The Adventures of Michalina: February 2015

Independence Day with Mark's family and the monks

Feb. 4 was Sri Lankan Independence Day. We all got to dress up and served 10 monks lunch. We met them down the street and a traditional drumming group walked to Mark's house with all of us. Mark's family prepared a huge feast with over 20 different dishes! The monks gave a speech and explained what this day was all about (essentially giving the monks food and other practical gifts so that we could practice giving), and then we fed them the different dishes in the large bowls they brought. Then they blessed us all individually. It was so special! I was so nervous about spilling something on one of the monks as I was serving them. I made it through several dishes, but by the time dessert came around and I was assigned jello to distribute, I was getting careless. I spilled jello on the youngest monk.... it was so embarrassing.... The monks were all lighthearted and were laughing at us the whole time anyway, so everything was fine. Such a fun day!

Next we set of for safaris in Yala and Udawalwe national parks. We went on a river safari along the way that our driver insisted on taking us to. It was pretty lovely, but touristy. We didn't see much along the river, the main point was to take us to a cinnamon making demonstration, and to a fish foot spa on the river. These were both fun activities, and it was nice to have a break during the long drive!

We were staying in super fun camps in the both parks: basically thatched palm roof open air buildings to eat and sleep under. All our beds had mosquito nets, and besides the giant spider that Lotte woke up to on her net, we were all pretty safe form the bugs (It might have been a dangerous leopard spider.... but Mark saved us.) At Yala we were staying near the beach. We could jsut hear the waves while we were sleeping, and the beach was incredibly gorgeous. Perhaps one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been on. The red sand that blended into the desert landscape higher on shore...the huge wind swept sand dunes...it was all very inspiring. We went to the beach both days, and we found dead sea turtle and tortoise remains, a crested bird skull, and an adorable dog family. I spent a long time with these dogs on the day we climbed the dunes on the far side of the beach. First I just met the mom, who was very gentle, but later she brought her puppies over to meet me. The girl was the same as her mom, but the boy was rambunctious and nippy. When we were leaving some time later the mom brought the dad over to meet us. He had the same rough and rambunctious attitude as his son! What an adorable family.

The first morning we got up at 4am and went on the first safari. Yala is a very crowded park, there were jeeps everywhere!! We drove all around looking a peacocks, water buffalo, a few wild boars and an elephant. It was a pretty dull safari honestly, since usually we would at least have seen a ton of elephants. We went back to our place feeling a bit bummed. The next day, however, we decided to go on another safari, and this day was also my birthday. We saw so many cool animals!!! So many peacocks were displaying today, we saw elephants, the place where they dump all the bones and remains of animals that died (sooooo cool!!), and a LEOPARD in a tree! We got to watch the leopard for a while and we saw it stand up in the tree, yawn, and scratch its face with its foot. It was such a special moment!! We all felt very lucky.

To prepare for the safaris, we watched a video at Mark's house that showed an elephant reaching into a jeep filled with people and waving its trunk around violently while everyone screamed. The driver can't move the jeep because then the elephants will chase it. Mark did not allow us to bring any food on the safaris for this reason. We saw an elephant on my birthday. There were many jeeps crowded around it, but when the elephant started acting aggressively, all the jeeps started panicking and trying to reverse, but there was nowhere to go because of all the jeeps. One jeep reversed into our jeep shortly after we pulled up. We could see on the road ahead the elephant had grabbed someone's backpack out of their jeep and chucked it on the ground. We eventually got past all of the jeeps and drove past the elephant once it went into the bushes a bit. I thought that was a dumb idea. Turns out it was the same elephant as in the video we watched!! I was certainly counting my blessings then..

We also had a barbeque on the first night in Yala in the yard. A wild boar was sneaking around us. I saw a shooting star. The place was magical.

After the safari we went on to Udawalawe park, where our camp was on a lake. We had kayaks to use, so I went on a birthday kayak around the lake while the boys fished. There were some stray dogs who lived there. We named them Black Dog and Moon Moon. Black dog was friendly and covered with sores, and Moon Moon was the tiniest little shy white dog, who was also very stupid. I only got her to smell my hand once, she was terrified, which was sad. I loved them both. There was also a dog that we named Long Nipple Dog (LND) that came to visit. She looked like Moon Moon but a bit larger, she could have been her mom. Anyway, one day a big brown Intruder Dog came to intrude on the happy dog family at our camp. Black Dog was the only one who took it seriously. He tried to address Intruder Dog and be friends with him, but Intruder Dog only growled. Moon Moon and LND did not take this threat seriously. Instead they tried to play with Intruder Dog and when that failed, they traipsed around rolling on the grass and peeing. They really had no concept of the gravity of the situation. Lotte and I watched them for a long time narrating their escapades and crying with laughter one afternoon.

