After another large breakfast, including a pancake covered
in Banana’s, we packed up and headed for the Ella train Station.
Day 1 – Religion Pay’s but who’s Buying? (only ‘the
foreigners’)
The journey to Kandy was 6 ½ hours, so we didn’t think we
would rough it in 3rd class when a £3 ticket got us 2nd
class tickets. The train was more modern
than we anticipated, but it’s was very slow as the 6 ½ hours to you 168 Km, not
exactly the bullet train! However the
scenery round the mountains was stunning and it gave us time to catch up with
the blog (Dad would love this train journey). The Owner of the guest house we
stayed us packed us off with sandwiches for the journey and some veg rotti’s so
we were all set.
We arrived in Kandy around 4pm and promptly got a tuk-tuk to
our digs for the next two nights, quite an interesting place above a bakery, so
we should be good for a midnight snack.
Room was the first we have staying with Air Condition and the first hot
water we have had for a while – needless to say our shower routines will take
longer whilst in Kandy.
Anyway, we were informed by some fellow travellers that a
ceremony takes place every day at 6.30 in the Temple of the Tooth Relic. Apparently they have one of Buddha’s teeth in
the temple and for ½ an hour they let the worshipers and the general public
view it. As we thought it was about time
we did something cultural again we went along.
Bloody Hell, £ 10 each (the equivalent of 1 night’s lodgings in
Unawatuna) to see one of Buddha’s mankey molars and a few more shekel’s for
someone to look after our shoes!!
Having
begrudgingly coughed up we then looked around the temple where there were some
traditional drummers laying down a beat, which got increasingly more frantic as
tooth-time approached. In front of the
locked chamber that held the relic all the devotee’s brought floral tributes and
placed them on tables in front of the shrine.
Eventually everyone got in long queue’s (although the Buddhist monks get
preferential treatment and can jump the queue – more on them later!), and we
were shuffled very quickly past was may or may not have been a tooth, hard to
tell when you only get a two second look.
Not that impressive or enlightening, so you won’t see me donning an
orange bedsheet anytime soon!
We then decided to un-culturalise ourselves by catching up
with our friend Mr Lion Beer before getting yet another early night (strangely
streets of Kandy are dead by 9.30), I don’t think we have been in bed any later
than 11.00 on this trip so far.
Day 2 – BIG ROCK!
The next morning after the luxury of long hot showers, we
decided we should really go and see Sigiriya Rock (It’s the one you see on
anything advertising Sri Lanka), especially as our guest house could arrange
the trip. We arranged the driver through
the guest house and headed off around 10.30, which meant we arrived at Sigiriya
Rock at around 1.00pm (which is not the ideal time to climb the rock – in 90
degree heat!)
Sigiriya Rock is basically a mountain palace/fort complex,
where the rulers of Sri Lanka , governed the country from the early AD centuries , but there is evidence
this place was inhabited BC.
The gardens in the internal moat area’s are very peaceful
and serene and the view of the rock is quite stunning. The only worrying thing for me was the large
signs warning you ‘to stay still and quiet during any hornet attack’ and ‘beware of hornet nests in the lion’s paw entrance’ , I
can only just about deal with wasps now since my childhood trauma, so I can’t
imagine myself keeping calm under hornet attack!!
With that said we still pressed on to scale the rock, I say
scale but there are stairs – a lot of stairs!
About a 5th of the way up we are already starting to
struggle, Shelley because of the chesty cold we both have, me more likely
because I’m unfit! After climbing numerous steps about half way up there was
some spiral staircases that we though were taking us to the top, unfortunately
we were wrong as this was a detour to see some ancient painting on the rock
wall, these were impressive but the gloss was taken off when we realised we had
to go back down to the previous level before climbing to the top.
We took a breather at the Lion Paw entrance, which
fortunately had no evidence of hornet nests (most probably too hot for them!)
before heading for the top. Once you
arrive at the top you have a spectacular view of the countryside and mountains
and people with very red faces and sweat filled clothing!
The decent was a lot easier although slightly unnerving as
Shelley is not exactly a mountain goat!
On the way down there are monkey’s and obligatory locals hawking ‘magic
boxes’ and carved goods. Once you get to
the ‘foreigners parking area’ there are some very opportunistic cold drinks
vendors offering you a cold sprite for triple the price you would normally pay
for them.
We then headed off for the Balladuwa Cave’s, stopping for a
quick refreshment on route. These caves are a large religious complex that hold
numerous Buddha statues. What we didn’t realise
was that it meant another steep climb to the top of a hill to see them. Just as we set off we got caught in an
almighty downfall, fortunately the local police on site let us shelter in their
hut with them whilst it passed. Once we got to the top, we had a look round
but the caves were not how we expected them to be, instead of a large cave
system, it was more like small caves all along the side of a rock face, which
did contain hundreds of Buddha statues, which was quite impressive.
After the cave’s we decided that as we had spent a good 7
hours touristy stuff that we would like to have some food and drinks and chill
out, which was appropriate as we made our way to ‘The Slightly Chilled Bar’! The bar had some great staff (Viraj, Madusha
& Dilshan) who ended up chatting to
us all night, Viraj gave us some useful information on how to get to our
final destination in Sri Lanka, Nemgombo as that was his home town. Viraj was
returning on the Saturday to play his first Deep House DJ set, which he invited
us to, but unfortunately we would be in Katmandu by then. Anyway I think all these guys are facebook
friends of Shelley’s now, so hopefully we will find out how his DJ set went.
Day 3 – Negumbo
We left Kandy the next morning via a quick Tuk-Tuk ride to
the bus station and then was able to get to get a direct bus to Negumbo (4
Hours). Our breakfast, bought on the bus
from one of the many people that get on and off the bus’s selling their wares, consisted
of some deep fried doughnutty vegetable things and a chunk of fried Daal. The journey was pretty uneventful, apart from
Shelley’s ½ hour coughing fit (we still can’t shift these colds despite all the
healthy/spicy foods we have eaten), we were however glad to get to our destination
as we are now already bored with bus’s.
Our accommodation in Negumbo was very nice, it even had a
little pool (which we didn’t have time to use), and because we were getting up
at stupid’O Clock to get to the airport so would not be having breakfast, the
manager offered to give us lunch instead, which was fish curry, yams and rice.
Negumbo itself was quite nice, a stretch of beach and a street
of bars and restaurants. Either a useful
starting or ending destination for your trip as it is only 8 miles from the
airport. I think that’s the main reason
for the tourists in this area as they were either heavily tanned or very
white. We had our last few Lion Beers in
a bar then went for dinner.
The restaurant was the poshest looking restaurant that we
had been to in Sri Lanka, with a carp pond running through it, artwoks on the
wall’s and a sax player in the corner.
We thought we would treat
ourselves as it was our last night in Sri Lanka and we had some money to
get rid of before we left. The food was
actually the best we had in Sri Lanka, both of us going for Creamy/Spicy prawn curry’s , which
came served in coconut shells. Just
towards the end of our meals Sri Lanka thought it would give us a final goodbye
by the way of a fantastic Thunder & Lightening Storm with a monsoon
downpour, which was very impressive.
After the storm had subsided we headed off for home only to
realise halfway down the road that we had left a bag at the restaurant (Glenn
not Shelley), so had to go back for it.
As we did not want to do the walk again we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk for our return
to the hotel, which was fortunate as the lane to the hotel was pretty much
flooded, so saved us having to cart soggy shoes to our next destination.
Up early (3.30am) tomorrow, to catch our flights to Ka ka ka
Katmandu!
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