12 months, 11 countries, 0 flights 🌏

It was time to leave our luxury penthouse suite (balcony included) in the hills of Kandy, and we were finally getting some bad weather for the first time. Our next stop is one of the most famous places in Sri Lanka and a Unesco world heritage site - the Ancient City of Sigirya. After another delicious breakfast at our favourite place in Kandy (Hela Bojun Hala), we jumped on a local bus to Dambulla (a town near Sigiriya home to some incredible cave temples which we would visit the next day). After a tuk tuk ride from Dambulla we arrived in Sigiriya that afternoon in the pouring rain at some cheap accommodation for about $20NZD per night. 

That evening I was randomly looking for places to eat on Google Maps, and found a place with 4.9 out of 5 stars so we headed there to eat. Little did we know we would spend the evening having a home cooking experience with a lovely local lady called Ramya. As we sat and sipped tea we chatted to her about her life in Sri Lanka, while she cooked a huge selection of local curries for us and 3 other couples who joined for the evening. The food was incredible and it was so interesting to watch the entire process from preparing the produce to cooking everything on her home built clay oven.

The next day was an exciting day as it was Alice's birthday! Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t the best as it was raining and we would be spending most of the day travelling from Sigiriya to our next location, Anuradhapura. But first things first, we had a rock to climb. So for a rather extortionate price of $35USD each we went to check out the world famous Sigiriya. It is a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of granite approximately 180 m (590 ft) high. Buddhist monks lived in the area from around 300 BC and in the 4th century AD it was developed into a complex city and impenetrable fortress which even included a crocodile infested moat. The gardens surrounding the fortress are among the oldest landscaped gardens in the world! The king at the time had much of the western face of the rock covered by incredible fresco style paintings (Fresco is a mural painting technique that involves painting with water-based paint directly onto wet plaster so that the paint becomes an integral part of the plaster). Unfortunately, once the city was deserted by the kingdom many of these paintings were lost forever. These days a small collection still remains in a cave situated halfway up the side of the rock, and they are some of the oldest fresco paintings in the world and also some of the most intricate and beautiful paintings I have ever seen. It was humbling and inspiring to see the incredible artistry of the people living there over 1600 years ago. We climbed to the top of the rock and were greeted by heavy rain and mist obscuring most of the view. Nevertheless, we were happy to have come and seen this ancient place, and the frescoes had really made it all worth it for me.

After Sigiriya it was a quick local bus ride back to Dambulla where we wanted to see another world heritage site - the Dambulla cave temples. We had heard good things about this place, but didn’t know much going into it. It is fair to say that we were really blown away. The temple is composed of five caves of varying sizes and magnificence dating back to around 100 AD. The caves are incredible, every part of the floor, walls, and roof are painted with colourful buddhist patterns, and countless statues of the Buddha himself are hewn out of the rock. I struggle to find the words to describe it, so check out the pictures for a bit more of an idea! 

 

Every religion has beautiful monuments and temples, but I have personally found the Buddhist temples of Sri Lanka take the cake. The colourful patterns and sculptures of the Buddha are enveloped by hanging branches of sacred Bodhi Trees. The temples are often at the top of hills, tucked away in caves, or hidden in forests, and this makes them such beautiful and peaceful places. I have also resonated with many Buddhist teachings so far on this trip, in particular the idea that desire is the root cause of suffering. Also how mindfulness, the practice of being fully present in the moment, is crucial for understanding and accepting reality as it is, rather than clinging to our expectations.

We finished off this busy day of temples with another bus ride to our next destination, Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka. Here we found a nice Biryani place for Alice’s birthday dinner and then turned in for an early night dreaming of temples and ancient civilizations.

