Sri Lanka - December 2016

On Top of Adam's Peak

This year, for our Christmas holiday, we decided to go to Sri Lanka. It was our first trip just the two of us in three years so we were excited to have some alone time. We had bought our tickets while we were still living in Baltimore so our flight left out of DC. It was too expensive to change the ticket so we kept it and bought a round trip from Phoenix to DC arriving in DC the night before so that we did not miss our flight. We worked out of the hotel on the Friday and then flew out that evening on business class as we had bid for an upgrade and got it. The upgrade was worth every penny since we got flat beds for the 12 hour flight to Abu Dhabi and were able to enjoy the lounge prior to our flights.

Accommodations:

Kandalewa Retreat – This is a small and beautiful hotel located about 15 minutes outside of Dambulla on over 100 acres of rice fields. There are only 6 rooms, each an individual chalet surrounding a small lake. There are lots of birds on the property – mostly storks and herons but also a variety of other birds as well. There were also water monitors which Shawna prided herself in finding them. The room was very nice – a large room with a king size bed, hard wood floors, a separate large bathroom, glass doors and windows all around so you have great views of the wildlife . We also had a small deck with a small dipping pool which we never used. For some reason, masses of birds congregated near our room at night so we woke up to an orchestra of birds chirping in the morning. We hardly ever ran into other guests so it was very peaceful – even when we had our meals.  

Room at Kandalewa

Grounds of Kandalewa

Slightly Chilled – This is a guesthouse (slightly nicer than a youth hostel) located in Dalhousie which is near Adam’s Peak. We stayed here one night so that we could get up early to hike Adam’s Peak. The room was basic with 3 single beds and a bathroom but at least it was clean. Dinner and breakfast were included in the rate which is probably the cheapest we’ve spent on a vacation hotel room in a really long time (much to Keith’s dismay)! Dinner was a buffet of curries – quite good actually and breakfast was choice of eggs along with one very thick pancake.

98 Acres Resort – This lovely hotel is located on a hill side in Ella. The rooms are all thatched roof buildings with dark but modern décor inside. Our room was very large with a huge bed (two doubles pushed together to make a super king) and there was a really nice separate bathroom with a rain shower. We also had a nice sized deck that had great views of the surrounding mountains and tea estates. There was no AC but turned out we didn’t need it as it got quite chilly at night here.

Room at 98 Acres

Cape Weligama – This is a beautiful resort of over 30 villas located on a cliff overlooking Weligama Bay. We had a one bedroom villa with a large bedroom, dressing room and bathroom and a porch that overlooked a pool that we shared with two other villas – though we never used this pool as the resort pool that overlooks the ocean is stunning so we spent most of our time there. The room came with a butler but really did not use him much. We also had laundry services included so we had our clothes cleaned every day. The resort has 4 restaurants which we ate at all four.

Villa at Cape Weligama

Hilton Residences – Located in Colombo, this hotel is nice and clean. We stayed here two nights although not all of the second night as our flight left at 2am. It served its purpose which was to keep our luggage and allow us to shower before our flight.

Activities:

Dambulla

Dambulla is near the Ancient Cities of Sri Lanka and thus this part of our trip was the ‘cultural’ leg. While in the area, we saw the following:

• Anuradhapura – This is the original capital of Sri Lanka that was built over 2K years ago. The site currently contains multiple stupas – one being the oldest and the other being the largest in the country. It also contains several ruins where over 10K monks used to study and live. There is a sacred bodhi tree that is over 2K years old (thought to be the oldest in the world) that was brought from India – many people come to say prayers and donate goods to this tree. We rode around the area on bikes which was a nice way of seeing it since many of the sites are set apart from one another. We also had a picnic lunch near one of the places where the monks used to bath.

Stupa at Anuradhapura

Stupa at Anuradhapura

• Sigiriya – Otherwise known as Lions Rock. A king had built a palace around and on top of this flat rock that is 660 feet high. To climb to the top (which we did), you have to hike up over 1200 steps. At the top are the remains of what was once the palace – although some believe it was a monastery instead so we are not quite sure what we saw. It was beautiful though and you could see for miles around the valley. This site was Keith’s favorite of the area.  

Sigiriya

View from on top of Sigiriya

• Dambulla Cave Temples – You have to walk past a cheesy temple and golden Buddha statue but the caves themselves are very cool – over 2K years old. We hiked up a hill and had great views of the valley and could even see Sigiriya from there. There are five caves each containing various forms of Buddha along with paintings on the walls and ceilings. While much of the paint has been refurbished over the years, it has been done in a way that makes it feel still very original. Not surprising there are a few monkeys along the hike up (they seem to know where all of the temples are located) but surprisingly there was not much heckling by people trying to sell you items or tours. This site was Shawna’s favorite of the area.

