Tag: Asia

Day 9 – 13th February 2024 Wasgamuwa to Kandy.

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We set off from Wasgamuwa and headed south towards Kandy. Our first stop was Dambulla and the Cave Temple. I had already decided not to attempt the 364 steps, the bruising behind by knee had spread down my calf and that many steps were totally out of the question. So I stayed in the comfort of the air conditioned car whilst John and Suminda embarked on viewing what is a superb temple. The Cave Temple is often referred to as the Golden Temple, it has been the site off sacred pilgrimages for 22 centuries. It consists of five sanctuaries and is the largest best preserved cave temple in Sri Lanka. Each of the sanctuaries contains statues and paintings which relate to Buddha and his life. The murals cover the walls and ceilings and there are around 153 Buddha statues.

The arduous climb up to is rewarded by superb views of the surrounding area. During the climb up and back it rained lightly on and off making it a little less hot.

On returning to the car John was a little tired and very hot and sweaty, whilst Suminda looked as if he had had a walk in the park. We continued our journey heading down to Kandy, stopping off at a wood carvers. Here we learnt about all the different types of wood and what they are used for. We were given a demonstration as to how the natural paints are produced and we watched some carvers at work. Before leaving we bought a Christmas bubble to add to our international collection and John bought me a small ebony elephant for Valentine’s Day, the following day.

Our next stop was a spice garden. The guide took us around and explained about all the spices. It’s amazing how many we automatically use in everyday cooking and we knew about most of them. We didn’t wish to make a purchase but we did have some lunch in their restaurant.

We were then going to go to a gem stone cutting display but I took pity on John whose t-shirt had still not dried out from his earlier exertions. So I asked Suminda to take us straight to our hotel. This meant going through Kandy to the other side. We saw a variety of beautiful sights including an ornate Hindu temple.

We turned up a rather steep, badly maintained road and headed for the hotel….wow! We’re we pleasantly surprised when The Elegant Hotel lived up to its name. We were met by bow-tied gentlemen and after a welcome drink we were soon making ourselves very comfortable in our absolutely delightful room. We had supper in the restaurant – grilled seafood and vegetables whilst being serenaded by two guitarists and singers….what a wonderful way to round off the day.

Day 8 – 12th February 2024- Wasgamuwa National Park.

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We were up bright and breezy, excited to be wildlife viewing in a new National Park. The previous evenings meal, a buffet, had been a bitter disappointment…..the usual fried rice or fried noodles were on offer with devilled chicken ( small spicy chicken pieces on the bone) and what should of been grilled fish and steamed vegetables only they were both finished. There was also what was described as battered mushrooms…there was lots of strips of batter but absolutely no mushroom. This was followed by some melted ice cream and some cubes of jelly….and no Coke Zero, so it was water again…

We met in the reception with Suminda and the Safari driver at 6.00 am……alas no one from the hotel was around with our pre-ordered packed breakfasts… 6.20 we were finally loaded on to the, marginally easier to access, jeep with breakfast and off we went. The main gate was less than 10 minutes away. We feared that our late arrival would mean queuing…we couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact for the majority of the day we were the only people in the park, late afternoon another vehicle joined us….what a shame such a beautiful park is so under utilised. We set off, having picked up a spotter at the gate, bumping along the tracks, which were in far better shape than those in Wilpattu. We quickly came across a large herd of very skittish white spotted deer. Our spotter then took us to a river where we alighted the jeep and walked a little way to a sandy beach. There were literally hundreds of endemic fish, we think he said they were Systomus Asoka, which are Asoka Barbs. We saw dozens of Iguana basking in the heat of the sandy roads.

It soon became clear that we were in a bird watchers paradise. Every few minutes we had another type of bird pointed out to us. These included Jungle fowl, (hens, cocks and chicks) , Button Quail, Sunbirds going in and out of their nests, Bush Larks, Pygmy geese, junior Hawk Eagle, Purple Herons, Painted Storks, Peahens and Peacocks, Lapwings, Green and Blue Bee-eaters, White Throated Kingfishers, Black Headed Munia, Stick Weavers going in and out of its funnel nest, Open billed storks, Asian Paradise Flycatchers, Malabar Pied Hornbills and many, many more whose names we failed to commit to memory !!!!!

