Trip to Kandy

          Got up at 5:00 a.m. to pack to move to another hotel.  Naushad picked us up at 6:00 a.m. and moved us to the Topaz Beach Hotel, which are much nicer accommodations than we had.   Nikki didn’t like the idea of packing and moving all over the place, so we decided that we liked Negombo and booked for seven days.  We found that we could use this as a jumping off point for doing the tourist things that we wanted to do.  Here is a view from our balcony:

Drove to fisherman’s beach which is where Naushad parked the tuc tuc and we met his friend with a van who was driving us to Kandy for our day trip.  Nikki and I walked a little ways out on the beach to get a better look at the fishermen preparing their sail boats for their daily fishing expeditions.   Of course, they wanted us to come out with them for a boat ride…money!!!   And then, ironically, wediscovered that Naushad and his friend are both Muslims and are both Mohammeds!   Who would have guessed that we would find Muslims in a predominately Christian area of the country, especially after leaving our Muslim friends in Kuwait?

Our first stop was at a bakery for breakfast items.  Naushad told me that a particular fish roll was “very nice.”   It looked like a nice croissant, and you know me:  I’ll try anything once.   Well, it turned out to be some kind of fish paste and was NOT very nice; it gave me a horrible aftertaste.   But my goal is to try new things, and now I can say I tried it.  The jelly roll was much better.

                Then we drove and drove for several hours towards Kandy.  It seemed like we never got out of the city.  We would see areas that looked like forest, but there would be people on bicycles, walking,  or on motorcycles, plus, there were little stores lining the road.  People everywhere!!

At the Elephant Orphanage I got to pet an elephant!   A first in my life!   We walked around and saw what there was to see and then left the park to look for souvenirs down a street of little shops.   And a good thing we did.  It turned out that the elephants march down this street on their way to the river to bath and cool off.  It was magnificent watching these huge beasts at such close range.  They drive them to the river for a few hours and then drive them back up the street back to the park.   Amazing! 

At one place, Naushad said come in here; it was an elephant dung, paper-making process plant.  Yikes, you may say, elephant poop????   Well, think about it.  All elephants eat are fiberous plants; when the dung is dried, it is mostly fiber, and what is paper, after all?   The dung gets washed and dried again, and I can vouch that it is odourless!   It is then mixed together with water and cooked until it becomes a smooth, runny consistency.  This mush is spread out thinly into a mesh tray and placed in the sun to dry.  The resulting paper is rather thick and uneven…it reminded me of heavier art paper.  These pieces of paper are put into a rolling press and when they come out, they are flat and smooth; not as thin as our writing paper, but thicker like a greeting card.  Then there are people who take these sheets and make them into things like note pads, greeting cards, and small notebooks.   I particularly liked one which had a cinnamon stick cover, so it smelled delightful!

Nikki and I agreed that we both wanted to stop at a spice/herb garden, so we did!  This was an ayervedic herb and spice garden….an olfactory delight!  A guide walked us through telling us about the various herbs and spices and inviting us to smell everything in sight.  At the end, we sampled some of the different products, like a hair removal product,  a face rub, and I had a shoulder/arm massage.   You know how I love my massages!  Nikki and I both purchased “medicine” to bring home.

And last, but not least, we visited a tea factory….yet another olfactory delight.  They processed only black tea at this particular building.  We toured the whole process, which was very educational, and then had a wonderful cup of tea in the tea room before making our purchases.  I splurged and bought “silver tip” tea which is one step below the most expensive tea.  I can hardly wait to try it in my new brewing cup!   “No sugar and no milk” I was cautioned by the lovely clerk in her business sari.

Well, there was yet another surprise in store for us!   On the way home, we got to stop and visit a Hindu temple!  This was very amazing.  We had to remove our shoes outside; this is a symbol of respect.   I took photos of the outside, but didn’t feel that it was appropriate to take photographs inside the temple, disrupting people who were worshiping.   It seemed disrespectful.  There was an air of spirituality there that permeated my soul, as so much of Sri Lanka seemed to do.  For such a small country, there is a large amount of religion available.