Topic started by lks (@ ezp2.library.uq.edu.au) on Tue Jul 2 01:14:24 .
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http://www.flysrilankanairlines.co.uk/uk-consumer/

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• From: lks (@ ezp2.library.uq.edu.au) on: Tue Jul 2 01:19:38
  
  
  Whatever you do, you have to have a look at this:
  
  http://www.aitkenspenceholidays.com/kandalama/index.htm
  
  Beautiful!
  
  
• From: lks (@ ezp2.library.uq.edu.au) on: Tue Jul 2 02:02:52
  
  Jenny and Karl's Excellent Adventure
  
  Tea and Test Matches
  
  It seems a mail about our recent "holiday" in Sri Lanka is long overdue - apologies!
  
  We were dismayed to learn that our flight from Trivandrum to Colombo would only take 45 minutes. Will that be enough time for the in-flight food? Because isn't that the point of flying? To have red wine with your breakfast? Otherwise you may as well swim to Sri Lanka! But Air Lanka came up trumps with the "veg or non-veg" inquiry within minutes of take off. Phew!
  
  
  On first impressions, Sri Lanka appeared as India's richer cleaner cousin. There was no rubbish on the ground, but instead receptacles called "bins" which people used; there were even garbage trucks (which took us a while to recognise) which came to empty these. How sophisticated! We stared for a few minutes at the first lawn and pruned shrubs we'd seen in months. It soon became clear that someone was in charge in Sri Lanka, unlike in India where it feels like a "free for all". What a very welcome change!
  
  
  While queuing at customs we realised that we had picked up the Indian head wiggle and couldn't stop it! It took us a few days to train our selves to nod for yes, shake head left to right for no, and shrug shoulders for "I don't know" (whereas in India, a head wiggle sufficed for all of the above).
  
  
  We went straight from the airport to Kandy, not wishing to spend any time stopping in Colombo where the threat of a bomb is very real (for example, over 80 killed in the '96 Trade Centre bomb). For any one unfamiliar (as I was prior to our visit) with the current Sri Lankan political "situation" (as Mr. Adams would say), let me summarise (Just in case anyone is as in the dark as an unnameable relation who thought the Tamil Tigers were a football team):
  
  
  About three-quarters of the island's population are Sinhalese (i.e. "indigenous" Sri Lankans) and about a fifth are Tamils, a group of people originating in South India. (The rest of the population is Muslim/Christian etc). Of these Tamils, some arrived over 1000 years ago and some were brought from India by the British in the 19th century to work on the tea plantations in the hills. The Sinhalese speak Sinhala and are predominantly Buddhist, the Tamils speak Tamil and are Hindu. To over simplify it completely, the Tamils have been a bit put out by the fact that the official language since Sri Lankan independence from Britain in 1948 is Sinhala and the government is embracing Buddhism. They are demanding their own state. The concentration of the Tamil rebellion, lead by the Tamil tigers (the guerrillas, not the football team) has been in the north and east, with some high profile attacks in Colombo and also one in Kandy in '98. The north of the island is apparently unsafe, but the south, west and centre are as safe as visiting Cork, Galway or Longford during the troubles. (Or is it ever totally safe to visit Longford?? :-))
  
  
  Lesson over! On arrival in Kandy, Sri Lanka's second largest city and the capital of the hill country, we were met by the town's one and only tout; an old guy we kept meeting but obviously forgot us each time, because everywhere we said we were going it turned out that he worked there and he could sell us the tickets directly. Wasn't that nice! But we were still in Indian "superbitch" mode and didn't fall for any of it. We made our own way to our guesthouse and settled in for a delicious SL chicken curry.
  
  
  We were already starting to notice the differences to India and they became more apparent as we spent more time. The people are gentler and don't seem as "out to get you" as the Indians. There is a caste system in place, but not nearly as strong as in Hindu India where if you're born into a certain level, you're doomed no matter what you do to better yourself (in this life that is), an as non-Hindus we were beyond redemption. After a while we realised that India had been quite an effort and that Sri Lanka was going to be a piece of cake. Everyone was just so nice that we had to work on softening up.
  
  
  The food in Sri Lanka turned out to be a lovely surprise. I hadn't heard anything about it before and assumed it would be a poor imitation of Indian dishes. Not so. The Sri Lankan curry has a very unique taste and a meal usually consists of rice and 6 or 7 curries in bottomless servings. The curries are made from whatever the chef can lay their hands on - lentils, jackfruit, ladyfingers and even banana. Coconut always featured strongly. We washed all of this down with a few fresh slices of pineapple. We didn't have one bad meal in Sri Lanka and each dinner felt like a treat.
  