At around midday the driver took us back to the Parks reception. We were supposed to disembark the jeep and stand around for an hour, in the heat of the day waiting for the driver to go back to the hotel to pick up our packed lunch and have his own lunch. The park doesn’t allow re-admission without repayment which at approx £80 we didn’t want to have to pay. However, I needed the toilet and the park doesn’t have any “foreigners/English” toilets and my knees are not capable of holding the squat position and standing back up unaided. My request to be able to return to the hotel to use the loo without paying the re-entry fee needed 9 men to discuss it, there was much debating going on, a phone call was made to the boss but he was unattainable…..some 15 minutes later it was decided we could leave the park to use the toilet and come back in again…..we really had to laugh at the hearty discussions with regard to my necessary bowel movements!!!!!
On the way back to the hotel we were amazed to see that half the road had rice laid on it to dry. The rice was raked over and some which had already dried was swept up and placed in sacks which were then collected by tractor pulled trailers or small vans. Seeing this could easily put you off eating rice, when you think of the dogs, cows, vehicles, people who have walked and done other unmentionable things on the road. We now understand the term ‘dirty rice’ which is cheaper than other rice in many African countries……fascinating.


On returning to the park we continued our viewing. We saw 2 Mouse Deer ( the smallest of the Asian deer family) these are a reddish brown deer the size of a rabbit, a barking deer (muntjac), a lizard on a branch, many more birds and the icing on the cake….lots of elephants ..a total of 27 in several smallish herds.

Just as we were leaving the park a Peacock put on a display for a passing Peahen. She took no notice so he turned his efforts towards us…a fabulous sight.

Happy from a days game and bird viewing we returned to the hotel. Supper was much more substantial…soup followed by a grilled chicken breast with not too much spice, potatoes and vegetables and of course the obligatory rice. Desert was ice-cream or fruit, John had both. Thank goodness for Suminda who had spoken to the hotel with regard to the previous nights meal….We went to bed with full tummies and happy hearts.

Day 6 & 7 – 10th & 11th February 2024 – Historic sites of Sri Lanka

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We left Cloud Nine Wilpattu and headed to the former capital and Sacred City of Anuradhapura. We made a visit to Jethawanaramaya Stupa. On entering this ancient stupa we viewed some magnificent figures and a huge one of Buddha  in passing position. Suminda taught us all about the 3 stages involved with Buddhism. These are the birth, the enlightenment and the passing. There were many artefacts including the gem encrusted foot. We learnt about the various traditions, such as tying a coin in white fabric and making a wish. This wish would quite often be families wishing for the birth of a baby boy.

We visited another important stupa The but didn’t go in as it was crowded and we didn’t fancy burning our feet on the very hot ground. We walked to the royal gardens and viewed one of the ancient bathing pools. John and Suminda walked on to view the kings pool where he would watch his wives bathe. They also walked up to look at the lake. Our final stupa of the day was quite magnificent in its appearance. John and I were quite amused when we read that King Dutugemunu (161-137bc) had built as penance for eating a chilli garnished curry without first offering it to the monks.

We then continued to the Hotel 4U Salina Gardens in Anuradhapura. It’s entrance is a little difficult to find as you turn down the side of a cement factory and wonder where on earth you are going. However when you get there you are greeted by really nice people. They kindly changed our room to a downstairs one, as I am struggling with the humidity, temperatures about 31/32 degrees and I twisted my knee getting out of the Safari vehicle in Wilpattu, so down stairs rooms are preferable at the moment. Our room opened on to the swimming pool and the room was big and cool with all the necessary requirements. Our evening meal was selected from a nice menu….we had another laugh when we both selected buttered chicken and buttered prawns…something had got lost in the translation/spelling and they actually meant “battered”. It was great to overload on protein and they even had Coke Zero so I didn’t have to drink water….a really great place. 

When we checked out in the morning we had a lovely chat with the owner. He had designed and built it and had used lots of reclaimed teak from colonial times in its construction. We would definitely recommend this hotel and you could stay there to go into the main entrance of Wilpattu rather than stay where we did as we went in the back entrance.

On leaving Anuradhapura we stopped off at the Bodhi tree. It is said to have been grown from a branch of the tree Buddha was under, in India, when he was believed to have attained enlightenment. The car park was extremely busy as was the walk to the tree. Not wanting to get hot and bothered like I had on the previous day I opted to stay in the air conditioned car while ZJohn and Suminda went to view it. The tree is secured by gold supports, John said it was a really nice sight, but he also said it was crowded and the ground hot and gritty under our “delicate, western feet”.

We continued our days sightseeing and stopped and walked some some distance up Avukana Ancient Rock Temple where we viewed a 13 meter high statue of Lord Buddha carved out of solid granite, the replica of which we had seen in Colombo. It was quite an awesome sight.

