Sri Lanka: Christmas Week Sri Lankan Style

Sri Lanka is the land of Chatty Cathy's. The local people we have met in the southern part of the island always greet you with a handshake, are very friendly, inquisitive, and often have the same questions. "Where are you from, Is this your first time in Sri Lanka, How long do you stay, What are you going, and What did you do today". Everyone knows Obama and is very happy he is going to be our new president. It's a good time for Americans to be traveling abroad.

The weather has been mostly fine (hot and humid), with occasional thunderstorms, lighting, and monsoon-type rain. No worries, we are finally at the beach. It's not as hectic here as it was in the other parts of the country, and there is definitely a laid back scene going on. Both locals and tourists are hanging at the beach, making it more authentic. And there were a few great local frisbee players jamming close to the waters edge. In Sri Lanka, "room boys" are their version of maids, and at our current hotel, the Unawatuna Beach Resort, our room boy does an amazing job of decorating our bed everyday with beautiful flowers, which has been picture worthy.

Our first beach stop was at the "party" town of Hikkaduwa, which has a long wide beach with ride-able waves, surfing, beachside restaurants, chill bars, and lounge chairs with palapa's overhead for shade. We made friends quickly with a local named Lasanta and he and his brothers and sisters took good care of us at their family restaurant. We had great meals of curried food, BBQ fish feasts, Lion beers and fruit lassies. We made some traveler friends with a family from Jersey, UK, and Uncle Stevo became surfing coach to 7-year old Jacob. For days we sat and watched the waves and the locals fish with their traditional methods.










We moved further south to Unawatuna, a crescent shaped bay with coconut palms, warm water, restaurant on the beach with colorful lights, and a mellower scene. We've been here for almost a week, and it's been hard to move far from our lounge chairs, although our hotel does have a pool and table tennis. We did find a small shack restaurant down a sand alley, with a local man selling amazing roti's and special lassies. We've done a little snorkeling in front of our hotel and to the "Jungle" Beach which is a short distance away. For the first time in our travels, we hear Grateful Dead music at a beach bar and quickly stopped in for a refreshing happy hour beer.





















We were able to get up and out for a couple of days trips. We found the beautiful beach of Marissa about 30 miles south with few people, a very wide beach, and a very tropical setting. We also ventured to the nearby town of Galle, where there is an old Dutch fort with an "old city" within, filled with churches, shops, hotels, and restaurants. In the "new city" there is a colorful fish and produce market as well a local bazaar.

Christmas Eve is a big party celebration at the beach, with decorations, xmas trees, and even Santa arriving at night via boat. There was a huge feast at our hotel's restaurant, fireworks, music, and happy hour that lasted until dawn. Us old folks barely made it to midnight.





Today is the 4-year anniversary of the Tsunami that devastated most of the coast of Sri Lanka. We hear tales from all of the locals that we meet about family members they have lost. They are resilient people and have built back some of what was lost, but there are reminders all over of the damage. Tonight there were small candles all over the small town of Unawatuna and we participated in the lighting of the candles in remembrance. It was an emotional moment for us that brought perspective on all of the things we are grateful for. With that, we hope you had a wonderful holiday and we'll be thinking about you on the New Year!

Sri Lanka: Eye-Kandy and the "Sweet" Tooth

We immediately knew that Sri Lanka would be much different than anywhere we'd ever travelled to as soon as we got off of our plane, as there were dozens of shops in the airport selling an abundance of electric appliances, most oddly, washers and driers - quite strange we thought.
Our first stop was the chaotic city of Kandy in the hill country, which seemed like a Sri Lankan version of Manhatten, except instead of thousands of cabs there were just as many tuk-tuks, the Asian three-wheeled version of a taxi - all weaving and maneuvering the streets alongside huge buses, humans, and cows. The driving here is on dodgey 2-laned roads, with a sort of organized chaos - frightening near head-on passing, and much exuberant honking. We found it best to look at the gorgeous countryside rather than at the constant flow of oncoming traffic. We've yet to see a woman driver in this country, as the men (and cows and oxen) seem to own the roads.

