Kandy, Ella, Yala, Unawatuna, and Negombo, Sri Lanka, Country 18, Stops 43, 44, 45, 46, 47

***Dmitri: Flying from Nepal takes us from one weird time zone to another. Nepal time is GMT +5:45. For real. If that’s not odd enough, we are flying to Sri Lanka, which is on Indian Standard time, or GMT +5:30. So, that’s right, we are changing time zones not by an hour forward or back, but by 15 minutes. This has to be the least possible jet lag on the planet. A good potential trivia question!***

Nov. 4

We have arranged with our hotel for a driver to pick us up from the airport and take us to Kandy. It's about a four hour drive. We stop briefly for lunch and then hit the road. It's wet and rainy and it is a wild, wild ride. There are no road rules, it would seem. Mahesh, our driver, is calm as he whizzes around and passes cars. I feel very queasy and hot. The ride seems to take forever and I am SO HAPPY when we arrive at the Radh Hotel in Kandy. It is wonderful after a short flight and long car ride. Dmitri and Jack grab dinner at the hotel restaurant and Jack reports that the Teriyaki Chicken Donburi is excellent.

***Dmitri: This was the most batshit crazy drive I've ever had, and I've been in cars in some freaky places. I mean I could tell the usual anecdotes about being in a taxi in Rome and seeing everyone ignore the lanes and honk a lot. No, this is some next-level insanity. Our driver spends nearly as much time in the oncoming traffic lane as our lane, sometimes passing mopeds and sometimes trucks. We miss cars by 6-12 inches routinely. After an hour of "did you see that?!" I just stop paying attention so my nervous system will function.

On the way we learn that Sri Lanka is largely Buddhist, though there is an influx if Islam and a tiny fraction of Christianity. The Islamic diaspora we've seen all over Europe is here as well, but a bit reversed in that the muslims are the wealthy ones rather than the refugees. The Buddhists seem slightly resentful, but mostly chill, but definitely know which areas and people are which. We also learn that the Sri Lankan flag has segments to acknowledge the Tamil and Muslim minorities in an effort at inclusiveness. I'm not sure it's working because they still have problems with terrorism here, but it's a good idea.

Whoever is in charge and what religion is going on, I really dig the frequent Buddha shrines on the side of the road that are festooned with neon and LED lights. Later we'll see Jesus versions in Negombo but for now it's all Buddha all the time.***

Nov. 5

***Dmitri: Kandy (pronounced like the dessert) is a medium-sized town in the center of Sri Lanka. We've clearly upgraded the infrastructure from Nepal to here, but we're also still firmly in the developing world. We have well-paved sidewalks, but also water buffalo and dogs in the streets. But, the mobile service is great and there are like, real buildings. Most of the hotels and shops are fairly dumpy, but somehow we're in a great hotel in any location. Score one for Cindy doing the booking.***

We LOVE the Radh hotel. They have a great breakfast, the beds are comfy, the toiletries in the bathrooms smell heavenly, and the aircon is solid. We walk to get sim cards and find a fun mall--Kandy City Centre, KCC. The gym at the hotel is small but we have mini workouts and chill at the hotel. Dmitri and I walk to the train station only to find that the trains to Ella are not running. We find out later that they started up again the day after we left Ella. We had looked forward to the Kandy to Ella train, but such is life after Covid. We all go to dinner at KCC and Jack is thrilled to spend time doing some VR games.

Monkeys!

Jaggery and tamarind. ***Dmitri: Tamarind is a weird fruit. It has a fuzzy exterior you don't eat, but you peel it off. Then there's a seed thing inside and you crack that and eat the inside, which is slightly bittersweet. Kind of like an artichoke, it's a lot of work and mostly worth it.***

The kids find a VR arcade at the mall. This is just about the most opposite-of-Sri Lanka thing ever, but it made them happy and was super cheap.

Kandy Lake

Nov 6

We are up and have arrived at the Temple of the Tooth Relic in time to see hordes of people bringing offerings to the temple. This is considered the holiest place in Sri Lanka. We go in with a guide who shows us around and explains where we are going and what we are seeing.

