Areas covered: Colombo, Kandy, Ella, Galle
Duration: 28th Feb - 4th Mar, 2018
Snapshot of the trip:
Total cost incurred: Rs. 50000 (approx.)
Currency of Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan Rupee LKR (1 INR = 1.88 LKR; 1 USD = 145 LKR -> Please don't refer google for the exchange rate as the actual value used there is much lesser)
___________________________________________________________________________
Me: What scenes for Holi?
Disha: Yar, planning to go to Sri Lanka.
Me: Wow, that's cool. I have been wanting to go there for quiet some time.
Disha: Tu bhi chal le fir. I am going with Nisith and Gurbani from Manipal.
Eshan: Oh yeah, I have heard of these people. Cool let's go. I will start making the itinerary.
Once I got added to the already existing Whatsapp group, I realised that a beautiful trail has already been outlined by Nisith. All that it really needed was some more research and fine tuning in terms of things to do/see and hostels to stay in. So I got to putting up a doable itinerary (oh I absolutely love this part) and after numerous whatsapp discussions on some really cool hostels and things to do, we were ready in about 3 weeks. So here it is...
Day 1 (Mumbai to Bangalore):
Disha and I decided to take a connecting flight from Bangalore so that we could catch up with our friends. Midway to the airport, it struck me that I had forgotten my shades. Gone...half of the cool pics that I had thought I would click are gone now. Ughhh. Disha reached an hour after I reached the airport. We were chatting and planning stuff about Sri Lanka when I got a call from an unknown number, "Mr. Kapoor, where exactly are you? We noticed that you have done your security check and the boarding gate is about to close. Please hurry up". Now if you have read my Rajasthan blog, you would know that I had missed my flight back then, and there was no way in hell that I was going to miss this one. SO WE RUSHED.
Day 2 (Bangalore to Colombo):
We reached Bangalore pretty late and then we took a cab to our respective destinations - she was going to Gurbani's house, and I wanted to meet Tamaghna (a guy - aka Sunny). Sunny and I had spent quite some time in Manipal and after 5 years we were finally going to meet again. What was I expecting from this meeting you ask? Intense discussions on life, death, enlightenment, etc. and that's precisely what happened. I shall not delve much into the nature of our discussions for it is beyond the scope of this blogpost and requires a blogpost of its own but I would be lying if I tell you that I didn't miss these kinds of conversations in my daily life. Sunny, Ron and I spent quite some time on talking about Buddha's life and his search for enlightenment, effectiveness of drugs in experiencing sensations that we are not familiar with, books, podcasts, etc. It was noon and I was starving. After requesting for about 3 times, finally Sunny decided to take me to Leon Grill which has some really killer burgers. After an hour or so, Gurbani and Disha came to pick me up from Sunny's place, and after bidding adieu to him we headed to the airport. In the middle of this journey Gurbani realised that she has forgotten her bag of essential items and pretty much till the end of our trip, it was a frequent topic of discussion :P. To make matters worse, Nisith who was supposed to meet us at Colombo from Singapore had missed his flight. LOL. But as he mentioned "I wouldn't miss this trip, no matter what", he bought a new ticket. Sri Lanka awaits us......
The three of us reached Colombo in the evening and took a taxi to Downtown Monkey Hostel in Colombo after buying a local SIM of MOBITEL (had an awesome coverage in our entire journey). Although it really doesn't give you that 'hostely' vibes but the caretakers were pretty nice. We were offered our welcome drinks which were like Rasna I guess.
After freshening up, we headed out so that Gurbani could buy her clothes but the thing is that Colombo closes a bit early and pretty much all the shops were closed. So we started looking for a nice restaurant and Zomato (yes Zomato works in Colombo) guided us to this amazing high end place called The Ocean Colombo. We had a lavish dinner:
From Pinnawala, we started moving further up towards Aukana Buddha Statue but on the way, by sheer luck, we came across this beautiful scenic backwaters in Balauagare (you won't find this on the map). Three trees, umpteen boats, locals, hundreds and thousands of birds flying across, river body, mountains in the distance. Can't imagine? Let me help you.
Wandering Wheelz of the Trip:
Currency of Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan Rupee LKR (1 INR = 1.88 LKR; 1 USD = 145 LKR -> Please don't refer google for the exchange rate as the actual value used there is much lesser)
___________________________________________________________________________
Me: What scenes for Holi?
Disha: Yar, planning to go to Sri Lanka.