We arrived in Kandy weary. For most of the bus and the train ride from Sri Pada, totaling seven hours, two out of the three of us had been without a seat. We were feeling the effects of five hours of sleep, five hours of walking, and two full on travel days. Kandy is the third largest city in Sri Lanka, and our accommodation was situated (like most) up in the hills surrounding the city. We arrived right at sunset to meet a lovely family who took us to the top floor of their house which was to be ours for the next few days, complete with a dining area and a huge balcony!  For only 5,000 LKR ($30 NZD) a night for both of us, it felt very luxurious to have our own space. Our first night in Kandy was spent enjoying that space. We ordered a pizza through PickMe (local equivalent of Uber) and Josh worked on this website while I listened to a podcast and stuck things in my journal (AKA bliss). 

Sidebar here on the website - Josh is putting hours into this blog!! Some new features include email previews of posts, the ability to like and reply to comments (we would love it if you tested this one out!), captions on photos, word compression of posts (this one is coming soon), as well as fixing a bunch of backend stuff that hopefully makes the experience better for all of you dear readers!! Before this I definitely didn’t understand how much time and effort goes into building a site from scratch like this, and it’s really cool to see first hand how much Josh loves what he does. Hopefully we’re able to monetise this as the trip goes on. 

Something we are learning quickly, now we’re about three weeks in, is the importance of down time! It would be literally impossible to go the same pace you would on a four week holiday for a year, and it does wonders for our mental stamina and overall mood when we take some slow mornings and evenings. It gives us time to do other things we love too - like working on the blog, keeping in touch with friends and family, reading our books, sticking things in my journal (Norton and Turnbull family knows), and of course a healthy dose of phone time. It’s also interesting how we are feeling like we need a little bit of alone time - it’s quite a change spending 24/7 together when we’ve come from separate 9-5 jobs. Occasionally a solo walk or some headphone time goes down a treat. I’m not sure if this commentary is the most interesting in the world, but hopefully it gives you some further insights into our life at the moment. Kandy was also the first time we experienced some wet weather here in Sri Lanka, and when it rained it poured!!! It timed quite well with our nice accommodation, weary bodies, and the need for some chill time. 

I’m not quite sure how we hadn’t managed to stumble across these before now - but in Kandy we found our first Hela Bojun Hala. These are a food court type market initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture, designed to empower rural women by providing them a space to cook and sell traditional Sri Lankan food. They act as a platform for female entrepreneurship in the food sector and they served some of the best food we have had all trip!! Turns out these are everywhere in Sri Lanka, we just hadn’t come across one until now. It was a really cool experience, fourteen different counters serve different items so you order what you want with a cashier and then get tickets for all the stalls you need to pick your food up from. We had two breakfasts here and tried so many different things, some that we already knew we loved (egg hoppers of course), and some new things too (puri… we hope we see more of this in India). In Kandy we also enjoyed some great fruit from the market, Indian dosas, and a couple of more local spots where we had some spicy biryani. If you are loving the food chat, there is a dedicated blog post about the food coming in a few days time to give you all the delicious details. 

The botanical gardens in Kandy were a real treat. It was quite sentimental for the two of us as well - Josh loves visiting gardens with his mum, and I have fond memories of visiting gardens when travelling abroad with my family. The orchid house took me right back to the beautiful orchids my Grandma Mary and Grandad always grew in their garden. It seemed to be a school trip day at the gardens, and every corner we turned there was another school group chorusing us with “hi” and “bye”! A few of the braver students came up to us asking us where we were from, with one sweet boy who was about eight years old asking Josh very earnestly, “What do you think of our Sri Lanka?”. We saw a chameleon change colour in front of our eyes which was amazing, and we also saw a million monkeys (including a FaceTime with Mackenzie and Jacob’s monkey Gromit to say hello). We visited all the trees planted by various dignitaries dating back to the 1800s, including Walter Nash in 1958 and John Key in 2016. 