One morning I led a little yoga class for the others as per Josh's request. They were so sore the next day they did not want to do anymore yoga. (Perhaps foreshadowing to my own horrible yoga experience later in the trip, "Stretch maximum!!!"-more on that later).

There was also a GIANT lizard that lived in the lake by our camp. One morning I was exploring the shore and what I thought was a 6 foot crocodile jumping into the water was actually this lizard. Mark had stayed at the camp in his childhood, and knew the daily routine of the lizard. Every morning at 6am it would swim from one end of the beach to the other and sun itself for a while. What a neat creature! Sorry I couldn't get a photo of it!

The other best thing about our safari trips was that I got to eat fresh water buffalo milk curd every morning with honey! What a dream life...

All dressed up

Josh and I in our nice Sri Lankan outfits

Baby sea turtles

Turtle yoga

A river safari

Getting fish pedicures. I heard they can transmit diseases such as Hepatitis so I didn't put my feet in, but the boys had a riot!

Yala National Park

Desert sunsets

Beach spoils

Remnants of a dead sea turtle

I love dunes

These gorgeous patterns only appeared in the evenings

The sweetest mama dog and her obnoxious but cute and wrinkly pups. The boy was rambunctious and liked to nip.. just like his dad who I met later.

Trekking up to the top of the dunes

Emma

Josh the bookworm

Sri Lanka's national bird

Probably my favourite safari sight... the boneyard where all the bones get dumped. I wishhhh I was allowed to take some home!!

First safari in Yala

Peacocks galore on my birthday!

Majestic stork

Sorry my lens is not good at long distance, but many fanning peacocks today!

Birthday leopard. So lucky!! We saw it get up and yawn and scratch itself.

Birthday kayak at Udawalawe National Park

Paradise!!

Sunrise silhouettes

The pool and view from the lodge.

Next up on our gorgeous cultural hiking tour was Horton’s Plains. Our accommodation was at the amazing Worlds’ End Lodge. This place had SPECTACULAR views, although it was a serious mission for our van to make it up the steep hairpin driveway. (One day when it was rainy we had to all get out of the van and instead of waiting we just ran up to the top to avoid all the leeches that would catch us otherwise!) We had the first night to ourselves, which was awesome because our group was pretty loud. The other great thing about this place is Darwyn met me here!! We got to have one day together before he jetted off to South India for his next tour. Happy days. Anyway this place was amazing, and surrounded by creatures! There were frogs everywhere (so many in fact, that Josh woke up one early morning with a frog on his forehead. He dreamt it was a cat’s paw), butterflies, and various other insects and wildflowers.

The first day we went to Lipton’s Seat. It was in the middle of the tea plantations, and yes, it was named after the Lipton Tea man. We had a picturesque tea time in the clouds. We walked around the plantations a bit, and I had the most scenic pee of my life in the tea plants looking out at the lush rolling hills. (Contrast that scenic pee with the most terrifying pee of my life, which was at a truck stop in the middle of the night in the fog between Agra and Varanasi, almost in pitch black behind a truck. Darwyn had to stand guard.) There were some wild flowers on the edges of the plantations, which the bees appreciated, so we got some nice bug photos.

Next we went to Babarakanda Falls, which is the tallest waterfall in Sri Lanka. There was so much wind coming down from it I could barely breathe! The water was pretty chilly and we had to wear clothes when we swam because it was not a touristy place, but it was sure spectacular! Mark also spotted a caddisfly larva (aka periwinkle) living on land!!! I don’t have a good photo of it though. Darwyn had to leave that night, which was sad.

The next morning I went on a sunrise hike with Mark to a point near the lodge. The path crossed little wateralls and streams, which we drank from, and was an old narrow road that the British used to take horses on. The British also had a bridge connecting two mountains where we hiked, which would have been quite a span! We could see the old rock and cement bridge paraphernalia. There was also a big round rock that was balanced on top of a smaller rock. Mark said that that rock was put there by the “primates”. Mystified, I asked what that meant. He said they were sort of like the link between apes and humans, and had lived here long ago. I thought that was freaky. I wondered it they may have been simply ancient Homo sapiens, or perhaps another type of humanoid. The oldest humans remains were found in a cave in Sri Lanka, so I think anything is possible here.

After the sunrise hike we went back to our rooms and found Brett had also woken up, so us three went on a small hike/crock climb/bushwack to a small cave. Apparently the “primates” had lived in this cave as well, and perhaps also modern Sri Lankans and British.

