One year after our wedding, I was in England, living with my parents, celebrating my one year anniversary alone in the garden with a microwave curry and a miniature bottle of champagne. Two years on and I’m living in America with my husband, in our own house, with a sweet furry kitten and a brand new son.

August 4th 2007. Happy times xxx

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Two years

2) DrMrNin is flying in on Friday- the last time he will have to fly all the way to England just to see me. xo

3) I’m making good progress with my packing. When I see all my things again it will be in our new home. xo

4) The evenings are drawing in and there’s a chill in the air. I’m thrilled to be able to have some English autumn before I leave.

5) The fall food range is finally on sale at Williams Sonoma and I will be able to go there and see it all in just a couple of weeks. I’m hoping they will have some samples to try too

Isn’t this cake jut gorgeous?!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Five things to be happy about right now

It’s all too often that brides can be heard describing their wedding day as the best day of their life so far, but up until my own big day, I never really fully understood what they meant. On many occasions throughout the planning process, I would always ask married friends “in what way was it the best?“, but I could never really get a satisfactory answer. All to frequently the reply would be something along the lines of “well, I dunno, it just was“. And now when it comes to trying to explain the feeling of my very own wedding, I find myself up against the same verbal brick wall. It really was a very best day of my life so far, but as to explaining why, well it just was. There is no single thing about the day that stood out above all others as being a hilight, as every single moment from the second I got up in the morning to the time that I went to bed was just so smashingly perfect. So much so that I’m still on a high from it.

I spent the entire day completely swollen with pride. I was proud of our beautiful, BEAUTIFUL bridal party, who all looked more stunning that words can ever describe, I was proud for Mutti looking amazing to be walking down the aisle on the arm of my cousin, I was proud for a dapper looking Young Father to be giving me away, and I was of course completely proud to be joined in marriage with my new husband in front of friends and family who had between them travelled hundreds of thousands of miles to share the moment. And all throughout the same time I was bursting with pleasure at the sight of seeing all our hard work over the past eleven months come together to an absolutely flawless finish. Even the one tiny glitch that did happen (MrNin’s buttonhole and Mutti’s corsage had been confused) was all sorted very efficiently and in good time. The ceremony was wonderful, the ride in the vintage cars to the reception was delightful, and everything about the reception was magnificent- drinks were flowing, the food was amongst the most excellent I have ever had, the band sounded amazing, and I very much got the impression that everyone had a good time. if any of the guests had any complaints, it was probably that we almost killed them by presenting them with enormous quantities of too many good things. But in a way, I consider that a compliment- best to have too much than too little in my book! Even the weather came through for us- according to the staff at the restaurant, we were only the second wedding that year so far who had had sunshine.

I really cannot summon the words to express how pleased, grateful and honoured I still feel about the whole event, it was just the most perfect day ever. The vocabulary just doesn’t exist, nor are there superlatives great enough, but the pictures that were taken speak all the words that I stuggle to find. Here are some of my personal favourites that i wanted to share (but you can view a slideshow of the full set by clicking here). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

^^^By the way, that man with that there camera is none other than FilmChris! He and his wife Sandra (a.k.a. ‘Vanderkitten’) were in our bridal party.

Thanks everyone, you were all amazing

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And without any further ado….

Happy wedding anniversary Mutti and Young Father! I hope that our marriage will be as happy and as long-lasting as yours!

I love looking at their old wedding photos, they're classic and timeless. If you're interested, I've got more in my flickr account, and you can see them by clicking here. But my favourite photo of all is the first one I posted- that's my uncle sneaking a cheeky kiss on his new sister-in-law's cheek. He was also best man at the wedding.

Speaking of wedding photos….I'm EXCITED BEYOND WORDS to see that friends of ours and a couple of family members have started to upload pictures they took from our wedding on August 4th! I can't wait to tell you about it and show you the pro pics. in the meantime, here are some of my favourites out of the ones that our friends and family have posted.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as From one generation to the next

The journey from our hotel to Colombo airport did indeed take all that time, but it was a rather luxurious one. We had said goodbye to Palitha when we had arrived here, so the company who we had booked through sent another driver, and this one came in a great big silver Mercedes. According to Palitha, that little Toyota Camry that we had been driving round in for ten days cost the equivalent of US$50,000. It wasn’t even that high spec a car either- it was almost brand new, but the only mod con it had was air conditioning. It didn’t even have electric windows, and automatic central locking wasn’t even in its vocabulary. Apparently car tax in Sri Lanka runs at 300%. Aside from the Lexuses (Lexi?) we saw whilst we were on Safari, this Mercedes must have been one of the most expensive cars on the island. We felt very special.

Once at the airport, everything seemed rather straightforward- join one line to check in, join another line to get our emmigration card and passport stamped, then join another line to get through security, and enter back into the departure lounge, which immediately felt rather ‘Western’ all of a sudden. Why? Well, we started to see familiar brand names of home stocked on the shelves, we were suddenly surrounded by more European holidaymakers than we had seen in the whole of the past two weeks, and above all else, we saw a COFFEE BEAN AND TEA LEAF. Seriously, I kid you not, and if you needed proof, here it is. Just click on the photo and it will take you straight to the flickr page, then click to see the ‘Exif’ data, and you will clearly be able to see the timestamp. I definitely took this picture in Sri Lanka.

I rather whelped with enthusiastic glee at the sight of this shop from the heavens (rather to the embarrassment of MrNin) and skipped happily inside and ordered a large, decaf, single latte which happens to be one of my most bestest drinks in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD. I got a piece of chocolate fudge cake too. MrNin tried to feign his dismay, but he was actually rather pleased with his triple latte and didn’t utter another word.

Due to ‘connection issues’ our flight home was delayed by about an hour and a half, which lent time to people watching in the airport. It just happens to be one of my favourite things to do, so I wasn’t too bothered. MrNin plugged himself into his iPod, whilst I gazed around and tried to make up stories about why everyone is there. It’s turned out not to be such an interesting game at the airport though, as about 80% of the people there were obviously coming back from their holiday. And everyone felt pretty much the same way as we did from the looks of it.

So I donned my eyemask and retrieved my koosi pillow and attempted to forget all about my poorly tummy. Just as I had got comfy propped up on MrNin’s shoulder, they announced boarding and then the cattle crush began.

The flight actually wasn’t that bad, it was just long. Air Lanka kept us well fed, and there were quite a few films to watch, and there were even video games too. I spent about two hours playing Solitaire but only managed to complete it once. But by far the coolest thing about the plane though was that in addition to the flight map that seems to be pretty standard on almost all carriers these days, they also had front- and downward-facing cameras. Or “front-” and “sicky-cam” as we liked to affectionately call them. There wasn’t much to see when we were flying high up in the air, but it made the take-off and landing rather exciting as we got a pilot’s-eye view. Just take a look at what we saw when we were coming in to land at Heathrow (not a very good pic, I know, but the screen was only about 6″ big. At least you can get the idea though).

After making the awkward journey back from Terminal 4 to the local train station (I always hate landing at T4 as it’s SO out of the way, and it adds an extra trainride and 40 mins to the journey), my parents picked us up and took us home and fed us beans on toast as we were hungry. By this stage it was all rather late so everyone (except us) went to bed. Unfortunately the beans didn’t work so well for my poorly tummy and I suddenly felt an awful lot worse. It was probably the tiredness and dehydration from the 13.5 hour flight and the hours of transfers either side, but I began to take a turn for the worse. At one point I was even lying on the floor in awfulness.

I don’t think my parents realised just how awful I felt, as they hadn’t been witness to my discomfort of the past 10 days. At this stage I wanted to call a doctor out, or if he couldn’t come, to go to the emergency room as I was worried that I might need fluids. I really did feel THAT bad and was worried that it was going to be a horrifically uncomfortable night. But because they were over half asleep when i went into their room to ask them for help, they weren’t really that responsive. But MrNin sat with me, in a true show of husbandly support and made me drink glass after glass of water, waiting with me until I was so tired that i couldn’t possibly not fall asleep, regardless of my discomfort.

It just so happens that a very good neighbour of mine whom I’ve known since I was three – we literally grew up together, and are like sisters – is fully qualified GP (which is british for ‘doctor’) and she has just moved home for a little while having lived away for a few years. So this morning, upon actually realising just how dreadful I felt, my mum went over there to her house to seek advice. Next thing I know, my friend in shining armour came to my rescue with a private prescription, and even more kindly than that, actually went to the pharmacy and COLLECTED IT FOR ME too! How nice a person could there ever be??!! It turns out I was displaying the classic signs of a nasty intestinal infection, and I needed a course of Cipro to help fight it off. She also recommended that I take some of that specially mixed sugar/salt solution as it was my chemical imbalance in particular that was likely making me feel so off and lacking of energy. King Young Father went and got me some of that just before lunch and after just having two doses, I feel soooo much better already.