The final highlight of Kandy was the sacred temple of the tooth complex and surrounding ancient city. Kandy was the final capital of monarchical Sri Lanka, before the British conquered the city between 1815 and 1818. The most important area houses the Buddha's tooth relic, which holds huge religious and cultural value. According to legend, Princess Hemamali and Prince Danta smuggled the tooth to Sri Lanka from India in 371 AD, in the princesses' hair. Since then, the tooth has been dutifully cared for by different kings, and housed in regions all through Sri Lanka (depending on the ruling kingdoms at the time), to safeguard it against various unrest. The current temple was built in the 18th century by one of the last Kandyan kings. We had a wonderful guide Nuhan who took us around the temple, and provided historic, philosophical, religious, and just hilarious, insights. Half way through the tour, and to our surprise, we were joined by a Ukrainian family! We hadn’t agreed to this so were slightly confused but in the spirit of Buddha went with it. Turns out Nuhan had told them it would cost 10K to join, and they agreed, so Nuhan greatly reduced our price, down to just 2K! We seriously felt like we got our money's worth and all got a good laugh out of it too. We also watched a ‘traditional’ Kandyan dance show which was beautiful, but I do always wonder how ‘traditional’ these sorts of performances really are!!

Our final big win was finding a travel agent who could help us book our ferry tickets to India. We tried time and time again to do this ourselves, but either the website was down, they wouldn’t accept our card, or something else wasn’t working, so we decided to take it to the experts. Within a day of leaving Kandy the tickets were in our WhatsApp inbox, and now we have our fingers crossed that the ferry actually goes the day we need it to. So with our onward tickets in hand, and the rain still pouring, we ate a final breakfast at the Hela Bojun Hala and boarded a very busy bus to Dambulla, the launch pad for our visit to the UNESCO world heritage site, Sigirya, and my birthday!

After our time in Ella trying to escape the hordes of tourists in town, we would be forced to join them for the next leg of our trip. The famous Ella to Kandy train ride, which winds its way through the stunning hill country and tea fields at the heart of Sri Lanka. The train ride is instagram-famous, as you can risk your life by hanging out the side to snap scenic photos (die for the gram). We did attempt this but it was a serious struggle to get a half decent photo with the camera (still a bit of work to be done on our photography skills). This was the first time we had paid extra for reserved seats on a train, and it was well worth it. Instead of doing the entire 7 hour journey from Ella to Kandy, we disembarked at Hatton, a small town in the hill country. From here we immediately jumped on a local bus (this time without the tourists) which took us on a windy hour-long trip through rolling tea fields to our next destination, Adam’s Peak / Sri Pada.

Sri Pada means 'sacred footprint' in Sinhala and the mountain is revered as a holy site due to a boulder at the summit containing an indentation resembling a footprint. It is revered by Buddhists, Sri Lankan Hindus, Muslims, and Christians who all believe that their respective god or deity was responsible for the footprint. This makes the mountain a major pilgrimage site and thousands of pilgrims climb the 5000+ steps every year to reach the summit. It was pretty inspiring to see people of all ages and stages climbing and descending this sacred peak, some looking pretty broken by the end. We saw young parents carrying up babies, groups of friends egging each other on with chants, and older relatives being helped up and down each and every step. For a lot of locals, they start the climb in the evening and take the whole night to get to the top, with lots of rest and naps along the way. Although we took it a lost faster, it was by no means an easy climb, with 5,000 concrete steps taking a toll on the body. Should have done more stairmaster at the gym. We felt very overdressed in our RAB shells and La Sportiva hiking shoes, most people were wearing jandals and were wrapped in blankets they had bought at the aforementioned shops. 