***Dmitri: I dial down my I-trust-no-one hackles and decide to hire a guide. Otherwise I know we're going to be walking around yet another shrine/holy/museum/whatever, largely bored and respectful. And because this isn't Egypt, it works out fine. First off, WTH is a temple of a tooth? It's Buddha's tooth, so we're basically seeing the Asian version of every Christian holy-site-of-Saint-so-and-so'd-finger-bone, which feels like good, err, karma. Their story is that when Buddha died, two Indians secreted his tooth from Nepal down to Sri Lanka through a lot of intrigue to have it end up here. It's about as suss as the European counterpart versions, but the locals are heavily here for it so we remain respectful.

The locals show up twice a day in droves, bearing loads of offerings, and dressed in white. They take the tooth very seriously and there is a ton of pageantry, music, and crowds. Without our guide, we wouldn't have known to go upstairs to see the tooth, what people are praying, etc. He's actually great, though the kids are bored and it's hard to understand his accent.

Like at most of these places, I cannot turn off social scientist mode, and see signs of community and social control, and compare it to other sites. I find it much less controlling than many Islamic and Christian parallels but there is still a whole lot of pomp and circumstance. Buddhists are generally much more chill than other religions.***

Our guide, Wellington, helps Jack with his sarong

This is the source of some very, very loud music that we could hear from hundreds of feet away outside.

Image in the temple of the "Britishers" giving back the Tooth Relic. ***Dmitri: There was a kind of stations-of-the-cross equivalent here with the story of the Buddha, then his tooth, then this temple. It has a lot of good guys vs. bad guys, with team locals being the good guys.***

Jack in front of a jackfruit tree

This elephant carried the sacred tooth relic for over 50 years in the annual parade and when he died, they had him taxidermied.

A very quick glimpse of the golden casket that holds the tooth

After the temple, we head back to the hotel for some trip planning. We are sorting out going to India next and are trying to figure out where to go and for how many days. We reach out to Sharmila, who is currently in India and she gives us some recommendations and puts us in touch with a friend of hers, who is a travel agent.

There are periods of heavy rain, which is lovely. Every time we leave the hotel they ask, you are going out? Like they are seriously surprised that we are actually leaving the hotel. We head back to KCC for dinner at the food court and ice cream after. More coconut jaggery ice cream, please!! They have this interesting food court system where when you enter you are given a small credit card. Every time you order something, they swipe it and as you leave the whole area you pay for everything you buy and then swipe your way out. It's a pretty cool system.

Nov. 7

Since we can't take the train to Ella, we have Mahesh pick us up. Sri Lanka is not a place where you rent a car and drive yourself. It is much too crazy! After breakfast, Mahesh arrives and we head out. The scenery is gorgeous, but it is a very, very, very windy road and I'm feeling sick after not too long. Mia and Dmitri are in the second row and Jack and I are in the third. We stop and put Mia in the front row and I move up to the middle row. We drive with the windows open and this helps a bit.

***Dmitri: This is the most lush place I've ever seen. It rains like mad and as a result everything is just green, thick and growing everywhere. It's gorgeous. I love the rice paddies of SE Asia, and while there were some in Nepal, they are here again in full force. And now they are joined by tea plantations, which are a whole other palette of green shades and shapes. In the photo below you can see the falls and tea rows under them. Later we'll see a ton of these.***

Our first stop is Ramboda waterfall and the kids stay in the van while Dmitri and I and Mahesh head up to the falls.

With Mahesh at the top of the Ramboda falls trail.

***Dmitri: This is me having fun walking up and down some seriously slick and sketchy paths. What you can't see in this picture is that I'm pretty sure I have my first-ever leech on my ankle here. Travel is glamorous!***

***Dmitri: Bamboo grows in clumps like this here, which I've never seen before.***

Our next stop is a tea plantation, Damro.

