Sri Lanka: Tea, Elephants, and Curry

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sunset at little Adam's peak

Sri Lanka was my choice for “must visit” country.  Honestly, I didn’t know much about it, but several trusted friends with vastly varying perspectives all had gone and loved it.  As my grandfather used to say great minds do think alike- and so do ours- so thanks to Mary, Katie, David and Franziska for the inspiration.  Sri Lanka has many of the highlights of our previous adventures—beaches, wildlife, hiking, culture, temples—all packed into one fantastic country.

At the turtle rescue

Sri Lanka is the island to the SE of India although there were several similarities to the other places we had just been in Asia, it definitely had a different feel in the look and dress of the people (more influence from India than China) and the taste of the food (full of different spices; the main dish is rice served with a half dozen different curries).  We arrived in Colombo at 1am.  Some lessons we have learned about arriving into a new country so late/early are that it’s worth it to hire a hotel transfer ahead of time and that you need to triple check (because double checking apparently doesn’t cut it) your plane and hotel reservations to make sure the dates line up. We almost arrived on the wrong day and thus we have endless accolades for the super-fast responding customer service team at Star Alliance who were able to change our around the world plane ticket yet again based on a mistake in our planning.

Galle fort

We started our 15-day journey with a drive down the west coast, where we stopped at a sea turtle rescue site where they pay fishermen to turn in eggs and keep the babies for a few days to (hypothetically) give them a better chance of surviving. Although there is some debate on if these projects are helpful, it seems like any chance is better than the eggs ending up in soup.  And wow are baby sea turtles surprisingly cute and endearing (see video).  On the coast we could also still witness the devastating aftermath of the 2004 Boxer Day Tsunami, which killed over 30,000 people (almost twice the population of Golden) and displaced over 1.2 million.   They say the animals at low lying Yala national park went to higher ground before the Tsunami hit because they somehow knew it was coming.  Now Sri Lankan has lots of new construction and better Tsunami warning alarms.      

We enjoyed our time “relaxing” on the beach getting creamed by the gorgeous turquoise waves at Unawatuna (most of the Sri Lankan city names are really fun to say.)  We also walked around stunning Galle fort, a relic from the Portuguese and later Dutch colonization in the 16^th - 18^th centuries.  And we stayed at a guest house where the food was awesome.  Sri Lanka had some of the best food and service of everywhere we’ve been. Next it was inland past rice fields with farmers who looked like they were training for the X-games (see video) to Udawalawe (told you on the names) national park where we saw lots of amazing animals—including water buffalo, peacocks (they’re as abundant as squirrels in our neighborhood in CO, but a lot cooler see video), beautiful parrots, bee catcher birds and tons of Asian elephants.  Asian elephants are quite a bit smaller than African elephants (fun fact, Asian elephant’s ears are shaped like India, and African elephant ears are shaped like Africa) but that didn’t stop them from completely freaking us out when one trumpeted and charged the jeep.  After a few more charges, we figured out that the male elephants were likely intimidated by Xander, in all his hormone-laden teen glory.

New friends on the train

Next we traveled up to Ella, a green and relatively cool (heat waves shattered all-time records in SE Asia while we were there) oasis where we enjoyed some gorgeous hikes up to Little Adams Peak and Ella Rock--  although I busted up my knee falling after tripping over a stray dog (yes, I’m a very talented hiker), the views were (almost) worth it.  We took a slow scenic train ride from Ella to Nuwara Eliya through the terraced tea fields-- at first we were a little frustrated because we didn’t end up with seats (we lost the mad tourist scramble) but we ended up sitting several carriages back with a friendly and rowdy group of Sri Lankans who insisted on sharing their unrecognized fruits and snacks with us, and played drums, sang and danced for the entire 2.5 hour trip (see video).   It was awesome, and the kids weren’t even (that) uncomfortable.  Hooray for random travel experiences!

Word's End

From Nuwara Eliya we took a white knuckle drive up through Horton Plains National Park and hiked to World’s End-  a sheer ~2800ft precipice that drops off into the lush Sri Lankan countryside.  We saw cool rocks, some monkeys and lots of selfie-stick wielding Chinese people.  Selfie sticks and selfie stick sellers are the most common thing we have seen across the world.

