I headed straight to Kandy from the Colombo airport. I had a really sweet cab driver, Kumara, who could barely speak English be my tour guide while we drove through the scenic roads enroute to Kandy. It took longer than I expected and got darker than it should’ve at 6’o’clock. The road to Kandy reminds you a lot of Ooty. But Kandy just had denser greens and taller trees. My family friends who were playing host live in this area called Anniewatte which is supposed to be the Jubilee/Banjara hills of Kandy. With narrow and steep lanes that lead to huge bungalows, there was something strikingly similar to Ooty again. I guess it’s just a hill station thing!
After paying a whopping 5000 SKRs for the cab ride, it was time for the usual pleasantries, gift & goods delivery, and a lovely home cooked meal. Considering I couldn’t do any sightseeing for the rest of the night I made my plans for the next day. It being the only day I spent in Kandy, I had to fit in all the sightseeing the same day. I kick started the day with a visit to the Pinnewala elephant orphanage which is an hour’s distance from Kandy. The feeding time for the baby elephants is from 9:15 to 9:45 and we got a bit late so just about got 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. In spite of being answered in negative, I just kept hoping they would let 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 (apparently it acts as SPF for them). I was still not satisfied so taking help of some widely used English words like ‘bath’ ‘please’ ‘me’ ‘elephant’ I got a peanut vendor to bribe one of the mahouts into letting me get close to some of the elephants and they succumbed to the 100rs!!! Aaahhhh the pleasure of travelling to a country whose currency rate is lower than yours...
The path to the river from the orphanage is lined with souvenir shops. You get the regular touristy stuff, elephant dung papers, things made out of this paper like albums, notebooks, crapbooks J. There is also a herbal garden that I refused to go to but my friends who went later told me they got free massages… damn me!.. oh but wait they also got fooled into buying a lot of expensive “herbal solutions.”
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 2000SKR just to do this but it was fun and completely worth it. My elephant was called Kumari. I first started scrubbing her in the stream while she was showering herself, then she moved on to showering me with the water. Before she could get any happier in the water, we got her out. My first trial to sit on her was terrible. I realized how inflexible and fat I’d gotten. Thanks to Chaminda who showed me some tricks to sit comfortably on her without having to die of cramps, we went for a nice 15 min walk along the road posing in between for pics.
I never get out of a tourist spot without shopping so I did my bit and bought a photo album made of elephant dung paper, a nice straw hat, and a king coconut drink. We then headed back home for a quick lunch and change of clothes.
pet porcupine (kiri) on my way
My next destination was a gems store called Hemachandras which was one of the trusted stores. The jewellery overall was not super impressive but they did have their share of exquisite pieces that cost a bomb. I stuck to picking one or two rocks. Sri Lanka is known for precious gems and that’s what I wanted to take back. After an hour and a half long looking around, I picked up two yellow sapphires and my huge credit card bill.
Next on the list was the tooth temple. I have to say I was not too excited about this but pretty much did it coz everybody does it. 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 wrapped up the day with a lovely Sri Lankan home cooked meal, courtesy: the house maid.
I got to Galle station at Colombo by around 9:00. Thanks to my homework, I didn’t get ripped for the auto ride and got to my destination without a hitch. ‘Parisare,’ a home stay run by an elderly lady, Sunetra, was highly recommended by a couch surfer I got in touch with for info on Sri Lanka. If the ride to Colombo was a high, the place I stayed at was a different high altogether with the open kitchen, dining & lovely sitting area that opens into the garden. The walls adorned with exquisite ceramic plates, family photos for the last 3 generations, antique furniture, and a beautifully landscaped garden and the room charges for a throw-away price of 1000rs for two days per person. My friend only wished the room was a bit better maintained.
After a good rest, we stepped out to start our day 1 of shopping. It was a ten minute walk to Odel, one of the known malls to shop for clothes & souvenirs. It is comparable to a Lifestyle but a cheaper version, and we obviously went crazy shopping. My friend almost picked up a Calvin Klein dress for 1500 bucks!!! Our 4 hours of shopping ended with an hour’s foot massage. It was the best ever. If and when you go to Lanka don’t come back without getting a nice foot massage from a FootRub outlet.
me and ammoo outside footrub
The rest of the gang joined us for dinner. Not knowing where to head, we just took off to the Galle Face hotel which is supposed to be the oldest there and in South Asia itself. The hotel flaunts of having a list of world famous people for its guests, Yuri Gagarin, Nehru, GB Shaw being some of the ones that come to my mind right away. 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 bandi food and by thumb rule they are always the tastiest. As we were experimenting with the yummy prawn wadas and fish fries, we bumped into a bunch of youngsters one of them being an Indian from Bombay who was super thrilled to bump into fellow countrywomen. They helped us haggle with the auto drivers to head to our actual dinner place ‘Beach Wadiya’ which lies between rail tracks and the beach, literally. This was definitely the best food I had during my trip in Sri Lanka. It’s just like those beach shacks with dim lighting and superb sea food. Hell, even the veggies were finger licking good. For the first time in my life, I saw a group of girls finish everything that was served to them including the dressing!
We ordered for the ‘Catch of the day’ and while we waited patiently, some of us took a nice walk on the beach and the rest played with the stray cat that needed some love.
After wining and dining, we were handed yet another book which had autographs of biggies like Princess Anne & Sachin Tendulkar as their guests. What is with this place and their cool lists?
They asked which airlines we worked for and before we could thoroughly enjoy the compliment, we realized that this is just because there are a lot of air hostesses that step out into the city if they are on stop over or return flights. This was further confirmed when we were asked the same details at other malls, restaurants & hotels. These places actually give an airlines discount so all the airhostesses out there … please make full use of this when you shop.
I wasn’t willing to wrap up for the night so Paroma and I left to get a taste of the nightlife while the others just wanted to crash. On our way, we were stopped at a checkpost. My instant reaction - faster heart beat & thoughts of police harassing us just like in India but I was pleasantly surprised when the commandos stuck to just doing their duty, check for our passport/ID and let us be. The Cinnamon Grand was a complete let down because after all the efforts of trying to get there our choices were: a bar where we got stared at for I don’t know what, a lounge which we thought was called ‘T lounge’ but realized it is a ‘tea lounge,’ and a club with Sinhalese music and couples ranging from 50 yrs – 70 years. I gave up!
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. We hopped on to a bus to Mt. Lavinia and got to templer road which supposedly had a shop that had branded stuff for unbranded prices. I ensure I never miss out an opportunity like that so we got there, shopped quite a bit again. We next had to either head to the beach or this restaurant which supposedly had salsa instructors and all that jazz. As luck would have it, it was a rainy day so I actually never hit the beach! We walked for at least half an hour in the rain and gave up on finding this non-existing restaurant which we figured out later had a name change and we actually walked past it.
We needed something to get our spirits up after all the walking in the rain so what did we do? We hit the mall again! This time it was an improvised version of Big Bazaar called House of Fashion which was swarmed. For all you shopaholics, this place has a huge range of clothes for really good prices. Mind you most of the stuff is actually export quality branded stuff. I actually picked up a Victorias Secret night dress for 500 bucks! stuff for which I’ve paid crazy amounts in US. The only bad thing about this place is how crowded it is which can sometimes put you off and no trial rooms.
Our final day at Colombo ended with some really good conversations with complete strangers at Barista and a not so great dinner at Raja Bhojunam.
Sunethra on her 200yr old antique sofa
parisare
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