We take a tour and it's quite impressive. They collect and process two tons of tea a day at Damro. They employ 700 women who pick 20kg a day each. We visited the factory and its many stages of tea refinement. After the tea is picked, it is withered to dry, then ground, then has a brief fermentation. After this, there is the separation from the stick (stems off) and then a sifting into large and small pieces. The smaller the piece the stronger the caffeine and the more bitter. English Breakfast Tea is the second strongest. White tea is the rarer form and they only make 1-2 kilos a day, making it much more expensive. Tea with less caffeine has a different taste. Tea leaves regrow every 7 days, meaning there is no tea season. It is grown, picked, and processed year round.

We get back on the road and drive until lunch. I do not feel at all well so I take a little nap in the van while the others get Indian food at a really good restaurant.

***Dmitri: We're at lunch on the road and the Indian food is truly spectacular. I have a dal makhani with red chili peppers on it and I think maybe I've gotten some of that on my fingers because Mia tells me I have a big red spot on my face. I touch my face and yes I have some red junk.

Later I realize that my sock is bloody and I was someone rubbing blood on my face. Classy, right? Why is my sock bloody? This is likely obvious to you, dear reader, because #foreshadowing but it doesn't occur to me at all that I had a leech on my ankle because I never saw the little fucker and I didn't even know this was a thing.***

As we drive higher in elevation it gets cooler and more green. And the road winds this way and that. Finally we reach Ella and find our treehouse hotel. We are all together in one two story room with mosquito nets around the beds, a nice porch, and a word of caution to keep the bathroom door closed because it is open to the outside and sometimes monkeys come in. And a hammock!

The view from bed!

A great place to work on vlogs

***Jack: Later on we would make a friend in Ella who would visit us every day.***

Nov 8

Our first order of business in Ella, after breakfast, is visiting Nine Arch Bridge. Wouldn't you know it, my shoe lace breaks just before we head out. I fix it and off we go. We go in tuk tuks and we are led to a more local way of heading down to the bridge. It's a bit slippery, but we are game. We are treated to some stunning views along the path down.

***Dmitri: Sure, take the local's way down. What's the worst that could happen? Leeches. Leeches are the worst that can happen!***

It is absolutely stunning and Jack gets some great drone footage so be sure to check out Mia's vlog. He was cautioned by a local to stop and not send the drone under the bridge because it might upset the hornets residing there and unleash a swarm.

***Jack: The wasp nests were the size of fully grown people, I'm very glad I didn't unleash them.***

After we hike our way back up to our tuk tuks and pull off the leeches that attached themselves to us (YUCK!!), we head into Ella town. It's a very cute little town and in non covid times it is usually bustling with backpackers and we imagine it to be quite lively.

***Dmitri: Ella is really just one street, but it's nice. It has a very backpacker Khao San Road in Bangkok mixed with Bali sort of vibe, and attracts people who base here and then surf down on the coast. People I think probably often come here because the Kandy-Ella railroad is (we've heard, anyway) one of the more beautiful rides in the world. Based on the car trip we did, I believe this is true.***

We check out a few shops and then head to the Chill Cafe for lunch. It's nice to see a place busy! We settle in for a few hours and order some food and relax while it rains on and off.

***Dmitri: They served "deviled" cashews, which I had to try. It turns out it just meant spiced and cooked. Delicious. Cashews are about the only thing in Sri Lanka that is expensive. Worth it.***

Sky blue latte with edible flowers. YUM.

We are!!!!!

We head back to our treehouse airbnb for dinner and meet Kitty, the local cat.

She is very sweet. At first, the employees think she is bugging us and try to shoo her away until we let them know we like her!!

Nov. 9

We wake up to Kitty sleeping on our porch.

***Jack: this would begin a long friendship with the local cat.***

We feed her lots of bread and she wanders in and around our little Ella treehouse.

On the way out for the day, we see a monkey just outside our room. As one does.

We head back into Ella town and camp out all day at the Chill Cafe. They have great food, great drinks and decent wifi. Mia works on her videos, Dmitri and I work on planning future stops, and Jack does some academic work. Here's Mia's TripAdvisor review--which sums up the place nicely:

***Mia--

Clean, safe, happy, hippie.

Please make sure you stop by the Chill Cafe in Ella Town. Not only were there great prices and great food, but the atmosphere is worth the visit alone. We sat on the top deck overlooking the street, where you have a choice of beanbag chairs, a booth, or regular tables and chairs. The place has wifi and outlets, so we parked ourselves here for the day to work and relax.

