Zoo in Sri Lanka & Farewell Rains

Well, this was my last week in Sri Lanka. Earlier I had gone to the zoo, where they had some unusual creatures, and especially many species of monkeys and birds. Below are a few pictures including an ostrich, giraffes, miniature deer and kudu.









I also was caught in monsoon rains! I haven't seen that much water flood streets, and then disappear again so quickly. They streets are made to drain, or else they'd always be flooded in the monsoon season, but it rained so fast the water couldn't drain in time.



My final meal in Sri Lanka was a specialty of the country - string hoppers! They're small rounds of rice noodles served with curry, in this case chicken curry. The bowl shaped thing is more of a flour based food, so it tasted more like a dumpling.



So ends my Sri Lankan adventure! Next I'll be off to Thailand for just vacation with a friend, so I may not be able to post as often, but I will definitely share pictures and stories when I return to the US!

Galle

I have been BUSY!

Last Thursday we went to the southern part of Sri Lanka, Galle, for a children's festival, where we explained what Emerge was to school children who came for the festival and had them make bracelets and cards. All of the children we had were girls ages 12-14 and they traveled in groups for three different sessions for the day. Some groups did music, some did activities, one even was doing origami!

I stayed in a unique hotel with outdoor showers connected to the rooms and lush plants everywhere. It was across a small street from the beach, which was absolutely beautiful...

This was my view for dinner that evening at a table on the beach with my toes in the sand. It was fantastic. I had a spicy fried rice dish with chicken.

The next day I had a driver to go back to Colombo. We went to the Galle Fort first. It's an old Portuguese fort built hundreds of years ago and still standing around a peninsula.

This was the "prison", basically a pit with walls...

And there were many old buildings within the walls, including this old Dutch Protestant church (first the Portuguese and then the Dutch and then the British came to Sri Lanka for trade purposes).

I also went to a marine archaeology museum, where they had a lot of cool things they had pulled up from sunken ships around the island including soda bottles, old foreign coins, Chinese and Thai pottery and European dishware as well. This was an example of an old, traditional fishing boat the fishermen used to use. They sat or stood on the top and then the open rounded part at the bottom is where the fish were stored after being caught. The people didn't actually sit anywhere "in" the boat!

On the way back we also stopped at Kosgoda, which is a turtle hatchery. They pay fishermen to bring them turtle eggs when they find them, rather than sell them on the black market. Then they rebury them and wait for them to start hatching. When they do, they take 90-95% of the baby turtles to the ocean to start their lives! The other 5-10% they keep for one week for educational purposes, as groups of people and children come to see the hatchery. The picture below is a baby green sea turtle only 3 days old! If you were careful, you could even pick them up and hold them!

They also have a couple of turtles that they can't release in the wild because they're afraid they will die. One has only 3 flippers as the 4th was caught in a net and broken. This one was born with only half a shell, so they've started feeding him a special calcium rich diet and the shell is starting to grow on his back half.

All in all it was a great last weekend in Sri Lanka!

Cricket

This is a bit old now, but Sunday evening was the Finals of the T20 International Cricket Tournament, which was being held in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was playing the West Indies, so I met up with one of the people I’m working with and her friends to watch the match. I learned a bit about hot this cricket tournament is played since I knew nothing about cricket...

Unlike the US, where people will watch big things at home, in bars, etc., people here watch anywhere. There are gigantic screens set up in stadiums and parks, smaller screens set up at outdoor stages or parking lots, and smaller screens yet set up along the outside of buildings. And everyone sat and watched. It was incredible to see and experience, although Sri Lanka lost. But rather than destroy the city in a rage, everyone just went home. It was nice to know that in some places, people aren’t crazy. Sorry, quality of these pictures isn't as good...

Kandy

I went to Kandy last weekend to tour the second largest city in Sri Lanka and some of the surrounding area. On the way there I stopped at a tea factory, where I had a tour of how they process the leaves into tea. They dry them first, which makes sense, and then grind them several times and sort out larger parts and stems, also makes sense. What I didn’t realize was that black teas are fermented! Actually oxidized, but everyone says fermented. Which, my tea factory guide told me, is why black teas have more caffeine than green or white tea, because only black teas are fermented. However, a quick online search sort of disproved her and said the oxidation process doesn’t really have anything to do with it. It’s more about where the tea is grown, what types of leaves are used, how finely the leaves are crushed and mostly how the tea is brewed. Anyway, then they continue the drying and grinding process to make it even finer and sort it to be sold.

After that I went to the botanical gardens outside of the city, which was quite large, had a few different rows of palm trees, lots of giant bamboo, a pond, and an orchid house. I wish I had brought a lunch in with me and could have sat in the gardens for longer. I walked along the scariest suspension bridge I've ever been on also. There were a bunch of baby monkeys playing in the water at the pond as I was leaving, so I did watch them for awhile.

Then after a bit of rest at the hotel, which was sub-par this trip unfortunately, I went to a cultural show, where they did several different forms of dance as well as fire walking! All of a sudden towards the end of the show, a man started waving at the audience to stand up and move closer so we could see where they had laid the fire on the ground. I’ve seen fire walking before, but never from this close!

