seconds before the mist would hide it
away again. The whole journey down we kept seeing the most incredible views and
came across temples and buddah statues, we also came across a booth where a
monk was giving blessings to the passers by. We all stopped to receive our
blessing, given an orange mark on our forehead and a bracelet. Even though our
legs were shaking like jelly, the picturesque views made up for it.
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| The decent down the steep steps from the very top |
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| Incredible waterfall view through the mist |
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| Buddist Temple |
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| Top of a waterfall |
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| Man cleaning himself in the shower |
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| Blessing from a monk |
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| Buddha |
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| We came across lots of monkey's on our decent as well |
Kandy & Sigiriya Rock
Arrived late in Kandy, at our first stay in a hostel since we first started in Sri Lanka. On the counter I saw a leaflet for Pizza Hut and that was it, I needed that! I couldn't care less, I was so ready to have a change from rice and curry! I devoured the whole thing!
We were only in Kandy very briefly where we met Phil and decided to all head north to Sigiriya Rock.
3 hour journey to the world heritage site and most visited historic place in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately due to the price of the entrance and being travellers on a budget we decided against climbing the actual rock itself. However there was a rock called Pidurangala Rock which was half the price and overlooked the incredible rock and the surrounding area.
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| The climb up to the top Pidurangala Rock |
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| Snacks under the rock waiting for the thunderstorm to pass |
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| On top of the world |
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| The decent down |
Now back in Kandy after a 3 and a half hour journey packed like sardines on the bus and standing the whole journey we rewarded ourselves with a KFC, once again, no shame.
We then sat on the roof of the hostel and watched the whole sky fill up with hundreds of screaming bats leaving Kandy's Botanical Garden, it happens daily at 5pm, nature is pretty incredible.
Breakfast was included and it consisted of:
Dhal (once again)
Other dishes I tried were:
Kottu - chopped Roti (pancake) and mixed with vegetables, egg, meat & spices, extremely filling and they never went lightly on the portion sizes!
Sri Lankan Omelette - I had this with less spice and more onions which gave it an even sweeter touch, the best omelettes I have ever tasted, they have mastered this very well!
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| SURFERS PARADISE |
There should be a humongous sign at the entrance of this place saying 'Welcome to Relaxation Heaven'. Admittedly this place was full of tourists but the atmosphere was so chilled and comfortable that it didn't even matter. The majority of tourists were from Israel as this was their main holiday resort. We stayed on Cabanas on the beach, eaten alive by mosquitoes and having visits from frogs in the toilet but hey who cared we were on a beautiful beach finishing off an incredible trip!
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| Frogs in the toilet, thought the best solution was to flush them down |
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| Nope, worst decision! |
We spent a good few days here, eating food, hiring a tuk tuk, exploring the beaches nearby and drinking a lot of arrack!
The one food i loved in this place was avocado, the sheer size and flavour of them were incredible. An Israeli restaurant sold avocado, potato, feta cheese and hummus wraps, also chicken schnitzel sandwiches. Both were such a fresh change from the curry & rice.
We also went to another guest house that were doing a buffet curry night. There was dhal, rice and coconut sambol but to our delight added extra of fried potato poppadoms and guacamole, our taste buds lit up as to our surprise it added a kind of coolness to the richness of curry!
On our last night together we were determined that as we were right by the Indian Ocean we were going to go to try the BBQ fish that was being served in the small town.
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1 large white fish for 2 people, 20 shrimps, 1 large tuna, 5 portions of chips and salad each, for £16 altogether so between 5 of us a total of £3.20 EACH! Incredible value for money for the amount we got and also a great way to try fish that I hadn't tried before that normally I wouldn't spend the money back home to try. The shrimps were meaty and had been seasoned well, the white fish and tuna was deliciously cooked, tasted fresh, full of flavour, texture was perfect! We definitely had done ourselves well with that final dish and no rice in site haha!
Now to say farewell to a beautiful green cultured country, that completely took my breath away. Although as a country you eat more rice than humanly possible and live life recklessly you were a place that challenged me in many ways and gave me the biggest confidence to now venture the rest of my trip solo! Thank you Sri Lanka, I will definitely be back to visit and would encourage anyone to venture there!
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| Goodbye to my family for the last 3 weeks, my ARRACK ATTACK TEAM!! What a team we were, definitely a solid group to venture the beauty of Sri Lanka with! Thanks for all the crazy adventures...until next time!!! |