Dambulla Cave Temples

Buddha inside one of the Dambulla Caves

• Dambulla Market – The commercial vegetable market for the area and quite fascinating to see. There are three main warehouses each with stalls of vendors selling sacks of vegetables of all kinds. Trucks and even tuk tuks were loading up to take them to hotels, restaurants and stores in the area.  

Dambulla Market

Kandy

On our way to Adam’s Peak, we stopped in Kandy to see the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. The temple is located along a really nice lake in the center of town. The security guard would not let Shawna in as she was wearing yoga pants and apparently that is considered to be too ‘hoochie mama’ for the temple. Shawna tried to argue by saying she could pull her shirt down but the woman was not having it. So, Shawna returned to the car and changed into jeans (which were just as tight) and she got in! We got a guide to show us around. The temple itself is quite cool with an inner temple build out of wood and stone which is where they keep the remnants of Buddha’s tooth (or so they say – we think we’ve been to a few of these now that claim to have part of Buddha’s teeth). There are beautiful paintings on the ceilings and intricate carved wood. After the tour, we continued our drive to Adam’s Peak along some windy but beautiful mountain roads.

Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic

Adam’s Peak / Dalhousie

We arrived around 4:30 PM and checked into the guesthouse. We then went for a walk as we needed to stretch our legs after being in the car for over 5 hours. We walked around the small town and saw where we would catch the hike the next morning. Keith bought a fleece for $5 (makes you wonder how much we pay for name brand items) as we learned that it can get quite cold at the top of the mountain. That night, we went to bed early as we had to get up at 1:40 AM to begin our hike at 2:00 AM. Shawna did not really sleep but surprisingly was not too tired when it was time to wake up.  

Adam's Peak

We began our hike, joined by hundreds of others, up Adam’s Peak which is Sri Lanka’s holy mountain. The mountain is 7400 feet high and has over 5700 steps to climb. While it was dark, we had no problem seeing the trail as there were street lights and vendor stalls that lit the path along the way. We got a kick out of some of the vendor stalls who seemed to think that hikers want to buy cheesy stuffed animals! We also got a kick out of the locals who were dressed for a blizzard – donning winter coats and wool caps/gloves – while we both hiked up in shorts and a t-shirt and only put on our jackets when we got to the top! It took us about 3 hours to get to the top, taking it slowly with many stops along the way. Just when we thought it was getting tough, we saw several people carrying someone in a wheel chair – so we knew we could not give up! For the last 350 meters, it was slow going as there was a traffic jam to get to the top. Once at the top, we had to wait about 30 minutes before the sun came up – it was beautiful to see with clouds covering the surrounding mountains and valley. It was also quite peaceful, in spite of the crazy crowds up there – as we listened to monks chanting and drums. Getting down was quite hard – the first bit was slow going as there was another traffic jam trying to leave and then our legs turned to jelly as we continued the descent down all of those steps. Needless to say, our calves and thigh muscles were quite sore for days!

Sunrise from Adam's Peak

View from Adam's Peak Hike

Stalls along the hike

Back at the guesthouse, we had breakfast, showered and then headed out to our next destination.

Ella

It took four hours to drive to Ella from Adam’s Peak, along more windy and beautiful mountain roads with tea estates dotting the hills. When we arrived at our hotel, we promptly booked a spa appointment to relax our sore muscles. We had a couples massage, which we normally do not do but the language barrier did not quite get us separate rooms for our massages. The massages were great but not long enough – only 60 minutes.

Town of Ella

While in Ella, we did the following activities:

• Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory – This factory is owned by our hotel so we got in free. While there was no production happening on the day we were there, it was still a very worthwhile tour to learn about the tea production. Sri Lanka is the fourth largest tea producing country (after China, India and Kenya) but is largest exporter of tea. This particular factory is among the largest in the country. We learned about the various steps in the process using various machinery at each step including lasers to separate the tea that they will export vs the tea that they keep for domestic use after the tea is processed. The tea is auctioned off in Colombo to sellers representing all the major tea companies who then add their own flavorings and package for retail sale.

View from Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory

• Little Adam’s Peak – Named this as it looks like Adam’s Peak but is no way near as high or as hard to climb. It is located right in front of our hotel (in fact our view from the room overlooked it) so it was easy to hike up it to get a bit of exercise. It was a bit hazy so we could not see that far but it was still very pretty.

• Horton’s Plain National Park – It took a couple of hours to get there and then we hiked the circuitous route that took a little over two hours. The park was heaving with locals so parts of the trail were slow going. The scenery was quite different – plains mixed with hills and trees. While we saw a waterfall and a few rivers, the main scenery point was World’s End where there is a sheer drop of 870 meters with no railing to protect you from falling. On a clear day, you could see the ocean from here but since it was hazy, we only saw the surrounding mountains. It was a really nice hike – only downside was that our driver seemed to think he had to follow us the whole hike! 