The following day a highlight was touring a tea plantation (Sri Lanka was named “Ceylon” until the 1970s and the founder of Lipton tea bought tea plantations and sourced all of his tea from Sri Lanka) and learning about the different processing steps and tea qualities.  Ladies pick all the tea leaves by hand and turn in their daily work of 15-20kg bags of leaves to the factory to be processed by drying and crushing machinery from the 1940s.  Another fun fact- green tea is made from the same leaves as black tea, but doesn’t go through the fermentation step.   We also wound our way down to Kandy where we arrived at a great airbandb villa where the hosts surprised Liam with a beautiful birthday cake for his 11^th birthday.  That night we also had a lovely birthday party at our driver’s sister’s family’s house-- complete with hats, cake and homemade rice and curry.  In Sri Lanka the tradition is that the mother gets the first piece of birthday cake because she brought the child into the world.  I was digging that a lot more than Liam.  Sadly, the patriarch of the family had had a stroke the week before, so couldn’t walk or talk when we visited. It was very heartwarming and heartbreaking to see how much his daughter respected and loved him.  She literally bowed down to him before she left. Made me miss my dad a whole lot.  We felt very honored to be there.

Temple of the Tooth

In Kandy we visited the Temple of the Tooth relic- a Buddist temple that, as the name indicates, houses the tooth of the Buddah, which was smuggled into Sri Lanka in a Princess’ hair around 300AD.  We were there for the ceremony with the monks playing instruments and chanting (see video) and stood in line with the worshipers holding fragrant flowers as offerings to catch a quick glimpse of the gold container holding the tooth that is only on visible for a short time each day.  The tooth is Sri Lanka’s most valuable treasure and one of the worlds most sacred Buddhist artifacts.  Babies are brought into the temple to be blessed when they are three months old.  It was neat to see a bunch of families with tiny babies on their special day.   Later that day, at the recommendation of our airbandb hosts, we went to a local monastery for some reason we didn’t quite comprehend at the time, but we’re always up for doing what locals say.  We arrived to find our hosts feeding about 100 10-15 year old monks (all in bright orange with shaved heads)-- Turns out families volunteer to feed the monks once or twice a year and our timing was serendipitous.  We got to join for lunch and get blessed by a monk to boot (hence the white string all of us are wearing around our wrists).  During our time we learned a lot about Buddhism and the strengths of the local communities; our driver, for example, started every day by thinking “who can I help today?”.

On our drive to our next stop in Dambulla, we stopped at a Hindu temple covered with colorful statues of hundreds of different gods.  Our driver told us that during the 30 year (!) civil war, Tamil Tigers used to hide among the gods on the temple and shoot people and aircraft.  We also visited several amazing rock cave Buddhist temples. In Dambulla we stayed at a funky chalet out in the rainforest complete with frogs in the bathrooms, a super friendly steward who made/served us breakfast and dinner (!) and an incredible thunder and lightning storm that knocked out the power for the night.  

Highlights from our last few days in the country included climbing the 1000+ steps (ok, maybe the arriving more than the climbing) up Sigiriya rock past frescos and huge stone lion paws to arrive at the flat top summit with ruins from a palace from 500AD, touring Polonnaruwa (an enormous temple/royal complex from when the area was the capital around 1000AD), going on a safari where we got to stand up in the back of a safari jeep and hold on tight while we four-wheeled throughout the forest and spied elephants and their babies in the high grass, and eating a rice and curry meal with our driver and his family in their home.

Almost at the top of Sigiriya rock

After a 35+ hour marathon trip to Rome (completing our around the world plane trip from Rome to Rome), we’ve been back in Europe finishing up the trip abroad with London and Paris.  We’ve only been back in the “first world” less than two weeks, and we miss the exotic sights, sounds, and tastes of Asia—although it’s quite a luxury to be able to drink the water from the tap.

Hanging out the elephants

Senses:

Carolyn: Gasping as the sri lankan teen dives off the high rock into the shallow reefs in the colorful coral dotted aquamarine waters beyond the Galle fort; the surprising sound of the elephant trumpeting as it rushed out of the jungle toward our jeep, stopping about 10 feet away but leaving all of our hearts racing; stepping back from the heat of the fire as the flamboyant Kandy dancer spins by in front of me with his flaming torches; the black granite striping the stone carving of the gigantic reclining Buddha as the rain patters down on us at the mystical 1500 year old Gal Vihara site

Jim: The hundreds of baby turtles swimming frantically in the turtle sanctuary as they grow a little before being released to the wild; increasing their survival rate from 2% to 20%; the happy people traveling to Colombo singing, dancing and playing drums, adding to the dramatic scenery and a wonderful Sri Lankan memory; the clouds slowly creeping up the mountain valley at the worlds end adding to our perfect view of the jungle and river below; enjoying a relaxing morning with a cup of milk tea watching the flocks of birds fly from Kandy lake to the countryside for their daily feedings; the explosive taste of wild Sri Lankan ginger root filling my mouth only to be subdued by the sweet taste of cinnamon tree bark.