Me: Wow, that's cool. I have been wanting to go there for quiet some time.
Disha: Tu bhi chal le fir. I am going with Nisith and Gurbani from Manipal.
Eshan: Oh yeah, I have heard of these people. Cool let's go. I will start making the itinerary.
Once I got added to the already existing Whatsapp group, I realised that a beautiful trail has already been outlined by Nisith. All that it really needed was some more research and fine tuning in terms of things to do/see and hostels to stay in. So I got to putting up a doable itinerary (oh I absolutely love this part) and after numerous whatsapp discussions on some really cool hostels and things to do, we were ready in about 3 weeks. So here it is...
Day 1 (Mumbai to Bangalore):
Disha and I decided to take a connecting flight from Bangalore so that we could catch up with our friends. Midway to the airport, it struck me that I had forgotten my shades. Gone...half of the cool pics that I had thought I would click are gone now. Ughhh. Disha reached an hour after I reached the airport. We were chatting and planning stuff about Sri Lanka when I got a call from an unknown number, "Mr. Kapoor, where exactly are you? We noticed that you have done your security check and the boarding gate is about to close. Please hurry up". Now if you have read my Rajasthan blog, you would know that I had missed my flight back then, and there was no way in hell that I was going to miss this one. SO WE RUSHED.
Day 2 (Bangalore to Colombo):
We reached Bangalore pretty late and then we took a cab to our respective destinations - she was going to Gurbani's house, and I wanted to meet Tamaghna (a guy - aka Sunny). Sunny and I had spent quite some time in Manipal and after 5 years we were finally going to meet again. What was I expecting from this meeting you ask? Intense discussions on life, death, enlightenment, etc. and that's precisely what happened. I shall not delve much into the nature of our discussions for it is beyond the scope of this blogpost and requires a blogpost of its own but I would be lying if I tell you that I didn't miss these kinds of conversations in my daily life. Sunny, Ron and I spent quite some time on talking about Buddha's life and his search for enlightenment, effectiveness of drugs in experiencing sensations that we are not familiar with, books, podcasts, etc. It was noon and I was starving. After requesting for about 3 times, finally Sunny decided to take me to Leon Grill which has some really killer burgers. After an hour or so, Gurbani and Disha came to pick me up from Sunny's place, and after bidding adieu to him we headed to the airport. In the middle of this journey Gurbani realised that she has forgotten her bag of essential items and pretty much till the end of our trip, it was a frequent topic of discussion :P. To make matters worse, Nisith who was supposed to meet us at Colombo from Singapore had missed his flight. LOL. But as he mentioned "I wouldn't miss this trip, no matter what", he bought a new ticket. Sri Lanka awaits us......
Sri Lankan Rasna
Spotted a Nano in Colombo
After freshening up, we headed out so that Gurbani could buy her clothes but the thing is that Colombo closes a bit early and pretty much all the shops were closed. So we started looking for a nice restaurant and Zomato (yes Zomato works in Colombo) guided us to this amazing high end place called The Ocean Colombo. We had a lavish dinner:
Their wine collection
Lion Stout beer
Rainbow Roll Sushi
Shark fillet, Pal Yum Mamuang
Chocolate Ganache, Creme Brulee
We talked to one of the waiters and tried to arrange a taxi for our next day's trip to Kandy. We managed to strike a decent deal and happily went back to our hostel. As I was just about to fall asleep, Nisith reached the hostel. The next thing I know, Gurbani and Disha brought a couple of glasses, lemon, and salt from the hostel kitchen, while Nisith had brought some alcohol from the duty free, and we had a few shots.
Day 3 (Colombo to Kandy):
It was past midnight and we headed to a casino called Balley's. None of us had any experience in gambling so we decided to spend the minimum amount which we ended up losing on Roulette. Too much fun, I tell ya ;) The upside to all of this? Free food which became our breakfast at around 2 in the morning. From casino we moved towards a Marine Drive sort of place, and saw a couple of men dancing to an old Bollywood song at 3 am on the road. Crazy place, this Sri Lanka!!!! We had told Buddika (our driver) to pick us up from our hostel at 5:30 am so we went back to Downtown Monkey and quickly packed our stuff. Our first stop to Kandy was Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage where we fed elephants with milk and fruits.