Thank GOODNESS I am now on the mend. Here’s hoping that over the next couple of days I will get fully back to my merry ol’ self again. Hurrah!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Home, sweet lovely home

For the first time in all of my 30 years (I’m going to practise saying it so I can get used to it), I’m sitting in a holiday resort that I absolutely have NO intention of leaving. Growing up with my family, from when I was about 12 years old, we would every year take a package holiday to some resort somewhere in the world (usually Europe as it was on our doorstep) and we would always go with one intention in mind: to spend as little time in the hotel as possible, as we had a whole country to visit. Needless to say that this has made me grow into quite a tiring person to travel with, as vacations for me mean SEEING AND DOING. Hence this whole honeymoon really- with all the travelling around and sighseeing that we’ve been doing every day, it’s blatantly obvious who planned it all, *raises hand* That would be me.

But here in Bentota I have learnt the joyfulness of doing NOTHING. It might be partly to do with that we’re both pretty tired from the wedding still (I’m even completely tired out from events BEFORE the wedding too), and we’ve also been dealing with jetlag (5.5 hrs ahead of England, 13.5 hrs ahead of NorCal), and add onto that all the travelling, seeing and doing each day, and the fact that I haven’t really eaten or slept properly for the past week….but I think an awful lot of it has to do with this hotel. This AMAZING hotel. This hotel where they cater for your EVERY possible fancy even before you’ve thought of it, and the staff address you by name when you pass them by, and they know exactly which room number you’re in without even having to ask. Never in my life before, and likely never in my life again will I get to stay in a place that’s quite THIS fancy.

Take for example when we first arrived– at the beginning of our trip, when we landed at Colombo there was a small duty free section to welcome us off the plane, so MrNin and I bought a couple of bottles of champagne to toast to the recent events. We drank one of them on my birthday, but my aversion to anything by mouth the past couple of days had left us with a bottle still to hand. We were just about to open it, when lo and behold, there was a knock at the door and in came an immaculately dressed waiter with an ice bucket and two glasses! Followed by another immaculately dressed waiter with a basket of fruit. And about ten minutes after that, there was yet another man with a well-wishing chocolate cake. Can you imagine? Well it’s TRUE!

They had also put an awful lot of attention into the detail too– there are bowls of water outside to wash our feet in, there are three different types freshly cut flowers in our room each day, somebody comes around in the evening to light mosquito coils to keep the bugs away (thank goodness, I’ve had very bad luck with mosquitoes in the past but I will save that for another time), and don’t just straighten the sheets here at this place, ho no, they decorate the bed too. Can you see that there’s also a handwritten note on there above the purple petals?

I won’t give away too many visual details of the room just yet as I think all the fabulous hotels on this trip probably deserve a post all unto themselves, but there’s just no way i can’t show you the pièce de résistance of this place…..THE BATHROOM!

Can you see it? It has a freaking OUTDOOR SHOWER!!! I don’t think I have ever seen a bathroom this exciting since I was at my uncle’s house and seen that he’d tiled his whole loo in teeny tiles of mother of pearl (he’s an architect, they were apparently surplus from some Sultan’s palace that had just done in Oman or something like that, anyway, it looks fabulous). But back to the bathroom…

Isn’t that lovely? That’s the view from the bath. The shower is literally open to the elements. Had we not been on the ground floor, our roof would have been completely open, but it was a small compromise for the other great things about being on the ground floor. Although the whole concept of an outdoor shower is completely thrilling and very much something I would like to emulate in our own place eventually (well, I can hope), I’m a bath girl, so that view of the trees above have kept me more than happy. MrNin on the other hand is a shower boy…

Tee hee hee! I can’t believe I posted that, he is going to KILL me, but you can’t see anything except for his lovely manly, muscular shoulders. Mmmmm.

I just mentioned that the bars on the window are a small compromise for the other bonuses of being on the ground floor, which in addition to the lawn, the outdoor sleeping area, the sun loungers and umbrella includes our very own 25ft infinity plunge pool that MrNin found so irresistible the first night we were here, that he jumped in as soon as he could…even though by the time we had recieved the champagne, the fruit and the cake it was dark already. I liked the way it all lit up blue. He wasn’t so keen on the other hand as he wanted to swim in darkness.

The other great thing about our resort is that it is set up on a rocky headland, so we got some amazing views of the surrounding beach. Every night so far at around sunset, a little dog family has come out to play on this beach. It’s one of the sweetest things ever! There’s a mummy dog, a daddy dog, and three little puppy dogs who all frolic and play before setting about on their merry way again. I would adopt them all if I could and take them home with me, but something tells me they’re very happy living here. And they look a healthy little family too.

Being up on our little mound, it means we’re also surrounded by the Indian Ocean, which last night had a rather Atlantic feel about it as a storm was blowing in (it rained overnight- I felt really bad as I’d left a pillow outside and it got all wet, oh well, I’m sure I’m not the first). This is how the ocean looked just before sundown last night. Pretty, huh?

Speaking of sundowns, Bentota is on the west coast of Sri Lanka, which means that we have been able to see some awfully nice sunsets over the ocean. Just when we thought our view was pretty enough….

THIS happened….

Then THIS…

And then finally THIS!

We have seen some spectacular sunsets over the past couple of nights.

The restaurant here is also pretty incredible. All of the other places (except the St. Andrew’s in Nuwara Eliya) have been buffet services, but here it’s all be full à la carte. Not only that, but it’s been a WHOLE SIX COURSES. Obviously that’s been a bit of a struggle for me (it would be even if I was eating normally), but MrNin has been in gastronomic heaven. He did push it a bit tonight though– let’s face it, six courses is hard enough for most people, but he ordered some curry plate tonight that was six dishes in its own right! He actually broke out in a little bit of a sweat from being so full. What hasn’t made it such a struggle is that the servers here are more than happy to deliver the dessert and tea/coffee to us in our room, so that’s what we’ve done every night we’ve been here. The desserts are far too good to miss, and the jasmine tea tastes so pretty that we really wanted to try to fit them in if we could.

This is the restaurant where dinner is served, and also breakfast (and wow is that a meal in its own right too- a plate full of fruit to feed a small family for a week, followed by a large cooked breakfast of everything that tastes good. it’s kept us full for the whole day).

Last night, however, because we were a honeymoon couple we were able to reserve the pavilion above the pool for our own private dining experience. We weren’t sure at first if we would like being on such public display, but it was really rather lovely in the end. It all felt very intimate and relaxing.

Inside it was a little bit chilly from the wind, but that was all part of the dining experience. And we had the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean next to us, so we weren’t about to complain.

In true Saman Villas style, there was even attention to detail underneath the pavilion. Inside was all sumptuously wooden, with a beautifully carved wooden boss at each end of the roof.

Aside from a couple of small lights to illuminate the detail of the roof, almost everything else was lit by hurricane lanterns which they placed around the edge, and all along the path that led around the side of the pool to the pavilion. It was lovely!

As for us, we were thoroughly pleased and felt spoilt rotten. MrNin enjoyed every part of his meal, and the wine that went with it.

Me? Well, I still felt a bit mehh, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from enjoying it. Most of my pained expression here is the thought that I’m already killing myself with too much food, and in just eight hours time, I’m going to be doing the whole thing again at breakfast, lol! I actually think that something is really rather wrong with me now, and that it’s not something my body can sort out on its own. But given that we’re flying home tomorrow, I may as well wait until then to see a doctor.

The other thing that we have both been enjoying the past couple of days is the ayurvedic spa that is here on site. Of course we wouldn’t normally indulge in such wild extravagances at all if we were back at home, but when is a better time to spoil yourself than on honeymoon?! And we also considered it a very nice treat for using some of our wedding gift money on.

Several guide books and other publications (that they conspicously left, bookmarked, in the pile of informational material in our room) have described the spa here as being one of the prettiest in Sri Lanka. I’m not going to argue with that at all. To get inside you had to first remove your shoes, and then walk across a little bridge, which at night they would line with little candles and it would glow in the most heavenly way.

Inside the spa, it was all incredibly zen, with little manicured lawns, wooden walkways, and very, very pretty coloured everything. This photo really doesn’t reflect how it actually looked at all.

It turned out that if you book for a treatment here, you don’t just get the use of that particular treatment area, you actually reserve the WHOLE SPA! To say we felt extremely pampered would be the understatment of the year. Yesterday morning we had the ‘Sahana Soother’ package, which was three hours of foot scrubs,body scrubs, body wraps, deep tissue massage, and reflexology followed by a mud bath, all interspersed with outdoor ‘sprout’ showers. When I read about these showers I was most curious indeed as what on earth could a ‘sprout’ shower possibly be, but it turned out to be a spelling mistake and that a rougue ‘r’ had found its way onto the page of the spa menu. We also had a lovely big plate of fruit to eat in the middle too. This afternoon we had the ‘Sahana Elixer’ which was similar to yesterday, except we started with a sauna, had no reflexology, and instead of the mud bath had a flower bath instead. They also used different oils too- today was all pretty and flowery for me, and sugar and spice and all things nice for him.

