More Batticaloa

This week has been spent looking around Batticoloa. It's pretty small and you could really see everything in a day or two. Having a bicycle really helps. Even though Batticaloa is small, walking anywhere in the heat would have been really tough.

I checked out things like the large public market downtown.

There is a little park in the center town called Gandhi Park. From there I got a good shot of someone fishing.

In town, just behind Gandhi Park, there are several blocks of streets filled with shops. This is the typical look of a street in Sri Lanka.

The past couple of days have been cloudy, which lowers the temperature and is much more comfortable. I rode the bicycle a little further from the center of town, to Lagoon Park. On the way there were many mangrove trees in the water.

One evening we went out for dinner with Celene's landlords and their three children. The mother has kind of adopted Celene and has been very helpful.

Batticaloa first full day

In the morning we went to Celene's office. It has air-conditioning!!!

One of the staff there lent me a bicycle so I was able to explore Batticaloa on my own for a while. I first went to Kallady Beach. A nice long beach with light sand. A popular hangout with locals, but the land drops too steeply under the water so it is too dangerous for swimming. There are also a lot of fishing boats lined up along the beach.

This place was hit hard by the tsunami in 2004. There is a temple near the beach that was rebuilt after the tsunami, but some of the damage was retained, as a testament to the power of the tsunami.

By late morning it got extremely hot. I went to Celene's office to cool off for a bit, and we went for lunch. She has a favourite lunch spot around the corner that serves curry and rice. A different thing about restaurants here, is that they sometimes bring other items to your table that you didn't order, but you are only charged if you eat from them. 

I waited for late afternoon and ventured out again. It was still very hot. I rode over to the Dutch Fort. This is an old fort that was originally built by the Portugese in the 1600's, and then taken over by the Dutch. 

Right now it houses government offices, but you can take the stairs up to the top of the old wall and walk around. 

After Celene finished work we went for dinner with a nice couple: Viki, who Celene met through the office since he does some IT work there, and his wife Veena. 

A day off, and travel to Batticaloa

We took a day to just stay at the hotel and enjoy the facilities. It was a very nice place, called Jetwing Lake, just outside Dambulla.

In the morning we used the bicycles there to ride around the lake. We passed some houses on plots of land and the children always waved 'hello' as we rode past. In the afternoon we just hung out at the pool and enjoyed the scenery.

The next day we travelled east for about 4 hours to Batticaloa, where Celene is working. As we travelled east, the weather became hotter and the landscape drier. 

I'm staying in Batticaloa with Celene for the next two weeks. Batticaloa is a small city on the east coast, and there are nice beaches nearby. The city itself is built around a lagoon and you often see someone fishing.

I will be seeing much more of 'Batti' over the next couple of weeks.

Sigiriya Rock Temple

Today was very hot, and stayed hot all day with no rain. Once in a while a cloud covered the sun and provided some relief. We caught a tuk-tuk for the 40 minute ride from the hotel to Sigiriya Rock. This is large rock out-cropping that juts out from the green landscape, and there are ruins in the grounds around it and on the rock itself. The ruins are from when it was a seat of government around 500 CE, and then was used as a temple for several hundred years after that. It was lost to jungle after that for a long time, and then discovered in the 1800's. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and probably the most famous destination in Sri Lanka for tourists.  The entrance fee was scandalous, about 40 dollars Canadian, and we dithered for a while before sucking it up and getting tickets.

We went through the gate and walked through the ruins of the gardens that once surrounded the rock.

To climb the rock you start up some stone steps, and then up an enclosed, circular metal staircase going straight up. You get to a small cave that has paintings dating back to about 600 CE. After the cave you go down another staircase for a bit, and then walk through a passage that traverses the face of the rock. This passage is between the rock face and a smooth wall that was built, called the mirror wall, that is covered in graffiti from hundreds of years ago.

This takes you around the side of the rock, and some more stone steps takes you to a landing, called the lions paw after the remains of what once a large lion statue. From here the last metal staircase takes you to the summit.

As some points along the route there were signs saying 'Wasp Attack Area', which made me quite nervous since the wasps are huge and I am allergic to them. I was anxious to get going. By this time, after the climbing in the heat, both Celene and I are soaked with sweat.

We get to the summit, which has ruins like the remains of a water cistern, and has amazing views of the countryside and the grounds below.

There were several groups of school children, who were happy to come up to us and say 'Hello, how are you', and when we asked someone to take a picture of us we invited them to join us:

We made our way back down to the parking lot, running the gauntlet of vendors, and found our driver. It was still very hot so we just spent the rest of the day at the hotel, hanging out at the pool.

Dambulla Cave Temple

Another couple of hours north of Kandy, first through more tea-growing region, and then into the sprawling flat agricultural area of Dambulla. We arrived at our hotel just outside the city. After settling in we caught a tuk-tuk for a 10 minute ride to the Dambulla Cave Temple. This is a short climb to the entrance to several large caves.