The staff is friendly, especially our waiter, Vidal. As a family of 4, we had a larger order with lots of substitutions (ketchup on the side, no cheese, extra sauce, coconut milk instead of regular in the coffee, etc.) He remembered everything perfectly without writing anything down. While there are lots of cute cafes in town, the Chill Cafe was fairly busy with other tourists and backpackers in the afternoon, especially considering tourism in general is down due to COVID. This was the place to be.

The bathrooms are clean, the staff spoke perfect English, and the menu had options for any dietary restriction. I can’t recommend this place enough. (Try the Blue Latte with coconut milk if you visit!!)

Additional props to the staff for playing Indie Pop and Alt music instead of a generic top 40s American radio station. It really made the difference. ***

It was wonderful to have a super chill day with nowhere in particular to be. Great food, great tunes, sporadic rainstorms. Dmitri and I tried to make sense of future travel plans as Sri Lankan Airlines has inexplicably cancelled all flights--including Plan A of traveling from here to Thailand or Plan B of going to India first then traveling from Delhi to Thailand. Ugh. Now not only are we possibly having to cut out India, but we are scrambling to get out of Sri Lanka to get to Thailand. Ah, travel in covid times. It ain’t for the weak of heart. Or weak of wallet either as the cheap flights we were looking at days ago are vanishing!

We head back to the treehouse for dinner.

Nov. 10

We have a breakfast of coconut rotti and string hoppers before packing up. We say goodbye to Kitty and the treehouse airbnb owners. Our driver picks us up and we head to Yala National Park and our next home, Cinnamon Wild. Along the way we see monkeys, dogs, cows, oh, and an ELEPHANT just hanging out by the side of the road. It’s about a 2 ½ hour drive to Yala. When we pull up to our hotel, we see a crocodile across the way by these rocks by the lake. Yikes. The hotel has emailed us some helpful tips and we will be abiding by them. One rule is to call a room boy at night when you want to leave your room to go to dinner. That’s because it’s dangerous to encounter the animals that wander the hotel. We also see this sign.

Gulp!

Ugh, yeah they are!

We have lunch and chat a bit about where we might possibly want to be for Christmas. We wanted to go to India after Sri Lanka but then we run into trouble getting from India to Thailand. Hmmmm. What to do. Maybe we will go to Thailand first then India then head back toward the US through Dubai and Europe? Up until now we were thinking about having a time zone/US acclimation in Hawaii on the way back to Los Angeles. But this is the other direction. Plus, Hawaii is sooooooo expensive. We are seeing a bit of sticker shock. And the kids like the idea of visiting night markets in Europe at Christmas. And perhaps we will swing by and visit the Florida grandparents. So many good options….

But first we tackle getting to Thailand.

And we also enjoy our current stop at Cinnamon Wild. The little bungalows smell like cinnamon and are so cute and comfortable. We are chilling in the room and we hear this thundering on our room and my first thought is--how did elephants get on our roof!!! Then we see two grey monkeys jump onto a tree from our roof. This continues over the next few days, to our amusement. Except when they jump around at 5 and 6 am. That's just not nice, monkeys!

We eat dinner at the hotel restaurant--we are out in the wild and so our food choices are either the a la carte restaurant or the buffet. Holy moly, during dinner this huge centipede comes crawling toward our table. I shriek and pull my legs up because that thing is MOVING. Dmitri swats it away off the deck of the patio but I'm not super thrilled for the rest of dinner. I wish I hadn't had such a freak out and I had gotten a picture of it. I can assure you it was very brightly colored so I'm sure it was highly poisonous. On the walk back after dinner our escort points out monkeys sleeping in the trees, crocs in the lake, deer, and hares.

***Dmitri: Biggest bug I've ever seen. It was about 15 inches long and maybe 1.5-2 inches wide. Red and yellow and super fast. A total nightmare creature scurrying under the tables. It's one of those moments where a guy might say "honey, relax, it's harmless," except screw that, this thing was creepy AF. I jumped up and swiped it off the patio with my shoe.***

Nov. 11

Happy Veterans Day to all of those back home. For those who served--we love, respect, and appreciate you.