We had some cultural eye-candy in Kandy, which is situated in the center of the country, and is surrounded by lush green, jungled hills. At the city center is a large man-made lake, which we stayed across the street from at the Queens Hotel. The rather old hotel was renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth when she visited the city many years ago, and is 150 years old (Sri Lanka is a former British colony which was once called Ceylon.) We visited the city's most holy site, called the Tooth Relic temple, which houses a tooth of the Buddha. The "Buddha Tooth" has been moved around the country numerous times over the last few thousand years to protect it. That same night we saw a special Kandyan dance performance which included 14 five-minute dances. Our favorites were the fire-walking dance, and the circus-style plate spinning using sacred discs (similar to freestyle frisbee).
Sri Lanka has several ruins and ancient cities, that are holy sites and are thousands of years old. We visited three of these areas, and one of these sites, Sigiriya Rock, is an amazing tower formation that once had extensive structures on top, and was built by monks as a meditation temple. The 1200 stair, step climb to the top of the rock took us past caves and through bouldered labyrinths, with a view that would have been fantastic, however the rain that day was quite heavy. No worries, as the next ancient temple that we visited, called Dambulla, was built into a series of shallow caves that contained over 150 incredible golden Buddha images, and each cave had wildly painted ceilings. Michaelangelo would have been hard-pressed to create such a scene. It was simply spectacular.
Various Ancient City Photos:





















Every town that we've seen has at least one giant Buddha image, often dozens. Most of the villages that we drove through or visited were bustling with people, and we saw very few Westerners. Tourism is way down due to the long-standing, and ongoing civil war (currently, mostly in the northern region), and the only thing unusual that we noted were the random checkpoints with armed soldiers standing guard.

Sri Lankan cuisine is delicious, and is similar to Indian food. It features spiced curries, mounds of rice, shredded coconut dishes, and lots of fruit and pastries. There seems to be a bakery on nearly every corner, and the local beer, Lion Lager, is the perfect thirst quencher on the hot and humid days, which can be stiffeling. There have been many wildlife sightings as well. We've encountered many, many monkeys of all sorts, Asian elephants, swimming monitor lizards, and even a rare Sri Lankan wild jackal pair, crossing the road.
Various Wildlife Photos:

Thailand: The Hip City of Chiang Mai

When we left the quiant village of Chiang Dao we stopped at the Tuesday morning market, frequented by locals and people from the surrounding area. There were some hilltribe items for sale, lots of western clothing, and heaps of strange and interesting food available for purchase. Many types of pickled and dried fish on a stick, strange colored eggs, root vegetables, and brightly colored liquids and "pixie dust" in jars.



We've been in Chiang Mai for a few days now, enjoying what the city has to offer, beautiful temples, great shopping, and yummy food. We explored the most important temple in Northern Thailand, Doi Suthep, which is perched on a hillside overlooking Chiang Mai. The architecture at this temple is spectacular, with many giant, golden buddha images, and amazing structures. There was quite a crowd around the main temple complex, apparently because the former Prime Minister (from 5 years ago) was being blessed by 2 very important elder monks, so that he too could once again be a monk. It was a really big deal, and there was a film crews documenting the proceedings - and a crowd of adoring Thai standing by to observe. Outside the temple are hilltribe people selling their wares, and this little girl enjoyed posing for us.


We've been traveling about with Dave and Michelle for the past 2 weeks, and it's been a great time. This photo shows us at the Royal Summer Palace, also on the hill overlooking the city of CM. When the royal family is not in residence it's open to the public, and we were able to tour around the grounds to see the beautiful flower gardens. Just like at the temples, proper attire must be worn at all times on the royal grounds (shoulders and knees covered), which is why Dave is wearing those fashionable fisherman pants (rented), as he started the day in shorts.




There are so many temples in Chiang Mai, that we tended to only visit just a few a day to avoid burnout. Yesterday we met a young, like-minded, globetrotting couple from Vermont on a temple grounds near our hotel, who were on a year-long journey. They reminded us when we took our big trip 10 years ago, and we enjoyed sharing stories and advice.






One evening we had a fantastic dinner along the Ping River, which is very romantic after dark, and where there's a happening nightlife scene with live music. We enjoyed the atmosphere and stayed up late partying and drinking that night.

Chiang Mai is also a great place for shopping, so we have done our fair share of supporting the local economy. Too bad we didn't need any brooms from this salesman.

North Thailand Adventures

From Chiang Mai we took a small propeller plane north towards the Burma border, landing in the peaceful, mountainous town of Mae Hong Son (MHS). Found a quaint lakeside bungalow hut for a couple of nights with the intent of exploring the region on foot and by car.

On our first afternoon in "MHS" we hiked up to the temple on the hillside above town (the view on the left) and explored the temple grounds.


