Last year in the month of October, I had the pleasure of visiting this gorgeous little country south of India called Sri Lanka with my family. We had 7 days in that country and even though we might have packed in a tad too much, the memories are just wonderful. Even though I'm going to be sharing my experiences months after, I feel they're still going to be as rich. :) We were in SL for a week and we stayed in Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Yala National Park, Galle and Colombo.
As soon as landed in Colombo, we met our guide/driver/man friday who had organized a fancy van for us to travel in. My first introduction to the fact that nearly all cars in SL are imported (kind of obvious if you know that they have no auto industry of their own!)
Day 1: We were set to go to Nuwara Eliya in the evening but our first stop was going to be at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage (90 km from Colombo). Luckily for us the elephants were having a bath in the river during this time. I know everyone says it, but the truth is there's really something majestic about seeing them in reality in such a herd.
One of my favorite images was this image of two elephants lying down in the water and just letting is run over their bodies. They'd keep their snouts above water trying to gather anything edible that came along but other than that you'd think they were just happily sunbathing.. which is probably exactly what they were doing! :)
After lunch we then started our long journey to Nuwara Eliya (100 km from Pinnawala), the hill station. If you've been to Ooty, then you have an idea of what Nuwara Eliya is like. Small place, just starting to get a bit commercial, lots and lots of greenery everywhere you look. Every place that isn't covered by tea leaves has trees, and roads seem to weave in and out of those spaces. It's amazing!
We stayed at this fantastic hotel called the Heritance Tea Factory named so because it was a tea factory and has now been remodeled into a hotel (keeping the core structure intact). The place is stunning. Very colonial in its design, has a spa in the basement which overlooks the tea farms from every room, and has mouth-watering buffet spreads (try the curd cheesecake if they have it!).
Day 2: I've just recently read Ashok Banker's Ramayana and I was of course curious about what the representation of their lives is here.. Not surprisingly it turns out there's a Sita Eliya temple en route from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy (76 km). Not too elaborate but beautiful nonetheless.
We visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic - Buddha temple in Kandy. There was a huge crowd so we thought it was going to be difficult to find a peaceful spot, but surprisingly, the way Buddhism works, the people aren't aggressive or loud. There were groups of people who just sat together and were chanting or humming and they let you pass by and let you do your thing. We walked around, saw the photographs, the staircases, the artefacts and admired the beauty of the building (we were traveling with 4 architects after all!) and then stood under a shed and waited for the rain to stop so that we could make that dash to our waiting cars.
Post lunch we then drove down to Kataragama (216 km) where we going to spend the night at Mandara Rosen.
Day 1: We were set to go to Nuwara Eliya in the evening but our first stop was going to be at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage (90 km from Colombo). Luckily for us the elephants were having a bath in the river during this time. I know everyone says it, but the truth is there's really something majestic about seeing them in reality in such a herd.
After lunch we then started our long journey to Nuwara Eliya (100 km from Pinnawala), the hill station. If you've been to Ooty, then you have an idea of what Nuwara Eliya is like. Small place, just starting to get a bit commercial, lots and lots of greenery everywhere you look. Every place that isn't covered by tea leaves has trees, and roads seem to weave in and out of those spaces. It's amazing!
We stayed at this fantastic hotel called the Heritance Tea Factory named so because it was a tea factory and has now been remodeled into a hotel (keeping the core structure intact). The place is stunning. Very colonial in its design, has a spa in the basement which overlooks the tea farms from every room, and has mouth-watering buffet spreads (try the curd cheesecake if they have it!).
Post lunch we then drove down to Kataragama (216 km) where we going to spend the night at Mandara Rosen.
Comments