Another feature of Sri Pada, is the conical shadow it casts on the surrounding plains at sunrise. Naturally we decided we had to be up there for sunrise to see this legendary shadow. Unfortunately, this would mean a 2 AM start for us as the hike was supposed to take around three to four hours on the way up and two hours on the way down. We had met a friendly Italian called Alberto at our accommodation, and so we started the day at 2 AM and set forth on an adventure with bleary eyes. The start of the hike is like nothing I have ever seen before. For the first 30 minutes, we walked past an endless line of stores selling everything from local sweet treats, polyester hats, gloves and blankets for the top of peak, ayurvedic treatments, temple paraphernalia, foot massage machines, and even kids toys. We eventually left the bulk of the stores behind once the stairs started, although there were tea shops dotted all the way up the mountain which sold tea, cold drinks and snacks. We had heard some horror stories about the final 10% of the climb becoming a standstill due to the combination of narrow steps and the mass of pilgrims trying to reach the summit for sunrise. Fortunately, our homestay host had given us some killer local advice to take an alternative route near the summit connecting us to another path that would take us to a spot just below the summit from where you can watch the sunrise and the shadow simultaneously. This worked perfectly, and we made it to the spot with time to kill before sunrise. So we settled in enjoying the moment as our plans came to fruition. We sipped our tea, listening to buddhist monks chanting, while we watched the sun creep up over the horizon behind buddhist prayer flags flapping in the wind. As the sun continued to rise in the sky, the triangular shadow cast by the mountain slowly started to appear on the horizon. It was an incredible moment, and we found ourselves spinning in circles taking photos of the sunrise and then turning around to take photos of the shadow in the other direction.

Once we had finished feasting our eyes on the scenery and filling our camera rolls with photos, we pushed on to the summit to see the temple and the sacred footprint. There was a bell at the top which pilgrims would ring once for every time they had visited the peak (we watched in awe as an old man rang it well over 30 times). The footprint itself was actually covered by a golden cloth for protection (apparently it is very rarely visible) and photos were prohibited, Alice actually walked out saying “where was the footprint?”. Print or no print, the summit was a very peaceful and spiritual place, with people from many religions coming together to worship. We eventually decided it was time to go, and started on our way down. On our way we passed a long standstill queue of pilgrims stuck on their way up the mountain, which we had managed to avoid with the wise advice from our homestay host. The walk down was a breeze in comparison to the uphill slog and we skipped our way down many of the steps getting to the bottom in only two hours. Waiting for us at the bottom was breakfast served by our lovely homestay host, who was stoked to hear his shortcut worked a treat. By this stage our knees were starting to ache and our calves starting to cramp, but we still had a long travel day ahead of us. We needed to catch the hour and a half (windy) bus back to Hatton where we would hop back on the train we had left the day prior to finish the rest of the journey to our next stop, Kandy. We were very excited to sit down for the rest of the day and hopefully find some time to nap along the way.

“Ella” means waterfall in Sinhala, and the many waterfalls around this hill country town, along with the tea plantations, scenic train rides and hikes attracts many visitors to Ella during their time in Sri Lanka. The Main Street is the heart of the backpacker scene, with restaurant on restaurant selling pizza, beer and all night parties. The souvenir shops and hustling drivers felt like a far cry from the Sri Lanka we were falling in love with. We were staying slightly out of town, up a series of switchbacks, a marginally paved road and some under construction steps. The highlight of our accommodation was the view from the deck that looked out directly at popular walks Ella Rock and Little Adam’s Peak. It was otherworldly, with mist swirling down through the valleys and jungle-clad ridges stretching back as far as the eye could see. The type of scene you see in a guide book or computer desktop, and we had a front row seat from our $15 a night guest house!

It won’t come as a surprise to any of you that we largely avoided the Main Street, apart from a few visits to sample the local culinary delights including a pizza, gelato and coffee. All great, and much appreciated! We also got up to our usual nonsense of walking into places and eating whatever we were given, and one morning had some leftovers from a family at our guesthouse (unbeknown to them) who skipped the coconut pancakes and the fried roti rolls - absolute madness!!! 