Given that yesterday was so lovely, and we had a policy to document as much as we could about this honeymoon, I remembered to take my camera today, but there was only really a chance to take a couple of pictures. Here is us at the beginning of the day, getting changed into our sarongs for the beginning of the treatment. Look who’s all shy about getting his picture taken….hee hee!

This was the section of the garden spa where we had our massages, I was on the far table, MrNin on the near one. To the right it was all open air, and underneath the table ends where our faces went, they had little bowls of floating jasmine flowers to look at.

This was the flower bath that we took at the end of the day. It all smelt absolutely lovely! It was a little bit cool though- the breeze began to pick up and it began to spot with rain, so I spent most of the time in there huddled up to my new hubby, trying to steal his warmth. Had it been like yesterday though, it would have been wonderfully refreshing.

And here are our two ‘therapists’ who have some of the strongest hands in the business! The girl was the same person I had yesterday, but MrNin had another man this afternoon.

The sweetest thing ever about this spa was that because there were so many ponds and streams, it meant that it was home to lots of tiny little frogs, who would come out of hiding when it got dark, and sit by the light of the hurricane lanterns. There was a VERY sweet one who lived behind the mirror in the dressing room and I chatted to him all afternoon, and then we met this little ribbity frog on our way out. He was one of the prettiest little frogs I have ever seen (you can probably tell by now that I’m a bit of an animal lover).

After our afternoon spa treatment ended, there was just about time watch the sun go down on our last night in Sri Lanka. This time we headed out to the edge of the headland to watch it so that we could see the sun set into the horizon.

It was so peaceful out there that we ended up staying out for quite some time. There was something about feeling the warm breeze, watching the sun go down, and hearing nothing but the waves of the ocean that made it such a relaxing place to just sit and be. As we sat there drinking in the calm, watching the waves as they crashed in, I put my camera down and left it be with the shutter open to try to capture this vision of tranquility, I think it did a pretty good job! Believe it or not, it was actually really dark when I took this picture.

Time went on, and we watched as the ocean was actually getting pretty rough by this stage, we think that a storm might be coming tonight– you can see some thunder clouds on the horizon. We don’t think it’s going to be a big one though- all those little lights on the horizon are fishing boats, and they would head home if there was any danger.

So this is it, the end of our honeymoon. We’ve both had a lovely time, and are rather sad to be leaving. But at the same time, it will be nice to be back and have the comforts of home, and to see my family again. A driver is coming to collect us at 7.30 tomorrow morning, which seems awfully early for a flight from Colombo at 1.30 in the afternoon, but they assure us that the drive will take that long, and they likely know best. So now after feeling so full that I will never have to eat another meal again in all my life, we must go and finish off the final bits of packing so we’re ready to leave tomorrow for our journey back to England, to home.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as It’s all about complete luxury

I Am A Sickly Person.

Last night I was up and down like a yo-yo literally every thirty minutes or so. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but I know that there is definitely something that is pushing me off kilter. Ughh. I want it to just go away so that I can feel normal again. My tummy is achy and bloated and has seemed to have settled into its own little routine of cramping and spasming that is so regular I’ve stopped looking at the clock. In some ways its behaving a bit like a two year old child, desperately trying to remain the centre of attention. Occasionally just when I have grown accustomed to its antics and don’t really react so crowd-pleasingly to its latest acrobatics, its taken to impersonating labour pains so that it can take center stage again. I have no idea just how good this impression is not having been through the real thing myself, but it certainly gets my attention focused back on my tummy again, and generally involves me having to stop what I’m doing, bend double as I wince in pain, and usually there is some form of painful yelp as an audio accompaniement. All credit to my tummy, it puts on a great show. I should start selling tickets for it. I will spare you the details of the ghastly toxic odours that are coming out from me, that's just too much information.

But I think my head might be starting to get a little jealous and is starting to put on its own Look At Me show. This morning I awoke to a headache so blinding that I had to feel my way to the bathroom. Not only that, but my eyes were so sore, that it pained me to allow them to move within their sockets. But anyway, I wasn’t about to move if I could help it anyway as each time I did, my insides crunched with pangs of nausea that really didn’t feel very nice.

I’m not even going to talk much about my achey lower back, that I’m still not sure if is to do with something muscular, or if it’s something kidney-related. I don’t know if I can deal with yet another malady that is possibly being thrown at me.

I mean, I love Sri Lanka and all (tourist prices aside for one second), the scenery is beautiful, the people are friendly, and there’s so much to see and do, but I get the impression that it doesn’t really like ME an awful lot. But I’m still enjoying myself, and it has been an absolutely lovely honeymoon so far and will hopefully continue that way for the last couple of days. In keeping with the extravagant honeymoon experience, MrNin and I have decided to make full use of the ayurvedic spa that is here at the Saman Villas so we’ve booked ourselves in for some nice treats to enjoy, thanks to some of the monetary gifts we recived at the wedding- what better way to spend some of that money on, right? And now I must finish this post abruptly as another wave of body-doubling nauseating pain spasms through me that demands every ounce of my concousness to prevent me from wanting to die…… uuuuuuuuuuuurgh.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as EEUUUUUUUUURGH!!!!

But anyway, once the novelty of the car in front had worn off, we were back to looking out of the window of the pretty scenes that passed. Down here in the south is nothing but mile after mile of verdant paddy fields, with big open blue skie above. It was most idyllic indeed. Although our route from Yala Village to Bentota would broadly hug the coastline, for the first part of the journey we headed inland for a bit, bumpity bumping down the uneven roads. Much to my delight, we saw lots of water buffalo along the way. Of all the animals we have seen on our honeymoon, the water buffalo have been by far my favourite, they have such friendly faces. I mean how could you not like something that has a sweet face like this?

See what I mean?

This was a day for passing things along the road… there was so much to see! Once out from the paddy fields, we passed beautiful, BEAUTIFUL tropical beaches where the water was as blue as the sky…

We saw the biggest and juciest tropical fruit that was sold in the many little stands by the side of the road…

Upon spotting a lady with coconuts at the side of the roa, Palitha suggested we should try some. He explained that the average Sri Lankan drinks about two king coconuts per day, and we should not go home without trying one ourselves! He also mentioned that they were very good for your tummy, and by this stage I was willing to give anything a go (I still feel completely awful, but at least the pain and discomfort are at a constant now, so I’ve kind of got used to it). The little boy at the coconut stand took great enjoyment at watching us try to drink without using straws.

Palitha explained that there were three different types of coconut, and that this one was the kind, the king coconut, was used for drinking and cooking. After finishing the milk (which was about double the volume I needed and I just knew that we’d be looking for a bathroom 30 minutes later), he got the lady to split the whole thing open, and showed us how to get the white goodness out from within, which is what they used to make those nice creamy curries from.

Personally I’ve always liked the milk, but I’ve never been a fan of the actual coconut itself, so i gave mine to MrNin to have. He was already full himself, but it would have been rude to leave it, so he force fed himself my coconut too….as if it were some husbandly duty of his, hee hee!

Being by the coast, and in an area especially known for its fishing, we also saw lots of fish stands by the road. Note how the fish was just laid out on the table, no ice or anything, and it was a blazing hot day! No doubt it was extremely fresh though.

In fact, the fish had most likely been caught just a couple of hours previously, the smaller ones perhaps being caught by the famous stilt fisherman that the town of Weligama was so famous for. Now stilt fishing is touted by the guidebooks to be one of the most photogenic things that you can ever see in Sri Lanka. At certain points along the coastline, you could see group after group of perches sticking up from the waters upon which men would sit with fishing rods, hoping to catch the many sardines that swam beneath. But what the guidebooks don’t really tell you is that the stilt fishing only really happens at dawn, and at dusk when the sun isn’t quite so cruel for the perched men fishing.

However all is not lost for us tourists as during the daytime, there are men sitting at the side of the road who are all too willing to dash out to their perches for a quick photo opportunity, before dashing back to the roadside where out their hands will stretch for a colourful rupee note. So make sure you enjoy this next photo….look at it hard, I want to get my moneysworth!

The details give it all away really- the fact that there are only two of them in the picture instead of about 20, and the fact that the stilts are set up so close to the rocks instead out in the water where the fish are more likely to be. Ho well, it still makes for a pretty picture.

What we also witnessed today was some pretty hot bus on bus driving action. We’re not talking incompetence here, oh no it was nothing like the other car driver this morning, no these bus drivers were probably skilled enough to win any Formula One race presented to them…

In Sri Lanka there are two types of buses that one can catch: the red government buses, or the white private buses. The white buses appeared to outnumber the red buses at least two to one in most places, and they were also prettier to look at as they were often festooned with ornaments and painted brightly in prettu colours. I meant to try to get a photo of one of these pretty ones, but going back through all the pictures I’ve taken I can only find this one that looks really rather tame. But at least it gives you an idea of what Sri Lankan buses look like.