  
  As a traveller, the guest house experience differed from everywhere else we'd been so far. Until now we'd stayed in mostly characterless box-rooms in sprawling cheap hotels. In SL, you stay in someone's home - very like an Irish B&B, but with a romantic mozzie-net covered bed. Most of the time you eat at the house you're staying in, so you enjoy home cooked food at a dining table with real cutlery - oh, the luxury! And all this for great value as the rupee plummeted in January. Sri Lanka turned out to be our cheapest country yet.
  
  
  We based ourselves in Kandy for the first few days. At 500m altitude we finally got relief from the sticky humid air of south India and were delighted to have to wear socks on our first night. The town is attractive with a lake as a centrepiece and lush green hills surrounding on top of one of which sits a huge Buddha observing all below.
  
  
  Right beside the lake is the temple of the tooth, which contains SL's most important Buddhist relic - the sacred tooth of the Buddha. It is said that the tooth was plucked from the Buddha's funeral pyre, two and a half thousand years ago, and has been moved from place to place since, until it found it's home in Kandy 200 years ago. Reading the story of the tooth's turbulent history we felt the tooth was unlikely to really be that of the Buddha and were on the look-out for a swollen-jawed monk near the temple. But in any case we didn't actually get to see a tooth, but a golden casket said to contain a series of smaller and smaller caskets and eventually the tooth itself.
  
  
  Also on the grounds of the temple of the tooth (which incidentally was the site of the '98 Tamil Tiger suicide bomber attack) one can view the stuffed remains of Maligawa Tusker, which for some reason we thought was an ex prime minister. We got quite a shock when it turned out to be an 83-year-old elephant who used to head the town's elephant parades. Doh!
  
  
  We made a day trip from Kandy to Pinnewala elephant orphanage, one and a half hours away by local bus. The local buses seemed to be even fuller than in India, which we didn't mind, but we just couldn't get used to the policy that the first two rows were reserved for Buddhist monks. So while we stood and the bus made its torturous route through the hills, four teenage monks took up the front seats. Even when one got off, I couldn't sit as women can't sit beside a monk! I decided by the end of it that the baby elephants had better be as small as kittens to justify this journey.
  
  
  Unfortunately, they were slightly bigger than that, but very worth the trip. The orphanage is government run and saves abandoned and orphaned wild elephants. Some have been there so long that they've had their own babies. The youngest we saw was 3 months old and up to our hips! They were roaming around freely and visitors could walk up to one and pat it's head and at feeding time we even got to give one "toddler" its milk bottle. We then watched them march down to the river where they had a good bathe. Very cute! As it was Valentines Day, on returning to Kandy we treated ourselves to a slap up meal, which included Sri Lankan brewed Guinness - which has an 8% alcohol content!
  
  
  Another day we went north from Kandy to get a taste of the ancient cities. This area is known as the cultural triangle and you could spend a week touring the 1000-year-old cities, ruins and ancient sites. We chose to visit Sigiriya, a magnificent rock fortress which was built one and a half thousand years ago. It is spectacular. A huge rock with sheer walls rises 200m on top of which was built a fortress which seems to have been more a palace, judging by the foundations which remain. There's even a penthouse swimming pool! It took a few hours to climb, really taking our time to appreciate the beautiful water gardens at the base. About half way up is a cave containing frescoes of Sigiriya damsels and then just before the final steep ascent to the summit you pass between huge lion paws carved into the rock. At one time the stairs led straight up through the lion's mouth, but only his paws remain today. It really is an amazing place, imagine being the English archaeologist who stumbled on to it after 1000 years of desertion!
  
  
  On the way back to Kandy we visited cave temple s in Dambulla. These five caves contain carvings of Buddha (the largest of which is a 15m long reclining Buddha), frescoed ceilings and gilded interiors. They're beautifully peaceful inside while playful monkeys run riot outside. A lovely place.
  
  
  After four days in and around Kandy, we turned south and further in to the hills, which make up the centre of SL. It took a few hours (standing) on a bus to reach Dalhousie, but the journey was made easier as we were entertained by an elderly monk trying on travellers sunglasses - wraparounds and Jackie O-style. Dalhousie is a small town, which we stopped at only because it is at the base of Adam's peak - a 2224m mountain onto which Adam was supposed to first set foot on earth after being cast out of heaven. Apart from the thousands of local pilgrims, the trek up this hill is usually done by travellers at night, and timed so one arrives at the summit for sunrise.
  