Xander: The slanted Galle fort walls sloping down into the colorful reef on the southern coast of Sri Lanka; the blue  and peacock green peacock feathers hanging down from the droopy leafed tree as the sun sets into the Sri Lankan horizon; the distant thunder clouds suddenly having a bright golden glow as lightning flickers in the dark sky above Ella; the  golden case of Buddha’s tooth glowing with a powerful aura as the local crowds shove us out of the line for closer look at the scared tooth case

Liam: The newborn turtle's hard shelled belly squirming about in my hand at the turtle hatchery on the drive down the coast to Unawatuna; the splay of undulating green and blue peacock feathers framing the peacock's slender body as all of the peahens come over to admire him; the surprising sight of dad's pale white butt cheek shaking as the dramatic masseuse vigorously massages it; the miniscule water drops pounding at my legs as we twist turn and accelerate through the Nuwara Eliya lake on my first jet ski ride; my fart's smell overwhelming  me as I squat in the old palace column  hiding from xander as we play hide and seek in the Polonnaruwa citadel ruins

Cambodia: Temples, Gods and Terrors

Cambodia Photo Highlight Album

We were in Cambodia less than a week but it was incredible and educational for its amazing history and monuments—both ancient and more recent.  And it was really, really hot.

Royal palace in Phenom Penh

Tracey went home (boo) and we took a bus across the border from Vietnam to Cambodia—pretty straightforward, especially since Jim figured out how to get the visa in advance.  Sort of like when we went from Germany into France, we could immediately tell we were in another country.  A Cambodian guide we had told us that his country is about 50 years behind Vietnam, and that made sense.  We arrived in the capital of Phenom Penh during the last few days of Khmer New Year when everyone goes back to their villages, so we had the unique experience of seeing the place surprisingly deserted and shut down.  After the frantic streets of Ho Chi Minh, it was a nice change to be able to walk across the street without fearing (too much) for our lives.   

Gas for sale

We took several tuk tuks around town, and liked that the ones in Cambodia are different than those that we saw in Thailand and Ethiopia—in Cambodia they’re a motorbike pulling a cart with four seats.   When I asked someone if we could fit us and all of our backpacks into a tuk tuk at the bus station, I was told that 10+ Cambodians ride in these.  Of course, most Cambodians are the size of Liam, but we did fine. 

In Phnom Penh we toured the gorgeous royal palace where the king lives, including the silver pagoda whose entire floor is made of silver.  The floor made a very loud ringing noise when Xander accidentally knocked over a pole onto it.  It houses several treasures including a 90kg gold Buddha covered in almost 10,000 diamonds! It also has an elephant hitching post and a door up really high where the king used to board his elephant. 

When we were in Phnom Penh, Xander, Jim and I went to tour the Tuol Sleg Genocide museum, formerly the notorious S-21 prison and interrogation center from the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-1979.  We had watched “The Killing Fields” the night before, and Liam decided he didn’t want to go.  Xander didn’t want to either but decided that he “should witness it.” Heartbreaking does not begin to describe the horror that that people of Cambodia went through.  It’s estimated that around 20,000 prisoners were processed through that prison alone; there were 7 known survivors.  Interrogations would continue until prisoners “confessed” – but if the guard didn’t get a confession, they would end up in prison themselves. 

S-21 prison rules

The Khmer Rouge (or the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia) came to power aided by the Northern Vietnamese, the Chinese, and debatably by the chaos caused by the carpet bombing of Cambodia by the US during the Vietnam war.  The Khmer Rouge isolated the country from all things foreign, closed all schools, hospitals, and factories and abolished banking and finance, outlawed religion, confiscated all private property and relocated people from urban areas to collective farms.  Teachers, merchants, and almost the entire intellectual elite (and anyone who wore glasses, because it was a sign of intellectualism) were murdered.  The Yale University Genocide program estimates that 1.7 million (a conservative number)  Cambodians (over 20 percent of the population) died. After Pol Pot and his regime were ousted by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1979, he and the Khmer Rouge continued to fight until his death in 1998.  Surprisingly, a coalition government including the Khmer Rouge was the government recognized by the UN during the 80s and 90s.  

