Sri Lanka... Day 1

A few months ago my friend Tammy was over and we were talking about traveling and somehow we started talking about spring break and she mentioned wanting to go to Sri Lanka. I said I'd love to go and thus, our spring break plans started to form!

Travel opportunities while in Bahrain are incredible. We have easier access to an entire side of the world than we've ever had before. I have always wanted to travel in Asia so this was my first opportunity to do it and I jumped at the chance!

We decided to hire a tour company to organize and plan our trip and we hired a guide and driver for the duration. Other friends of ours have done this and recommended it and it was definitely the way to go!

Its only about a five and a half hour flight from Bahrain and we flew out late on the 31st of March and arrived at 6:50 in the morning Sri Lanka time. Stella was super awesome and slept most of the flight.

We met up with our guide and headed out into Sri Lanka! We stepped out of the airport and into the humidity but it felt amazing! My skin is SO dry in Bahrain and I could just feel it soaking up the moisture. It smelled so clean and tropical too-- and we were just walking out of the airport!

Our guide, Predeep, got us settled in the van and started telling us all about his country. Sri Lanka is a tropical island located in South Asia. Its south east of India and northeast of the Maldives. While under British rule, this small island was known as Ceylon-- and for good reason; the major export is tea! Besides tea, the fertile lands of Sri Lanka also grow rubber and coconuts making those the other large exports. Those fertile lands also make for some pretty picturesque scenery.

It wasn't long before the 2.5 hour time difference and the flying all night zonked the kids right out...haha!

We stopped at a local place for breakfast and were blown away with how beautiful the country was. It was tucked away and right on the water and like something straight off a postcard. 

Jack fruit growing on trees

We ordered pots of tea and some breakfast-- one of Tammy's sons, Kai, is super adventurous with food so he and I shared the Sri Lankan breakfast.

Everything was delicious! We had curries and eggs and toast with homemade jam

And then they brought this plate of veggie noodles and they were so delicious! 

After breakfast we headed to Dambulla Cave Temple. We were all pretty exhausted so we slept most of the way to the temples.

Sri Lanka is mainly a Buddhist country with 67% of the population practicing Buddhism, so Buddhist temples and statues of Buddha were all over the place.

Speaking of, our guide, Predeep, is Buddhist and he had a Buddha statue on his dashboard. Every day he would place fresh flowers around him and at some point in the trip we decided to document Buddha's travels. I think this is one of the first pictures we took...

We arrived and started our climb up the mountain to get to the caves. The Dambulla cave temples are the largest preserved cave temples in all of Sri Lanka and it dates back to the first century BC. The caves are about 160m high There are more than 80 caves spread out over the area, but only five main ones hold the attractions of the temples.  Before they were temples the people of Sri Lanka probably would have lived in the caves-- human remains were found in burial sites that date back 2700 years.

We purchased flowers at the bottom of the mountain and carried them up as an offering to Buddha. Along the way some crazy monkeys came out to see if we had anything to offer them-- apparently they can be pretty aggressive when they want food! They came at us and quickly pegged Stella as the weak link and chased after her. She was not a happy camper! 

We finished our climb, removed our shoes and entered the grounds of the temples through a beautifully painted set of doors.

 

The caves are framed with a covered walkway and surrounded by a beautiful view and a couple of pools filled with lily pads and lotus flowers. 

The first cave houses this massive reclining Buddha which takes up the whole room. It was a tight squeeze to get in and around the buddha, but it was beautiful. The ceilings are painted with pictures depicting the life of Buddha and each cave we went into was so beautiful. The first images of Buddha were created over 2000 years ago. After spending a lot of time seeing churches and cathedrals in Europe that have been destroyed over time, it was amazing to see these beautifully persevered paintings and statues.  

The bottom of the Buddha's feet-- they were HUGE!

We walked throughout the five temples and our guide told us all about the temples and the statues. There are 153 statues of Buddha, three statues of Sri Lankan kings, and four statues of gods and goddesses. 

All the different statues of Buddha show the seven different positions for the Buddha-- Meditation, Breathing, Teaching, Suffering, Mercy, Resting, and Nirvana. 

So this was really fascinating-- that pot is collecting water from the ceiling of the cave. The interesting part? The water flows UP the ceiling before dripping down in that spot. No one can figure out why because, obviously, water should flow down, not up. So the water is considered holy water and its collected 

Not the greatest shot, but you can sort of make out the wet line of water thats flowing up.

The statues were beautiful and so detailed. Even with so many people in and out of the caves, it was still a reverent and peaceful place. I've been fascinated with Buddhism (as more of a philosophy than a religion), so it was really great to be able to come and see and be immersed in the buddhist culture. 

The view from the top of the rock was just stunning

We headed back down and found the monkeys happily having a snack and leaving the tourists alone so we got a slightly less hectic look at them! 

We got back in the van, chugging cold water to cool off, our bodies not quite used to the humidity yet after living in the desert, and headed on towards our first hotel in Sigiriya. Along the way Predeep asked if we wanted to stop and see some elephants and ride one. We had already asked the tour company that if we had time to ride an elephant that we'd love to, but that we wanted to visit a sanctuary and not just a random place where the elephants are chained and mistreated. So we asked again that the elephants not be chained and he assured us they weren't. Apparently that was lost in communication because we arrived to this...

Unfortunately we had three kids with us that very much wanted to ride an elephant and knew no different (though the older one, Kai, later said it was really sad to see her chained up), so we were sort of stuck having to do it or deal with extremely upset kids. So we paid and climbed on our poor, chained up elephant, feeling guilty and awful the whole time. The handler even had one of the mean looking sticks her poked her with. It made it so hard to enjoy, but the kids at least loved it. 

After the ride we fed our elephant, Mutu (which means "pearl") some cucumbers and got to feel her thick skin. Stella was fascinated and loved her! 

After that we headed to our hotel. It was absolutely gorgeous! We were greeted with cold towels and a passion fruit slush to cool down while we checked in.

The grounds were just stunning! 

We got settled in our rooms and headed to the pool for a swim. It was an infinity pool that faced Sigiriya rock and the surrounding jungle and it was incredible! The water was warm and perfect and we all enjoyed some down time after our travels.

The girls!

We had a wonderful dinner filled with Sri Lankan curry and fresh fruit and then we called it an early night, exhausted from flying and driving all night and day and excited to see what the next day had in store for us.