  
  When we arrived at our guesthouse there was "no room at the inn", but we were given some floor we could call bed for a few hours before making our moonlit ascent. Happy with this (free) arrangement, we enjoyed a gorgeous dinner with several other travellers (many of whom we spent the next few weeks with), discussing if the rain would clear and if we should get up if it didn't. We got to sleep at midnight. The alarm woke us dark and early at one thirty! The clouds had cleared and the stars were visible when we set off at 2am (Dammit, I was quite looking forward to a walk in the rain after all this time).
  
  
  The 7km path to the summit is lit all the way and from the bottom looks like a stairway to heaven as it just gets steeper and steeper and it looks practically vertical at the top (which turned out not to be too far from the truth). We walked with friends from the evening before and it took us 4 hours stopping along the way at stalls for water. The path was very full. We couldn't get over the amount of very old and very young people going up and down; some on a barefoot pilgrimage.
  
  
  We were told that the top of the peak had a strange "Tardis" effect i.e. so many people go up (up to 20,000 on full moon nights) but they all seem to fit at the top. That was bollox! For the last half-hour on the steps up we were stuck in a human traffic jam and when we eventually got to the top we could barely move with the crowds around us.
  
  
  The first thing to do at the top was to see the footprint in the rock which depending on your religion is said to be that of Adam or St. Thomas or Buddha or Lord Shiva. Either way we queued (or squashed towards it) for 20 minutes to see a meter long imprint which was not totally un-footlike, but didn't convince me. We then sat waiting for the sunrise which on a good morning casts a perfect triangular shadow of Adams Peak over clouds below. Unfortunately on the morning of our visit there were clouds both above and below us so we didn't get to see the shadow but we did see some nice colours in the clouds as the sun came up.
  
  
  It took us 2 hours to go down, suffering at the end from jelly legs (or "Nepal Knees"). We jumped into the shower, stuffed ourselves with a huge breakfast and lay down for a well-deserved rest. From Dalhousie we took the train to Haputale. Once again we found that trains were the only way to travel. The train stations in the SL hills are like quaint British ones, no where near as hectic as Indian stations. And the trains pass through some absolutely beautiful countryside - rolling hills covered with tea plants and ladies picking the glossy tea leaves.
  
  
  Haputale is a small town at the edge of the hill country surrounded by tea estates and endowed with breathtaking views of the lowlands. We were lucky to find a great guesthouse run by the lovely Mrs. Daniels and stayed three days. It's very easy going in Haputale and we spent our days walking through the hills, along the rail tracks or out to local places of interest.
  
  
  On a Sunday we visited a Benedictine Monastery which was a planters house built as a replica of his own 19th century Yorkshire home. It's a splendid old house and we had a tour around the libraries before buying passion fruit jam at the monastery's produce shop which we enjoyed the next day at breakfast. Our host Mrs. Daniels was a wonderful cook and we sampled some of our best meals with her while watching her two new playful kittens play on the rug. Haputale was like a real holiday!
  
  
  One morning Karl woke up and decided "That's it, the day has come, the razors coming out". As you might notice from the photos, he had grown a bit of a schmig in India, but had started feeling a little unsure about it (especially when, in a restaurant in South India a waiter complimented K saying "Sir, you hab a berry beautiful moustache - like an Indian!").So when the Sri Lankan waiters started saying it was lovely, K's face got the baby's bum treatment.
  
  
  That day we walked 11 km out of town around the hills and tea field to Lipton's Estate and visited a factory built by Sir Thomas Lipton in 1890. The management here welcome visitors and we were given a full tour and saw how the tea was picked, dried, rolled, sieved and graded and even got to taste the end product (albeit a cold bitter sample in a quality control lab). It was all very interesting. Of course, the tea grown in the Lipton Estate does not necessarily become Lipton tea as we know it, but is auctioned off once a week in Colombo to different companies who use their leaves in a blend.
  
  
  On the way back to town we hitched a lift (quite safe) with some friendly locals (not so safe!). Whenever we hit an almost level bit of road, which might possible be called an incline, the driver turned the engine off and freewheeled - at one point doing so for about 3kms. We thought it was meanness but it turns he was running out of petrol, as we conked out two minutes later. But (never fear) our companion in the back seat leaned forward and transferred a tube (obviously feeding the engine) from the empty gallon canister to another full one at his feet (cigarette in mouth). After a few turnovers of the engine we were off again. Very surreal. We just looked out the window and prayed for no explosion.
  
  
  After Haputale we spent 2 days in Ella, our last stop in the hill country. Here we did some lovely walks to caves, waterfalls and "little Adam's Peak", which was a small hill supposedly similar to Adam's Peak in shape. We met some young fellas on the way up who stayed with us and acted as guides, pointing out such points of local interest as "tea" and "hills". They really were invaluable fountains of knowledge.
  