These buses are usually spilling with passengers too, and it’s this volume of people that is of such great importance to the drivers. According to Palitha’s explanation, the drivers of these white buses get a cut of all the takings for that day’s travel and so this can probably explain the road-rage type behaviour between all them on the outskirts of every town. It’s always the same way- one minute we’re driving along peacefully, the next minute there’s the honking of horns, the flashing of lights and the waving of hands as the buses try to get past. And then the buses go up against each other honking their horns as they go, with the bus in front usually pulling out into the middle of the road to try to stop the one behind from passing. It’s actually rather comical (once you’re used to it and have blocked all thoughts of danger from your mind). I should point out that it’s mainly only the WHITE buses that behave in this way- the red bus drivers are all paid a flat wage by the government, so if you’re thinking of travelling to Sri Lanka and making your own way around, use this information wisely!

The further we drove around the coast, we also started to see other interesting features, like this sign, for example, stating that this place was an Austrian beach resort.

“Oooh” I commented, “Is this where all the Austrians come on holiday, and the place where we’re going to next is a british resort?” But Palitha explained that it was due to the Tsunami. Apparently each resort along the coast had been assigned to another country who would sponsor the clean-up effort, and some countries had chosen to publish their support on signs such as these. After a brief respite this morning, we were now heading back into tsunami territory, but this time we were heading into the heart of it.

No words will ever be able to explain what we saw for the next hour of our drive up the coast, nor can photos show the extent of it. We also took some video of the horror that we passed, but the pictures just don’t reflect the reality or express the sheer extent of the amount of decimation that we saw. We felt numb, we felt strangely guilty for not being there ourselves to assist, and even though we’d given money in the past for the relief effort, 2.5 years on and we felt completley helpless.

This 30 second video clip pretty much sums up some of our emotions.

Palitha told us how on the day of the tsunami, he had been at the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, about 1.5 miles inland from Colombo. Had the tsunami struck the following day, or even that afternoon, he would have been in one of the areas worst affected. He may even have been one of the ones lost. He explained how after that day his company abandoned all the touring around the island, and sent all their drivers to the south to get all the holiday makers out, and drive them back to the airport in Colombo via the inland roads, as the coast was impassable. He told us of the things that he saw, his memories of the places that had been lost, and what life was like here in the aftermath. it was heartstopping stuff, we didn’t know what to say.From the window of the car we saw house upon house that had just crumbled and was now left abandoned.

We saw the remains of houses that had almost been washed away completely…

It just went on, and got worse and worse to see…

At one point along the coast, we drove for what must have been ten minutes, and all we saw was ghost town. In fear of another big disaster striking, the government issued new regulations that in certain area, so buildings could be erected less that 10km from the coastline. This seems a long way inland, but when you hear that the tsunami waters reached 30-40km inland, then it’s nothing really.

Here, we could see a boat that had been swept about 200-300m inland, and was now stranded in a stand of palmtrees in between two houses. Even though I saw it with my very own eyes earlier today, here I am right now, just a few hours later and I’m finding it difficult to imagine.

Everywhere we looked, it was just total armageddon. It was heartbreaking. We sat in the car in silence, not knowing what to say at all. One of the hardest parts was passing by a memorial where thousands of people had lost their lives when the surge of water washed a train off the tracks. That, I was horrified to think about, as having been on a train earlier in the week, I found it easier to imagine.

But amongst the destruction, we did manage to catch a glimmer of hope- for those people who had lost their homes entirely, the government and the aid agencies had distributed building supplies so many people were re-building themselves homes that were far better quality than the ones they had lived in before.

And the government was trying to attract people into these villages to boost the population by offering large parcels of available land. It’s said that it hit the middle classes the hardest- the poor who lost absolutely everything got given money for whole new houses, and the rich were so rich that they just went to live in one of their other residences and barely noticed the financial losses. But for those people whose houses managed to withstand the beating of the waves, if the house was still deemed habitable, then that was the house that had to move back into, and from the government get absolutely nothing.

I think today I saw some of the saddest things I have ever seen.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as From Yala Village to Bentota…..via the tsunami aftermath

OK, so it may have begun with a not-so-welcome 5am alarm call, but the rewards for our efforts were plentiful. Seeing dawn breaking over the park was just wonderful. We have seen many sunsets on this holiday so far, but this was our first sunrise. This photo doesn’t even do it justice…

After stopping to ooooh and aaaah at the pretty colours, we took the jeep further into the park in search of the elusive leopards for which it is so famed. The jeeps in the park were of various shapes and descriptions- some were like pope mobiles with seats in big viewing domes, whereas other people were driving around in air conditioned Lexuses. Our jeep was pretty basic, and like all the others (Lexuses/Lexi? exlcluded) looked like it had been thrashed around quite a bit, and we had the added bonus of open windows and side facing seats, so we were always able to get a good view, not to mention have the lovely breeze through our hair as we drove along. We reasoned that the more beat-up looking the jeep, the more daring the driver might be to get you to the animals, so we were pretty hopeful by the looks of our jeep (well, relative to the Lexuses anyway).

Apparently seeing sloth bears out here in the dry season (which we’re in now) is practically unheard of, and even a rarer sight than the elusive leopards, but just take a look at how close we got!! He was just walking through the woods, and then ambled down to a watering hole for a bit of a drink before disappearing back into the woods again.

I’m trying to decide what was the more exciting bit though- actually seeing the sloth bear, or the one minute beforehand in the jeep where our driver, after seeing the small group of other vehicles stopped ahead suddenly crunched the gears, and put his foot to the floor and drove like a rally car driver to get us there, going head to head with the other jeep next to us who was trying to pass on the single track dirt road. The other jeep skidded its breaks in a cloud of dust when it realised it couldn’t get past, and followed behind us instead (hehehe).

The photo above doesn’t make it look so bad, but I spent the whole time clinging on for dear life……whilst thoroughly enjoying the whole thing.

Clearly our hypothesis about the driver/jeep correlation had been proven, as it was again shortly thereafter when word got out that a leopard had just been spotted crossing the road ahead (no, that pun was not intented). There is a leopard in the picture below, I PROMISE you! But if you don’t believe me, you can click on the picture and it’ll take you to my flickr account where I’ve hilighted his exact location.

After those two hilights in such quick succession, we relaxed a bit and carried on driving around the rest of the park, spotting other animals and taking in some of the other lovely scenery. It really was a pretty place to be.

Inside the park that felt so isolated and in the middle of nowhere, it was very easy to forget that we were actually right beside the Indian ocean. It was absolutely stunning!

And there were some really amazing clouds in the sky that day too. Ever since moving back to England from California, I’ve had a thing about clouds. I think it’s because in California, there are days when you just don’t see them at all, or if they’re there, they’re usually just really small. England on the other hand has some AMAZING cloud formations. Sri Lanka was actually pretty cloudy itself- a lot of the days previously we didn’t even need to wear our sunglasses which came as a great surprise given that we were just 6ËšN of the equator! Here though, the sun was out, the sky was blue, and there was just a hint of fluffy white above.

Sadly though, this paradise location was also one of the sites of devastation in the December 2004 Asian tsunami. Palitha, our driver, explained to us of how 47 people had tragically lost their lives here when the wave came in and destroyed a couple of guesthouses in a matter of seconds. Among the lost were two national park guides, and 23 Japanse tourists. It was heartbreaking to hear.

The foundations of a couple of the guest houses were all that remained in the aftermath.

What made it so hard to understand was that although it just happened a short two and a half years ago, looking around at eyelevel everything looked completely normal. Old trees were still standing, bushes and scrub were all in full leaf, it hardly looked like a place of desecration at all. It was only when one looked down to ground level that the visible scars gave away that something bad must have happened.

In the place where the beach cottages once stood could now be found a sculpture memorial with a plaque dedicated to the memory of the victims. Strangely though it didn’t feel like a place for tranquil contemplation. Although people stood around thoughtfully, and a group of safari guides stood together with their heads down and their hats removed remembering their friends, one couldn’t help but not think about the panic and carnage that must have ensued that day. It was such a contrast to the rest of the park that was filled with happiness and excitement. Here there was a feeling of heaviness and anxiety, and I wanted to leave.

Because we only saw the rear end of one leopard that morning, we decided to do another safari in the afternoon to try to catch another precious glimpse. Sadly, they were all hiding that afternoon none of the jeeps reported sightings at all. But it was fun to be out there again, kicking up a dust storm behind us as we hurtled our way around the dirt roads. And because of the different time of day, we got to see a whole different set of animals. The elephants and water buffalos continued to be easy to spot as they were so easy to spot, but others were a little harder to see if you didn’t have your eye in. Crocodiles for example, look from a distance just like giant logs, until you get up close and see an open mounth which gives the game away completely.

