sasri2016 – Travelling from Kandy to Sigiriya and visiting hot Dambulla

I hired a driver from my hotel (Sunny Hill Residence) in Kandy, to take me to Sigiriya. I could easily have taken the bus (not enough easy way to get here by train) here, but was kinda hoping to see things in between those cities and specially Dambulla. And it was a good choice. I paid 8000 rupies to the tour manager for the car, driver and tour manager (“Nihal”) for the trip. I wasn't actually first so happy about the tour manager to come with me on the trip, but he insisted on it and it was a good choice in the end. Driver wasn't so good in english and tour manager was. He also helped me to do some things, which was good.

First we got to the post office, I wanted to send souvenirs to Finland by parcel service. This wasn't easy and cheap task (cost was like 7000 rupies, so prices of souvenirs got much higher than they originally were). Even finding the door to the actual post office was hard, and arranging the sending even harder. ;) Well I didn't even have to try it, because tour manager did arrangements for me.

Then we tried to find an open Photo Studio, but none were open (even as it was saturday, but probably because (once more) for the New Year holiday).

Next thing was to travel to Matale. There we went to a Hindu temple, which was actually quite interesting to see.

Then we went to a spice garden in Matale. I got a presentation of their plants and what they use them for. A lot of natural cures by these oils or syrups or similar things. I was much more looking for spices, than oils or those things. But I did end up buying a bunch of spice bags to make curry back home. Also I got an advise, that I should use Cardemom (I am not sure it was this spice) by just braking it. And using the shell of the seed also inside curry. Just crunching it and leaving the shell behind, doesn't give same flavor. That place was quite pricey, if you ask me. Oil bottles were mostly from 3000 rupies to 8000 rupies. And most would have been too big for me to take home. It was nice that they had a lot of explanations in paper for the oils and their uses, because I had already forgot so much from the presentation. ;)

After that, we went all the way to the Dambulla. Tour manager's plan failed here, because it was planned that we eat after and near the temple, but actually we ate after the Buddhist temple in Dambulla. Which was too late for me. Though all that heat and everything didn't me much hungry.

Dambulla was SO HOT! It was only 36C according to my cell phone's internet weathercast, but it felt like 39C or 40C. You need to climb also in Dambulla's temple. But the worst part was, when they asked you to take your shoes off at the top of the temple and I didn't have socks with me. I have a very thin skin in feet and damn those tiles were burning hot in the temple. They had been in sun for whole day (it was like 15:35, when we were at Dambulla) and gathered all heat to be just one burning stepping stone. Not everybody liked my cursing, when running in the shadows (where I could find one), trying to avoid the burning tiles.

After this we drove a little bit and ended up eating a buffet in a very popular place. There were a lot of bigger groups (seemed mostly Indians) and couple westerners too. Paid 650 rupies for buffet (now I really got at least four pieces of chicken, because there's always too little chicken pieces in rice & curry with chicken dishes.

I have heard that Anuradhapura is at least as hot as Dambulla, or maybe even more hot, so I doubt if I really can and want to go there. Currently I'm avoiding that option and still thinking about going to Trincomalee as my final destination in this trip.

sasri2016 – In Kandy

I stayed in homestay -style of hotel, named “Sunny Hill Residence”. It wasn't that far from the Kandy city center. Actually Kandy is much smaller city, than I expected. And it was also much nicer than I had understood from Internet texts.

I was there for two nights. First night I arrived by train from Nanu Oya (see my last post before this) to Kandy. Hotel arranged a pick-up from train station to hotel, which was really great and totally appreciated! It was actually the hotel keeper's son and his wife, that picked me up at the station, because they were also spending time in Kandy for New Year's holiday.

sasri2016 – Train trip from Nanu Oya (Nuwara Eliya) to Kandy

I am writing this blog post in the train. Train left from Nanu Oya about 17:45 (was meant to leave 17:30) and for the first hour I was taking pictures out from window like crazy. It's unbelievable how beautiful sunset can be, from mountain views that are above clouds. It did get dark a little while ago and I couldn't take pictures anymore, so I switched to writing this blog. It feels strange, to sit here in 3^rd class Sri Lankan train and type a blog. Not that I could now publish it directly from here, because my Hutch mobile connection can't get to network here and I wouldn't want to waste my megabytes. I expect that there is a wifi connection at the Sunny Hill Residence, where I am going to stay in Kandy, so I can publish this there (and make the most important call of today – Skype to wife).

But back to the train travelling... this trip from Nanu Oya to Kandy takes about 5 hours (17:45 - 22:30 were my actual dep/arr times). It costed 90 rupies (something like 60 cents in euros?). These third class wagons (this night train only has 3^rd class) doesn't have separate seats, but benches instead. Before I got here, I did read that armchairs are the only difference between 3^rd class and 2^nd class wagons.

Now there is coming some girls singing through the window. Sad that I can't see much of anything to that town that we are passing, because it's so dark outside already. Some flashing lights do reveal that there is a town. That singing was beautiful change to, quite hard, sound of this train. As windows are always open here (looking around I noticed that old man opposite side of alley has closed the window, so there must be some finger movements needed to get windows closed), there are really quite much noise from the train. There is also another old man, laying on seat opposite the other one. Maybe he can sleep in this noice, but I couldn't even imagine doing that.

Kids are still screaming in the tunnels, though there has been only few tunnels for this train trip so far. Maybe they get tired to it when clock ticks forward. Oh, now we stopped to some station, better to try to close that window... yep, it was manageable.

Now there was amazing show of lightning. No, it's not different here, but when everything from train's window is dark, and you can see the lightning so clearly – it's just so beautiful. Specially when then striking lighting lights up all the clouds around it. This is nature's entertainment show and I just could keep on watching this. And I think, that thunderstorms are different in countries closer to equator. I think they have thunderstorms every night, in southern Sri Lanka, actually Colombo must have been only city, which haven't had thunderstorms almost every night.