Our first full day in Ella was one of our absolute favorite days of the trip so far, and included the Ella trifecta of tea estate, waterfall and a hike! On a recommendation from Juliet, who we met in Galle, we had done some research into AMBA estate, a tea estate about a 30 minute drive from Ella. AMBA is an organic farm, guest-house and social enterprise, where maximising local employment and income is prioritized, while preserving and restoring the natural environment. Although the accommodation was slightly out of our budget this time, they have a daily tour at 11 AM which we were very excited to join. Learning about the tea growing and production was fascinating, before this day I actually had no idea that all the different types of tea (black, white, oolong, green etc) were all made from the same plant, just treated differently during production! Our wonderful guide also went into detail about the role of tea in Sri Lanka, and how this has changed over the years. It was brought to Sri Lanka from China by the British, and at the height of this period Sri Lanka was producing 800 million kilograms of tea each year! Sri Lankan tea is the equivalent of a fine French wine, the soils and climate produce a vastly superior product compared to other parts of the world. Since Sri Lanka gained independence, tea production has reduced significantly (down to about 350 million kilograms) as a lot of the skills and knowledge were lost after this time. The teas we tried at AMBA were delicious. The flavours were bright yet subtle, each tea astoundingly different from the last when you remember that they are all made from the same plant! It reminded me of a wine tasting, learning about the different notes you get from each and what food would pair nicely. They do actually offer a tea and food pairing tasting! 

Another very interesting conversation was around the tea pickers. Historically, the British brought Tamil people from India to work on the plantations without proper pay or documentation. This has led to generations of undocumented Tamil people living and working in the highlands of Sri Lanka, who are still today an incredibly oppressed group of people that face large stigmas about their work and identity. Tea picking is seen as an inferior role in society, and the lack of ownership over a business or assets (as opposed to being say a tuk tuk driver with your own vehicle and business), is a major barrier for getting young people into the industry. This is part of what AMBA is trying to combat, giving workers buy-in to the business through a profit sharing type model. 

I also particularly enjoyed the conversations about brand. A lot of Sri Lankan tea is blended with the tea from other countries, and not differentiated as a luxury, superior product the way it could be. To me, this was reminiscent of the start of NZM, and the way New Zealand wool was traded as a commodity product with no differentiation from its Australian or South African counterparts! The main issue here is budget for global marketing, and a lack of a unified approach from the industry nationally. AMBA specifically is doing some amazing work and has small boutique retailers all around the world carrying their product. 

Outside of just tea, AMBA also produces delicious coffee and a range of jams and preserves, which we got to sample after our tea tasting. We also stayed on for a delicious lunch of freshly made roti and pumpkin soup which was simply divine. 90% of what they serve is grown and made onsite at AMBA!

AMBA has a number of walking trails around the property, one which connects to a trail that goes all the way back to Ella, via Ella rock. This was our route home, and after lunch and coffee we started the walk, which we expected to take about four to five hours. The walk was full of amazing moments, including the ‘World’s End’ view point, a secluded swimming hole at the very top of the legendary Ravana Falls (featured in the Ramayana), a forest monastery, sunset at the top of Ella Rock and a dusky/dark walk out through tea plantations and gardens to the railway that would take us back to our accommodation. I could write paragraphs on all of these moments, but I will let the pictures do most of the talking, apart from the forest monastery, which was a very special moment for us. And as we couldn’t take photos, I will have to explain!! 

We had seen ‘Forest Monastery’ on the map and were suitably intrigued. We’d just reached the top of the biggest climb in the walk and were wandering along the ridge towards Ella rock when we came across possibly the most peaceful place I’ve ever been in my life. There was a beautiful garden and a small selection of wooden buildings, and a couple of young monks in orange robes playing with a paper plane. We said hello to one of the more senior monks, who invited us into an empty hall, probably used for teaching, meditation, worship etc. He invited us to sit down and offered us some snacks, and proceeded to ask if we had any problems we would like to discuss with him! We used google translate to discuss big ideas such as the root cause of happiness and sadness, fixes for modern day anxiety and the importance of living in the present. The conversation ended with a group meditation, which felt like an immense privilege to experience in this environment. It’s hard to explain how special this all felt, being at the top of a mountain, conversing with a monk about life over google translate, in the most beautiful of locations. It’s definitely a touching experience that will stay with us. We could have sat and talked for hours, but it was starting to get towards dusk outside, and we still hadn’t made it to the top of Ella rock! As we said our goodbyes the leaving remarks of the monk were especially poignant and will stay with us as we move through this trip and beyond. 