Each cave is full of Buddha statues that are eerily lit up in the dark of the cave.

From the caves we continued on the path downward to the Golden Temple, with a large golden Buddha statue and  a museum. 

This is a picture from behind the statue, with Sigiriya Rock in the distance, which is where we planned to go the next day.

We got to the tuk-tuk just as the rain started. It is same type of weather pattern here as we've seen recently: nice in the morning and heavy rain in the afternoon. But today it really poured, with lots of lightening, for the whole afternoon and evening.

Kandy

Another couple of hours north on winding roads took us to Kandy. The drive took us through more of the tea-growing region, and past little vegetable stands on the side of the road.

Kandy is a big city in the centre of the country, with a lot of traffic, and noticable air pollution. The main sight to see here is the Sri Dalada Maligawa temple, which is supposed to house a tooth of the Buddha. There is a lake in town near our hotel, and we walked along it toward the temple.

Inside the temple, the tooth relic is inside a shrine that people were worshipping and offering flowers too. We bought flowers, and as we climbed up the stairs to the shrine, people would stop and touch the flowers as if getting a blessing from them, knowing that they were offereings.

On the temple grounds there are a few shrines, and a Museum of Buddhism with contributions from all the Buddhist coutries in the the world.

Upon leaving the museum it started to rain very heavily, and even with an umbrella we got totally soaked. We went into the nearest restaurant to have a late lunch and dry off.

While walking to the temple we had passed a cultural center, and people were selling tickets to a Sri Lankan cultural show, and we bought a couple. After eating at the restaurant it was time to go to the show. Fortunately by this time the rain had let up. The show featured traditional Sri Lankan dancing, and fire walking.

After the show we walked into town a bit. I found the tuk-tuk drivers and vendors to be quite aggressive, literally following you for blocks while they pestered you the whole time. I'd never experienced anything like it elsewhere in Sri Lanka. We bought a bit of food to take back to the hotel.

Nuwara Eliya

From Udawalawe it was a 6 hour car ride north into the mountains and tea-growing region, to the city of Nuwara Eliya. The roads were very winding and very narrow, barely wide enough for one lane in each direction. Watching the driver navigate the roads while passing slow tuk-tuks and trucks, with on-coming traffic on the narrow road, often blind because of the corners, was nerve-racking at first and then kind of interesting. The approach of all the drivers is actually co-operative. For example, our driver would honk when about to pass,  not only to signal to the car being passed, but also as a message to any car that might be coming around the corner. When we started to pass, other cars pulled over to make room. And if a car was coming from the other way, they would slow down and pull over a bit as well. We'd then make it through with inches to spare. This kind of thing happened every few minutes, all the way to Nuwara Eliya.

As we climbed into the mountains the vegetation got even greener, and the air a bit cooler. There were people walking on the side of the road, and lots of little stands selling food. The houses we passed seemed very nice, on good plots of land. The steep hillsides were terraced for rice, or covered with the dark green, low level bushes of tea leaves. It started to rain off and on during the drive.

We arrived at Nuwara Eliya in the early afternoon. There are a lot of English style colonial houses and gardens here. I read that because of the temperate climate it is referred to as a 'little piece of England in Sri Lanka'.

After settling in we went for a walk in town. We didn't go far, as it started to pour rain. Apparently the weather pattern at this time of year is to be nice and sunny in the morning, and heavy rain all afternoon. The town is actually relatively small, and we didn't need much time to see it. I noticed a bit of a cultural change compared to the coastal area. The pace seems faster. The people walk fast on the sidewalk and there is more jostling.

We stopped by a little fruit market. There were king-coconuts there, an orange coconut you often see sold at the side of the road. The vender cuts off the top and you drink the milk, which has  nice light taste.

The next day we caught a tuk-tuk up into the hills to a local attraction called Lover's Leap waterfall. A steep ride of the hill and then a 15 minute walk through tea bushes.

From the waterfall there were great views of the valley.

Next we went to the Pedro Tea Factory for a tour. This is an active tea plantation, and produces many types of tea that are auctioned to the big tea companies around the world. The tour led us through all the steps of tea production. In picking leaves from the bushes,  only the two or three youngest leaves are picked, and the rest are left to fall. Each person picks several kilograms of leaves per day.

I learned some interesting things from the tour. For example, I didn't know that fermentation was involved in making black tea, and the difference between light tea that you don't take with milk, and dark strong tea that you take with milk, was the length of the fermentation. Also how finely the fermented, dried leaves are cut also affects the strength of the tea.

After the tour we were served tea in the lounge, and took in the scenery of the plantation.

By this time the heavy rain had started, so we went back to the hotel.