I actually cannot believe how time has flown! My last post was weeks ago, and now I am leaving in no less than 5 days! And I had such good intentions to keep this thing updated for you all!
So since school finished a lot of fun and travelling has been going on and not much you could call work... Unless playing badminton with the boys from the orphanage during lazy afternoons and making jigsaws counts??
I have just come back from an epic long weekend! We started on Friday (leaving at 6am which is becoming farr to common for my liking out here...) and drove in Nalakas van to Anuradhapura, one of the antient cities in the north. There were 10 of us packed in the van: Belli, Martine, Tristan, Maries, Malika, Nalaka, the two kids and I. Malika took us to temple after temple, we explored ruins and saw more Buddha statues than I can count!
On Saturday we visited the antient rock temple of Sigiriya, the weather started fine, but as we came to climb the huge rock face it quickly turned to monsoon conditions! Belli and I were the only ones to reach the top - in a very soggy socked-to-the-bone state! My blue scalf I had been wearing managed to dye my white t-shirt blue by the end of it! From Sigiriya we headed to the caves of Dambula and the Golden temple. The caves were so dark and erie, with statues of more buddahs and kings staring from the rock walls. Kind of creepy...
Saturday evening Belli, Martine, and I were dropped off in Kandy in the Lake Bungalow guesthouse. We planned to spend a few nights in Kandy, and end our visit with the Esala Pera Hera on Monday night. It's a very famous festival held in the 10 days leading up to the Poya (full-moon) day in August to honour the antient tooth relic of the Buddhist temple Kandy is so well known for. We joined the flocks of tourists when visiting the elephant orphanage, and then to the less well known Millenium trust park where we rode Pooja the elephant! Has to be one of the best experiences I've had here so far!
Monday night finally arrived and we took our seats outside the Queen's hotel for the Para Hera as it was getting dark. The whole procession was absolutely breathtaking! Men cracked heavy whips to start the parade, followed by boys spinning balls of fire on metal frames and some spinning it from their heads. We counted 80 odd elephants, all dressed in fancy clothes and lights, they were accompanied by hundreds of dancers and drummers. Amazing!
Anyway that was this weekend, now im back and completely exhausted! The weekend before we finally managed to visit the rainforrest. Didn't see many big animals, but lots of leeches, and got to swim in beautiful waterfalls which was so much fun!
Belli left this morning to go to her new placement in the hospital (which is why i've finally got time to update!)
Going to Unawatuna to relax on the beach this weekend and then I fly home on Monday!
Looking forward to seeing you all soon, xxxxxxxxx
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