And other animal, like the foxes we saw were almost completlely camouflaged against their backdrop. Nature is very clever sometimes.

Just as we thought that we weren’t going to have any more thrilling big animal sightings that day, news came around that a leaopard had been spotted near to where we were in the park, so we joined the small group of jeeps who were already parked up there. Apparently the leopard had crossed the road just a few minutes previously, so he was somewhere in the in the bushes in the area.

Not before too long, a small traffic jam supervened. Word had obviously spread fast.

We think that doing these safaris was probably Palitha’s favourite bit about being a tourguide. He had enjoyed the safari so much that morning, that we invited him to come along with us on the extra one that we booked that afternoon. He was definitely enjoying himself, this was the smiliest I had seen him all week! And although on previous days he had been fairly mute with his tourist information, he proved to be an excellent wildlife spotter in the park, and became a positive fountain of knowledge about the birdlife.

We ended up waiting there for quite some time in the end. Our poor park guide was so DETERMINED that we were going to see a leopard it was as if his life depended on it. I guess maybe it did in a way, as I’m sure that sometimes in the past his tips were proportional to the amount of wildlide seen. Finding ways to entertain ourselves, we started playing the “YOU’RE ANGRY” and “YOU’RE SURPRISED” and “YOU’RE EXCITED” photo game (nobody can ever accuse us of being too old, hehe). Anyway, here’s MrNin doing his mighty fine rendition of “YOU’RE NERVOUS”. Pretty good, eh?

Sadly the leopard never did reappear, and after seeing all those cars lined up, I don’t really blame him for not wanting to come out. By this stage, it was getting pretty late in the day and the sun would be setting in about 40 mins so it was time to leave the park and head back to Yala Village. Quite a dust storm blew up on our way out, but we were all able to improvise some breathing apparatus to see us through the drive.

I can still taste the dirt in my mouth now, and goodness knows how much shampoo it’s going to take to get all that red dust out of my hair.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and we saw everything we wanted to see. But as with everything over here, there was of course a price for locals, and a price for foreigners, this one being not quite so impressive as for Sigirya or Polunnuruwa ($20 each!), but showstopping nonetheless. The price for two locals to enter the park was 60 rupees, and for two tourists was 13800….representing a 230 fold markup for being foreign. Add on top of that the price of the jeep, and the fee for the guide, and the tip and it was quite a pricey optional excursion. We were on honeymoon though, so just opted to swallow it instead.

As for getting my hair all clean again, well, it took a total of THREE shampoos, and the water ran down the plughole so red that I was convinced at one point that I might have been bleeding. It was worth it though )

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Safari day

MrNin has always been a CHAMPION sleeper. He takes after his mum. He has been known to have on multiple occasions spent a Saturday afternoon in bed until around 4pm, before rising briefly for a spot of nutrition, and then returning once again to the refuge of his duvet where he will remain happily for the rest of the day. Trust me, I’ve seen it with my own eyes! The man likes his sleep, and god forbid anyone or anything that tries to deprive him of it. Tiredness does not a happy MrNin make! Therefore when ten minutes after climing into the car this morning he plugged himself into his eyepod and closed his weary eyes, that was the signal for him to have his sleepy alone time, and for me to keep my distance. Even as we passed all the pretty scenery that I would normally have pointed out to him, I knew it best to leave him be (see what a great wife I’m already making?!). But pretty scenery it was though…Oh boy did he miss some great views!

As we drove down the windey narrow roads, the view from the window gradually changed from steep-sloped farms and small-holdings…

…to flatter, more open fields. We also started to see palmtrees again, so familiar of the past couple of days, but pretty much absent from the high hills of tea country.

I overheard another guide tell his clients (not Palitha, who was still rather reserved with fountaining his information to us) that back in the days, when the British expats started to feel far away from home, they would drive up into the hills to Newara Eliya for comfort and relief. It was clear to see why, it certainly had the look and feel reminiscent of the WestCountry that even fooled me for a little while. I’m sure the drizzly weather we had had the day before had aided this illusion, but I think for the most part it was down to the vegetation. Seeing all the palmtrees start to reappear again was like a jolt back to the reality of where we really were.

Palitha suggested again that we have another massage as we were passing what he described as “the best ayurvedic massage place in the area“, and at $25/person we thought it foolish to refuse, so we obliged eagerly. It wasn’t quite like the place we had before though. The treatment recipe was essentially the same – indian head massage followed by back and shoulder massage, full body massage, then sauna – but the rest rather wasn’t. Although the massage was pleasantly vigorous, the plain wooden benches that we were lying on provided little comfort for all the kneading and rolling. I’m certain that I could hear my hipbones crunch as they were being ground against the wood, and my leg was twisted into such an awkward angle at one point that I had to rapidly retrieve it from the clutches of her oily hand at one point…on each leg. After that we had what I refer to as the ‘coffin saunas’, exactly the same design as at the last place we went to. Except this time they didn’t add any moisture inside. There might actually have been something wrong with the one that I was in as they kept putting their hands inside by my neck, then talking amongst themselves, and fiddling around with something underneath. Their solution to the lack of moisture in my coffin was to turn the burners up higher to get more heat…..Bear in mind that I was still feeling rather awful and uncomforable from my digestive issues, but being cooked at a slow roast inside a wooden box really was the last straw for me, comfort wise. Add to that the efforts involved with trying not to emit any noxious fumes whilst in there which would fester inside until the coffin box was re-opened, and you can understand that I really couldn’t relax at all. All I wanted after that was a nice shower to get the curry-scented oil off my skin and out of my hair, but you’re probably not surprised when I tell you that there were no washing facilities. They had made us wear our underwear throughout too (other places had allowed us to wear cloths, or given us paper panties), and by this stage, they were a bit sweaty and oily, so we had no choice but to go commando for the rest of the day. I felt rather abused after the whole ordeal really. I managed to get a lot of the oil off with babywipes (which went yellow, bleurgh!), but I couldn’t do anything about my hair, and I subsequently felt dirty and revolting. I wanted to cry. We both remained rather silent in the car after that as Palitha drove us down to Ella Gap for lunch.

The town of Ella is said to be the most beautiful in Sri Lanka, and the view of ‘Ella Gap’ one of the most magnificent. It certainly didn’t disappoint. The place where we stopped for the view also conveniently had a restaurant there so we also stopped for lunch.

Both of us felt a bit better after that. I suppose the massage might have been more ‘authentically’ ayurveda (i.e. more of a therapy, rather than a treat), and my tummy did feel a little bit better afterwards (and after the food), so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Continuing on, we passed a rather lovely waterfall next to the road. Just like the rednecks like to congregate in the Merced River by El Capitan at Yosemite National Park with their rubber tubes and dinghies, their Sri Lankan counterparts liked to do the same thing right here.

Click here if you don’t believe me!

This spot was also a haven for conmen- nothing but people coming up to you wanting foreign coins which they could then sell back to other tourists for rupees, or people trying to sell you chunks of semi precious rock that they claoim to have extracted from beneath the falls– I mean really, if there were precious minerals in such a abundance, would the waterfall not have been closed off and had had a mine buiit next to it???

Thereafter, out of the hills, the scenery began to change dramatically. It took on a very tropical feel again once more.

And as we moved closer and closer to the coast, we passed yet more scenery changes. All of a sudden this enormous lily pond just appeared outside the window of the car, it was beautiful!

Eventually we reached Yala Village, our destination where at the hotel gate we were met with the most amazing refreshing (or the most amazingly welcome) moist towels I have ever encountered. We checked into our room which was a stilted chalet next to the ocean, which was accessible via a path through the bushes. We had arrived shortly before sunset, so all the lovely colours were taking on a striking muted tone.

Given the events of Boxing Day 2004, we were interested to see how this area had managed to escape the devastating tsunami that had more or less ruined the other areas along the same stretch of coastline, and had even wiped out an entire hotel just a few short miles down the road. It turns out that the sand dunes here by Yala Village had been highly effective at absorbing the wave energy of the hit, and so as a consequence, the water didn’t really come on land here very much. But we did see an occasional break in the bushes coupled with a gullied ground, which could have been caused by nothing else but the giant wave of water.

Like I mentioned, we arrived at the beach shortly before sunset, just at the magic time when the light gets really, really pretty, so I ran around the beach pretending to be Annie Leibovitz, trying to get some nice photos of MrNin!

He wasn’t exactly in the greatest of moods to have his picture taken (lack of sleep the previous night, perhaps?) but I managed to get a couple of pictures that I liked.