Having continued our adventure we stopped at Sigiriya for a nice light lunch before proceeding to view the Rock Fortres. It was built by King Kasyapa (477-495 AD) for the purpose of protecting him from his rivals. His main rival was his brother who was the rightful heir to the throne. Today the rock is a UNESCO world heritage site, also know as the ‘ fortress in the sky’ . The climb to the top is an arduous one so we opted to view it from the bottom.

Some time later we arrived in Polonnaruwa. The city was founded in 11th century AD and was governed by many kings. King Parakarmbahu I’s reign was considered the most significant for this ancient kingdom. During his 12th century reign, this second Kingdom of Sri Lanka was known as The Golden Age of Polonnaruwa, as Parakarmbahu ruled during an era where trade and construction flourished. It is regarded by many as one of the best preserved ancient cities in the world. We looked around the many relics of the kingdom, including the royal palace and council chambers, the Satmahal Prasada – a square pyramidal tower in seven tiers, the Gal Potha- a stone book and many more. Our favourite was Gal Vihare, which is a rock shrine. It is a cluster of carved Buddha images which would have formed part of an extensive monastery on this site. The standing Buddha is 7 metres high and all the carvings are carved from a single piece of rock.

We probably didn’t do Polonnaruwa justice as we had had a bit of sightseeing overkill. On leaving the area we noticed quite a few Grey Langurs and some splendid Banyana trees.

We headed off to Wasgamuwa where we were booked into the Lavendish Wild Safari hotel. We were grateful to Suminda, Jetwing Travel and Rosie Price at DialaFlight for sorting out this change of accommodation . The previous accommodation was far too far from Wasgamuwa National Park. It was over 2 hours away and was booked when we were going to go to Minneriya Park. However, due to the heavy rains the elephants have mostly left that park and it was thought we would see more in Wasgamuwa. Our thanks go to Jetwing Travel who kindly picked up the bill for the accomodation change. Lavendish Wild Safari hotel was US $66 per night dinner, bed and breakfast.

We retired early, exhausted from the day and wanting to be ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed’ for the next days 6.00am Safari.

Day 2 – Tuesday 6th February – Another Great day in Sri Lanka.

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Today was our day of rest to get over the flight…however, after another sleepless night I needed a slow day …I think my body clock is up the creek, finally nodded off at 5.30 and got up at 7.30….I guess 2 hours sleep is better than none. We had selected a British breakfast rather than a Sri Lankan one because Brenda had told us the later was very spicy 🌶 🌶🌶…….They call it spicy here rather than hot, where as we tend to say spicy is flavoursome…so now we have to say ‘ not too chilli spicy’… So we had a large bowl of fruit followed by scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, sausage and tomato…all rounded off with toast and marmalade and washed down with some rather nice Italian coffee….a great start to the morning. We went back to the room and packed up because the Ayubowan Guest House had kindly agreed to move us downstairs to a room which was en-suite and didn’t involve me climbing Mount Everest 🤣🤣🤣.

10.30 am prompt Suminda picked us up and we headed off to the Muthurajawela Visitor Center on the mangrove canals. Today Suminda had suggest that we took an additional boat trip along the canal, around the mangroves of the Muthurajawels sanctuary and on to the Negombo Lagoon. This is an important area for migratory bird life. After a brief introduction about the sanctuary by the guide we paid our US$80 and made a rather inelegant boarding of the boat. Suminda was cheap as we didn’t have to pay for him as well!! and he was still allowed to accompany us.

it was a thoroughly pleasant way to spend 3 hours meandering along the canal and into the lagoon. We were fortunate enough to see, lapwings, bitterns, water monitor lizards, egrets, herons, migratory terns and swallows from India and many more. There were other intriguing sights such as net fishing and fishermen punting their boats.

All of this was topped off with a real treat seeing the trees moving first with a colony of fruit bats and then again later, only this time with shy Macaque Monkeys…. Our patience paid off as a couple came along the waterside and took no notice of us as the foraged for food.

Having returned to the very welcomed air conditioned car Suminda took us on a sightseeing trip on the way back. We stopped off at the fish market, where they were drying fish in a similar way to that which I’ve seen in Malawi. The remnants of the mornings catch was still on sale by some ever hopeful stallholders. The only customers seemed to be some beady eyed egrets…

Evidently there would have been a lot of fruit and veg on the market much earlier in the day. It was interesting to see Jack fruit in its entirety as well as what it looks like when mature and ripened. We eat a lot of Jack Fruit at home, it comes as young fruit in a tin and we use it as substitute meat, it tastes a little like pulled pork and is supposedly good for lowering blood sugars for diabetics.

