Last Road Trip in Sri Lanka

Road trip in Sri Lanka

Day 4

Place: Negombo

Our last day in Lanka was planned to go for Scuba diving and enjoy the underwater world, which was never been seen and cannot be experienced on land. When we approached scuba trainers, we got to know that ocean is rough today, so it is not possible to go today. We had to drop our adventure, next we had lunch and since we didn't had any plans to go further, we thought to go for yet another new sport -Massage. As soon as we entered in parlour, they gave us a cool napkin, I mean literally cool sweet smelling napkin to wipe our face. When we put it on, I must say it was really really cool and when we wiped our faces, it was so relaxing, cleansing and soothing. In other words, it was awesome. After such experience, no one can resist to try more that the parlour has to offer. Then they gave us their brochure to select the type of massage, we would like to go for. We selected the lowest cost massage meant for full body in 30 mins costing 1000 LKR. Then they informed us that “many Indians ask for male-female massage, but we only give male male and female female, we do not offer other kind of massage”. We said its totally cool for us, we are looking for massage only. Its not what we wanted to say, but under the conditions, we had to say, please understand boys will be boys.

I must say, it was the best thing that we did in Lanka, whole massage thing was very relaxing, we were feeling so light as if nothing is left inside our body. If you didn't had massage in Lanka you had nothing.

Then we returned our bike and headed for hot bath in our hotel since whole massage thing was very oily and sticky. Next plan was to go for shopping followed by dinner. We were roaming here and there in the  streets of Negombo looking for a proper gift and our eyes fall on a painting shop, the paintings were remarkable, not so costly and painter was deaf, counting all these factors, we made our mind that this would be the perfect gift for our loved ones.

We purchased a lot of paintings from that shop, had dinner. In the meantime we had a lil chat with the waiter who became our friend afterwards. Also we tried a new kind of juice-Wood Apple juice (Kabit). It  was also a unique experience for me, as I like eating kabit chatni, but its juice, it was a different thing. FYI I still prefers chatni over Juice.

Massage Parlour

After all the fun and adventure on road, we finally returned back to airport. One funny incident took place there too, an old lady suddenly started doing exercise and it wasn't a regular exercise, it was a mix of dance and exercise. Everyone started staring at her, may be she had some kind of problem/disease, or her daily routine, but it became a funny scene.

It was a great scene there, lots of foreign tourists roaming here and there in stunning dresses. The best time pass was just to enjoy the scene.

Tooth Temple

Sri Lanka Diary Continues

Tooth Temple

Day: 3

Place: Kandy

Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is a Buddhist temple in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located in the royal palace complex of the former Kingdom of Kandy, which houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. Since ancient times, the relic has played an important role in local politics because it is believed that whoever holds the relic holds the governance of the country. Kandy was the last capital of the Sri Lankan kings and is a UNESCO world heritage site partly due to the temple. It’s built over a very large area and has 

Inside Temple

many buildings inside it such as a School, Golden canopy, Royal Palace, Audience Hall, National Museum, Kandy Lake and many more. Complete story of Buddha’s tooth is written inside the temple- According to Sri Lankan legends, when the Lord Buddha died, his body was cremated in a sandalwood pyre at Kusinagara, India and his left canine tooth was retrieved from the funeral pyre.

When we were moving towards our next destination-Golden Temple, Dambulla, we stopped by one of the many botanical gardens on the way. Since country is famous for natural herbs, hence we can find a lot of gardens, natural 

School Inside Temple

cosmetics etc. It was too good so we purchased few cosmetics from there-a cream and an oil costing total of 500 INR, sounds costly right, but it was given us after a lot of discounts. So if you plan to spend a lot on cosmetic items, then only buy something from such gardens. We reached Golden Temple and started climbing on the rock without any other thought. Once we reached at top, two things happened simultaneously-we got to knew that only Sri Lankans are allowed without a ticket and it started raining, now we were trapped above the mountain, can’t go down since it was raining neither go inside temple due to ticket, obviously we tried to convince the ticket collector to give us 

Botanical Garden

a ticket there itself but he was a person of non negotiation, even the tickets were very costly-750 INR. So it was useless for us to to go all the way down, get costly ticket and come back, so we moved to next location, which again was closed as we reached late evening. Hence we had to call it a day; it was useless to stay at Dambulla so we again started riding to Colombo, next day’s spot.  