Filter, no. Sunkissed, yes
I like this pic
As you can clearly see, an elephant is being fed by an extremely happy being
Going to the river for a quick bath
Elephant walked off once Gurbani told him that she herself doesn't have food
Khud hi kha le bhai
This is how it looked from the main road
We met a fisherman here who knew Hindi. He told us that they have come here with their families on a picnic since it was a holiday in Sri Lanka due to Meding Poe day (March Full Moon celebrated by Buddhists). He told us that elephants cross this water body during low tide. We could only imagine what a beautiful sight it might be.
With Buddhika (grey shirt), and the fisherman (hidden - blue shirt)
It being an auspicious Buddhist festival, I was pretty excited to visit the Aukana Buddha Statue which is a 40 feet tall statue and was made in 5th century over a period of 8 years. The entry ticket was pretty costly so we decided that only one of us would actually see the statue.
Don't know what he is upto
Our next stop was the Dambulla Cave which dates back to 1st century BC. This World Heritage Site has 153 Buddha statues and has really unbelievable roof paintings. To reach the cave, you need to hike a little bit which isn't that tiring to be honest.
Look at them spikes
Makarand Deshpande of Sri Lanka
Our initial plan was to hike the Sigiriya which is a massive column of rock 660 feet high. But since we reached a bit late (and were pretty tired as well), we decided to skip it and have some local food at a nearby restaurant. So we went to Sigiri restaurant and placed our order. It took about an hour for the food to arrive so to pass the time we played carrom with the locals.
Chicken Kottu, Fish Curry, Pork Curry
Buddhika ate with us and we had a nice conversation about his life and his future plans, marriages in Sri Lanka, etc. Nice dude and quite friendly. Need a ride from Colombo to some place in Sri Lanka? Call him at - 0759124424. It was getting pretty dark so we started inching towards our final destination of the day - Kandy City Hostel. We got stuck in a horrible traffic en route due to a local Tamil festival which happens once in a year. We made our way through a barrage of people who looked and wore dresses quite similar to ours. It was difficult to say that we were in a foreign land. We reached the hostel pretty late a night and bid Buddhika adieu. We were greeted by a fierce looking dog in the hostel which itself was massive and was decorated pretty well.
Creative
Numismatics
Duly noted
Our plan was to take the 'highly popular train ride from Kandy to Ella'. The caretaker informed us that there are two trains - one leaves at 3:30 AM and the other at 8:45 AM. There was no way in hell we could take the former as we were really tired. So we slept like logs (after I had invited Sophia, one of the people that we were sharing the room with to join us for next day's train journey). Who would have thought that the government would declare emergency in Kandy after a few days.
Day 3 (Kandy to Ella):
We woke up pretty early in the morning and had a good breakfast of bread and scrambled eggs (which were made by yours truly and appreciated by all. Oh come on, making scrambled eggs isn't that easy, ok?). An auto dropped us to the train station which greeted us with a big queue. Once we purchased the ticket we moved towards the platform and waited for what seemed like forever for the the train to arrive.
The girl with the tattoo, Sophia
Kandy station
Waiting for the train
Now let me tell you a thing about the train scene in Sri Lanka. If you want a 1st class ticket of Kandy - Ella train, you have to book online (or through a travel agent) 30 days in advance. The tickets get over in a few minutes. Of course, I came to know about this while I was doing my research back home in Mumbai. So the only option remaining was to stand in a queue to take the ticket of 2nd/3rd class. We got a 2nd class ticket and boarded a 3rd class coach (no difference between the two) and boy was it crowded. Anyhow, we tried to squeeze and us being Indians, it was a piece of cake for us but I could see the discomfort on Sophia's face. Since there was no place to sit, I chose to sit on the floor near the door of the train.
Notice that small red coloured bag behind me? Well, I was chilling by the door and reading my book when all of a sudden this dude comes up to me and offers me his bag so that I can sit more comfortably. Why? Why does one go out of his way to make someone else's life better? What does he gain? Anyhow, continuing with the story...Sophia saw me reading The Book Thief and she told me that back in Germany, they are made to read this book as a part of their school curriculum and this book made her really emotional. I had just started the book so I was not really in a position to comment but I was glad that I was holding a great book (Recently I finished this book and it really is a piece of art. Do read it). After some time in to the journey, Disha started passing around besan ke laddoos to us and the nearby fellow passengers. Among them was the guy who had offered me his bag. So this guy came back to us with sunflower seeds which I found really difficult to eat.