As for that music that woke him up so rudely this morning? It emerges that there was some event going on at the nearby Buddhist temple that morning, so there was a lot of loud drumming and singing (these Sri Lankan Buddhists seem to be quite a noisy lot!), and immediately following, there was the Muslim call to prayer. Clearly MrNin is not suited to either of these religions.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Another day, another change of scenery

Back in the days, my uncle used to manage a tea plantation out here in Sri Lanka, so it was with immense personal intereste that we continued our journey southwards, away from the hustle of Kandy, and up into the hills of tea country. I had been looking forward to this day ever since I booked the honeymoon, as I had specifically arranged for us to catch the train down there after hearing it to be a thoroughly enjoyable ride….which it indeed WAS! It was also a nice break from driving around in the car. So after rising early and checking out of the hotel, Palitha took us to the station at Paradeneiya Junction where we were to board our train to Nanu Oya, the closest station to Nuwara Eilya.

At first, i was a little confused as I was under the impression that they tickets would have been booked in advance as it was the observation car that I had wanted to travel in and I had read that they needed to be purchased ten days ahead. So I was a little disappointed when Palitha appeared with two tickets for second class, informing us that we’d have to run as soon as the train appeared if we were in any hope of getting seats, or else we’d be hanging off the sides like the locals. Now, on any other week this would have been perfectly fine, exciting even, but given my fragile condition (although I was feeling slightly better than the day before), the thought of standing and clinging on for dear life for five hours didn’t really appeal. Needless to say that I had come equipped for the journey…there was not a chance that I was going to not enjoy it!

But Palitha explained that sometimes they didn’t always know whether or not there would be an observation car until the train pulled into the station, so when we saw it approaching with what looked to be an end carriage with big windows, he hot footed it back to the ticket office, and traded in our 60 rupee second class tickets, for 580 rupee first class ones. Quite a price jump, eh? I wonder if that was a real price increase, or if there’s an extra markup on there as we’re tourists?? Anyway, we were grateful.

Although the first class carriage was rather functional over luxurious, it at least had good ventiallation and a version of air conditioning that was much appreciated. It was also clean, it felt safe, and the seats were not actually uncomfortable. Most of the occupants appeared to be children of what must have been a rather weathly family (we’re talking half an average day’s wages for a ticket here, assuming they all paid the same price) but there were a couple of other tourists including a rather paranoid and angry Japanese girl who steadfastly refused to be more than two feet from her luggage, and refused to let a man sit next to her as she wanted her bag there, even though he had reserved a seat. There was actually rather a lot of commotion with angry shouting and pointing. Eventually the guard had to come in and TELL HER that she had to give up the extra seat. I think she thought that she had bought two tickets or some sort, WHO KNOWS, but it provided some light entertainment for the journey, and I got to practise some of my french when I gossipped with her now-seated neighbour about what had happened, tee hee!

Anyway, the french lady explained (the French man had at this point retreated back to the belly of the train in fear of an upset, and sent one of his female colleagues out instead to try to ambush their purchased seat) that they had tried to buy first class tickets the day before but had been refused, and they were astonished that we had been able to get them just two minutes before getting on the train. We reasoned that it was because we had had a ‘local’ helping us, and they hadn’t. It was unfortunate for them really as after our two tickets (plus the psycho Japanese girl’s) there was only one spare seat left, and there were three of them. So in effect we kind of sitting in the benefits of their misfortune. But they happily shared the seat in two hour shifts, so it all worked out in the end. And we shared our lemon puff biscuits with them. The rest of the journey they spent back in the belly of the guard’s van as true to Palitha’s warning, the rest of the seating cars were full, and the only option was to hang out the side……which people were very much doing!

This rather casual approach to railway safety also extended to the passers by too, who would regularly be seen waiting alongside the tracks as the train went by….

And then as soon as the train passed, they would jump up onto the track and use it like a road. I guess in some areas it might have been the fastest route into the nearest town or village. Anyway, it caught my attention as it’s not something I see on a daily basis in either England or America.

Snack time was also an interesting experience, as there was no such thing as a buffet car on these trains, hoooo no! Each time the train pulled into a station, people would come up the the windows of the carriage and sell you freshly baked goods. The food actually looked really really good, but unsure of what caused my poorly tummy (although I think it may have been a dodgy ice cube), and still unsure of whether or not I was actually getting better (or whether I was ‘better’ through being doped up on meds) I wasn’t prepared to risk it, neither was MrNin. So we settled for nuts, Mentos and a chunky Kit Kat the one time that someone actually came through the carriage of the train (he may have actually been an official railway vendor, on board the whole time, wandering through the carriages).

The train continued to rattle on up into the hills, and up into the misty swirling clouds, and eventually the scenery changed to lush verdant hills of neatly manicured tea bushes. It was magical! Tea factories loomed up over the hills, and people ran to the windows to try to take pictures, we were almost at our destination.

The whole ride was just lovely from start to finish, and will definitely be one of the hilights of the trip. We passed such interesting scenery along the way too- we travelled all through rural Sri Lanka and got to really see how the real people lived which was such a contrast to the big posh hotels of the cities where we had been staying. We passed by the back doors of people’s houses, we saw women washing clothes in a river, we saw strip mines (or maybe it was a quarry?), saw huge waterfalls, passed through rainforest, and eventually passed through into plantation country. It was all in all immensely enjoyable.

Right on time, Palitha collected us from the station and drove us the final few miles to Newara Eliya, where we checked in and had a quick lunch at our amazingly colonial feeling hotel, before setting out again for the Pedro Tea Factory to see how things were done. Unfortunately being a Saturday, things weren’t actually operational, but that was just as well really as I would have been even more frustrated at not being allowed to take pictures inside the factory building. For some reason they would only allow us to take photographs outside, maybe there was a specific tea blend they were keeping secret or something. Anyway, here’s the place where we visitied…the photograph actually makes it look a lot bigger than reality.

After the tea tour, there was of course the obligatory pause at the shop counter, but we were very good this time, and put up our guard about being guilted into buying unecessary things and only came away with a couple of boxes of tea. Palitha clearly got given 1/3 the amount of tea that we bought as his commission as we saw a little bag handed to him, yet he didn’t give any money in return. And all of this happened immediately following our purchase. We’ve grown to expect that now.

Afterwards we drove to see the sites of Newara Eliya including The Grand Hotel which was exactly as it sounded, although we found it rather big and impersonal next to ours. And then it was on to The Hill Club, which was another personal hilight on this trip for me. Not only did my Uncle and Aunt come here to socialise regularly, but my uncle was also a prominent member of the committee one year. We had thought he might have been President but his name didn’t feature on any of the wall plaques, so we think he must have been something esle like a social chairman or something. Anyway, it was mightily exciting, and we got a little carried away in the gift shop wiht the likes of teacups and saucers, teapots, teas, tankards, ties and postcards. We got so carried away in fact that we had to leave the shop again, ask Palitha to take us to an ATM and then drive back again. It wasn’t exactly our fault though- they didn’t take credit cards.

We then drove back to our A-M-A-Z-I-N-G hotel room at the St. Andrews which deserves a post all unto itself at some point so I will save the details for then. Unfortunately my tummy was still a little tender, and I’ve been rapidly depleting the Immodium of late, so in our moment of free time before dinner, we ventured out into the town to try to track down some more supplies. We recognised the Food City grocery market from when were were in Kandy, and so we stopped in there to see what sort of thing they had.

It turns out they had shelves and shelves of the latest Harry Potter book, and Dora the Explorer which was entertainingly, but more importantly there was a pharmacy.

Although it looked like it was something out of the same timewarp as our hotel, it was pretty well stocked, and when I showed him the immodium packet, he reached backbehind and located exactly the right tablets, but in plainer packging. It turns out that in Sri Lankan pharmacies, they sell medications by the single tablet, so we bought 20 as there’s a slim chance that I might need those over the coming days.

We also went out and bought me a new butterfly clip for my hair as I had somehow managed to break the one keeping my hair up two days previously. We felt so awful attempting to haggle over something that we got for 30 rupees as it made the expected tips at all the touristy places seem ever more ridiculous, but that is the way thatn sales are conducted over here.

Back at the hotel, dinner was a delicous à la carte affair, but again, as with previous nights, I just wasn’t able to enjoy the food. Quite the last thing I needed to put inside me was a gastronomically rich, gourmet multicourse meal, but I did the best that I could in the circumstances.

Then came the part of the trip that MrNin had been planninf for and looking forward to….his big thing was to get himself a nice big single malt scoth whisky, and spend the rest of the night nursing it with a big fat cuban cigar. The bar was actually rather visually striking in a bar-like sort of way- we had not seen anything like this so far in any of the hotels we’d been in previously, so picking out what we were going to have was rather good fun.

We didn’t stay in the bar for long though…as soon as the cigar was lit, we transitioned to outside as we didn’t want to smoke the bar up with fumes.