  
  Five hours away by air-conditioned bus (no train line!) we arrived at the south-west beach of Unawatuna, a beautiful stretch of beach. We spent a week here but apart from a few evening swims we stayed off the beach; this wasn't sunbathing time, it was CRICKET TIME!. 6km from Unawatuna is the historical town of Galle, which during our visit was hosting the first test of England's cricket tour of Sri Lanka. Prior to this we had no knowledge of and less interest in cricket; we wouldn't know an over from our undies. All I knew of the game was what the (excruciatingly boring) coverage sounded like on a Sunday afternoon when Dad watches it and we read the Sunday Times.
  
  
  But in Unawatuna we stayed in the same guesthouse as friends we'd met at Adam's Peak - Stuart, Martin and Annemarie, who all planned on joining the Barmy Army (England's globetrotting "mad" cricket fans) to support Hussain and the crew in Galle. They assured us that the cricket would be very exciting and well worth seeing. So for 3 of the 5 test days we sat in the 20p seats (a grassy knoll) trying to follow or get a bit enthused about the whole thing. Not a chance! The "Barmy Army" weren't particularly barmy even when England were batting. I begin to grasp the idea of the game after a while (well its just posh rounders isn't it??), but Karl was a lost cause. At one point he asked "Are Pakistan winning?"! I had to point out to him that Pakistan weren't actually playing.
  
  
  Each evening Stuart, Martin and Annemarie would explain enthusiastically "If England get in, we need 45 runs to get to such a point and then it'll be exciting!!" And then they'd insist each night that the following day was "Crucial" for England and couldn't possibly be missed! We spent the test on the grassy knoll under an umbrella reading, eating ice cream and drinking cold beer. Not a bad way to spend a few days. Every now and then we'd hear clapping and look up and remember that there was cricket going on. At times we took breaks and walked around the beautiful old fort of Galle, which has European influences of the usual suspects; Portuguese, Dutch and British. From the top of the fort walls there was a superb view over the cricket oval.
  
  
  In the evenings we retired to our porch to analyse the day's play over some Lion Beers and curry and place bets with each other over the rate of daily growth of the giant bamboos in the garden. I found myself being more excited about the outcome of the bamboo race than that of the cricket. In the end it was bad news for England, Sri Lanka were the victors. The English did go a bit barmy, shouting about "atrocious umpiring", but I couldn't see how England could win in that heat. (England has since gone on to win the second test in cooler Kandy).
  
  
  On our final night in Unawatuna, we were invited (the 5 of us) to the home of Bandulla, our rickshaw driver, who we'd hired for 5 days to take us to Galle. His wife and her family cooked up a fabulous spread and then (as is the Sri Lankan custom) stood back in the door of the room and watched us eat! It was delicious and very, very spicy, which showed us how much the other houses had been toning down the curries for us foreigners!
  
  
  We can't leave Unawatuna without mentioning my favourite meal of the trip so far (I'm still dreaming about it). For breakfast each morning, our hostess Mrs. Silva would whip us up string hoppers (noodle patties), dahl (lentil curry) and pol sambol (minced coconut and chillies) on our porch with a cup of Sri Lankan tea. Absolute heaven!
  
  
  We flew from Colombo to Bangkok and Air Lanka did a fantastic job again; the best economy flight in the world, …ever!! The new airbus 330 had individual LCD displays, game consoles and credit card phones in each seat. I thought Karl would explode with excitement!
  
  
  Before Sri Lanka was called Ceylon, the Muslim traders called it "Serendib", from which we get the word serendipity - happening upon something surprisingly good unexpectedly. This is exactly what Sri Lanka was for us. I thought it would have been an extension of our Indian experience, but it turned out to be totally different and in fact our favourite country so far. If anyone's wondering what to do with their 3-week holiday this year - go to Sri Lanka; for the people, the scenery and the food. You definitely won't be disappointed!
  
  
  
  Keep her country and have a great Paddy's Day,
  
  
  J and K
  
  
  P.S. We don't work for the Sri Lankan tourist board. No really!
  
  
• From: sharmila rajah (@ ) on: Wed Apr 2 12:28:57
  
  Hi there,
  
  I enjoyed reading your article. my husband and I leave for Sri Lanka this weekend and can't wait to experience the beauty. Could you be so kind as to email us the adds of the guesthouses you stayed at..we would love to experience the Sri Lankan hospitality. thanks so much
  
  
• From: sharmila rajah (@ ) on: Wed Apr 2 12:29:07
  
  Hi there,
  
  I enjoyed reading your article. my husband and I leave for Sri Lanka this weekend and can't wait to experience the beauty. Could you be so kind as to email us the adds of the guesthouses you stayed at..we would love to experience the Sri Lankan hospitality. thanks so much
  
  

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