Later that evening we walked around the lakeside, taking in the lovely surroundings. There's a magnificent Burmese-style Buddhist temple that sat on the lake's edge, and once it got dark, the lights made it look even more exotic and magical.




In the evenings the street that encircles the lake is closed off to traffic and the locals set-up a market, selling art, hilltribe handicrafts, and strange looking foodstuff. The woman pictured here was selling soup and some sort of hardboiled eggs in a clever cooking pan. The streets were filled with local folks and Thai tourists shopping and eating dinner. Not so many travellers seemed to be in MHS, and it felt authentic and Thai-like -- very cool!

The following day we hired a car and driver, Mr. Tu, to take us on a day tour. We cruised up into the countryside and visited a jungley waterfall (pictured at left), then we went to a very well-kept national park area that featured a small cave with sacred fish (appropriately called, the Fish Cave), and finally an interesting Chinese village set in an alpine region very near to Burma.

The next day we found a different driver who we hired to take us up to the town of Pai, and along the way we make several stops.

The day's highlight was our encounter at the Lahu hilltribe village, where we were invited into a local man's hut for tea and a wonderful musical serenade by the toothless, and impish 70+ year-old gent.

We also visited Tam Lot (cave), were we went deep inside the mountain, first by bamboo raft, and then on foot. We were guided by a cute little 14 year-old girl who carried a gas lantern.

Sadly, once we reached Pai, the normally quiet town was over run by Thai tourists who were enjoyng a 3-day weekend holiday - The King's 81st birthday. There was also a film festival going on that weekend, and the entire town was completely booked-up with no rooms available at all. We were forced to retreat back down the curvey road, a not-so pleasant and unexpected extension of our already long day.

We reached the town of Chiang Dao at about 11 PM, and we were exhausted but fortunate enough to locate 2 rooms. We've landed at the fabulous Chiang Dao Nest, a beautiful guesthouse in the heavily forested area. The guesthouse has a brand new swimming pool and a ping-pong pavillion too, as well as a world-class chef - a hilarious Thai woman named Wicha (she and her English husband are also the owners).

A short walk from The Nest is this marvelous Buddhist monestery, set on the jungled hillside (left). It's 500 steps up to the main temple area, and what a view.

We're now hanging here in Chiang Dao for a few nights of rest and relaxation, mainly walking about the area and seeing the local sights. We've met several interesting travelers and eaten some great meals too.

This adorable little girl was standing infront of her family's hut and posed for our camera. Check out her outfit and that hand gesture - priceless.

On a walk to a nearby Golden Chedi (shrine) we encountered these two local brothers, who tried out their English on us - greeting us with a shy "good afternoon." We exchanged names, and then they posed for this classic shot.

Today we'll do some more walking around and we plan on going to the famous Chiang Dao cave which is a short walk from our guesthouse.

Stay tuned!

Malaysia: Detour Through Kuala Lumpur

Our trip has been smooth sailing thus far, with our travel mates Dave & Michelle along for the first leg of our journey. Because of the closure of the Bangkok airport due to civil unrest and protests, we were forced to adjust our routing just before leaving home, flying into Kuala Lumpur (KL), then caught one of the few direct flights to Chiang Mai in Northen Thailand - a rather smart move on our part. After 17 hours of flying we finally checked into the swanky Pan Pacific Hotel in KL, for a transit stop and some recoup time. We enjoyed the modern gym and deluxe tropical pool area, followed by an excellent dinner and soon after, some well needed sleep.

During our day in KL we toured about with a new friend Daniel, an interesting and intelligent ex-pat American who's now living in Cambodia and running a non-profit for underprivledged children. He was a wealth of information about the region, politics, and just about any subject you can think of. We went to the world's largest aviary sanctuary where we saw many colorful bird species in a jungle setting.

Later we cabbed into the heart of downtown KL to a street market selling "fake" everthing ~ from purses to CD's. A happy find was an excellent Jamaican restaurant plastered with posters of Bob Marley that covered the walls. We enjoyed cold beers, tasty food and great happy hours prices. Next we explored a bit more of the city, checking out a couple of temples and a large indoor marketplace with batiks, crafts, and western-ware. The city was an interesting mix of West and East, and very easy to negotiate. We said goodbye to Daniel, and had our last amazing buffet dinner back at the hotel.

This morning we finally arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand to pleasant and cool temperatures. We've feasted on tasty food, visited amazing temples, and it feels like we finally made it to our intended destination.