Feeling incredibly touched we made our way up to the top of Ella rock where we appreciated the last of the sunset, before making our way back down to Ella using the light of our phone torches. We found a gorgeous local spot for dinner, newly opened and with the family cooking right in front of us. They asked us for google reviews which we were happy to oblige, as the curries were delicious. 

We had one more full day in Ella which we filled very easily with a 6 AM yoga class, chasing waterfalls and a visit to an active Buddhist monastery at sunset. The road up to the monastery was wild. Buses passing buses on blind corners, vehicles going head on towards each other daring the other to be the one that backs up, and so many unpaved switchback turns! Josh did an incredible job navigating all of this on our rental scooter, but by the time we got to the top I felt anything but centered and peaceful! The monastery itself was beautiful, and experiencing the processions of offerings and chanting at sunset was really special. The buzz and energy was worlds away from what we had experienced the day before, but totally moving in a different way.

The next day we packed up and headed to the train station, to depart on one of the most scenic train rides in the world and head towards our next stop, Sri Pada / Adam's Peak. After our first underwhelmed impressions at Ella town, we managed to have an incredibly special few days around the Ella area. My advice to anyone visiting would be to use the town as a base, but spend your time exploring the surrounding area to get to the heart of this hill country town. 

After a week on the coast, I was finally feeling ready for some different scenery. We packed our bags at Tangalle, and made our way to the bus station. It was time to head inland towards dusty savannahs and lush hill country with tea fields. Our next stop was Udawalawe National Park, famous for its wild elephants, with a herd of about 250 believed to be permanently resident in the park. We arrived by local bus and had about a 20 minute walk along the edge of the national park from the bus stop to our homestay. On this walk we saw two elephants, which heightened our excitement for the safari the next day.

The safari experience in Sri Lanka is full-on. We woke before sunrise, and crawled out of bed into the jeep waiting outside in the dark. The race was on now to beat the other jeeps to be the first into the park. We booked a safari with a guide called Lahiru recommended to us by some friends from back home. He was a friendly Sri Lankan with a wealth of knowledge about the national park, and had been guiding safaris for over 13 years. With his VIP status we were able to skip a large queue of jeeps to be one of the first to enter the park. 

After the rush and chaos before sunrise, things settled down as the sun came up over the wide and open savannahs of Udawalawe. As we drove further into the maze of the park, we gradually left behind the other jeeps. It was peaceful, and Lahiru with the eyes of a hawk started pointing out wildlife hidden in the trees and lakes. We saw crocodiles sleeping, water buffalo grazing, mongoose darting through the bush, and countless birds including a hornbill reminiscent of Zazu from The Lion King. 

However, we were most excited to see elephants and I was delusionally hopeful that we might spot a leopard, even though the leopard population at Udawalawe was tiny. For the first hour we saw lots of beautiful wildlife but no elephants, and just when we were starting to worry along came a huge lone male elephant. Not long after that, we came to a section on the road known to be a crossing point for elephants in the park. Elephants can travel up to 200km per day, and are almost always on the move. Seeing them in the wild made me sad for elephants in captivity. Lahiru said he could hear elephants coming so we waited at the crossing, and lo and behold a family of five elephants appeared including a baby elephant that was only a year old according to our guide. Our jeep was parked at the crossing, and the elephants walked right in front of us as they crossed the road, giving us ample opportunity to photograph them.

This safari was our biggest expense so far in Sri Lanka, and about half of the money went to the national park. The rest went to our guide and driver, who were more expensive than other operators but well worth it. Lahriu had excellent English and his years of experience and knowledge about the wildlife in the park was astonishing. I had heard stories of the safari drivers chasing animals and scaring them, but I saw none of this at Udawalawe. There was a lot of respect shown for the wildlife, and it is great that they have these protected national parks in Sri Lanka which are only accessible on a safari.