We spent 8 days in Sri Lanka. But I needed a month. This country was so interesting. And I feel like its been hiding in plain sight. Gorgeous beaches, temples, ruins, elephants, trains, mountainous tea plantations, smiling people and rich food.
Twenty million people on this small island south of India. I expected it to look like India. But it didn't. They are mostly Buddhist. And mostly Sinhalese. A very small 5% being Indian Tamil.
Our first stop after meeting our guide at the airport was a fruit stand on the side of the road. We bought a couple king coconuts with our Sri Lankan rupees from this smiling lady and sipped them on our 3 hour drive from Colombo to Sigiriya.
A sign in English and Sinhala.
My eyes were glued to the window, hungry to see the culture. "Boys, tell me 5 things you don't see in Singapore." We drove through busy marketplaces, small villages and empty countryside. Children in white school uniforms sitting in orange concrete schools.
The streets were so fascinating. What are the women wearing? What is that man carrying? I wonder what that child is eating.
Lots of auto rickshaws, bicycles, buses, big dump trucks. The government buses were red, the new TATA buses were painted in bright colors, and the trucks were even prettier with their tassels and decorations in technicolor.
Our guide, Nandina has been doing tours for 17 years. I was curious how the end of the war had affected his job. Sri lanka has been in a 26 year long brutal conflict between a military government and Tamil Liberators (some would say it was a Sinhalese Buddhist majority against a Tamil Hindu minority). The country's name was changed in 1972 from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. The conflict was complicated by the tsunami of 2004, with one side refusing to give international aid to the other. But the war ended in 2009 a lot of improvements have been made and a lot more tourism.
Its amazing how I take such things as peace and stability for granted. I expect it.
The young man at the front desk of our hotel was so excited when I told him what country we were from. "USA is my favorite country!" When I asked him why I expected his answer to be - Hollywood, rock and roll, and jeans. But I haven't forgotten what he said,
"Freedom and Justice."
Our guide said he has a lot more visitors now and the itineraries are much easier to fulfill. During the war sometimes they would have to stay a few extra days in Colombo because the road to Sigiriya had been bombed.
A truck full of mahoganey. We also saw lots of coconut wood being processed, bricks being made in the hot sun and coconut husks being ground up by hand for cloth and carpets.
Sibby sleeps as Sri Lanka rolls by her window.
Marketplace selling plastic bowls, metal tiffin boxes, rubber tires, clothes, toys, peanut snacks, whatever you need.
The countryside was full of palm oil, rubber, coconut and banana trees.
We loved these little convenience shops where we'd stock up on bottled water, gum, or 6 different kinds of bananas.
I'm pretty sure we ate curry for every meal. We couldn't get enough. So many different kinds and different flavors. We had to be really careful with Sybil's cashew allergy though. They put cashews in everything! Even atop a bowl of ice cream.
We loved this little resto in Sigiriya.
4 different curries with rice and popadoms. And a mango lassi made from buffalo milk.
During dinner Sibby was dancing to the beat of a pop cover playing on a small boombox in the corner when all the electricity went out. "I've always wanted to be in a blackout!" says Gage. And it was black! We went out to look at the few stars in the sky and came back to finish our meal by lantern.
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