Awesome View From Top of Golden Temple

Golden Temple, Dambulla

Riding and Dancing in Lanka

Topi riding Rickshaw

From Airport we hired a tuk tuk (in lanka, rickshaws are known by this name) for Negombo. We thought that will go for scuba diving but it was very costly-75$/person, so we changed our plans and headed for lunch, when we were moving towards restaurant, our driver stopped for paan (a stimulating 

Default Dish-Meduvada

and psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco), and we were waiting inside tuk tuk, suddenly my friend asked permission for driving his rickshaw, he was so cool, that he said ok-go ahead. Funny thing Topi was not even able to start it in the beginning, but once driver started, he was driving it like its own car. 

EGB-Ginger Soda

Obviously I was little bit scared, after some time we stopped at restaurant and were provided with a default item in their menu (medu vada). Its default dish weather you order or not. While we were eating, I saw a mother giving some yellow colored liquid to her 2yr old kid from a bottle which looked like daru bottle (hard drink), but I thought it can’t be possible, so to know what it contains us also ordered a bottle of Egb. When I looked at its sticker, it read as real ginger. Then we knew that it was ginger soda. Since that mother was giving it to her child, so it was clear that it is a local health drink. Note that lanka is famous for natural herbs and hence the drink was.

Dance like nobody's Watching

After Egb, we moved onto our new adventure-Dance.

Yes dance was also an adventure, the way we did it. We were walking on road and I saw a joker dancing in front of a Bata showroom with blasting sound, I was so excited to see him that I joined him (It’s a natural talent whenever I see a person dancing, I also starts, it has happened before also when I was out with my school friends.) It became a road show. All the people were looking at us. But I didnt care about all such things,  I was there to enjoy not to think about what others think and we should be like that only, we should feel free to express ourselves, because if we keep thinking to please others, we won’t be able to live.

Pic with Bald Uncle

When we were back on track, one bald uncle was looking at us and smiling, he asked about us, where do we belong to, what we were doing there and then he showed us his vintage car, we took some pics of his car and then the conversation turned about our adventure that we are looking for scuba diving. So this bald guy called two of his friends and invited us in his car. He took us to his other friends who go for fishing and scuba. These people were not professionals for scuba but they were experienced locals, they asked about our experience of diving, we informed that we have no idea about it, so they said it is not possible without proper training. So bald uncle dropped us at the same point plus he hired a rickshaw also for us to place, where we can get training for scuba. Meanwhile we asked about his profession and knew that he works in Pharma Company but at that instant he was out there for some social work which was really good and image of uncle was again raised in our eyes. I would like to stress on the fact that Sri Lankans are ready to help anyone and everyone, without having any personal agenda behind that.

Entry in Sri Lanka

Day 1

Chennai International Airport

I was planning a trip to Andaman and Nicobar with a good friend Topi and while we were discussing the plan, he informed me that Shri Lanka round trip is cheaper than Andamans, this small chat resulted in a adventurous trip to the Pearl of the Indian Ocean-Shri Lanka. It is known so because of its natural beauty. Sri Lanka has also been called "the teardrop of India" because of its shape and location, and "the nation of smiling people". I invite you to have a virtual tour with me to the Pearl.

Guess who?

We were flying like a shooting star. As soon as we stepped down in Bandaranaike International Airport, we used free wifi on cell phone and net enabled computers at the entry. Yes they were providing free internet 24 7 for tourists. Now we were moving in and authorities were not allowing us to go inside as we have not mentioned local address in immigration form also on the other hand they are themselves telling us to put anything hotel like “Colombo hotel”. I have to say, they are helping people, normally Indians have myth that Sri Lanka is a dangerous place, but I cannot agree on this anymore. The best part, they gave us free local sim.

Topi

Finally we entered in and my dear friend Topi had to shit, so he went inside washroom, as soon as we entered in, it was smelling so good as if it was not a washroom but a aroma factory. You may not believe, but it was the first washroom which actually smelled awesome. Now we were moving out and many people approaching towards us with different travel plans, all looks very costly as they were offering us cars and being 2 people crew it was costly affair. 

Ram Setu

So we dropped all those and came out. when we were about to leave port, one more man approached us with a plan, but we asked him for money exchange, so he approached a business person (people who exchange labours between countries) who gave us exchange rate of 1.97. Meaning if we give him 1INR, he returns 1.97 Sri Lankan Rupee. Since we didn’t had any LNR with us so we agreed at this rate for a small amount 1000 INR, I knew that we can get rate up to 2 also and later we got to know that 2.10 is also available. We came out of Port and then it was time for many rickshawala to approach us but unlike India they do not start fighting themselves, if one person is approaching another would not.

I hope you liked our entry, stay tuned for complete trip.