Took of from Nuwara Eliya in the morning. Luckily it had stopped raining. On the way, we saw a Hindu temple. This was (one of?) the first Hindu temples we stopped at, since almost everything else we had seen was primarily Buddhist.
Some more driving...
This place is called the Ella Gap, because it's the gap between these two mountains, and on a clear day, you can see all the way to the ocean.
Next up was the Rawana Falls. Pretty neat waterfall, with a little pool that you can go swimming in. I didn't, but other people were!
Side note: this is EGB (Elephant Ginger Beer). It's basically ginger ale, and people here love it and go crazy about it. It's everywhere, and actually pretty good.
Destination: Tissa(maharama). Even to the locals, the name is too long, so they all just say Tissa instead of the full name.
Like most towns, it's pretty small, but a neat place with a couple big lakes, and more Buddhist temples. I wandered around a bit and somehow went into a small, rural neighborhood. Everyone was very friendly, just like everywhere else, with the usual "Hello sir!", "How old you are?", "Where you are going?", "Goodbye!".
I'd say I stopped and chatted with a couple of them, but we had a serious linguistic divide, with my Sinhala basically limited to "Ayubowan" ("long life", used like Mahalo to say hi and bye), "Stuti" (thank you), and a few other random words that weren't very helpful. On the other side, people often like to say "hi", and ask me how old I am. I asked Aruna why, and he said it's because I look really young (he said someone thought I was 16 at one point). Anyway. I did say "hi" to a few of them, and even got as far as "what is your name! how are you! good! OK bye!".
Even in the cities, and everywhere else, people are generally very friendly.
Tomorrow is an early start at 5:00 AM! (at least in theory)
Monday, February 24, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Kandy to Nuwara Elia (basically a city in the clouds)
Day... 5?
Took off from Kandy towards Nuwara Eliya.
It was a windy drive through the mountains, as Nuwara Eliya is something like 4,500 ft above sea level. The first stop was a fruit stand along the side of the road. Delicious!
After that, we went to a tea plantation, and I got a brief tour of one of the factories. This one isn't really in full industrial production, but is essentially just like the others nearby that are. After the tour, you get to have some tea fresh from the factory. The whole areas is just basically rolling hills / mountains of tea fields.
Then a small Hindu temple. This region apparently is a majority Tamil region, but not the "original Tamils". The Tamils in the north are the "indigenous" Tamils to Sri Lanka, and this other population was apparently brought later to work in the tea fields. Anyway, the Sinhala are mostly Buddhist, and the Tamils are mostly Hindu.
We ate lunch at the Ramboda Falls. Pretty neat waterfall, which seems to have a hotel and restaurant attached. The path to get there isn't very far, but it's pretty steep. The falls have a little canal for carrying away excess water, because otherwise it causes floods further downstream. I followed some Germans across to the other side for some extra pictures.
Side note - this place is literally crawling with Germans. If you see a random tourist, you're probably better off speaking to them in German, because chances are they're German. My tea tour was in German, which was just fine and lucky for the woman there who didn't understand a ton of English... Incredible that there are even any Sri Lankans who speak it.
More pictures along the way...
Now, Nuwara Eliya! Probably my favorite big city so far, but unfortunately it started raining while I was out exploring (and has been going on and off ever since). Maybe it was just the rain clouds coming in, but the whole city and area seemed to be in the clouds. Pretty neat.
Took off from Kandy towards Nuwara Eliya.
It was a windy drive through the mountains, as Nuwara Eliya is something like 4,500 ft above sea level. The first stop was a fruit stand along the side of the road. Delicious!
After that, we went to a tea plantation, and I got a brief tour of one of the factories. This one isn't really in full industrial production, but is essentially just like the others nearby that are. After the tour, you get to have some tea fresh from the factory. The whole areas is just basically rolling hills / mountains of tea fields.
Then a small Hindu temple. This region apparently is a majority Tamil region, but not the "original Tamils". The Tamils in the north are the "indigenous" Tamils to Sri Lanka, and this other population was apparently brought later to work in the tea fields. Anyway, the Sinhala are mostly Buddhist, and the Tamils are mostly Hindu.
We ate lunch at the Ramboda Falls. Pretty neat waterfall, which seems to have a hotel and restaurant attached. The path to get there isn't very far, but it's pretty steep. The falls have a little canal for carrying away excess water, because otherwise it causes floods further downstream. I followed some Germans across to the other side for some extra pictures.
Side note - this place is literally crawling with Germans. If you see a random tourist, you're probably better off speaking to them in German, because chances are they're German. My tea tour was in German, which was just fine and lucky for the woman there who didn't understand a ton of English... Incredible that there are even any Sri Lankans who speak it.
More pictures along the way...
