The port was a short 30 minute drive away from the main town of Jaffna, in a small beach town called Kankesanturai. We had visited the night before for a swim and to soak up our last sunset in Sri Lanka, one of the most beautiful we’d had so far. We also took this as an opportunity to scope out where we needed to go the following day. We had a 1 PM departure, so we arrived at 11 AM to begin the check in process. The port is part of a navy base, and from the number of staff in uniforms, you could definitely tell!! It was hard to know who was army, navy, port authority etc, but there were definitely a lot of them. Immigration and customs was easy and fast, with much smaller lines than you would experience at an airport. We were the only people there that weren’t Sri Lankan or Indian, so we got lots of smiles and attention the whole way through. After about 20 minutes, all the formalities were done, and we were waiting in a very cold departure lounge for another hour and a half until it was time to board. After eating amazing food all throughout Sri Lanka, our final meal consisted of different types of plain white bread and muffins, and Nescafé coffee. I couldn't believe I had eaten my last hopper without really memorialising the experience!!

After 90 minutes of sitting around, all of a sudden things started to move very fast. Everyone was up and out the doors before we even realized what was happening (we had both been plugged in writing and researching), and suddenly we were being told to hurry hurry! We still had our big bags so we were jammed into the middle of a bus to take us the two minutes over to the boat. Then, excitingly, we boarded the boat to India! Somehow we managed to be put in premium economy (by ourselves), not sure if this was our tickets or the fact we were the only white people… the seats were comfy and we had great views out to each side. Unfortunately you couldn’t go outside on this ferry, but we watched Sri Lankan land slowly fade away as we heading further across the Palak Straight. Throughout the start of the trip we were visited by a number of passengers from downstairs, many who were vlogging or FaceTiming friends and family. The boat between the two countries is still a bit of a novelty! They showed a great Bollywood style film on the boat (with subtitles), that was very dramatic and most entertaining, and we were served rice and curry for lunch. Josh had a nap (I was too engrossed in the film), and before too long we were sailing parallel to the Southern coast of Tamil Nadu, making our way to Nagappatinam. 

The train to Jaffna was the nicest train we had been on so far! We booked 3rd class unreserved seats which only cost us $4NZD total for both our tickets on the 200km (4 hour long) journey to the top of the country. We managed to get a comfortable booth to share with some friendly local guys from the north, one from Jaffna and the other from a small town nearby. They both spoke fluent English and were clearly very well educated. One was now living in the UK and back visiting his family, while the other was working in finance in Jaffna. They gave us some helpful recommendations for the city, and explained some of the cultural differences between Sinhalese people and Tamil people. We also got a language lesson, which taught us some basic phrases to use in Tamil (the language spoken by Tamil people), which is actually one of the oldest living languages in the world. We were very interested to see this culturally different part of Sri Lanka, and learn more about how the Civil War had impacted the people from this part of the country.

Jaffna is a dynamic city and we immediately felt the energy and hustle and bustle of the place. The primary religion of Tamil people is Hinduism rather than Buddhism which is everywhere in the south, and this was immediately noticeable. Hindu temples with their towering gateways adorned with statues of the innumerable Hindu gods were everywhere, and cows (considered sacred by Hindus) freely roamed the busy streets. This was my first time seeing anything Hindu and I am very excited to learn more about this ancient religion of many gods which dominates India.

Our first stop in Jaffna was to try and get some pants made for Alice (she had brought some from Glassons before we left and they lasted 2 weeks before ripping). A good reminder not to buy fast fashion. We headed to the nearby local market where we found a store selling linen, and Alice picked the colour she wanted. With fabric in hand, the helpful family at the shop sent someone with us to help. We walked down to an entire avenue of tailors, who seemed to speak almost no english. Luckily our friend from the store could roughly translate that Alice wanted some pants made from her fabric. The ladies in the tailoring store seemed uncertain at first as they were all tiny and Alice towered over them, but after some further conversation they seemed happy to do it and started taking measurements. We were not holding out hope that the pants would fit or be what Alice wanted but we left with our fingers crossed, and we would find out in a couple of days time.

For our first full day in the north we rented a scooter and started early as we had a big 200km of driving ahead of us. We started by heading to Point Pedro lighthouse (the northernmost point on the island) and from there we cruised down the eastern coast on the coastal highway. I have been quite impressed by the quality of the roads in Sri Lanka. They are wide, well painted and signposted with very few potholes. It made for a nice cruisy drive, with very little traffic and we made good time. We were heading for a small fishing town down the coast called Mullaitivu. This place has experienced tremendous suffering in recent years with the 2004 boxing day tsunami causing widespread devastation, and an important historical location from the Sri Lankan Civil War. We have learnt a lot about the Civil War from reading books set in the country during the time, and we wanted to see this harrowing place firsthand. The war was fought from 1983 to 2009 between the government and an insurgent terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE wanted to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to continuous discrimination and persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.

First we visited the government built war memorial which is a towering statue of a soldier raising a machine gun to the sky erupting from a quiet little pond covered in lillies. Next we went searching for the secret Tamil war memorial which was a lot less obnoxious and a lot more depressing. It consisted of five stone pillars topped with plastered hands dripping blood. There was clearly no government money available to fund the construction, and no signs to explain the significance and meaning behind the memorial. 

