#63dayweekend

[aligworldtour-blog]

From Kandy, we took a three hour train to Nuwara Eliya. We traveled through super lush green tea fields and sampled some samosas and other goodies from the train hawkers along the way. Once we arrived, we took a tour of Pedro Tea Estate, the oldest plantation in the area. Interestingly, Sri Lanka now known for Ceylon tea used to only grow coffee until a blight in the 1800s and the British colonizer planted tea estates instead. The roads in Sri Lanka are generally narrow and windy. Three wheelers (the local word for tuk tuk), motorbikes and vehicles share the road with cows. Though Nuwara Eliya is 64 miles from Colombo (as the crow flies), it took about six hours to drive there. Thankfully we saw some beautiful waterfalls along the way! We spent our last afternoon walking through the markets of Colombo, stumbling across a beautiful red and white striped mosque and a colorful Hindu temple. We walked along Galke Face Green and caught the sunset over cocktails at the famous Galle Face Hotel. Thanks to my parents for a great week in Sri Lanka - what a beautiful and friendly country!

[aligworldtour-blog]

We spent two nights in the second major city of Sri Lanka - Kandy. One morning was spent in the Royal Botanical gardens, with amazing giant bamboo, a bunch of varieties of orchids and about 5000 fruit bats. They covered the trees in one area of the park - spooky and cool at the same time. I made sure to wear a hat! We also visited the Temple of the Tooth which houses the most sacred relic in Sri Lanka, one of Buddha's teeth. It was brought into the country about 1500 years ago, smuggled in the hair of a princess. It has been kept in several different temples and has been at this site in Kandy for the last 400 years. You don't get to see the actual tooth - it only comes out once every five years but the building itself is still interesting. The front part of it was actually bombed in the late 1980s, during the Sri Lankan civil war. Our guesthouse Athuyla Villas in Kandy was very nice - it had an infinity pool overlooking the jungle!

[aligworldtour-blog]

On our second day in the Dambulla area, we got a lot of steps in. In the morning, we climbed the the 5th century rock castle of Sigiriya. This required going up something like 1200 stairs earning us some nice views of the valley. The king built his castle here so it would be well guarded and provide good views. It also featured impressive hydraulic systems to fill moats, running water and gardens. Later in the morning we saw the 1st century cave temples of Dambulla. Five caves on the top of a hill were turned into shrines to Buddha, featuring remarkably intact and detailed 1200 year old cave paintings.

[aligworldtour-blog]

We also visited the ancient capital of Polonnaruwa, built around the 5th century and then abandoned until the British "rediscovered" it in the mid 1800s. Very impressive engineering including plumbing crazy carvings. There were also monkeys everywhere :)

[aligworldtour-blog]

After a short flight from the Maldives, Will and I parted ways in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He had 20 hours of flying ahead of him (via Abu Dhabi) to get home to SF and I had six more days of exploring to do. I met my parents in baggage claim - their flight from Singapore had arrived about 20 minutes earlier. Our driver and guide for the week Hensley told us a bit about the country as we drove four hours into the cultural triangle and center of the country, Dambulla. Our guesthouse, Arika Villas, was situated along a jungly river and was a nice place to relax after traveling. On the afternoon of our first full day, we went on a jeep safari through Hurulu Evo Park to see wild elephants. We happened upon a group of 40ish elephants including many babies. They were closing down on some grass. It was awesome to get to see them in the wild - sounds like there are 800 wild elephants in this area and about 6,000 on the island. I feel so lucky that I got to encounter elephants twice on this trip! We also got our first taste of Sri Lanka’s national dish - rice and curry. We thought we were ordering one thing but were surprised when a ton of different vegetables, meat, salad, sambal and pickles came out. It was like banchan but curry style - awesome! I was pleasantly surprised to find Sri Lankan food a bit spicier than most of the food we’d encountered in Thailand and Cambodia.

[aligworldtour-blog]

Another one of our most exciting dives was a night dive, where we swam with 100 or so big nurse sharks and stingrays. It was like a Hollywood production down there - so much activity. Throughout the week, we dove with the same group of people (from Romania, Russia and Menlo Park). There were about 30 guests on the boat for the week, mostly divers but some people just enjoyed snorkeling and the fabulous spa. I was lucky to enjoy three treatments during the week in addition to diving. The staff on the boat were all awesome and the food was also delicious (especially the sashimi!). We were sad to leave! What a great way to finish off our honeymoon!

[aligworldtour-blog]

We went on an excursion to a local island, Rashdoo. Since the Maldives is a Muslim country, we had to make sure to keep knees and shoulders covered. Many women also wore a hijab but that wasn't required. We strolled around Rashdoo for about an hour, going into a shop or two and then just watching local life and the sunset. We saw some stenciled graffiti supporting former President Nasheed (who we learned about watching the climate change documentary the Island President). We had to have our drinks on the boat as alcohol is otherwise illegal in the Maldives.

[aligworldtour-blog]

We flew to the Maldives from Chiang Mai via Bangkok, moving back two hours in time. The airport is on an island (like everything in the Maldives) and we got picked up in a boat to head to our ship, the ScubaSpa Yang for the week. We had an orientation meeting and learned about our itinerary to the South Ari Atoll for the week. Our schedule was posted on a white board each day. On our first dive we had to do a few skills tests to make sure we wouldn't freak out if anything happened.