Reunited with my partner after 4 weeks
I was reunited with Ed in Colombo airport, it had been just over a month apart and was the warmest welcome I could have imagined when arriving in Sri Lanka. We had a driver for the first 9 days of our trip as we had quite an ambitious itinerary. Apart from our first stop, we were in a new accommodation every day for 5 days.
We stayed in a beautiful tree house hotel, my sister stayed here when she visited Sri Lanka with her husband on their honeymoon and we had to check it out, the outdoor bathroom was so cool, and we experienced showing in the rain which was a new sensation, the cool water from the rain and the warm water from the shower!
Elephant Safari
I have always wanted to see elephants in the wild, and I got my wish! We saw over 40 on this amazing Safari; families of elephants eating, even bathing in the waters and younger elephants playing. At one point two elephants came right up to our Safari jeep and were eating grass less than a meter away from us! I was in ore of how big their feet were, the approach they took to picking up the grass with their trunks and swishing it around several times and throwing mud on their back. How they just kept moving and eating through bushes through trees and over water. It was the highlight of my trip to Sri Lanka.
Learning to cook Sri Lankan Curry
We attended a cooking class and eat lunch as part of the Elephant Safari package. It was amazing to see the traditional way that Sri Lankan curry has been made. We got to try scraping the coconut shavings from the coconut to make coconut milk with water. The food was so tasty! We even eat with our hands the traditional way from a lotus leaf. The lady also showed us how they used dead coconut leaves to fold and use as roofing. Ed had a go of threading it and was pretty good. Everything here gets used for something. Even the old coconut shells are put in the ground around trees to protect their roots and bamboo sticks are used for fences.
Ceylon tea
I had no idea Sri Lanka was such a large producer of tea! All we saw for 4 days in the car was tea plantation after tea plantation. We stopped at a factory, which was set up originally by a Scottish company and we tried 4 types of tea. White, black, green and BOP. Seeing the clouds get caught amongst all these tea trees, it felt like being in the clouds. What was also very strange was seeing red postboxes everywhere. I was not aware of the history of Sri Lanka with the British until I visited the country and was getting a good history from Ed.
My body is not happy!
I think being on the move every day, in the car for a minimum of 2 hours driving around mountains and hills and lots of twists and turns, my body was exhausted! It wanted to be still. We had 4 nights in one place later in the trip and I really enjoyed spending 4 days relaxing, being by the beach and getting some laundry done!
Sri Lankaβs Hills by train
I had seen so much about this amazing train in Sri Lanka. So it was a must on our itinerary. We booked the Odyssey train, a special sevrvice which slows down at waterfalls and key sights for you to enjoy and take photos and even stops on the iconic 9 Arches bridge so you can jump off and see the amazing feat of architecture for yourself. It was beautiful, we found the entire train emptied the station before this so it was nice to have this view pretty much all to ourselves.
My favourite food of the week - Egg Hopper
Egg Hopper, the one we had particularly at the Tree House Hotel for breakfast was so creamy and had black pepper. Itβs like a fried egg but in the shape of a basket. A must-try if youβre in Sri Lanka!
If you have reached this point and you are still readingβ¦. Well done!
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