anuradhapura & colombo

i convinced shannon to head to anuradhapura - another unesco heritage site with a wide range of ruins to visit. we arrived in early afternoon so we only visited one site on 1st day - jaya sri maha bodhi which is the oldest living planted tree in the world, dating back to 288 BC! to visit the tree, we had to walk barefoot over excruciatingly hot concrete, burning the bottoms of our feet!  we headed back to our hotel for a swim and then out to dinner which cost $7.00 AUD for both of us and was shannon's favourite of the entire trip! 

we organised a tuk-tuk driver to take us on a tour of all the sites and we had him arrive early in themorning as it gets super hot! we visited most of the ruins of ancient sri lankan civilisations which date back to the 4th century BC but this time we were smart and brought a pair of socks to protect our little feet :)  we also brought my sarong for shannon to wear as some of the temples require covered knees.

we booked a luxury bus from anuradhapura to colombo which, according to the ticket they emailed to us, left from the train station. our tuk-tuk driver and the ticket sales guy knew nothing about this bus so we had them call for us to confirm. we were advised the bus was coming (it was already late) and we were advised to wait in front of the station which we did. 45 mins later, shannon tried to call the driver himself as he still hadn't arrived to collect us. we started walking towards the main road when a tuk-tuk driver stopped us and asked us to get it, he'd take us to the bus. it turns out the bus stop was actually about 700m down the road from the station (a right and left turn away from the train station) which we never would've found on our own. the driver was grumpy with us for delaying him and we were grumpy for not being where the ticket said he was supposed to be...  the drive to colombo was otherwise uneventful :) 

we stayed in an upmarket place in colombo near the lake for our last night in sri lanka. the next day we went shopping (i bought some fabric to make a work dress and a jump suit) and shannon bought some presents for the kids. we then spent the last of our sri lankan rupees on a fancy dinner and dessert before heading back to the hotel for a shower and then we headed off to the airport for our midnight flight back to melbourne.      

the northeast coast - trinco

our night bus wasn't horrible - it was dark & air conditioned - however arriving in trincomalee at 5:15am made the next day super weary and long! we had breakfast at the bus station, saw some spotted deer and then headed to the beach area to find a hotel. we spent the day swimming and relaxing at the beach and then in the late afternoon, we headed into town to a temple set on the edge of a cliff which provided some beautiful sunset shots.

the next morning we were up early for our whale watching 'safari'. i was surprised by the number of motorboats considering we're traveling during 'shoulder season'. as soon as a pod of dolphins would surface, 20+ boats would surround them, trying to get as close as possible to the pod. i felt sorry for them and it made me reflect on the interference we were creating (and possibly had created on our land safaris too) and the impact(s) on them and their behaviour.

about 20 mins and many dolphin pods later, we were rewarded with a whale sighting which was pretty cool, particularly since it was within a couple of meters of the boat when it surfaced. we were also lucky enough to see some baby dolphins and some dolphins doing acrobatics (flips and spins)! 

we headed back to the beach, hurried back to the hotel to get our bathers on and snarf down breakfast before we headed off to pigeon island to do some snorkeling. we were a bit surprised to see a snorkeling course set up, packed with snorkeling westerners. it was a bit disappointing to see and when we started snorkeling, we were further disappointed with the visibility and lack of sea life due to over-snorkeling. that said, we did get to see a small shark and a couple of sea turtles which was great!

the following day we went scuba diving which was much better, likely because not everyone does it :)  we saw a couple of different types of moray eels, heaps of fish and the coolest thing was getting to swim in a cave filled with fish. we were both pleased with the scuba diving.     

heading south to the beach :)

we organised a taxi for the morning as the bus connections meant it'd take us more than twice the time in a car to get to udawalawee and we wanted to get there in early afternoon so we could safari in late afternoon. considering the town is close to the national park, we were surprised how hard it was to find somewhere to eat and somewhere to book a safari. 

we managed to fill our bellies with some delicious curries and then head to udawalawee national park where we were fortunate enough to see a range of animals including heaps more elephants, water buffalo, crocodiles, a range of birds and a jungle cat which are quite elusive and hard to spot.

the next morning, the owner of our hotel waited at the side of the road with us to ensure we caught the correct bus to mirissa which was super sweet!  mirissa is a beach town along the southern coast of sri lanka and we spent a couple of days soaking up the sun and the surf and boogie boarding. we also got to see the stilt fisherman early in the morning.

from there, we headed over to galle and stayed in the old fort which was built by the portugese in the 16th century and then enhanced by the dutch. the architecture isn't anything like anywhere else in sri lanka and we quite enjoyed the change of scenery. after exploring galle, we headed to hikkadewa to go snorkeling via scooter however it's the wrong season for snorkeling on the south coast so after a swim, we made a sudden decision to head north to trincomalee. we hurried back to galle, bought tickets on a train & night bus and then hurriedly checked out of our hotel.
 