As our tummies were rumbling Suminda took us to Koko Beach club for lunch. We each had Coke Zero. John and I shared a beef and cheese rotti, which was chilli spicy and a plate of French fries, whilst Suminda had a chicken curry and rice. It was nice sitting looking at the sea and the beach whilst under a ceiling fan!! Lunch cost us £12, it turns out Suminda is a cheap gentleman to take for lunch as his was free!!!
Then it was back to Ayubowan Guest House. Brenda had kindly had our bags brought downstairs to our new room and we were quickly into the air conditioning and under the crisp cool sheets for a siesta.

After a refreshing snooze we readied ourselves for Desmond and his tuk-tuk chariot and off we went onto the high street to try a different restaurant for our evening meal. This time we tried another recommended Seafood establishment The Sea View. A little ironic as it has a view of the Main Street and unless you had X-ray vision you have no chance of seeing the sea! It’s a lively, bright place which has a really buzzing ambience.
We took the last table and quickly ordered seafood noddles for me and sweet & sour chicken for John.

We followed it with John having his usual ice cream and I had banana fritters…all very tasty for about £16 including the normal coke zeros…..we’ve found the food to be reasonably priced and so far all the restaurant’s we’ve eaten I have accepted MasterCard so that’s a thumbs up. Desmond Tuk Tuk was waiting for us and soon returned us to our Guest House. Tomorrow Suminda is taking us sightseeing in Colombo and then to his home to meet his wife and she is going to cook us a Sri Lankan curry for lunch. We were very touched when he invited us and we are very much looking forward to the day, so more about that tomorrow..

Day 1 – 5th February – The start of our Sri Lanka adventure.

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Our adventure really started yesterday when we boarded Air Sri Lanka an hour late…..however after an uneventful flight with good food and on-board entertainment we landed just a few minutes after our scheduled time. It was hot and sticky waiting for 30 minutes to disembark the plane, but we eventually made it into the arrivals lounge. I should have filled the arrivals form in on line but no problem, John got 2 good old fashioned paper copies which we dutifully filled out and patiently waited in a relatively short queue to go through immigration. By the time we arrived in the baggage reclaim area one of our cases was already there and waiting for us and the second one came fairly shortly after it….time from entering arrivals to leaving it was less than 45 minutes – puts Heathrow to shame. Immediately outside the customs are foreign exchange booths. We had read up on the Sri Lankan Tourist Facebook site that these give you the best rate so we quickly exchanged some US$ although contrary to previous information they also exchange sterling £.
We then went in search of our driver who was stood immediately in front of the arrivals funnel with JACKSON on a board. We greeted each other and stopped on the way to the vehicle to buy 60gb of data for US$13…. Very reasonable and the vendor put it in our router and checked it was working…great service. During this transaction I asked the driver if he was with us for the full 23 days, he looked a bit bemused and whilst I was buying the gb he told John he was just taking us to a hotel in Columbo…….”hey!! We’re not going to Columbo, our hotel is in Negombo” was Johns reply …..as it soon became clear that there must have been 2 Jackson’s on the flight and he was meeting someone else…. John quickly went back to the meet and greet area and reappeared with Suminda, our driver and guide for our complete holiday..phew…. He greeted us with such a welcoming smile and a garland of orchids each, before taking over the trolly and our airport departure.

Suminda chatted happily whilst driving us the 30 minutes to the guest house we were booked into. We explained that we had been recommended Ayubowan guest house by a blogger, as we wanted to submerge ourselves in the Sri Lankan culture. We were thus a little surprised when Brenda and Ron welcomed us…if I’d investigated further I’d have known it was an English run Guest House….absolutely charming and a very warm welcome from our hosts. We made a plan for the next couple of days with Suminda and said goodbye until tomorrow.

We welcomed our cool room and had an afternoon’s siesta. Brenda recommended some local restaurants and at 7 pm she kindly called us a tuk tuk…Desmond our driver took us to The White House restaurant, known for its seafood curries. It lived up to its reputation. John had a King Prawn Sri Lankan curry whilst I had grilled swordfish. We had 3 Coke zeros and John had ice cream as desert and the whole lot came to £14.

Desmond returned to take us back to our Guest House. We probably should of haggled the price with him but at £1.20 each way it didn’t seem worth the effort.

A Great first day to start our adventure…more tomorrow.