well...i just got in from indonesia, where i was for my spring break trip, and i realize i haven't yet sent out my update about sri lanka from february....what a place...so i figured while i was waiting for some food to be delivered, i would get this update out....i have to say that sri lanka may be one of my all time favorite places i have been...i went to see animals and was completely and utterly successful and the people and place charmed me.....
for some odd reason i kept thinking sri lanka would be similar to india....but they are worlds apart...it is inexpensive, easy to get around, has all sorts of accommodation and the people are great....i had okay weather, but while there i went to kandy - an old colonial styled town, with a cool buddhist temple that contains a relic of buddha, i drove through the tea plantations and stopped along the way, went to a national park where i went on safari and finally hit the beach and went on a whale watch....to see what i saw...keep reading....
my first encounter with elephants came at the pinnawela elephant orphanage....and as you can see i got to feed an elephant some pineapple and some bananas....i had never felt an elephant's tongue before and it was wild...as you can see, she let me touch her tongue...it felt like an inner tube of a tire, slick, but not slimy....and it was strong....she was way cute and i think very happy that i gave her some fruit....
one of the great things they do at the orphanage is rescue babies that have been left by their moms....the two elephants above were the newest members of the group at 6 and 9 months...both of these babies fell into wells and had been left for dead by their moms, because they were unable to climb out...luckily some villagers called the orphanage and they rescued both of them....from two different wells....i love the hair on them...very punk-esce....these boys were simply adorable and hung out in their own enclosure so folks could get an up close view....plus, they need some time to be introduced into the herd....
the elephants follow a pretty cool schedule....so you go see them eating in the fields and then some of them get milk, others get fruit and then they walk over to the river for two hours of chillin in the water....it seems to be a good life and they seem really well taken care of....of course there are all sorts of things to buy once you are at the orphanage....and one of things you could purchase was paper made from elephant dung....i didn't buy any, but i did go smell it to see whether it not it had a smell...no worries...no smell :)
one of the elephants brought to the river was this guy up above....he is a working elephant and you can tell this because he has a chain around his neck and front legs....you can't see it in this picture, but that is how you know they are working elephants....anyway...this guy was brought directly to the river, promptly laid down and was splashed by his mahut (elephant handler)....people came over and splashed him too, but i just liked watching him...because even when no one was splashing him, he kept splashing himself...he obviously loved being in the river and was so cute to watch....
in the picture above you can see a lot of the herd that lives at the orphanage....as you can see, they have many elephants of differing ages....it was fun to watch them walk down to the river as a herd and to watch them eating breakfast....but of course my favorite part was feeding the elephant....
from the elephant orphanage i headed to kandy...its a UNESCO site for Temple of the Tooth Relic....it is a buddhist relic and people gather every day to catch a glimpse of this relic when the container it is kept in gets opened once a day....many buddhists line the walls of the temple and all of them bring offerings of lotus and jasmine flowers....above you can see some of the offerings....
while in kandy i also went to a cultural show that was held at the red cross center....the dancers were amazing and the drummers were fantastic....they played and danced and sang for about an hour and the end of the show was a fire walker...literally...it was one guy who was a fire dancer & eater earlier in the show...and then he turned on this fire pit and walked across it quite a few times...it was amazing!!! unfortunately none of those pictures turned out well...but i did like the plate spinner and the dancers that you can see behind him...it was definitely worth the price....they were quite good :)
from kandy we drove down the middle of the country through the tea plantation areas...i had no idea just how much tea sri lanka exported...but i learned it is their biggest export....the biggest consumer these days is no longer england though....now their biggest consumer is china....crazy that :) the views as we drove through this part of the country were incredible....and i watched some of the women, and only women, pick the tea....they may only pick the top three leaves of the branches of the tea plant....and they carry the picked leaves on their heads....as they are not super heavy....these women are then paid by the weight of the bag at the end of the day....also, these women are all tamil....this is a group of people who have been in sri lanka for quite some time, who came from india...they have actually fought a war with the sinhalese to be able to have their own country within sri lanka....it ended a few years ago, and they were not successful with their war....but many of the women and families that work on tea plantations are tamil....
i visited one of the tea plantations and was given a tour of their tea processing house and then of course had some of their tea...we stopped at the plantation called mackwoods....they have been around since 1841....one of the things that blew me away about this place was that they still did their books by hand...as you can see in the picture above...no computer or calculator to be seen....and the tea is still packaged in paper sacks because they feel plastic messes with the flavor of their tea....it was a cool set up....
this is me with a very small part of the mackwoods plantation behind me....way up on the hill on the left are some ladies picking, but they are too far away to be seen in this picture...as you can see from the scenery behind me...it was a lovely place to visit, even though it rained the whole drive down....i guess that just brings out the greenery more....
the reason we were driving through the center of the country was to get to yala national park....which is the second biggest park in sri lanka....it is known for its myriad of bird species and has 44 different secies of mammals living inside of its borders.....some of the animals i saw were jackals, mongoose, rabbits, wild boar, tons of birds, including peacocks and 3 different types of stork, and my ultimate....leopards....i took a jeep in for my safari, and it picked me up quite early in the morning....before the sun was up....my guide was incredible...he worked at the park for 25 years and knew where everything could be found....in the shot above we went to the many hidden watering holes and saw crocs and tons of birds and leopard tracks....
