Sri Lanka and its people

 As promised in the previous post, here is the second part of my journey to Sri Lanka. After our trip to Sigiriya, the stone fortress, we felt so much let down by our tour operator that we decided to go the same way as we usually do, by ourselves.

It was by a stroke of luck that one day as we were strolling the city streets we decided to call a tuk-tuk. The driver who stopped at our request was an elderly man with a bright smile and a few teeth left. He spoke good English, and during our journey to the hotel, we asked a few questions about the country and culture. Generally, the drivers do not have a taximeter and tend to charge according to what they think you can afford. 

In those cases, to avoid bad surprises, you must agree to the price beforehand and try to bargain a bit.

When we asked the price the driver pointed at the taximeter. "I don't make up prices," he smiled.

We asked his name. "Everybody calls me Lucky."

And so we agreed with Lucky that for the rest of our holiday, he would have been our driver. We exchanged telephone numbers and from the following day on we explored the city and the surroundings with him.

Thinking about all the things we could see in the whole country, we understood we didn't have enough time for everything. Yet, I wanted absolutely to visit with the due calm and time the national parks. The best solution was the Sinharaja forest reserve.

Lucky helped us in this case too, acting as a tour guide, and with a couple of calls, he arranged us a driver to the park and back.

From driver he'd become our fixer, wherever we needed to go, whatever we needed to have, he could arrange it.

In the end, he said he was Lucky, but in reality, we were the lucky ones to find him.

A few days later, we left and headed for the park. We were told that we needed special socks to protect us from leaches, and we purchased them, although we were wondering about the environment we were going to visit, to need such protection.

But let me give you a few information about the park. 

Sinharaja is a forest reserve and because of its wide biodiversity, it has been designated a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Sinharaja's importance grew over the years as it became the country's last viable area of primary tropical rainforest. Over 60% of the trees are endemic, and many of them are considered rare. It is home to 50% of Sri Lankan's endemic species of animals including birds.

The hilly virgin rainforest, part of the Sri Lanka lowland rain forests ecoregion, was saved from the worst of commercial logging by its inaccessibility and was designated a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978 and a World Heritage Site in 1988.

With this in mind, you can understand why we wanted to visit it, and let's the images talk for themselves:

You might wonder about whether the protection for the leeches was necessary. The answer is: yes, we came back to the entrance with a couple of those little bugs attached to the protections we were wearing.

I can't recommend enough visiting Sri Lanka, it's such a beautiful country with an amazing natural environment that will for sure enchant whoever reaches it.

There have been many times my memory wandered back to the forest or along the beaches. Maybe one day I'll be back, and with this gorgeous sunset over the sea, I give you an appointment for the next adventure.

Sri Lanka: is this the return of the Wandering Writer? (part one)

Whether this might be the first signal of the return of the Wandering Writer, I mostly consider it a return to blogging after a series of mishaps on the road.

But as stated in the title, this isn't the time I'll go through those mishaps. This is the time to tell something about another fantastic country to fall in love with.

Explaining Sri Lanka in one blog it's a hard task, and it won't give justice to such a colorful and beautiful country. That's why I'll divide it into two parts, so enjoy the ride with this first taste of this island.

We went to visit Colombo in November. That corresponds to the wet season in Sri Lanka, but as I found out later, this didn't really affect the quality of our journey.

One peculiarity of the rainy season was that from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., the weather was perfect the sky was blue, and the Sun blessed every step we took in the city and the beaches. It was raining from 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. as the sky was opening.

Now, at my age, I'm no longer interested in the nightlife, and for me, it was more than enough to explore the city and the country during the day.

My previous travels around the world have taught me that you'll need always to keep your eyes open to the people who will approach you on the street. Most of them will try to sell you tourist services highly overpriced. 

So, understanding this, we took the first day a tuk-tuk to have a round of the main sightseeing of the city. We asked the price beforehand and, after a good deal of bargaining, we jumped in and started our first round.

Colombo isn't a big city and you might reach every place by walking or, at least using the tuk-tuk for short distances.

The first idea, which was also confirmed during our entire stay was that Colombo, and generally Sri Lanka is a very well-kept city. Everything works as it should and the level of safety is high. One thing you'll fall in love with the country is the friendliness of the people. Regardless of the reason why you approach them, they will always welcome you with a smile.

The second is the amazing natural environment and the stunning beaches. Not knowing where to start from, we took the chance to book one journey from a tourist agency to reach farther sites on the island.

The plan was to reach Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District. Considering the distance from Colombo (about 178 km), our tour guide proposed to us also to have a visit to the Elephant Foundation and an Ayurveda garden. We were supposed to arrive at our final destination by 3:00 p.m., to have the chance to visit the whole site.

Unfortunately, nothing went as it was supposed to, but let's go step by step, shall we?

Our first destination was the Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF), a family-run organization and charity set up to rescue and care for captive Asian elephants in Sri Lanka. The foundation is situated on a 15-acre estate by the name of Samaragiri, which is located 10 km northwest of Kegalle, within the Sabaragamuwa Province of Sri Lanka. This is a sort of sanctuary to rescue those gentle giants where we had the pleasure of interacting with them by feeding and spending some time together.

The second stop was the visit to the Ayurveda garden, which was something I wanted personally to add to the tour. I'm a fan of natural medicine and since Sri Lanka is the home of Ayurveda, I couldn't skip this chance. 

In the garden, I've learned something more about natural self-care and I did some shopping (of course).

Time passed by and our driver didn't seem to have any hurry, as if he was on a Sunday trip with the family.

Useless were all our recommendations to drive a little faster, and the scheduled time of arrival stretched from 3:00 p.m. to 6:55 p.m. Just in time to enter the park, five minutes later and they wouldn't have allowed us to enter.

Useless to say that at that time we couldn't visit the entire site, so we headed for the rock fortress:

Yes, that meant climbing 1200 steps to reach the top, and we didn't have much time left. We made it a mission and we started at the fastest pace we could because soon the sun would have set and at least that, was something we didn't want to miss. So we started our journey:

With the first steps...

... followed by other steps, we didn't give up...

And steps that seemed to be endless to climb, yet we were at the point of no return. Up to the top!

Just a few steps more and...

Finally, we reached the top to witness the sunset from something that felt like the roof of the world.

They say that to climb the stairs it might require an average of about two hours. We didn't have that luxury and we had to manage it within forty-five minutes. I'm not sure we set a record; probably not, but one thing was sure, that marathon gave us a bitter taste.

We were supposed to see the entire site, and going there for a second time was out of the question with all the things to be seen in Sri Lanka.

Tired but happy we returned to our hotel room where we simply dropped almost dead to the bed waiting for new adventures to unfold the following days.

Stay tuned because there are more interesting things and facts about Sri Lanka I need to tell you, and I'll do so with the next blog post coming up very soon. :-)