This guy was from Ukraine and was a lawyer (took me a few seconds to understand because of his accent :P ). After the crowd thinned a bit, we moved towards a better section of the train which was more spacious and had a few seats. For the rest of the journey we ate, photographed, and listened to music.
They also eat Medu Vada :D
Gehre soch vichar
Don't ask me what's happening
After a really scenic, and I would go to the extent of saying a calm train ride of a few hours, we had reached Ella, pronounced as Ell.
Upon reaching Ella, we took an auto to our hostel Tomorrowland. At this point allow me to tell you that Disha has insane bargaining skills. The way she negotiated with the auto guy was so hilarious that not only did we laugh the entire way till Tomorrowland, but we also made her the official negotiator of our group. At the hostel we were greeted by a really cute dog.
After a few minutes we were approached by the caretaker Alex who was from Holland (he was born in Pakistan with the name of Sikander). Once we entered the hostel, we were simply mesmerised by the artwork and the surrounding greenery:
View from the tents where we stayed
The tents in which we spent the night
We dropped our luggage at the hostel and started hiking down to the famous 9 arch bridge. Wikipedia says - "It is often likened to the countryside through which the fictional Hogwarts express passes through in the Harry Potter world".
Mandatory 'sitting on the railway track' pic
Interesting game by a bunch of locals
We thought that this railway track is abandoned and were casually taking photographs. It's when we moved off the tracks to a nearby restaurant for having some coffee did we notice a train approaching by. Yeah, that was just plain stupid.
We took an auto from this place and went to the main city for dinner. The locals directed us a to really cool cafe called Chill. We ordered Lamprais, Devilled Fish, Rice & Curry.
In this restaurant we were supposed to leave our footwear at the entrance. After finishing our food we went back to collect our footwear and noticed that Disha's shoes had been taken away by someone else. After 30 minutes of chaos and confusion, basically what happened was that the restaurant gave us LKR 10000 for misplacing the shoes. Funny part - our bill for the food was just LKR 13000. Disha \RESPECT/. Since all of a sudden we had come richer, we took autos back to the hostel without any negotiation which was quite unusual for us. Things were looking pretty dopey back at the hostel as party scenes had started. Yes, they even had a DJ playing some really good music. After much convincing, they even played 2-3 Bollywood numbers. Soon the 4 of us remembered that we had brought gulal to play play Holi in Sri Lanka. So we decided to play a game - each of us took 1 packet of gulal with different colors and started applying on everyone's face. The competition was that the by the end whichever color is most visible in the room, that particular person wins. Well, we did apply it to a lot of people but by the end we completely forgot about the competition.
Some of us were dancing and some were busy playing carrom with people who had never played this in their lives. Once the party ended, I went back to my tent but the breeze was just too much and the weather too cold to sleep in the tent. So I moved back inside the hostel and crashed. The little dog of the hostel slept close by :D.
Day 4 (Ella to Galle):
I woke up to a beautiful sunrise the next day and spent some time reading in the hammock right at the entrance of the hostel. All of us had a breakfast of Sri Lankan Dal (I have become a big fan of this), scrambled eggs, and bread. The next destination was Galle but we had planned to check out the Ravana Waterfalls and scuba dive in Unawatuna first. Well, the legend says that Ravana had kidnapped Sita and had hidden her in the caves behind this waterfall.
Although we wanted to experience the local buses, but a bus journey from Ella to Galle would have taken 8 hours which was just too much. So we took a mini van of sorts and headed to Unawatuna while entertaining ourselves with music. Nisith selected songs, Disha and Gurbani sang, and I beat the plastic bottles for the beats. We stopped at some restaurant somewhere and had something.
It was pretty delicious
Once we reached Unawatuna, I started looking for some place where I could scuba dive but by the time we had reached Unawatuna, it was quite late to scuba dive so we postponed this for the next day. Anyway, it was just myself who was interested in diving. Considering this we moved straight to our hostel in Galle which was located right next to the sea. To explain better, I had selected a hostel which had a sea facing view because it was built on the shore. Jealous? :P
Yup, the hostel had a book shelf
Sri Lankan coffee
After clicking some pictures, I moved to a nearby table and started writing for the blog. And for the next hour or so I hardly wrote anything but met some really cool people from Portugal, France and the USA. We decided that we would wake up early morning to check out some whales and then I will head for a scuba dive while the others would go for some shopping. So I made the bookings with one of the hostel caretakers and headed near the shore for some coffee and bumped into another caretaker who was also a PADI certified scuba instructor. As I was mentioning to him my plans for the next day, he asked me one question which although ended up ruining my plans but ALSO saved my life. Yes, saved my life. He asked me - When are you flying back to India? My answer was - Tomorrow. After giving me a death stare for 5 seconds he told me that you are NOT supposed to scuba dive for at least 48 hours before/after taking a flight. The pressure difference can cause brain haemorrhage. I was disappointed and felt lucky at the same time for having encountering him. Anyway, I switched my plan from scuba diving to snorkelling 'cos hey, I ain't not gonna go in to the waters.