It blows the mind to consider the far reaching implications – imagine all the baby boomer teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and business men and women you know in US gone? And their children?  For example, while we were in Phenom Phen we met up with a lovely family that are both pediatricians working for NGOs in Phenom Penh.  They said there is severe lack of Cambodian doctors trained in west in Phenom Penh (the biggest city in the country).  Crazy.

Bayon temple

From Phenom Penh we took a short flight to Siem Reap and switched places with all of the tens of thousands of locals who were heading back from the new year.  Serendipitous (and inadvertent) timing.  We had an incredible 3 day tour in Angkor UNESCO archaeological heritage site, which contains the magnificent remains of the Khmer empire (9^th to 14^th century).  Temples and other ruins are everywhere—including the famous temples of Angkor Thom (of tomb raider fame), and Angor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world.  Walking through the ancient temples with the intricate carvings, tree roots climbing down the crumbling walls, and huge Buddha faces serenely smiling down on us was enchanting.  Our guide taught us all sorts of fascinating facts about the history and mythology of both Buddhism and Hinduism—much of which was displayed in incredible bas-relief murals that stretched hundreds of feet around the walls.  We also one of our best question and answer exchanges from our trip with him:

Market goodies

Jim asks our guide at the moat of Angkor Wat as we look down at fish and turtles swimming in the water: “Have you ever eaten turtle?”

Guide: “Yes, it is delicious, especially the organs.  But now it is banned because they are going extinct.”

Jim shares a picture of the market in Phnom Penh with baskets of turtles and snakes for sale as food from a few days prior…

Despite the 100+ degree heat, we all loved touring the different sites—enough that we went back to Angkor Thom for a second visit the last day.  The heat was tempered by staying in a beautiful place with a great pool.

Now we’re in Sri Lanka (the tear shaped island off the SE coast of India) on our last (!) round the world ticket stop before we end up back in Rome.  The current plan is a week in both London and Paris then back to the states for a month long western national park tour in June.  Anyone want to join us at the Grand Canyon?  It’s easier to get to that SE Asia…

Senses:

Liam: The hot hair drier like wind rushing past me as we putter through the deserted street of Phnom Penh in search of our hidden Airbandb; the glittery diamond eyes of the Buddha staring back at me as I gaze at its 90kg diamond-encrusted gold body in the 6 ton silver pagoda in the Royal Palace in Phenom Penh; the multitude of peaceful Buddha faces surrounding me as I walk through the Bayon temple in the ancient city of Angkor Thom; the incredibly intricately carved domed towers coming together to make the famous scene of the amazing Angor Wat as I walk past its front gate

Xander: The fear and sadness of the S-21 prison from Khmer Rouge regime still reverberating out from the stone cells and walls; the roots of trees snaking around the abandoned Buddhist temple squeezing and crumbling its stone Khmer empire architecture at Ta Prohm; The five curved towers of Angkor Wat framed by the burning sky looming over the crowds of tourists and myths intricately carved into its stone walls; The golden sun's rays illuminating the many faces of the Buddha in a golden panoramic as the sun starts to set outside Siem Reap

Carolyn: The painful red bumps and blisters on my stomach and back itching madly as I wonder if I've caught a horrible disease to ultimately realize it’s just a nasty case of heat rash; the haunting stares of the ghosts of men women and children boring into me from the rows and rows of black and white photos adorning the walls at the gut-wrenching Toul Sleng prison genocide museum; the multitude of serene  giant Buddha heads at Bayon Temple mysteriously smiling down on the intricate bas-relief wall carvings that tell stories of ancient times in the Khmer empire; the afternoon light illuminating the many faces of the Bayon temple Buddhas as we have the site to ourselves in the afternoon sun

Jim: The curving letters of the ancient language carved into the stone monoliths in the National Museum reflecting the deep history of Cambodia; the sadness of the S21 prison and the tremendous loss of life during the Pol Pot years and the shocking knowledge that he lived until 1998 in Cambodia without being held accountable for his terror; the silvery shine of the bark of the banyon tree growing on top of the temple in Angkor Thom providing inspiration to treasure hunters and archeologists about the wealth of this sight; the red sandstone carved into detailed stories of the creation of the universe from Hindu/Buddhism religions.