Mia and Jack had monkeys on their roof at 6 am. Luckily we did NOT. Breakfast is unbelievably delicious. Yum yum yum. I have herbal porridge which sounds and looks strange but it is SO good. The breakfast spread is pretty great and we are happy, especially Mia with her Masala omelet. I have one too and it's pretty delish. We return to the room to work on blogs and such before our 2:30 safari. We meet up but there is a downpour so our safari is postponed until the following morning. 5:15 am meet up. Gulp!!!

We have lunch at the a la carte restaurant and do some travel planning. We bounce around

from Hawaii to the Caribbean to Europe and Christmas markets to Africa. We are ALL over the place. After some searching, we find a cruise from Dubai to Cape Town and book it! It allows us to go to South Africa and the Seychelles on a repositioning cruise which makes it VERY affordable. And there are stops in Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion. We are VERY excited. It also means we head back to Dubai, as the cruise leaves from there. The kids love love love cruises so it's a win for them!

Nov. 12

We are up early for our safari drive and we are lucky enough to see a leopard, elephants, peacocks, land monitors, crocodiles, water buffaloes, wild boars, and monkeys playing in the trees. It is absolutely amazing! When we imagined world schooling Jack, this is what we had in mind. I know I keep saying this but we took a lot of video footage so check out Mia's vlog when it comes out! It's bound to be pretty incredible!

***Jack: that is a very large cat.***

After the early am safari we head back to our little bungalows and nap. We meet up for a late lunch and it is delicious. We see a very large land monitor in the outdoor restaurant.

Land monitor just walking around like he owns the place!!

Nov 13

After breakfast, we drive to Unawatuna and check into the Levels hotel. It has a great pool and amazing views of Jungle Beach.

We pretty much camped out on those day beds the whole time we were in Unawatuna. It rained, it was sunny, we swam, we ate, we worked. It was very pleasant.

We have a late lunch and then Dmitri and I walk for some groceries. It is so humid that we are positively melting. We take a tuk tuk back to the hotel.

Nov 14

We sleep in, have breakfast, work on blog/vlog, work and such by the pool. There are off and on showers. It’s quite lovely. I catch up on the Egypt blog and Mia gets ahead of me on vlogs! I now have to catch up!!! We hang out at the daybeds all day and don't leave the hotel. It's wonderful! We have lunch delivered to the day beds and dinner delivered to our rooms.

Nov 15

Another day at the day beds with breaks for breakfast, lunch, and swimming. Sensing a theme here? At one point we thought we might check out Jungle Beach or Unawatuna Beach or Galle, but no. We are happy to chill and work.

Nov 16

We have an early early early flight to Thailand on the 18th so we head to Negombo so we can be closer to the airport. And the hotel is somewhat lacking. Or at least the people Dmitri deals with are lacking. There is an issue with out reservation. As in, they don't have it. Dmitri shows the confirmation on his phone. No dice. But you canceled, they tell us. Yes, we did cancel. But then we rebooked. And back and forth. We think we get things settled and we drop our bags in our room and head for lunch. Then the guy comes and finds us at our table to bug us about it again. No, we have prepaid and we show them the proof. Then the credit card reader at lunch isn't working. Dmitri is done done done. There are mosquitos all over, the ac in the gym isn't working. It's time to leave Sri Lanka. It's been lovely but we need a little infrastructure in our lives.

Nov 17

But before we leave....

Well, the cherry on top of the hotel stay in Negombo is when we have to be up and out at 4 am to get to the airport for a 7 am flight. Which is great until the doors to the lobby are locked and we have to break out of our hotel. I swear, you really can't make this up!!!!

There's our ride on the other side of the locked lobby!

Luckily, Dmitri finds a side gate and manages to get the lock open. A fitting send off. We head to the airport and are a bit stunned to see so many people out and about and on the road. Then we realize it's because the boats have come in with the catch of the day for the fish market.

And off we go to Thailand.