but as we drove through the park we came across 6 wild elephants....most were single males out foraging....but we did see one female and her baby....the shot above is one of the males i saw....
while i was on my afternoon safari, it poured down rain....as you can see from this shot....you can also see what many of the safari jeeps looked like....BUT not mine....mine was a piece of crap....i didn't realize just how bad it was until i started seeing the other tourists faces....every time my jeep came near, people would point and stare....BUT, as i said before, my guide was amazing....so i didn't mind getting soaked and no shock absorbers on this baby....and everything was totally worth it because we really did see a leopard....it was about 100 feet away from our jeep....i have no good pictures though because it was wandering around and then sat in the brush, and you can't tell that its a leopard from my picture.....i was sooooooo excited to see it though....simply stunning.....
the other animal i kept seeing and it kept making me smile, was the bird pictured above....it is called a bee catcher and this is a male....of course its a male because it is beautifully colored....i loved these birds....
this picture above me is a memorial in the park for the folks who died here in the horrible tsunami of 2004.....sri lanka was a place many people did not even know was harmed with the tsunami that hit that year at christmastime....sri lanka lost 35,000 people to the tsunami....and in this particular spot there was a hotel right on the beach, in the national park....the hotel was filled with japanese tourists who knew what was happening as soon as they saw the tide go out so far....the singhalese had never seen this before and people rushed into where the ocean had been to pick up fish....unfortunately no one believed the japanese and what was happening....and only three people survived the tsunami from this hotel...there are memorials all up and down the coast of sri lanka, both the east and west coasts, because the wave hit almost directly from the south and ran up the island....there is one whole town that disappeared and they will not rebuild it, because they are leaving what is standing as a memorial to the many who died there....
this final shot is me in my crappy jeep....as you can see from the back, it was rather rusted out and had no real cover on the sides....so really, i got soaked....but my guide....he made it all worth while...
one of the things sri lanka is known for is the stilt or pole fishermen....at this point there are only about 500 families an sri lanka who still do this for their way of life....but they sit on a cross bar that is tied to a vertical pole and fish in the shallows of the sea....now when you drive up the coast, they are easy to see....because they are mostly fake and just posing for a camera shot and payment....are the two in this picture real???? NOPE!
the picture you see above is one of my favorites....sri lanka has three main religions - muslim, catholic and buddhist.....they all seem to live together well and you can find temples and mosques and churches everywhere you go....you also will see what i called the "vegas buddhas"....this picture was taken when it was completely dark out....and when driving through the country at night or very early in the morning, you will see these buddhas everywhere....they are lit up and blinking and very, very bright....i loved them....
the last big adventure i took while in sri lanka was a whale watching trip....i had to drive about 2 hours south of the place i was staying at to do this....but the promise was that i would see blue whales migrating.....so i had no problem with the distance....this shot above is of the wharf in marissa...i loved the colors of the boats, but not the garbage.....but i had a hard time finding one without the other....so i figured i would show you what it really looks like...these are fishing boats and they have all just come back in from the early hours of fishing....we watched one boat bring in a huge shark....but most of them had your typical ocean fish for sale....
the other boat types we saw in the harbor, were ones like this one....talk about tiny....these guys couldn't really sit down anywhere, while they were rowing and fishing.....amazing how they stay afloat....
the boat i was on was much bigger and we actually went all the way out into the shipping lanes....we could see the huge freighters and even read the writing on all of the containers on them.....when we were on the water, the way you saw the whales was to wait for their spout to go....then you would race to that spot, they would hear the engine and generally tip fluke and dive....however, the last four whales i saw of the 16 for the day, we actually got really close to them....the shot above is the best i could do...i was too busy trying to watch them with my eyes....in this picture you really can only see half of the length of the whale itself...it was HUGE!!!! so i was really excited about this adventure...but i have learned that i need a better camera or someone along for the ride who will take pictures while i stand there with my mouth gaping open....
the picture above is from the place that i stayed at, right on the beach....it was a beautiful spot, the weather was warm, the water was clean and it a perfect way to end this amazing trip....
i never remembered to get someone to take my picture with a drink on this trip....but i did get some folks from germany to take my "asian teenage girl" picture on the boat....all of the girls have their pictures taken this way.....peace out....
so....sri lanka....i can't recommend it enough...i have so many more pictures i would love to share, and maybe i will in the next update, because my spring break trip, which i just returned from was really only of a beach and friends....granted, it was a beautiful indonesian beach, on the island of lombok....but i didn't take many pictures...i was too busy relaxing, swimming and snorkeling....it was the perfect trip during this crazy semester....
anyway....i can't stress again how awesome sri lanka truly was and really if you can get there....GO!!!! the people are awesome, the food is tasty, the beaches are beautiful, as are the tea plantations....but most of all, you really have a the chance to go to all these different ecological areas and see amazing animals that live there :) so go i say.....go!!!!!
hope you enjoyed this update....hopefully the indonesia trip will be out sometime soon....i hope those of you starting spring are having a good start and those starting the fall...my same wishes....if you have any questions, per normal, please do no hesitate to ask.....
have a fab day :)
dani
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