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the highlands

jetlag can sometimes be a blessing - we were awake at 5am the next morning and i suggested to hubby that we get a tuk-tuk to the train station and inquire about reserved seats to ella (they hadn't had any when we arrived) as it's a 7 hour train journey and i wasn't keen for a repeat of our trip to kandy. we hesitantly approached the ticket booth and were advised they had first class reserved seats with A/C - we were ecstatic! 

the train journey is spectacular as it meanders through tea plantations and small hamlets, slowing climbing higher into the highlands. we'd envisioned taking pictures from the train windows however it wasn't possible as the windows were filthy! 

we arrived in ella and had a wander around.  it's a cute little town filled with tons of tourists surrounded by tea plantations and gorgeous hillside views. while in ella, we walked to rawana falls - an 80m waterfall, saw heaps of monkeys and visited horton's plain national park. the park is 2hrs from ella and we went to see world's end and little world's end which provide some dramatic views of the canyon. finally, we walked to nine arches bridge, which unsurprisingly is a bridge with nine arches, tons of tourists and
some pretty photo opportunities. 

     

sigiriya & elephants galore!!

we booked a driver for the next morning to drive us to sigiriya which is an ancient rock fortress, known as lion rock about 3 hours drive north. it's an example of ancient urban planning and i was particularly impressed with the engineering - it's no small feat building a palace on the top of a 200m high rock. we toured the gardens and then headed up past the mirror wall to the top of the rock where the palace was constructed. there were some gorgeous views of the water & terraced gardens. it was also superbly hot and humid in the sun - we were both pretty happy to come down and get into some shade.

we had a quick lunch and then we were off on an unplanned safari adventure to minneriya national park to see elephants. our taxi showed us some pictures on his phone and i was hooked being a lover of elephants. we saw tons of elephants in the park - they come from the surrounding area for the lake in the center of the national park in the dry season.

one of the viewing spots had more than 40 elephants hanging out together and having a snack until the bull elephant decided it was time to head to the lake. unfortunately for him, many of the safari jeeps were blocking his way. he asked politely a couple of times by trumpeting and running close to the jeeps however when they didn't move, he charged seriously, knocking the jeep behind us onto 2 wheels temporarily (our jeep drove away quickly before he had a chance to attack us). once they were able to pass, everyone meandered towards the watering hole and the jeeps headed out of the park.

it was a full-on day as we didn't reach kandy until 8:30pm that evening. we had a quick bite and then rolled ourselves into bed utterly exhausted due to the jet lag! 

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sri lankan adventures

we were a bit more organised with our trip this year, meaning we had a rough itinerary planned and nothing but our first night's accommodation booked!  i much prefer traveling this way however it does stress poor husband a bit :) 

we landed in colombo expecting to find someone with a sign with our names on it who would take us to the hotel however no one arrived so we organised a taxi ourselves - the joys of arriving at midnight in a strange country! 

we were exhausted but with the time difference, we were up at 3am the next morning so we wandered over to the train station to get tickets to kandy on the morning train. they only had 2nd class unreserved tickets and we both thought optimistically, how bad can it be?! the number of people of the platform was an indication of the adventure we were about to embark on but truly, it was just a taste :) the train pulled in and we had to push and shove our way onto the train (some of the locals jumped aboard while it was slowing down, something we were incapable of doing with our heavy bags). once on the train, it was standing room only for 3+ hours to kandy with more people boarding at almost every stop - we could never figure out how we fit more people in as it always felt jammed before and we still managed to fit more. everyone was surprisingly polite, patient or apologetic as they stepped on your toes which impressed me immensely.  i giggled the most at the woman who boarded with 5 kids - 3 of whom plunked themselves on my backpack as it was the only spare space and the random sellers who pushed their way through the throngs of people... such a challenging work environment! 

we arrived in kandy pretty exhausted from the trip and wandered around a bit before having an early dinner. we tried so hard to stay awake until 8pm to get ourselves on the right time zone.      

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