Beautiful Sri Lanka

Hello peeps!

I arrived in Sri Lanka on the 20th November tired but excited. My flight left from Bangkok on the 19th November, arriving in Mumbai at midnight and then taking the connecting flight to Colombo at 2am, arriving at 4.30am. The plan was to sleep on the later flight, but a lovely Sri Lankan man sat next to me, and told me about the country and offered me a place to stay with him and his wife, if I was to stay near Kandy.

On arrival, I went to find a shuttle bus to take me to Negombo bus station and it was exactly as it was described in the most helpful blog (www.mirissa.com). I was approached by several tuktuk drivers claiming that I could not  get to Colombo other than by tuktuk. The shuttle bus did not run on Sundays and I was not able to get there any other way. Ups, about 5 meters up the road was the bus. :)

From Negombo bus station I took 187-bus to Colombo. I paid for two seats; one for me and one for my bag. From Colombo I took a train. The plan was to take it all the way to Mirissa, but there was railworks, so I could only take it to Aluthgama. On the train I got talking to another lovely man, who invited me to the lowlands. As I started to look confused as the train stops didnt have any names and I had no idea where I was, someone came for rescue. When we started approaching the station he asked me to follow and started pretty much running across the train to the other end (which was near the platform). I could just about stay behind him, running with 20kg bag in my bag in the moving train. At Aluthgama I took a bus to Galle. That must have been the scariest busride ever with the bus driver overtaking cars with big buses approaching on the other lane and nearly getting into a few accidents. Now, I read about this in the guidebook and that is why I took a train. :)

At Galle I had 2.5 hours to wait for the next train so I took a toktok to Galle Fort hotel for some lunch and admired the amazing views. Then took a train from Galle to Welligama and there, met a lovely family, who invited me for lunch the next day. From Welligama I took a tuktuk to Mirissa and was happy to see the picturesque beach after 8-hour travel.

On Monday I visited the house of lovely Wasana and her husband. A lot of their friends and family came to see the weird-looking white girl. Wasana had made some lovely curry, which I attempted eating with my right hand, as they do here. It is surprisingly difficult to do in a tidy way. We then looked at some family photoes, had a little disco and I had to do some singing and dancing. :D Such a lovely, lovely people and I was honoured to be the first foreigner to set foot in their house.

The next day I went whalewatching, arranged by my guesthouse, Surf Sea Breeze. We saw some dolphins and a few whales too. Really, really amazing experience.

The next day is starting raining and it has been raining ever since. Still, the weather was warm and I spend most of the time reading and sleeping. I have gotten into a rhythm of going to bed around 10 and waking up around 6-7am. It really feels like a holiday, despite the lack of sun.

Yesterday was rather scary. In the morning, a cyclone swept by Mirissa and the south of Sri Lanka. First it started as a particularly strong wind, and then developed into a huge storm. Trees were falling (some on the telephone lines, which cut the electricity of the whole city). We all were asked to stay in the restaurant bit to stay safe. I accidentally left my window open, which meant that the room was rained in. Unfortunately I had my mobile phone on the table, so that is completely ruined now. But overall, it was very very scary. As the forecast was also showing heavy rains for the next 2 weeks, we decided to head more north. I travelled with an Australian girl and a few British people and we got to Negombo in the evening. And here I am now.

There is a problem uploading photoes from my camera at the moment and I am a little bit scared that my camera got damaged by the cyclone yesterday as everything got wet.

So I will try to get it fixed and upload some lovely pictures from Sri Lanka.

My plans are very open at the moment. I was meant to do some surfing now, but the weather is so bad at the coast, that I am probably going to visit the Cultural Triangle or climb the Adam's peak.

TBC.

Bangkok 17-19.11

Relaxation. Sleeping. Thai curries. Manicure. Shopping. Updating blog. Sleeping. Relaxation.
It was too much of an effort to take a lense off my camera, so I have no photoes. I went to see no sites. But it was lovely. :)

Today I am off to Sri Lanka for a month. I'll write more from there. It feels good to be up-to-date with blog..finally.

Kathmandu and the drive there from Kodari (the boarder town)

...and I thought that the drive in the mountain-roads of Tibet was scary....welcome to Nepal! The views were stunning but the drops not. Unfortunately that just cannot be captured in the photoes. We also passed the world's second largest Bungy jumping spot (picture below).

We got to Kathmandu in the evening of the 12th November. I had been looking forward to seeing it, doing a bit of shopping, having a shower and maybe having a few beers, but I was feeling terrible. The day morning I woke up to a bad stomach bug (and everything that normally comes with it. Or more like, go out with it). I tried to go out and see one night, as I wanting to spend time with the group, who were mostly leaving that day, but it was hard to stand up. And when I eventually did go out, a bird shat on my head. But hey, that apparently brings good luck! :)

When I got better, I still had a day to visit the sites. Luckily lovely Renee was still in town, so we hired a taxidriver / tourguide and went to see some of the main attractions:

Durbar Square (ancient square crowded with palaces & temples and the most popular UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nepal)
Swayambhu (A large stupa, highly revered in Nepal, and one of the most sacred Buddhist sites in the country with great views over the city and lots of monkeys running around)
Boudhanath (one of the largest stupas in the world and one of the holiest Buddha sites in Kathmandu)
Pashupati (one of the most significant Hindu temples of Shiva in the world and Unesco World Heritage Site). There was a funeral ongoing which beginning we watched. It was embarrassing to see lots of westerners with their big cameras clicking away of the body and the crying relatives).

Despite really liking Kathmandu I was happy to leave for to Bangkok on the 16th. The air there was very polluted and after 4 days it starting to get to me a little. I was also looking forward to doing bugger all, having a manicure and a feeling the warmth of the sun. And eating some thai curries! :)

Mount Everest base camp

The drive to the Mount Everest (Mt. Qomolangma in Tibetan) was over 10 hours so we left at dawn. After a night in a hotel with no heating (even with the temperature well below 0 in the night time), we were cold and tired to got into the bus with windows frozen from the inside.

The drive, nevertheless was far from boring. Going up and down countryroads, which were barely wide enough for another car to pass and with no fence... I had to keep my eyes closed part of the time to avoid myself from screaming. Or fainting. Still....the views were worth it all!

Once we got to the Base camp my new camera's batteries say goodnight to me. I was rather annoyed. But never mind! Therefore, no nice zoom pictures of the great Qomolangma. But instead some group posing. And Anna-posing. :)

After a beautiful drive back with some stunning mountain-views we stayed one night near the base camp and the next night in the boarder city. That was first night I stayed out after 10pm and we decided to go to a Bollywood nightclub, which was fun! The next morning the crossed the boarder to Nepal and said bye to our lovely tourguide and the fearless busdriver.

More of the beautiful Tibet...

The next coming days we were admiring the monastries, stupa's, mountains and people of Gyantse, Gigatse and Sakya. The driving between the different places was mostly 7-8 hours and we always stopped by for lunch for cute little places on the way. And boy we say some "cute little toilets" in those towns and between. Actually the topic deserves its own chapter in this blog.

Some of the hightlights were:

Yamdrok Teo lake
The stupa in the Gyantse monastry
The 26-meter Buddha statue inTashilhunpo monastry in Gigantse
The festival in Sakya and the blessing from the lama

However, I most like to take pictures of the stunning people of Tibet, so they definitely seem to be the priority of my photoes. (The last one above is a picture from a highest toilet I've been to at 5200 meters).