In the evening we went to Chill cafe (probably another branch of Chill of Ella) in Hikkaduwa where we partied for a while and came back to our hostel Coco Palm Beach to crash.
Day 5 (Galle to Colombo):
I woke up early the next morning and headed to the beach to read and write for a while.
As soon as all of us got ready, we headed to Hikkaduwa where Nisith, Disha and Gurbani started looking for a nice place to grab some breakfast, and I was looking for a place to snorkel. I found a place which had the option for both snorkelling and scuba diving. I was eyeing those were getting ready to dive with extreme envy but ce'st la vie. I got the gear and swam towards the coral reefs which surprisingly were pretty close to the shore. Unfortunately I didn't have underwater camera otherwise I would have shared some amazing pictures. The sights were breathtaking and the variety of fish were just stunning. I did end up scratching and cutting myself in a lot of places though but it was all worth it.
Once I finished snorkelling, I started walking towards VIP Club Resort where the other 3 had ordered some breakfast. I tried to hitchhike and one guy even stopped his scooter but told me that he would love to give a lift but he can't since the rules and regulations in Sri Lanka are pretty strict, and the pillion rider must have a helmet. I thanked him anyway and jogged for a kilometre or so till I reached the cafe. The previous night we had made some enquiries for a cab from Hikkaduwa to Colombo city. Disha had made another enquiry with the VIP Club Resort. The objective was that we would negotiate with the two but the whole thing backfired. We ended up causing a gang war of sorts (yes there was almost a fight) between the two restaurants as neither of the two cab owners wanted to back out. One one side we had a frail woman boss of VIP and on the other hand we had a boss of Coco Palm on the phone. The latter accused the former for this confusion after which 4-5 burly men ganged up on the poor driver of Coco. And this situation was being handled by Nisith and myself, the 2 people with the suckiest negotiation skills, whereas the ladies were busy shopping.
With much difficulty and persuasion, wasting 45 minutes, and giving a fine of LKR to 1500 to VIP Club Resort, we finally moved towards Ministry of Crab in Colombo.
After the lunch, Disha and I bid goodbye to Nisith and Gurbani as their flights were pretty late, and we headed to the Colombo airport. Reaching Chennai from Colombo was much easier than reaching Mumbai from Chennai. God bless the customs and our wonderful Air India which ensured that the return journey was as horrible as it can be :P. We landed in Mumbai after several hours and reached our respective places. The trip had ended.
After 2-3 days of returning to Mumbai I was shocked to hear that the Sri Lankan government had imposed Emergency in Kandy which is a very touristy place. The reason was the communal tensions between Sinhalese Buddhists and the local Muslim population which had resulted in 2 deaths. It was difficult to believe that Sri Lanka, an island where nature is in its full glory, an island that is inhabited majorly by Buddhists, the torch bearers of love and compassion, was reduced to such a horrible state. The growing disparities, the clashing egos, the never ending greed is giving birth to this monstrous 'You & I'. These differences that tend to grow their empires on two different banks of the river can only be crossed with the bridge of love and compassion. And how do we develop that? Reading or listening to inspirational stuff and hash tagging 'Peace' won't be enough. Until and unless we get our hands dirty, developing compassion is impossible. Until and unless you have walked the streets of the poor, you will not be able to stop yourself from considering them a scum and wishing that they would just disappear. Until you have heard and practised the tenets of other religions, how would you stop looking down on people who have different beliefs than you. If you haven't spent time in the nature, how will you stop the global warming and reduce the ever increasing pile of trash made up of stuff that you never really needed in the first place. If you don't travel, how will you know that there is more to life than just numbing your pain through intoxicants. If you don't travel how will you know there is more to life than just hate...There Is Love.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment - Rumi
Eshan Kapoor
Gurbani
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/gurbanichopra/
Disha
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/dishmakkar/
Nisith
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