Sri Lanka - What a Country!

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Hi Guys,

 We landed in Colombo to Lily violently vomiting on the tarmac, a great start! After slowly navigating our way into the city centre we checked into our hostel, met a rather abrassive older man who tried to force us to watch some dancing and headed into the town centre for some food. This time rather than embracing the culture, we craved some western fayre and headed towards a cricket themed resturant. WE had read about it and heard through family that it was cricket themed menu which Luke was throughly excited about, Lily less so. Much to our disappointment after a 20 minute tuktuk (enough time to dream about a juicy steak) we found this.

We settled for a weird Harvester wannabe and headed back to ready ourselves for our 5am train the next morning to Habarana.

 The train was a slow, tranquil plunder through the Sri Lankan countryside, we got our first glimpse of what a beautiful country was going to be.


Habarana was our base for the cultural triangle, we stayed with a wonderful family who were so helpful and friendly. They originally gave us their tree house to stay in, however after an hour we realised we were not the only guests in the room! Ants were slowly over running the place so they kindly moved us to their spare room.

 We set out to go and visit Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress with surrounding citadel, however after the long train journey that morning we didnt get their on time so had to settle for a tuktuk tour of the rock and the local area.


Our dinner that evening, our first Sri Lankan meal was really good. Luke ordered the synonymous 'Rice and Curry' and Lily still feeling a bit iffy had a bowl of plain noodles. We now know that Rice and Curry is the main dish of Sri Lanka and consists of a big bowl of (you guessed it) Rice adhorned by 5 or 6 separate vegetable items, some lentils and usually a sambol (a spicey dry coconut relish). It was DELICIOUS, so many different flavours and textures and a real feast!

The next morning we jumped on a bus and headed to the ancient city of Polonnaruwa, where word on the street was we should hire a push bike for the day to see as much as we can. It was great fun, we got around most of the thousand year old site filled with ruins of temples, old palaces and statues of Buddah it felt like tomb raider. We gave our old creaky bikes back that had served us so well and headed for shelter from the 38 degree heat. A quick snack of Kottu Roti (crunchy stir fry with friend bread, veggies and egg) properly hit the mark after which we headed back on the bus to our lovely homestay. 







That night the children in the home asked to play chess with us, the young lad taught us a chess masterclass and cracked up at how bad we were. It was lovely to spend time with such a happy family.


The following day we headed on another bus to Kandy. The busses in Sri Lanka were quickly becoming a staple. Fast, super cheap and reasonably comfortable they put the over priced taxi's to shame. We are finding it a great way to save, as the tourist attractions are very steeply priced.

 Kandy was just our base so we could get the train to Ella, we had a little walk around the city and after researching that there wasnt much of a food scene we got burgers and a beer which was a very welcomed change and our first bit of red meat in 6 weeks.

 Thats it for our first few days in Sri Lanka, we were looking forward to the train to Ella - supposedly the most beautiful train journey in the world! The cultural triangle of Sri Lanka was bloody lovely, as are the people and food. We had a really good few days and already know that this is a country that we will be returning to. 

 Lily and Luke

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