At World's End in Horton's Plain

• Christmas Eve Dinner – We ate at our hotel and got a kick out of the entertainment. There was a three piece band that played songs from the 70s (think Bee Gees) – the main singer had a raspy voice and was terrible! There was a long pause between songs as we think they were figuring out their play list on the fly. And just when they ran out of material, they decided to sing the same songs but in Spanish. It was quite hilarious!

Weligama

We hired a driver to drive us from Ella to Weligama (he was also our driver the day prior when we went to Horton’s Plain) – Michael was his name and he was the worst driver. He did not know how to get to places nor how to use google maps on his phone so we had to pull up directions ourselves and tell him how to get places. We were quite happy to get rid of him when we arrived in Weligama.

On our way to Weligama, we stopped for a safari in Uda Walawe National Park, mainly to break up the drive. Once you have been to Africa, all other safaris pale in comparison so this one was a little disappointing for us but still interesting to do. We saw lots of elephants (who were quite skinnier than African elephants), birds and buffalo.

Animals in Uda Walawe National Park

While in Weligama, we turned into lazy sloths and mostly relaxed by the pool at the resort. We spent most of our time at the Moon Pool which was an infinity pool overlooking the ocean. We read a lot, napped and had lunch/drinks at the pool each day.

Moon Pool at Cape Weligama - Our Spot for 4 days!

We went on one excursion through the resort, the Whale Safari, which was quite disappointing. While we had our own catamaran which only included guests from the hotel, we spent a long time chasing one whale which whenever we got to the spot that the whale was swimming, it had already swam to another location. There were many boats (about 20) also chasing the same whale – some of the boats were so packed with people that they looked like the boat was going to sink! Each time a boat saw a whale, it would start to move towards it and then all other boats followed suit – it was quite amusing. While we only saw a few whales from a distance, the one thing we did see up close which was cool was two sea turtles - with one giving the other a piggy-back ride?  The food on the boat was pretty basic – scrambled eggs and fruit for breakfast and grilled chicken with rice and vegetables for lunch. There were no drinks on board (except for water) and we did not get to go swimming or paddle boarding as the itinerary had advertised – this was mainly due to the fact that we returned late to the bay and our boat shut down about 30 minutes from the harbor. It took them about an hour to get it going – we honestly thought they were going to have to get another boat to pick us up.

Fishermen 

Turtles We Saw on Whale Safari

We finally got around to filming our New Year’s Eve video for Rak, Simran and Ria (see song below) – this is a tradition we started with them when we traveled with them to Bali and Belize. Since we were not traveling together this time (they were travelling to Western Australia), we decided to still each film a video and send to each other. The theme of Rak and Ria’s video was the “Pineapple Pen Apple Pen” song which is this nutty but funny song that Ria had sent us the link to the video at the beginning of the trip. In their video, they also did the reenactment of Keith signing “I Like Big Butts” to Ria when she was a baby – quite hilarious. The theme of our video was to the tune of “It’s All About the Bass” and we weaved in memories from our other trips with them.

View from Cape Weligama Hotel

Drinks at Sunset

Galle

On our way to Colombo, we stopped for two hours in Galle to walk around the fort and the old town. Galle is quite nice with upscale hotels and nice restaurants and shops. It was interesting to walk along the fort walls and to see the Dutch style buildings which are so different from the typical Sri Lankan architecture.  

Views along Fort in Galle

Colombo

We stayed in Colombo two nights before our flight left at 2am (well a night and a half as we had to check out around 11pm to head to the airport). During the day, we did a great tuk tuk tour of the city that we booked via Viator. On the tour, we saw many of the government buildings and parks and we stopped to see the following places:

• Ponambala Vanesar Kovil – A really cool Hindu temple where the interior is carved out of granite. There were many people there (it was Sunday) worshipping so was neat to see all of the traditions. We walked around inside but unfortunately could not take any pictures.  

• Gangarama Temple – A very large Buddhist temple that had many sections to it. Being Sunday, there were also many people here worshipping. The temple has a very large museum which contains items that people have donated over time – everything from Buddha statues, to watches to cars. We even saw the world’s smallest Buddha statue.

Meditation Temple

Inside Gangarama Temple

• Wovendhal Dutch Church – We were not able to go inside as there was a mass in session but we walked around the outside which is in dire need of some refurbishing. 

• Manning Market – We walked around and saw all of the fruits and vegetables for sale and then walked along one of the busy business streets that is packed with shops selling everything from backpacks to shoes to electronics.   

