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To India and Beyond
Hello Everyone
Am just coming to the end of a eight-day trip to Sri Lanka to renew my visa for India. Fly back to Trivandrum in the south tomorrow and will stay in Varkala in Kerala for a couple of days before flying up to Dehli to meet Mum and her cousin Jean.
Sri Lanka is a very beautiful country, much like India. I arrived in Colombo (the capital) on 19th February and shared a room in a very posh hotel with a very nice German chap I met on the plane over. Spent two days there sorting out my visa, then headed off to Mirissa on the south coast. Took the train down and got quite a lot of hassle from men and touts, I find the men here a lot more aggresive than in India. Indian men stare at you, but very rarely approach you and even if they do it's usually just because they're genuinely interested in talking to you or practising their english.
The south-west coast of Sri Lanka is very, very beautiful. As you get away from Colombo, the sand becomes powdery and white and the sea turquoise. Really spectacular, more beautiful than India (except the Andaman Islands perhaps). I stayed in a very nice hotel right on the beach and met some really nice people. An American/British couple who live in Kerala in India, working for a charity that procures sponsership for children in rural areas, so that they can afford to go to school. Two very nice older, english couples, one pair on a long holiday, the other doing a long-term round-the-world-trip. They've been away from home for five months and were off to Australia. Also met a very nice Sri Lankan family who live in Vancouver in Canada who were over for Mother's 95th birthday. Their parents had started an orphanage and community centre in the north which was absolutely decimated in the war. It was very interesting talking to the family and hearing their stories.
I headed off to Kandy (central Sri Lanka) for a couple of days because the beach was lovely, but the weather wasn't very good.
Kandy itself wasn't very pretty, but the surrounding area was lovely. I met a really nice young english couple (who I believe were called Rachel and Will, I'm terrible at remembering people's names!). They were staying at the same guesthouse as me and had arranged a trip to the Elephant Orpanage at Pinnawala, so I jumped in with them and I'm so glad I did because it was fantastic! We saw the baby elephants being fed, then they all head down to the local river for their bath! After giving the Mahout an exortionate tip, Rachel and I were allowed to wash a five-year-old elephant and I managed to stroke two others. The first one purred whilst I stroked his face. The second one (quite a large animal) just walked straight up to me, put his trunk in my hand and allowed me to stoke it! What a fantastic experience.
Also met a nice German chap in Kandy, again staying at the same guesthouse, called Marco. We went to the Botanical Gardens and Temple of the Tooth today. The Botanical Gardens were really beautiful and Marco is a keen gardener, so he was in his element! The temple of the tooth was full of touts, rip-off merchants and infuriatingly rude french tourists. So, we were a little disappointed.
Overall, I'm disappointed with Sri Lanka. It's a very beautiful country, but the majority of people you meet are after your money and go about getting it in very devious ways, also they have a two-tier pricing system on everything here for locals/tourists, which seems directed at white people. So, I'll be very glad to get back to India.
Hope all is well with you.
Kate x
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