Sri Lanka
October 2012: This was our first trip together since meeting in Kuwait. A lot of teachers choose Sri Lanka as one of their first trips since moving to the Middle East. It makes sense...it's so cheap, you can stay right on the beach, and there are direct flights from Kuwait (which is rare). So we ended up going with a big group of teachers. Another teacher organized it all for us, so we just booked our flights and showed up at the airport.
highlights
. Beaches . Rubber Farm . Temple of the Tooth . Tea Factory . Storms . Tuk Tuks
lowlights
Scams . Elephant Orphanage . Lack of Medical Care . Sketchy Transport .
One of the beaches in Hikkaduwa.
hikkaduwa
After landing in Colombo, we had a private bus drive us the 2-3 hours to Hikkaduwa, which is one of the beach towns. We stayed at Rita's Hotel, which had a restaurant right on the beach. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was cheap, on the beach, and had everything we needed. We splurged on the last couple of nights for a room with an AC unit (our previous room only had a fan). At night, we would walk down the beach to one of the other hotels that had a bar/club scene. There are so many hotels along the beach, I don't think you can go wrong.
One of the views on our drive back from Kandy.
kandy
After a few days on the beach, we got back on a bus for a road trip to Kandy. We made a lot of stops along the way.
1. Rubber Tree
2. Fruit shop/stand
3. Wood shop (furniture, trinkets)
4. Natural "Medicine" garden (if you want to hear a hilarious recap of this, listen to Trevor's podcast, which is linked on this page)
5. Elephant Orphanage (this was quite sad...wouldn't do it again)
6. Embilmeegama Tea Factory
After all those stops, we made it to our hotel in Kandy, then quickly changed and headed to the Temple of the Tooth. It was a dark and rainy night, so I didn't get a good look at the temple, but we got to walk by Buddha's Tooth (it was very quick...lots of people were shuffling through the line).
On the beach in Hikkaduwa.
food and drink
I personally loved the food in Sri Lanka. Trevor hated it. I found it spicy and delicious, like a good curry. And for beer? Lion Lager all day long.
stories worth mentioning
1. While wandering down the beach to another bar, we had a couple of big waves come our way. I ended up losing both of my flip flops to the Indian Ocean. And I went dancing with no shoes. I do not recommend it. Carry your shoes on the beach!
2. Trevor, back in our Kuwait days, always got really bad ear infections. So of course, he ended up getting one in Sri Lanka. And we couldn't get ANY antibiotics on our last day there. So after an incredibly painful flight, we went right from the airport to a hospital in Kuwait. Apparently he was insanely close to popping his ear drum. Good thing Kuwait has ALL of the antibiotics.