Now, Nuwara Eliya! Probably my favorite big city so far, but unfortunately it started raining while I was out exploring (and has been going on and off ever since). Maybe it was just the rain clouds coming in, but the whole city and area seemed to be in the clouds. Pretty neat.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Dambulla and Kandy
Day 4.
Today started off with Dambulla, which has some natural and man-made temple caves. The natural caves apparently have been used by the Buddhist monks since before the first century BC.
Afterwards, there was a herbal garden. Didn't get any pictures of that, but it was pretty neat to see a lot of the various herbs and spices up front and in person.
Then came the drive to Kandy and the Royal Botanical Garden, and I got some neat pictures of some pretty exotic plants.
Last big thing was the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. Apparently, this contains one of Buddha's teeth, kept hidden away in a container, and is only ever revealed every 5 years.
Today started off with Dambulla, which has some natural and man-made temple caves. The natural caves apparently have been used by the Buddhist monks since before the first century BC.
Afterwards, there was a herbal garden. Didn't get any pictures of that, but it was pretty neat to see a lot of the various herbs and spices up front and in person.
Then came the drive to Kandy and the Royal Botanical Garden, and I got some neat pictures of some pretty exotic plants.
Last big thing was the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. Apparently, this contains one of Buddha's teeth, kept hidden away in a container, and is only ever revealed every 5 years.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Sigiriya and Ancient Things
So this is Day 3.
In the morning, my guide Aruna and I headed to the Lion Rock. A fascinating natural wonder in itself, sometime around 500 CE, an ancient king built a palace up on top of the rock. After some time, it turned into a Buddhist monastery. Since then, the palace is obviously gone, but you can see the remains and some of the gardens that were built.
It starts out with the moat, which allegedly contains crocodiles...
After that, there are several gardens that you traverse through before reaching the rock itself.
Now we begin the ascent up the rock. The Mirror Wall features prominently on the rock, and was constructed so that it reflects the sun and moonlight. There are also some ancient frescos painted along the interior along the side of the rock.
Here we're actually getting close to the top. This is the Lion's Gate. You can see that the lion's paws are still there, but the head is long gone...
Here's the top! You can see pretty far.
The Habarana Village tour was next. To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first, it was actually pretty good. I was somewhat skeptical that the farm would be a real farm, and thought it might just be some huts thrown together only for tourists, but it seems like they have a good mix of actual farm (why bother to rotate crops if it's a fake farm? or protect against elephant raids to eat all the rice?) and being welcoming / accommodating to tourists. I got some very fresh bananas, coconut flatbread, and tea. Yum. Didn't see any crocodiles, though.
I have to upload these pictures later because iPhoto is, as usual, being horrible and failing to integrate with Flickr, which you'd think would be a key feature that they'd want to work well.
Afterwards, we went to the nearby Habarana Inn for some relatively authentic Sri Lankan food, according to Aruna. Note that the "Sri Lankan" way to eat is just with your fingers, no utensils. I'm not quite that assimilated into the culture yet.
Next was Polonnaruwa, which is basically a bunch of ruins from around 1200 CE. There were some Buddhist temples and palaces, where destroyed and plundered by raiding Indians, and then also some Hindu temples that were built in their place.
Eventually we made it to the hotel. Again, a somewhat secluded location, though a little bit less so than yesterday. I took a walk through the "town", though admittedly only the outskirts. I didn't want to be even more conspicuous by taking pictures of people everywhere, but I did get a few of the area.
In the morning, my guide Aruna and I headed to the Lion Rock. A fascinating natural wonder in itself, sometime around 500 CE, an ancient king built a palace up on top of the rock. After some time, it turned into a Buddhist monastery. Since then, the palace is obviously gone, but you can see the remains and some of the gardens that were built.
It starts out with the moat, which allegedly contains crocodiles...
After that, there are several gardens that you traverse through before reaching the rock itself.
Now we begin the ascent up the rock. The Mirror Wall features prominently on the rock, and was constructed so that it reflects the sun and moonlight. There are also some ancient frescos painted along the interior along the side of the rock.
Here we're actually getting close to the top. This is the Lion's Gate. You can see that the lion's paws are still there, but the head is long gone...
Here's the top! You can see pretty far.
The Habarana Village tour was next. To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first, it was actually pretty good. I was somewhat skeptical that the farm would be a real farm, and thought it might just be some huts thrown together only for tourists, but it seems like they have a good mix of actual farm (why bother to rotate crops if it's a fake farm? or protect against elephant raids to eat all the rice?) and being welcoming / accommodating to tourists. I got some very fresh bananas, coconut flatbread, and tea. Yum. Didn't see any crocodiles, though.
