Hyderabad, January 31: I’ve been wanting to go there for years now, finally with the political turmoil stabilising, I got my chance.
The visa officials in Lanka actually smile at you and are friendly just like all the other people in the airport and the country itself.
I head straight to Kandy from the Colombo airport. The road to Kandy reminds me a lot of Ooty.
I kick-started the day with a visit to the Pinnewala elephant orphanage, which is an hour’s distance. The feeding time for the baby elephants is from 9:15 to 9:45 and we got a bit late so had to bribe the keeper to quickly let me feed the baby elephant a bottle of milk.
After that we were told to follow the elephants to the river where they go for their daily shower. Despite getting a no for an answer, I kept h o p i n g t h e y would l e t us bathe the elephants but alas I just had to watch the big guys and girls go take a dip and cool themselves down with some slush. I finally managed to bribe a mahout for s 100.
The path to the river from the orphanage is lined with souvenir shops. Elephant dung papers, things made out of this paper like albums, notebooks, scrapbooks. On my way back to Kandy, we stopped at another elephant bath and safari place where you can actually bathe the elephant and take a ride. So, I paid another LKR 2,000 just to do that but it was fun and completely worth it.
My next destination was a gems store called Hemachandras, which is one of the trusted stores. The jewellery overall was not very impressive but Sri Lanka is known for precious gems and that’s what I wanted to take back.
Next on the list was the tooth temple. The temple was really beautiful and calm and the tooth well hidden behind golden doors. What I liked the most though was the lovely weather, huge green hills in the backdrop and the Kandy Lake to the right with hundreds of white birds perched on a tree right in the middle of the lake.
I took an early morning train to Colombo.
I sat in what was called the Observation Saloon (first class). Although the coach didn’t look like the conventional first class, the view from it definitely was breathtaking.
The coach had huge glass windows and the route had quite a few t u n n e l s and some of the best scenery I’ve seen in my l i f e .
Armed with a d i g i t a l SLR camera, I couldn’t stop capturing but after a point I just gave up because no fancy camera can help you capture something this beautiful to complete your satisfaction, this apart from the fact that I am no film maker.
I got to Galle station at Colombo by around 9. Parisare,’ a home stay run by an elderly lady was highly recommended by a couch surfer.
Not knowing where to head, we just took off to the Galle Face hotel, which is supposed to be the oldest in South Asia itself. After taking a guess of how much we might have to shell to dine there, we chose to taste some authentic sea-side Sri Lankan local food and they are always the most tasty. As we were experimenting with the prawn wadas and fish fries, we headed to our actual dinner place ‘Beach Wadiya’, which lies between rail tracks and the beach, literally.
Our plan for the next day was to cover as much ground as we could while doing the rest of the shopping. So it was supposed to be Mt.
Lavinia, Negombo, and shopping in Colombo again. This time it was an improvised version of Big Bazaar called House of Fashion which was swarmed. Mind you most of the stuff is actually export quality branded stuff. I actually picked up a Victorias Secret night dress for 500 bucks! Our final day at Colombo ended with some really good conversations with complete strangers and a not so great dinner at Raja Bhojunam.
My dream trip ended with making me want more of it. I know I am definitely going back to visit again hopefully for longer but it was time to pack my bags and head right back to my mundane corporate life.
–Agencies