Rush to the Middle: Sri Lanka Part 1: The road to Kandy and Kandy itself

We arrived in Colombo after an overnight flight from Doha. We left at 8pm Doha-time and arrived in Colombo at 3:30am-ish extremely tired and groggy. Our lovely driver, Gamini, was there to meet us as promised and we all filed out of the airport after him into the dark and muggy parking lot. We traveled with just our carry-ons, so we were able to leave right away, which was fortunate given the less than state of the art airport. Gamini led us to a station wagon and we blew up the kids' Bubble Bums travel booster seats (Best. Purchase. EVER!) and buckled them in, at which point they mostly fell back asleep. It turned out that the middle seat in back didn't have a seatbelt at all, so we just crossed our fingers and hoped for safety the whole trip. (Not our best plan, but we survived--well, actually, I survived since I was back there 95% of the trip since it was really too small for the husband to fit comfortably.)

From Colombo, we drove through the wee hours with Kandy as our ultimate destination. At some point, we had breakfast but I can't remember where, though I do remember the boys were not impressed with the guava juice. It took them almost the entire trip to come to terms with all the juices offered everywhere, though by the end they were yumming them up like champs! On the way, we stopped at an elephant hospital where we were able to ride an elephant and the husband was even able to give that same elephant a bath. It was an amazing experience and a great start to our Sri Lankan adventure!

Here are the boys with an elephant tusk and tooth
(I think...) in the small elephant museum.

The whole family in front of an elephant skeleton.
These are are travel outfits, by the way, and we are
all really, really tired, as you can see.

Starting our trip on Monica, the elephant. They
told us the chains were for her own protection,
so she wouldn't get hurt, though they seemed a
little much to me.

She got hungry while we were walking.

Just before our final dismount.

After the elephants, we continued our drive, stopping along the way at a spice garden that was absolutely entertaining. It was here that I realized that Sri Lankan vegetation is very similar to Hawaiian vegetation as I recognized all the plants from my childhood and was able to introduce them to the boys. We also saw cinnamon, nutmeg, rubber, and cardamon plants among many, many others, and we were then given a demonstration on the Aryuvedic healing properties of various of the herbs and spices. Both the husband and I ended up getting back and shoulder massages under a wooden pavilion in the middle of the spice garden, a surreal but really, really relaxing experience.

Rubber straight off the tree!

Doesn't the husband look happy?

I am blissed out, believe me!

The spice garden mural.

During our drive, we also saw monkeys randomly on the the side of the road! The driver stopped to let us get some pictures but warned us that they bite, so we kept our distance.

Monkeys!

This one came very close to investigate us while we
were investigating him, so we moved a safe distance away.

At the restaurant where we at lunch, overlooking a
huge river, before we found a maggot or worm of some
kind in E's tomato, which helped us to learn to be more
vigilant about the food from there on out, a timely lesson.

J just before the first of many, many prawn
dishes he ate while we were in Sri Lanka.
He was never disappointed with his food choices!

That afternoon we arrived in Kandy and found our hotel, after a bit of driving around. Our hotel was not well marked and is apparently new, so it took us some time to find it. However, the hotel room itself was great, the best room of the trip: huge, with three double beds and giant windows that overlooked the city and valley below us. Our stay was marred by the fact that the employee checking us in was drunk as he could be and therefore wasn't ready with the room cleaning...or the linens...or anything, really, and kept coming into our room in the afternoon uninvited until we locked the door, but all in all, we loved the space and slept very comfortably there. That night, after we checked in and had a nap, we also went to see the a Kandyean dance performance that included elaborate traditional costumes, acrobatic dances from both men and women, intense drumming, and fire walking, all of which was very impressive.

The program for the "cultural show."

Some of the dancers and costumes.

The next day we visited the immense botanical gardens, which we also enjoyed quite a lot. I was impressed with the orchid house and the enormous stands of giant bamboo, bigger than any I had every seen before. The boys liked the giant varieties of coconuts and the huge trees, and we all liked walking around through pathways covered in greenery, such a change from Doha. Actually, I think the plants and the rain were by far my favorite parts of the trip, because we see both so seldom in Qatar and then usually only in very artificial circumstances. In contract, Sri Lanka seems to be just this side of being taken over by the jungle in most of the places we visited. We also toured a wood working factory where they make all sorts of wooden crafts and furniture, including the famous Kandyan masks. The guide at the factory loved the boys (a common occurrence) and gave them each little wooden elephants for free to slip into their packets. We ended up buying a bowl made out of cinnamon bark that will smell like cinnamon for life, my favorite souvenir purchase of the trip.