On Sunday I went to the Temple of the Tooth Relic. The story goes that when Buddha died in India, his body was cremated, and someone saved his tooth, which was given to the King, and it became a sacred, royal possession. However some king’s fought over it and eventually some were going to invade the one who had it and destroy it, but that king sent away with his daughter and son-in-law to Sri Lanka. Then it was passed to different kings who treasured it and built temples to keep it safe. It played an important historical and political role in Sri Lanka when the British came as well. These are some pictures from the temple in Kandy where it currently resides.

After that I went to Pinnalawa Elephant Orphanage, where we watched elephants bathe in the river. I had lunch by the river as well, and the second picture is the view I had during my lunch. Then I got to bottle feed a baby elephant! He drank it very quickly so there wasn’t time for a photo.

Finally there was a long drive back to Colombo.

Sigiriya and Dambulla Cave Temple

On Sunday after breakfast in the hotel, we made our way to Sigiriya, which used to have a palace on top and was afterwards used by monks as a monastery. This is the rock itself.

This picture is in the boulder garden, where the monks used to meditate under the rocks. The cut along the boulder is a “drip line” and kept rain from running down the rocks and into where the monks were meditating.

There is also a wall of paintings (even they call them frescos) also that could be seen from the gardens below. It is a “wet painting” meaning the paint was put into a wet surface, rather than on a dry one, which meant you couldn’t paint over it or wipe the paint away if any mistakes were made. In this picture, you can sort of see the outline of a third hand that couldn’t be un-painted on the chest.

This is the “Lion’s Paw” and the “Mirror Wall”. The wall was polished and would reflect the sun back out into enemies eyes or, on the inside, would show reflections of the people walking along it.

And finally, a view from the top!


On the way to the next stop, we visited a wood shop, gem shop and batik shop where they gave demonstrations of how they made their crafts and then took you through stores. The demonstrations were interesting and I bought a couple of souvenirs.

After that we went to the Dambulla Cave Temple. There was an interesting balance of people there to pray or sight see or both. It was amazing to me that the color was still there after over a thousand years. You had to take your shoes off to go into the temple, and luckily I had read about it before going as the stones are very hot, so tourists were recommended to either bring or wear socks.

 

Then it was time for lunch, buffet style. This is rice, cabbage, a spicy vegetable and some chicken. It was very delicious and fresh fruit for dessert. When we arrived there, a family of about 10 Chinese people were just finishing their meal and the daughter of two of them was playing with the son of the family who ran the small restaurant. It was very cute. And at the end the husband of the restaurant told me his wife had made all of the food and that her hair was very long. She undid the bun and it reached the floor! She said she had been growing it for 12 years and that it didn’t bother her even in the heat because she always keeps it tied up. She also was able to tie it up by making a large bun and looping the hair back over itself so she never needed to worry about having something to put her hair up with.



The long trek was finally over, and we started on the long car journey back home. I think it was a hugely successful weekend.

Elephants and Minneriya National Park

This weekend was great! I’m going to post about it in two separate posts so that I can get more pictures in about it and since I probably won’t have too much excitement during the week.

First I started my journey at 6:00 am with a private car with driver and tour guide to head towards Minneriya, a National Park with wild elephants, and also buffalo, deer and birds. On the way there, the driver (who was also a certified Sri Lankan tour guide, so was full of information about the country) asked if I wanted to do an elephant ride before we went to the park. Who could say no to that? We stopped and I climbed up the platform to get into the basket/seating area on the back of the elephant and handed my camera to another person to take photos. He asked if I wanted to sit on the neck and I, thinking it was just for a picture, said sure and moved up. Silly me, he takes the picture and next thing I know we’re moving again! It’s nothing like riding a horse, with a saddle and reins and stirrups. Basically there was part of the burlap from the seating frame, and elephant. It was quite terrifying at first.

However, after I got used to it, it wasn’t so bad. There was another person selling bunches of small bananas you could feed to the elephant from where I was sitting. He would lift up his trunk and I just dropped it in! Definitely worth the stop.

After lunch and a brief rest at the hotel, I got to go on a jeep safari at Minneriya. Once again, had the whole thing to myself with a driver for the jeep and a guide from the government. He was a bit lively, but at least kept me from hitting my head on any trees! And then we got to where all the elephants were! Dozens of them slowly milling about eating and trying to keep cool in the afternoon heat. It’s dangerous to get too close, being wild animals and all, but it was still awesome.

There were several babies and one that the guide said was probably only a month old. These were Asian elephants are pregnant for about 22 months, babies for about 5 years and after about 15 years are adults, which is when the males leave the herd. Only the males have tusks on Asian elephants.

After that it was back to the hotel for some dinner, cricket (I think I mentioned a big tournament going on in Sri Lanka right now, and the Sri Lankan team was playing), and finally sleep. I don’t remember the name of what I ate below, but the pockets were delicious and the chips are a Sri Lankan version of potato chips, freshly baked/fried and coated with a sort of chili powder. It was absolutely delicious.