Hopefully I will be feeling a little bit more better tomorrow as we have a long drive down to the South Coast where we’ll be visiting another national park and do jeep safaris. Right now the thought of doing either of those things on a rather weak and fragile stomach does not appeal at all, boo.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Re-living the old colonial days….

But as far as feeling ok is concerned….well, that’s a whole other issue. Something’s definitely not right. I feel malaise, I feel listless, and I feel generally rotton and sorry for myself.

Yesterday morning, we left the comfort and serenity of the Kandalama Hotel and began our journey southwards toward Kandy. First stop was the Dambulla rock caves, which are said to be the largest painted rock surface in the world. Like the day before, it was a World Heritage Site. Like the day before, there were also about 2000 stairs to climb. Sri Lankans like to build things at the top of hills.

To be honest, I don’t recall an awful lot about the caves. I think that was partly because I found them slighltly underwhelming relative to their reputation. They weren’t really caves at all, just a ledge of rock that had had walls put in to divide it into several caverns, and the purpose of the cave-making was merely to increase the wall area against which more Buddhas could be installed. It seemed that each and every King of Sri Lanka had tried to out-Buddha his predecessor, as the newer Buddhas each got smaller and smaller, yet greater in number, and had been sqeeezed into every available nook and cranny in there. Goodness knows what the third King from now might have to do- he might have to blast more rock and make a whole other cave to fit all his in. It was all a little bit gaudy in places…..is that a bad thing to say?? All in all, we don’t think it was worth the $20 per person entry (although if you were a local you got in there for next to nothing, if not nothing at all).

Besides, I was more distracted by looking for a bathroom up there, which turned out not to exist (do Buddhists not need the bathroom??). I was so distracted by this that I didn’t even pay much attention to all the sweet monkeys scampering around, although it was hard not to notice when a couple were having an argument which involved one throwing the other into the lily pond. It was A-DORABLE! And as all of this was happening, another monkey saught refuge by clinging to MrNin’ leg which we thought was the sweetest thing EVER until we remembered that it might be riddled with disease and parasites. Euuw. Enough was rapidly enough for MrNin when the monkey started to investigate what was up the leg of his shorts and started reaching for his pocket. We think he was probably after food….nuts maybe? (sorry, hehehe).

But we thought monkeys were sweet again when we saw this little mummy on the way back down to the car.

I never did find a bathroom at the Dambulla Caves. Upon descending the 2000 steps again, Palitha informed me that the bathroom probably wasn’t clean, so I had to wait until we passed a hotel where we could stop. It was not a happy journey.

After napping in the car (so far we have not been able to stay awake for more than about 20 minutes- I don’t think it’s jetlag though, i think it’s just being in the back of a car), we woke up to a change of scenery. Outside the car window, the view had changed from dusty plains to an explosion of lushious tropical vegetation- we were now in the spice garden of Sri Lanka!

The roadside was flanked either side by spice farm after spice farm, all with tourist cars and coaches parked outside. Eventually we stopped at one of them, so obviously where there was an arrangement with our tour operator. We were initially filled with feelings of dread when it emerged that we would have our own personal guide taking us around as it would require us to switch on our full attention and think of questions to ask, but it actually wasn’t that bad. It was even rather interesting. We were astonished to realise just how few peppercorns are yeilded from any single tree, which gave us a whole new appreciation for how much they cost in the grocery store. And the three different types of peppercorn are actually all and the same, just at different stages of ripeness.

One cookery demonstration, two unavoidable back and shoulder massages, two cups of spiced tea and hot chocolate, and one failed hard sale of strange and heavily overpriced ayurvedic treatments later, we were ushered into the shop at the end where our guide tried one last time to sell us a $46 bottle of liver tonic that would “clear your libber for 10 year“. We compromised with the packet of garam massala though, as that did smell good. Although quite how a relatively small bag could cost $6.50 was quite beyond me (the bigger bag was a whopping $14!!!). What made it all the more interesting was that the GIANT bags of regular curry powder were all about $3. And we couldn’t resist the bargain vanilla essence (about the only thing that was cheaper than home), so all in all I think our spice guide was happy as he would have got his commission. OK so maybe he wasn’t thrilled as we didn’t buy the liver tonic, but it’s not like we left empty-handed.

We arrived in Kandy around lunchtime to the noisiest hotel reception imaginable.The music was so loud the walls throbbed, and there were people running around laughing and shouting, and lifting fellow partygoers up on chairs and thrusting them around the room. It was a wedding in full swing. It was actually a Bhuddist wedding in full swing, which made me feel completley ignorant as I always thought that the Bhuddists were quite a quiet group and didn’t really go in for anything raucous that drew attention to themselves from the general public. That just shows how much I know.

After a spot of lunch, we climbed back into the car to head out and about around Kandy. Palitha informed us that we were bearing too much flesh for the Temple of the Tooth, so instead he took us for a little drive about town, and we visited a gem museum and store (no commission for anyone there!!) and then onto a batik factory.

We went in there swearing blindly that we wouldn’t come out with anything, but our hearts got the better of us and we ended up coming out with a little batik of elephants. We thought we did really well as we had managed to haggle the price down from 27 to 15. But here’s the thing…..we were haggling in thousands of rupees, whereas the people in the shop were haggling in US dollars. Grr. But we were trapped in the sale before we could get out of it, and it was hardly breaking the bank. I really hate feeling stupid like that. Between the two of us we have five university degrees, three of which are graduate level, so it’s not like we’re not the sharpest tools in the box. How can we not even handle a simple sale?? GAH!

Later that night, we sat on our balcony and drank (well, I sipped a small glass) of Laurent Perrier pink champagne to toast in my thirty years, and attempted to tackle yet another honeymoon welcome basket of fruit before heading down to dinner.

The buffet at the Mahaweli Reach proved quite a contrast to that of the Kandalama. We had just come from the most gourmet buffet imaginable, with chefs at every food station, and an outdoor kitchen where they cooked up customised dishes of the day with big woks over roaringingly hot burners. And in the backgound, a man wandered around playing a wooden pipe, so every now and again when the wind blew in the right direction, you could hear gently music wafting in through the door. Here, the concept was the same (a buffet, and a kitchen station, and music in the background), but it just didn’t compare at all. The food looked all slightly more mass produce, and tasted a bit less, and where things weren’t contained within the big metal warming pans, they were covered in plastic wrap. They even had ice cream out for dessert……still in the big plastic container from the wholesaler. Things could have been improved with the kitchen station too- the basic setup was all there, but instead of providing the chef with a couple of nice looking woks, we was using a pair of rather beaten up looking aluminium pans. The musical entertainment was all rather comical really- it was a pair of men, one on a keyboard with a drum machine and the other with a microphone and a tambourine, and the music of choice was the hits from the 80s. It was just a different class of hotel altogether (complete with power cuts, but I think this was more to do with the weather), and we had very much been spoilt by the Kandalama. The interesting part was that both hotels had almost cost the same to stay in!

As for me, I was really feeling rather grotty by this stage and was struggling being in such close proximity to food, so ended up leaving dinner early to have an early night in the room. Just as I was leaving the bathroom in my underwear, getting ready to change and settle in for the night, I heard activity outside in the corridor. It was lucky I thought to look outside as I saw MrNin and two other people with what looked like something on a tray. So in my delicate state, I then had to bolt back into the room, fight with my clothes to get them back on quickly, before appearing at the door with a big smile on my face, and eliminate any sign on my face that would give away that I would rather die than see any more food.

It turned out that whilst we were at the gem shop, Palitha had arranged for a cake to be presented to me at dessert, but as I had left the table and not come back, it had sent the wait staff into a blind panic, and MrNin had to arrange for it to be put onto a plate, and taken up to the room, and also find a member of security to come and let them through the door as I had already taken the key. Bless them all, I was very touched, even though the last thing I wanted to do was have any of that cake go anywhere near me.

It turns out that there’s not an awful lot to do in Kandy so Palitha didn’t arrange to pick us up until 2 o’clock this afternoon. It coudn’t have worked out better actually, as I needed nothing less that some time in bed. We’ve had some really early starts the past few days, and what with the bulld up to the wedding, and the 13.5 hour redeye flight, we’ve both been pretty exhausted. And I wasn’t really feeling up to a lot of walking around anyway. First stop was the Royal Botanical Garden. About two minutes through the gate, it started to pour down with rain so we sought reference in the orchid house whilst the worst of it blew over.

I wasn’t about to let water get into my Nikon D80, so I did what I usually do with my precious handbags, and wore it underneath my raincoat. For some reason this attracted rather a lot of attention from our fellow park attendees, they all found it most curious.

Ooh, I don’t look healthy at all in that picture. Anyway, the rain calmed down a bit after that, so we wandered around the rest of the gardens, taking cover when necessary underneath the giant bamboo from Burma.