Manning Market

Restaurants:

Kandalewa Retreat – Located at our resort in Dambulla, we had several meals here. The restaurant (which is also the lobby/reservation desk) has a nice view of the rice fields. For breakfast, we tried both the American (traditional eggs, fruit, bacon and bread) and the Sri Lankan (curries) versions. For lunch, we had the tom yung soup and the Caesar with grilled prawns. For dinner, we tried the pork chops, tomato soup, the Sri Lankan curry and the grilled seafood platter (which turned out to be our favorite meal). The food was pretty good.

Seafood Platter at Kandalewa

Sakura – Located in Dambulla and rated as the number one restaurant in town as well as in the region on Trip Advisor. It is located just outside of town and looks like a place that tour buses stop during the day for lunch. While the restaurant was not busy, the food was fantastic. We had 8 kinds of curry, mostly vegetarian (carrot, bean, mango, potato, eggplant, fish, grated coconut and roasted garlic), along with a yummy homemade yogurt for dessert. Keith even liked the carrots so you know it had to be good. The owner was there with his wife and son – he repeatedly told us he was the best in the area so definitely a proud owner!

Dinner at Sakura

Gimanhala – Located in a hotel in Dambulla. Our hotel had recommended it for lunch. Not quite the place we would have chosen but the food was pretty good. We had the buffet which consisted of various Sri Lankan curries.  

Slightly Chilled – Restaurant in our guesthouse located in Dalhousie. Nothing special but the curry buffet for dinner was pretty good.

98 Cafe – Located in our hotel in Ella. We had a few meals here including breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was included and was a buffet of western or Sri Lankan dishes. For dinner, we had curry one night and then had the set menu for Christmas Eve which include soup, appetizer, main dish (we chose the beef tenderloin but it wasn’t very tender) and dessert. Overall, food was pretty good.

Café Chill – Located in Ella. This is a cool (thus the name) café in the center of town that serves all kinds of dishes – from burgers to pizza to curry to schnitzel. It’s their version of a diner! We had lunch here, sharing a pizza which was pretty good and a few beers while we did some people watching.

Lunch at Cafe Chill

AK Ristoro – Located in Ella just down the road from our hotel. We were a bit tired of curry so opted for an Italian dinner on Christmas night. We had a great mushroom pasta dish for an entrée and a tasty soup to start.  

Ocean Terrace – Located at the Cape Weligama resort with great views of the ocean. We had breakfast here every morning which was a buffet – Keith mostly had the Sri Lankan curry dishes and Shawna mostly had eggs and fruit. We ordered lunch and ate it at the pool – each day having the kottu roti (which was delish and Shawna’s favorite Sri Lankan dish) and one other item to share – either the tomato/mozzarella salad or the grilled shrimp. We also had dinner here most nights – sometimes ordering off of the menu (meals included curry and pasta) and sometimes eating the buffet – one night was seafood night and the other was Asian food night. All of the food was tasty and the service was very prompt.

Ocean Grill – Also located at the Cape Weligama resort. This place only seats 12 people so you have to reserve in advance. We only ate here one night and wish we could have gone a second (but the remaining nights were booked). We shared a tuna poke appetizer and grilled rack of lamb for an entrée. The meal was amazing.

Cape Colony Club – Also located at the Cape Weligama resort. We had drinks here before dinner most nights. The drink menu was quite good offering variations of martinis, margaritas and mojitos.

Paradise Road Gallery Café – Located in Colombo, we had New Year’s Eve dinner here. It is a very cute restaurant located behind a gallery and showcases some of the artwork in the café. The food was quite good and the service was good as well. We shared the baked crab for an appetizer, the beef and green papaya salad and the pork schnitzel with curry noodles for an entrée. For dessert, Keith had the Christmas pudding and Shawna had the mango and pineapple sorbet.

New Year's Eve Dinner at Gallery Cafe

New Year’s Eve Song/Video:

Here are the words to the song/video we shot:
It's all about that Ria, no trouble
It's all about that Ria, no trouble
It's all about that Ria, no trouble
It's all about that Ria

That Ria sometimes can be very cute
She makes us laugh a lot, she is a hoot
She likes eating curry at every meal
We like beating her at Monopoly Deal

It's all about that Simran, sometimes trouble
It's all about that Simran, sometimes trouble
It's all about that Simran, sometimes trouble
It's all about that Simran

Simran packs a lot of activities in a day
She picks the best places to eat, I have to say
But when she has to take a poo
We have to find a very clean loo

It's all about that Rakesh, he's trouble
It's all about that Rakesh, he's trouble
It's all about that Rakesh, he's trouble
It's all about that Rakesh

We surely don't miss his smelly farts
But his laugh is contagious as it comes from the heart
He likes napping a lot and drinking beer
That must be why he has really big ears

It's all about the Mehta/Singh's, we miss you
It's all about the Mehta/Singh's, we miss you
It's all about the Mehta/Singh's, we miss you
It's all about the Mehta/Singh's, Happy New Year