Afterwards, we went to the nearby Habarana Inn for some relatively authentic Sri Lankan food, according to Aruna. Note that the "Sri Lankan" way to eat is just with your fingers, no utensils. I'm not quite that assimilated into the culture yet.
Next was Polonnaruwa, which is basically a bunch of ruins from around 1200 CE. There were some Buddhist temples and palaces, where destroyed and plundered by raiding Indians, and then also some Hindu temples that were built in their place.
Eventually we made it to the hotel. Again, a somewhat secluded location, though a little bit less so than yesterday. I took a walk through the "town", though admittedly only the outskirts. I didn't want to be even more conspicuous by taking pictures of people everywhere, but I did get a few of the area.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
...Sri Lanka...!?
Revival of the travel blog after a several year hiatus, I suppose. This time from Sri Lanka, somewhere fairly new and different from where I've been before.
Why Sri Lanka? Good question. It's warm, has things to see, and has beaches. Not a bad combination. Somehow, Sri Lanka won out in my mind among the places I could go. So here I am. Ta da.
After flying out on Tuesday night, I arrived in Colombo after a ~9 hour flight on Wednesday afternoon. A friend of mine in London persuaded me to use Blue Lanka Tours to arrange everything, and to be honest, I was pretty easily persuaded.
Got to the hotel, got everything there situated, and wandered around the town a bit. I managed to see a Buddhist temple, which also had a lot of general Sri Lankan things as well, and saw the ocean. Didn't go swimming yet... I'm saving that for the nice beaches at the end!
Colombo itself probably isn't the most beautiful city in the world, at least not the parts that I saw, but that's pretty much in line with what I heard, and is also why I'm only spending time there on the first and last nights.
Ultimately, I had to find a way to jump ahead 5.5 hours in time. For some reason, India and Sri Lanka are 5.5 hours ahead of London. You might think it would make more sense to have a timezone shift in full hour increments, but... nope. You apparently thought wrong.
My first thought was "wow, how do they fit all of these elephants here and treat them well?". It looked like the elephants were doing alright, with a bit of space to roam around in.
Look, they let me feed an elephant. And they didn't feed me to the elephant, I just got to give it some fresh fruit.
Here was one of the areas where they could wander around. There are tons of them, and this isn't even all of them!
They kept some of the baby elephants separate. Not all of them, just some of them... not sure why. Maybe the ones who aren't there with their mothers? I guess that would make some sense. Anyway, you can get up close to them and say hi, and they also had a bottle feeding that we got to see.
There was another area (which also had a restaurant that I ate at) where the elephants can go in the river. The elephants seem to be sent over in shifts, so they don't get too crowded. Also, apparently the "traditional way" to bathe an elephant is for it to lie down in the river and take a nap (some of them clearly were doing this), and then it just gets splashed with water.
After the elephants, it was onwards to Sigiriya. We stopped for King Coconut water along the way - no picture of that, though.
Eventually, we made it here, with the plan of climbing up the rock in the morning.
It's sort of funny to see how many Japanese cars and brands there are here. The cars I can understand, I suppose, given that they both drive on the left side of the road, but still a bit strange that there are more Japanese cars than, say, TATA Motors. I don't understand the Japanese paint brands, etc. at all though.
I suppose "secluded" is the right word to describe the hotel I'm at. So it's me, what seems like a trillion Germans, and a few other assorted tourists hanging out at the hotel bar / restaurant area.
Why Sri Lanka? Good question. It's warm, has things to see, and has beaches. Not a bad combination. Somehow, Sri Lanka won out in my mind among the places I could go. So here I am. Ta da.
- Day 1 - Arriving in Colombo - Tuesday February 19, 2014
After flying out on Tuesday night, I arrived in Colombo after a ~9 hour flight on Wednesday afternoon. A friend of mine in London persuaded me to use Blue Lanka Tours to arrange everything, and to be honest, I was pretty easily persuaded.
Got to the hotel, got everything there situated, and wandered around the town a bit. I managed to see a Buddhist temple, which also had a lot of general Sri Lankan things as well, and saw the ocean. Didn't go swimming yet... I'm saving that for the nice beaches at the end!
Colombo itself probably isn't the most beautiful city in the world, at least not the parts that I saw, but that's pretty much in line with what I heard, and is also why I'm only spending time there on the first and last nights.
Ultimately, I had to find a way to jump ahead 5.5 hours in time. For some reason, India and Sri Lanka are 5.5 hours ahead of London. You might think it would make more sense to have a timezone shift in full hour increments, but... nope. You apparently thought wrong.
- Day 2 - The Journey from Colombo to Sigiriya... via the Elephant Orphanage - Wednesday February 20, 2014
My first thought was "wow, how do they fit all of these elephants here and treat them well?". It looked like the elephants were doing alright, with a bit of space to roam around in.
