LA's Sri Lanka: Mountain Trip!

Helllloooo!!

I hope that this post finds everyone in good health and spirits! The weather is warming up at home and the snow is slowly melting I hear! And I believe that it is officially SPRING! Woo! The weather here seems to be getting hotter, and the monsoon season seems to be creeping up on us. It rains almost every night now, and I dont mean little scattered showers... it absolutely DOWNPOORS! The raindrops seem like they are the size of mangoostines (which are my new favorite fruit here! They are about the size of golfballs). Too bad I don't have a cute roommate I can go cuddle up in bed with when I get scared at night! haha! I've actually gotten use to all the crazy noises outside at night (cats fighting, dogs doing the hibbidy dibbidy, and other wild animals making wild noises) and I sleep through the night! I've gotten the bugs under control as well... with all the 98% DEET bugspray I've got now there is no way they want my blood. Check the picture out of what they did to my legs! Other then that, life is good hear in SL!

So we took a 3 day trip into the mountains to do some great site seeing this past weekend! We headed out Friday morning for the Elephant Orphanage! I actually skipped the orphanage and took an elephant ride instead! It was amazing!!!! We took a short 15 minutes ride, which was kinda scary. I mean your so far off the ground, so if you lose your grip then your headed straight for a nose dive about 1-15 ft. down!! After the ride we got into the river with them for a bath! SOO neat, they sprayed water on us and stuff... very cool! The elephant I rode was a film star, who had appeared in more then 30 films! It seemed as though they were treated fine, tied up with chains while they weren't bathing or giving a ride. But they also tie up horses and dogs, elephants are just so large they need larger leashes. It seemed alright, but behind closed doors you never know!

From there we stopped in Kandy, which is the 3rd largest town in SL. Its filled with old traditions, temples, retaurants and sites. We actually went to a traditional Kandyian dance that night. It was filled with elaborate costumes and drummers! After the show we had a traditional rice and curry dinner and hit the hay. We rose early to travel the 3 hours to our next destination which was the cave temples of Dumbulla! The story goes that one of the early kings of SL took refugee in these caves when he was exiled from his kingdom. Once he regained his power he had all the caves turned into his own sacred temples. Some of the Buddha images and statues are more then 1500 years old! Our guide through the caves told us a very humerous story of a German lady that came to visit the caves with her husband in 2003. Well she wanted a picture with this Buddah statue (any pictures or touching with Buddha is not allowed, especially with your back towards Buddha) so she jumped onto the "meditating" Buddha's lap and her husband took the picture. Well, the dumbass broke the cardinal rule of picture taking with Buddha, and she also broke the hands of the Buddha right off the statue! To say the least she had her memory card confinscated from her camera and she also got fined a huge amount of money for breaking the rules and the Buddha! What an idiot huh? haha!

The next day we drove early to Sigiriya, which is another ancient city in the mountains. It is known for the mountain that holds one of the countries most notorious monestaries. Another king took refugee on top of this mountain when he was banished, building a huge palace for his family and a place where he could keep an eye on anyone trying to gain entrance into his kingdom. Well since the school children in SL like to throw rocks as the huge killer bees on the climbing trail, the top of the mountain was closed off to tourists and local hikers because the bees had sent over 15 people to the hospital after being attacked the day before we arrived! So a guide took us to the mountain right next to Sigiriya, gave us the whole history of this king and his mountain top palace, and from the top of the peak we hiked we had the best view of Sigiriya Rock! Very cool check it out!

So to say the least this weekend was filled with traditions and culture of Sri Lanka. It was by far one of my most memorable and favorite trips since I've been here! I cant even begin to describe every little detail of the history, but it was such a great experience!

Hope all is well!

xoxo