Later in the day we went to the famed Temple of the Tooth which is where Budda’s precious tooth relic is guarded under lock and key. This is thought to be only actual relic in the world (although I’ve heard that claim from other countries too). Buddhists regard the tooth as being the living Buddha, so they prepare him meals three times a day (including over 30 different types of vegetable), and deliver him packages of clothing, shaving supplies and all things like that. I didn’t really get good pictures from inside the temple, as there wasn’t much to see except for crowds of people offering worship and I thought it disrespectful to point my camera at them, but I took this picture from outside. Those huts in the middle are security booths with metal detectors. The security here was unreal- screenings, body searches, bag searches…. They were all extremely interested in my IBS medication that I was carrying around with me, but they let me take it in with me which was a relief.

As with all Buddhist sites, we were required to remove our shoes before we went in, and we had no choice but to leave them in a designated area. We don’t have an objection to that at all, I’ll cover myself up, remove my shoes, and I’ll even wear a headscarf whenever it’s required, but what we’re beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with is the routine that follows.

Whenever we’ve come out of temples, and believe me when I say that we’ve been to quite a few by now, it’s always the same thing. Palitha goes over to the shoe man, points at his shoes, they get presented back to him, and he is then free to go about the rest of his day. Whenever MrNin or I go to get our shoes back however, a hand gets stretched out, and we get asked for money. We’re beginning to feel a bit like walking ATM machines as a result of all of this. To add insult to injury, it’s not a small fee ‘tip’ that they’re after either, they’re after preferably a 100 rupee note (approx US $1), although they will reluctantly accept a 50. To put this into perspective, the Rough Guide states that a good average daily wage in Sri Lanka is approximately US $10, so it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that it’s quite a lucrative little business. it’s probably fellow tourists to blame though as they’ve set the precedent by tipping too much in the past…..but come on, a $1 tip for looking after a pair of shoes for 10 minutes that don’t even need looking after is still disproportionately generous even by western standards!! Not only that, but we tourists have already paid an extortionate (by western standards) fee to enter the temple in the first place! It’s just as well that this is our last big temple stop, MrNin is beginning to find it difficult to restrain himself. He offered 20 rupees to get his shoes back, more or less proportionate bearing in mind the average wage, but he had it REFUSED!

There then followed a cultural dance show at the Young Men’s Buddhust Association (YMBA!) where we saw lots of drummers and lots of dancers…

lots of fancy costumes…

fire eaters…

and fire walkers too….

Now I am absolutely ready for bed. Thank goodness this has been a relatively easy day without too long in the car, as I don’t know if that would have made me a very happy person, boo. I hope I’ve not got something ghastly wrong with me.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Happy birthday to me!!!

Actually it wasn’t that bad. It was all in stages so we didn’t really notice it that much. The place was also swimming with ‘helpful’ locals wanting to show you around for a small ‘tip’ fee so that combined with the information plaquards meant there was no shortage of information. Plus we also had Palitha with us. Except Palitha didn’t really overflow with much information at all really. Other people were wandering around with their guides who were practically talking their ears off, but Palitha announced that he would wait for us at the bottom of the steps. Not that we minded, we quite liked having our own freedom. So we climbed a lot of stairs, and walked across a rather procareous platform that was bolted to the side of a rockface with what looked like too few, too insubstantial, and too rusty brackets.

See what I mean? The authorities back at home would certainly have not allowed THIS!! There were about twelve people on that ledge!!

In there, standing on the death ledge, we listened politely to local ‘guides’ point to small paintings, and politely took ‘bictures’ when instructed, even though from their directed angles it usually didn’t make a good shot at all, and the burlap sacking that they so pleasingly held to the side to let light in did nothing but let too much light in, which overexposed the pictures. Oh well. But it really was an impressive place, it’s no surprise really that it’s a World Heritage Site.

Right on cue we finished our visit at around 10.30am, just as it was beginning to get revoltingly hot. On the way back, Palitha took us to an ayurvedic massage place which was far FAR cheaper than the western prices in the hotel spa ($25 vs $175 at the hotel), so we both laid back and relaxed for an hour and a half with indian head massages, shoulder and back massages, wet saunas, dry saunas and nice hot showers afterwards….blissful! No doubt Palitha got a rather generous kick-back, but it was worth it.

This is the coffin-like sauna that they cooked us in for 15 minutes…it was actually rather nice though. All those leaves gave off a rather nice sinus-clearing aroma. It was the other sit in sauna that I really didn’t like. it was rather like sitting inside a volcanic tomb, and I’d had enough death-related experiences already for one morning.

They also served some rather lovely tea at the end, and we made the VERY BIG MISTAKE of asking to buy some without negotiating a price first. Foolish, FOOLISH people, we are. We were kind of trapped into buying it really. We were kind of trapped into buying it as they made the pack up especially for us. More comical than buying the world’s most expensive instant ayurvedic tea was that it came in a little unmarked packet that looks exactly like heroine. I hope we don’t get stopped at customs. Oh well, at least the massages should help our legs recover from all the steps earlier in the day.

Anyway, the afternoon’s activities quickly put it far from our memories, as we went on an elephant back ride around the lake at hotel. It wasn’t the smoothest of rides, but it was a strangely peaceful experience. I could have stayed on there for hours.

Unfortunately the guide taking the photos accidentally messed up the camera settings so the colours came out a bit funny, but I managed to rescue this one. You can see that my equestrian skills turned out coming in rather handy- I was quite comfortable riding along with no hands, tee hee!

Tomorrow we are off down to Kandy for a couple of nights.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Sigirya

Anyway, I gave way to temptation and popped on here to say a quick hello, and to mention that the wedding was THE MOST PERFECT DAY EVER! I still can’t get over how lovely the whole thing was. Aside from a small predicted hitch with the florist, and another minor hiccup with the transfer of some luggage, everything went stunningly well. The weather was glorious, the food was divine, the location was outstanding, and I very much got the impression that everyone had a good time. All that hard work beforehand was more than worth it. And words can’t even describe how amazingly beautiful our bridal party looked, the whole effect was simply stunning, they took my breath away when I saw them. Anyway, enough about the wedding. I’ll talk more when I have some pictures to share….

So right now we have relocated ourselves for the exotic location of tranquility that calls itself Sri Lanka. We flew in on the red-eye on Sunday night, and since arriving have been making the most of every single second.

We took afternoon tea on the terrace at Mount Lavinia…

We’ve seen various Buddhas of asorted age, size and description (here are just a couple….we’ve seen LOTS already!!):

Not to mention assorted temples of all shapes and sizes…(again, here is just a taster of the many…)

But oh my goodness, the best things of all have been the wild animals… Monkeys run a mess everywhere you go, and aren’t at all scared to come up close to you, it’s incredible!

And on the subject of wildlife, our very favourite thing of all that we have done so far has been a jeep safari into one of the national parks up here. We had no idea what to expect- maybe the odd bird or so, like pelecans, or eagles, or stalks like this one we saw…

But I was amazed at how close we were able to get to the animals….see how near we got to these wild water buffalo!

and JUST LOOK at how close we got to these WILD ELEPHANTS!!!

I should add that our guide perhaps took us a little too close for my liking at one point though, as at one point in the excursion, the elephants started raising their trunks, trumpeting in an alarming fashion and stomping toward the jeep. I squealed naturally, I’ve never been good with wildlife, whatever the size, but it was apparently because we were in the elephants’ path to the lake, and they just wanted to clear us out of the way. And there was a teeny tiny baby elephant in their herd that was only a month old, and they were wanting to make sure we kept our distance, as protective parents would feel of any new arrival. It was the sweetest thing ever…..if the word’sweet‘ can be used to describe something that was four times as big as the car.

I guess I should also take the time right now to introduce MrNin to you, as he is of course SoonToBe- no longer! Well, here he is, the man himself, I present to you my husband, the one and only now-to-be-called MrNin!

He liked the elephants.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as OK, so I couldn’t resist…

So as I near the end of my very last post as a singleton, I shall leave you with some scenes of the exciting madness of past week in The Nins' household…. For those of you who are already married, I'm sure you can appreciate and sympathise with the scenes that follow. And for those of you who are yet to be married….TAKE NOTE! This is what your life could very well turn into if you head down that path ;o)

MONDAY: Making the Out Of Town Boxes…

TUESDAY: Mutti getting her hair done…

And me getting mine done too….

WEDNESDAY: YAY!!! I scheduled another last minute makeup trial and this time I LIKED IT!!

THURSDAY (yesterday): His dad and Mutti meeting for the first time at the Welcome Dinner…

EARLIER TODAY: it took a whole family effort to assemble the photoframe guestbook…

I think I'll let the video below provide the explanation for the above…

So I'm taking off for the next couple of weeks for an exotic honeymoon of relaxation. Naturally no computers are allowed, so this is me signing out until my return (unless I get to sneak on here on Sunday after the wedding, although I still have to pack for my honeymoon…)

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as See you back here on the 20th!