At the end of the Civil War with the LTTE in full retreat, they were holding hostage much of the civilian population in the area, and the government declared the area a ‘no fire zone’. However, this was largely ignored and according to the UN, between 40,000 and 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed from indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. Not that the LTTE were saints either, as they reportedly shot at any civilians attempting to escape. It was a barren and desolate place even today, and I can’t even imagine the horror that the innocent Tamil people caught up in this conflict must have experienced.

The next day was our last full day in Sri Lanka, and we spent it doing some more lighthearted activities. First stop was to check on Alice’s pants, and to our surprise they were a major success. The shape and fit was great, and the stitching looked impeccable. I suspect they will last much longer than the Glassons pants. We thanked the ladies in the tailoring shop and Alice got a photo with them which they loved. We met a lovely local guy called Kasun at his coffee shop. He was so lovely, and actually ended up offering to cook dinner for us for our final night in Sri Lanka. After a scooter ride to the beach for sunset we were back to Kasun’s for dinner, which was a delicious Vietnamese pho. Kasun was a chef for many years in a Vietnamese restaurant, and his cooking was great. It was an excellent final dinner and night in this amazing country, and overall a really nice day. Tomorrow we will be catching the ferry to India, and we were equally nervous and excited about this next step in our journey. Would the ferry even go? Would our Indian visas be accepted fine at the port in India? All would be revealed the next day..

I still can’t quite make my mind up on our time in Anuradhapura. If I was talking to a friend or family member who was visiting Sri Lanka, I would say it’s definitely worth visiting if you’re interested in history, but only stay for two nights and plan your time wisely. We’ve found with travelling so far you walk a careful line between planning your time for maximum enjoyment and understanding, and then keeping an element of spontaneity and taking things as they come. Anuradhapura has a lot to see, and if you don’t plan it well, it very quickly looks like a lot of rocks and big bell shaped temples. 

Anuradhapura felt very undeveloped for tourists, which we usually love, but in this case we really struggled to find places to eat and things to do outside of visiting the temples. It was also my birthday on the day we arrived, and it was still pouring with rain which made heading out to explore much less appealing. We looked at a few different places for dinner, and eventually settled on an upstairs balcony spot that was well known for its biryani and delicious roti pots. It wasn’t quite my dream of a nice hotel restaurant dinner that might have even included a glass of wine, but c’est la vie, there are much bigger problems in this world. 

Anhuradapura was another UNESCO world heritage site, so we parted with another $30 USD each for entry to the main sites. We also invested in a guide and tuk tuk driver, the sites span 100 square kilometers, so it’s a little hard to get around. Anuradhapura is old, and this is a good thing to keep in mind when visiting. The ruins are pretty ruined! Historical documents of Sri Lanka date the founding of the city at 437 BC, but the site has been inhabited for much longer, and records show there had been human settlement here for almost three millennia! It was the country's longest serving capital, and the centre of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Today, a lot of the stupas have been restored and some have been added, creating an atmosphere of harmony and connection between ancient times and modern life. We visited ancient cities that were once home to thousands of monks, then we visited a stupa with almost the same number of present day Sri Lankan people worshipping in similar ways. It is quite simply mind blowing. This is especially hard to even comprehend coming from a country with a very young history - the first Māori settlers in New Zealand arrived around the time this city was being abandoned, after 1,500 years of flourishing society! 

The history of the place is just incredible, and having a guide with us was super important to be able to understand even some of this history. As with every guide we have had so far, he had amazing English and was able to share complex Buddhist teachings with us as well as discussing the challenges the country has faced coming out of the Civil War. Our guide mentioned how these days many Buddhists in Sri Lanka come to worship at these sacred sites wanting to have their problems solved. They recite chants without actually understanding the meaning behind Buddhist teachings, merely hoping that doing so will solve their problems. He also seemed critical of many modern day Buddhists in Sri Lanka, for appearing to worship Buddha in one moment and then acting in a way that goes against his teachings in the next. I’m sure this happens in most religions globally, maybe a sign of how the role of religion is changing with modern life?

One of our favourite sites in Anuradhapura was the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi Tree. This tree is the oldest living human planted tree in the world, with a known planting date of 2300 years ago. This tree is the only known cutting of the Bodhi tree that Buddha reached enlightenment under, making it a very special pilgrimage location for many buddhists. The place had an enlightening, reverent feel to it, and we were both in awe of how special this tree was. 

Other highlights included some of the original carvings, like the moonstones and guardstones. They were so detailed and amazingly well preserved considering their age! Then of course, there were the giant stupas. At the time of construction, one of the major stupas was the third tallest monument in the world, behind the pyramids in Egypt! They also used fascinating techniques like certain plaster to preserve the Stupas, a job that today would be done with chemicals. Nature always has the answers!! 

I hope this blog hasn’t come across as too negative, it really was some of the most fascinating history I have ever come across. I think our energy was waning a bit, and sites like these you need to approach full steam. At this point we were also deep in the blurred line between holiday and travel, a confusing place we sat in for about a week. It was such a privilege to experience this deep history, and it got us even more excited about all the temples, ruins and history we have coming our way over the next year. It would be remiss of me not to mention that our accommodation also did coffee delivery to our room, (yes, you heard that right, room service), so we enjoyed some slower mornings in bed as well reading our books and being very restful. 

On our final morning in Anuradhapura we boarded the train to Jaffna, our final stop on this amazing island.  In a way Anhuradpura marked the beginning of the end of our time in Sri Lanka, as Jaffna was going to be much more akin to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where we were heading in just a few days' time. 

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!