Next we set off to Ella. We wound through tiny roads between tea plantations and clouds to arrive at this FANTASTIC hotel on the hill overlooking tea plantations and a huge valley. This place had a pool overlooking the mountains and valley! It was incredible. That evening the boys went on a hike to a waterfall and met a man with a cow who said he would lead us on a hike the next morning. The girls went shopping in the town, but I stayed at the hotel to work on my keystone. My computer almost crashed, but I managed to get it working again thank goodness!!

The next morning me and the boys got up at 4:15 and set off in the pouring rain and pitch black to meet the man with a cow. We walked along the train tracks. Fortunately I brought my headlamp. We arrived at a small house with a dirt floor. We were told to sit in plastic chairs and wait. The farmer gave us a towel to dry off. A cute dog came to spray its fleas at us, moaning the whole time. It was cute. After a few minutes, the farmer emerged again with 4 steaming glasses of fresh milk from his cow and some biscuits. The milk was sweetened with sugar, and it was soooo fresh and delicious! (Honestly that was the reason I agreed to go on the hike in the first place. Unfortunately I had to schlep through the next several hours of hiking too. C’est la vie.)

When we finished drinking our milk the sun was just coming up, so we followed the farmer down the tracks and over the hills. This guy was in incredible shape; he practically ran up all the hills! I had to ask him to stop a few times for a break, especially since my cough was pretty bad at this point. We passed through stands of trees and saw a bee hive! The colony was Apis dorsata, the giant honey bee, but the locals insisted they were hornets. Apparently people were attacked by these bees pretty often. The farmer had once rescued a Canadian couple that had been attacked and took them to the hospital. The government fined the couple several hundred dollars because they had “disrupted the wildlife”. The couple then kept also sending money to the farmer’s family as thanks. So far he had not spent any of the money but was waiting to give it to his children when they grew up.

We finally arrived at Ella Rock lookout. It was terribly cloudy so we did not see much. The farmer suggested we wait five more minutes to see if the clouds cleared and they did! I have a secret cloud clearing technique that I developed on this rock. Sometimes when I exercise and it is cold or windy out my ears hurt. And if I don’t have a hat sometimes I tie my hair under my chin like a beard. This looks incredibly strange but I assure you it is incredibly warm for my ears. While tying my hair beard, I noticed the clouds parted a bit. So I decided to braid my hair beard and see what happened. Miraculously the clouds cleared to give us a bit of a view!! I’m convinced my hair beard it magic. I will do further testing and let you all know how it turns out if you ask.

Next we hiked over to Ravana Rock, another lookout point. It was Darwyn’s birthday so we all sang him happy birthday on video on my phone and I sent it to him. Next we went down the hill and went to Ravana caves. These caves around 2500 years old I think. We had to climb more stairs to get to the caves (my legs were NOT happy after this). Apparently the queen used to hide in these caves during war. And there are also 8 km of cave tunnels underground which connects the cave to other villages. Amazing! We paid the farmer very well for his guiding services. He was a lovely man.

I had been trying to find honey all this trip, and asked the farmer if he had any. It’s very hard to find the real stuff here. He did have some honey! He brought an arrack bottle full over to our hotel that evening. It was amazing honey! It tasted so caramelly, but I could tell it was raw because of the wax bits in it, and how much I was allergic to it. It’s so special!

Next we took the train to Kandy from Ella. It was a fun beautiful ride. It was quite cloudy, but I still spotted a tree with about 30 bee hives in it! When we got to Kandy we went to see the Temple of the Tooth, the most important religious site in all of Sri Lanka. It contains Lord Buddha’s tooth, which you can only see if you are very important or have connections. It was a very crowded place, but it was nice to offer some lotus flowers there. The bees loved the flowers. Then we had a long drive back to Colombo that night.

Picturesquely unloading the van...

The view at Lipton's Seat

Lipton's Seat lookout platform. The tea shop is below.

Mark at the lookout.

Brett at the lookout

Cloudy tea time

Exploring the tea plantaitons

Apis cerana I think

Look at those big orange pollen pants!

Babarakanda Falls, the tallest waterfall in Sri Lanka

Gigantic pill bug at World's End Lodge. Told you the creatures were amazing! That's my index finger for size reference.

View from the lookout point on our sunrise walk.

This is the canyon where the British had a bridge across. Crazy! I don't know why they didn't just go around...

One of my favourite flowers. They remind me of sea creatures.

More favourite flowers. Anyone know what they are called?

Crossing and drinking from majestic waterfalls.

Dew dropped spiderweb

Cave where the "primates" apparently lived. I looked for evidence of habitation, i.e. smoke marks on the ceiling, but I saw none. I have no idea how long smoke marks last for, though (I am a bad archaeologist).