Locked on the outside...

... of the apartment! Not the best place to be, when I should be well on my way to yoga !!!! Gives me good time to provide a small up-date though, so I guess it's not all bad :)

This weekend had another excursion on the program. I left Colombo on Friday to go to Nuwara Eliya - A place I've really been looking forward to seeing. The Brits used N.E. to escape the smothering summer heat of Colombo in the colonial times. N.E. is situated in the hill country and is around 2000 meters above sea level. This really isn't the right time to go, because it is now the rainy season on this part of the island, but hey.... a little rain never hurt anyone, right!

Supposedly, it is a five hour drive there. That only applies if you take the main road though.... That was our intention, but since they're not really very big on road signs here, it can be VERY diffucult to know when to turn!!! We took our first detour, when we were tying to get out of the city...Only a small one though, and I feel confident that the detour only led us roud the crazy Friday afternoon traffic!!!

For the next 100 km's we knew the way, so no problems. I should add that the journey is only around 170 kms or so, but measuring a trip in kms is not really provinding a very accurate time estimate! Roads here are small, and it seems that the Sri Lankan drivers have their own traffic rules ie four lanes on a two lane road is a very common sight. Not for the faint hearted, when you driving on a steep mountain side!!!

Anyways, at some point shortly after Kandy the otherwise very competent co-driver must have read the map slightly wrong (again, I cannot be held totally responsible considering the lacking sign situation :). In any case, after some time we found our selves on a VERY small, narrow, steep, hairpin bended road - more like a path!. It was after 8 and pitch black - but we took the whole lot with our heads held high - we set out for adventure, and that's what we got! At one point, in the middle of absolutely no where, we came to a checkpoint, which you normally only find in and around the cities - at that point, I must admit, the adrenalin started pumping a bit. I have been a scout and all, but I haven't ever been on some random, deserted mountain side back-road in Sri Lanka, not having a clue about my whereabouts.... For all we knew, we could have been on our way into some kind of forbidden military land or something!!!

But, we weren't.

The sleepy soldier, whom we woke up from his nap, told us that we were, after all, on the road to Nuwara Elyia.... So the journey steadily proceeded. Still another hour on the smaller-than-reality-roads, but all of a sudden we saw a three-wheeler - and that was a welcomed sight, because we had been the only ones on the road for almost 2 1/2 hours. He was very helpfull, told us we only had 23 kms to Nuwara Elyia. Quite the relief, since Jill had been driving since 4 Pm, and we were approaching 10 pm at that time. The almost compolsurary and ever present Sri Lankan friendly- and helpfulness came to our rescue, as the tuc tuc driver went out of his way, drove infront of us for 3 kms, until we were safe on the main road to Nuwara Eliya. Within an hour we made it to there, but again the lack of signs brougt us in a hole.

Where to find the hotel ?

We asked another tuc tuc driver, who said we were close; straight ahead and turn left by the church. Well, we went straight - soon we found ourselves on a gravel road, narrower and steeper than ever, and that's when we thought: "this seems a little off!" All that was left to do was to turn the car around and go back....

Easier said than done, though!

Jill's car is BIG, road inhumanly steep and narrow!!!? To our left, we had a drive way going down to a house (this was steep in the other direction!) Jill tried to make her way around it, but we had to see ourselves defeated. There we were; stuck in a drive way - couldn't go neither ahead nor back. At this point, the couple living in the house came out to see, who was doing all that wheel spinning in their drive way. After gesturing our situation from a distance and apologising, the man living there came up to the car, offering to take the wheels, which we gladly accepted. Navil once again proved the genuine interest and hospitality that characterises the Sri Lankans, and before we knew it, we were sitting on their couch having several servings of their dessert! Just amazing really, not as much the dessert (eventhough that was nice too),as the whole experience itself! They drew up a map for us, so that we could find the hotel, but in the end they decided that we couldn't find it, and so their friend, Sri, offered to escort us there in his car :) Really not a lot to say, apart from fact that, I'm still amazed over the heartfelt help and interest shown by perfect strangers.

Our hotel, St. Andrews (http://www.jetwinghotels.com/jetwingstandrews/) is an old colonial retreat, and it really did feel like we were entering a different world. Very British and historical. It took a few GT's to bring us down after, finally, arriving there !

Early morning Saterday, we got up, had breakfast and drove of the Hakgala, which is a botanical garden outside N.E. Not park'ish as the one in Kandy. It is situated on a mountain side and you're really able break a sweat, while at the same time getting the most amazing view of mountains and again LOTS of GREEN!

Because it is the rainy season, the view wasn't as nice as it could have been, we were told. To me though, there wasn't anything to complain about - just to put in a nice understated term! It was still early when we left from there. So we we still had the rest of the day. We went back to N.E. and walked around a bit, not the most spectacular place, but I guess the city itself is not the reason for coming here. What makes the place so unique, is the surrounding nature and tea plantations. This really is a magnificent spectacle, though ! We descended the mountain at a slow pace, stopping every other minute to take yet another picture of the view and scenery. The further down we came, the more the temperature rose and with that, so too did the vegetation change. In N.W. pine trees were all around. I'm sure the temperature there was just around 10-12 degrees at night and in the morning.

To Sri Lankan's this is COLD, so everyone were wearing BIG leatherjackets or coats, long pants, beanies.... and a lot of them no shoes?!? I did feel cold, but not to the extent were I felt the need to put on THAT much clothes ;)

We stopped at the Rampoda falls, which was quite nice sight too - adding to the whole waterfall experience though, was the sweet and smiling down-syndrome woman, who just wanted to be in the picture !!!

We visited yet another city, which we, accidentally, had drving through the night before, before we drove to Kandy and then made it the rest of the way back to Colombo. Only after stopping at a road side joint to have dinner. THE spiciest fish-curry and cocnut sambol I've have so far. Good, but OMG it was hot!!!

I'm pretty sure that what we manage to do, see and experience in 28 hours falls under the category of getting the most out things :)

So, Sunday I woke up in my own bed, and really just felt like getting out - NOT in a car, because admittedly 12+ hours in a car is long time within such a short period! So, I put on my running shoes, packed a bag, and went out on, what turned out to be, a 17 kms walk around Colombo! I know my own 'hood' pretty well by now, but I still tend to loose my sense of direction somewhat, when I go to other parts of the city. Walking around helps to solve the puzzle though!

Today, I had another first. For lunch, I went to the celebrate the end of the Ramadan at the home of the Indonesian High Commissioner - all thanks to Michelle though. Because of her work and life here, she's able to show me places that I wouldn't ever be able to go on my own. I really do consider myself very lucky, to be able to get such a varied and diverse picture of Sri Lanka.