Look, they let me feed an elephant. And they didn't feed me to the elephant, I just got to give it some fresh fruit.
Here was one of the areas where they could wander around. There are tons of them, and this isn't even all of them!
They kept some of the baby elephants separate. Not all of them, just some of them... not sure why. Maybe the ones who aren't there with their mothers? I guess that would make some sense. Anyway, you can get up close to them and say hi, and they also had a bottle feeding that we got to see.
There was another area (which also had a restaurant that I ate at) where the elephants can go in the river. The elephants seem to be sent over in shifts, so they don't get too crowded. Also, apparently the "traditional way" to bathe an elephant is for it to lie down in the river and take a nap (some of them clearly were doing this), and then it just gets splashed with water.
After the elephants, it was onwards to Sigiriya. We stopped for King Coconut water along the way - no picture of that, though.
Eventually, we made it here, with the plan of climbing up the rock in the morning.
It's sort of funny to see how many Japanese cars and brands there are here. The cars I can understand, I suppose, given that they both drive on the left side of the road, but still a bit strange that there are more Japanese cars than, say, TATA Motors. I don't understand the Japanese paint brands, etc. at all though.
I suppose "secluded" is the right word to describe the hotel I'm at. So it's me, what seems like a trillion Germans, and a few other assorted tourists hanging out at the hotel bar / restaurant area.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Relocation to London: Complete!
I made it to London! I had 4 moving boxes, 2 suitcases, and my laptop bag, and managed to transport it all from St. Gallen to London. All without mishap!
Here are a couple pictures of the new apartment:
It took about a week to get the internet installed, so I've been doing a bit of exploring, reading, hanging out, resting, etc. It's quite different from St. Gallen, to say the least....
Here are a couple pictures of the new apartment:
It took about a week to get the internet installed, so I've been doing a bit of exploring, reading, hanging out, resting, etc. It's quite different from St. Gallen, to say the least....
Monday, April 11, 2011
Mom's last two days in Switzerland
Sunday
On Sunday, we ventured over to the Rhieinfalls, where Micah and I had visited just a week or two ago. Since the weather was so great, we also took a little boat ride to the little island in the middle of the waterfall. It was really cool!
Afterwards, we wandered around the city of Schaffhausen for a bit. We climbed up the Munot, which was a defensive structure from the 16th century. From up top, there was a pretty neat view of the city.
From Schaffhausen, we proceeded to head over to Bregenz, Austria, which is another place that I took Micah when he was here. However, we took an interesting route - we went by way of Germany! We had a scenic train ride through southern Germany, and a nice little stopover in Friedrichshafen, where we had a surprisingly good view of the Appenzeller Alps, where we had been hiking the day before.
We made it to Austria, and met up with my friend Jesse. He showed us around Bregenz, and then his girlfriend Claudia met up with us for a very Austrian dinner.
Here is the journey that we took!
View Larger Map
Monday
Today, we headed out to Basel, where we met up with Kate from Longbridge and her family for lunch. Technically, they live in Liestal, but that was our starting point for the Basel tour. We had a lot of fun meeting up with Kate and her family!
When we made it to Basel, we did a good little tour that covered a lot of the "important" sights. This included the Basler Münster, the Rhein, the town hall, and many other sights!
Here's the route we took, including the stop in Oberdorf BL to meet up with Kate and her family.
View Larger Map
As always, this is only a small portion of the pictures!
On Sunday, we ventured over to the Rhieinfalls, where Micah and I had visited just a week or two ago. Since the weather was so great, we also took a little boat ride to the little island in the middle of the waterfall. It was really cool!
Afterwards, we wandered around the city of Schaffhausen for a bit. We climbed up the Munot, which was a defensive structure from the 16th century. From up top, there was a pretty neat view of the city.
From Schaffhausen, we proceeded to head over to Bregenz, Austria, which is another place that I took Micah when he was here. However, we took an interesting route - we went by way of Germany! We had a scenic train ride through southern Germany, and a nice little stopover in Friedrichshafen, where we had a surprisingly good view of the Appenzeller Alps, where we had been hiking the day before.
We made it to Austria, and met up with my friend Jesse. He showed us around Bregenz, and then his girlfriend Claudia met up with us for a very Austrian dinner.
Here is the journey that we took!
View Larger Map
Monday
Today, we headed out to Basel, where we met up with Kate from Longbridge and her family for lunch. Technically, they live in Liestal, but that was our starting point for the Basel tour. We had a lot of fun meeting up with Kate and her family!
When we made it to Basel, we did a good little tour that covered a lot of the "important" sights. This included the Basler Münster, the Rhein, the town hall, and many other sights!
Here's the route we took, including the stop in Oberdorf BL to meet up with Kate and her family.
View Larger Map
As always, this is only a small portion of the pictures!
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