Around The World With Lena: A hectic start of the trip

I have had some really nice and hectic days, like always when I'm traveling with Intrepid Travel.

Since I wrote my last blog, 2 days ago, I have:

met the group of 12 people + the guide. We are 11 women, 1 man and a male guide
Travelled from Negombo to Anuradhapura (took several hours by bus)
Swam 1000 meters two times (one time each day)
Climbed/hiked a mountain with a monastery. It was somewhat of a challenge to my fear of heights
Had a bike tour where we visited MANY historical religious sites, where the Bo Tree, which was grown from a cutting of the original tree in Bodhgaya under which Buddha gained the enlightenment, was the one that stood out.
Had a cooking show
and so on…..

I will not tell you in detail about all these things, since you can read about them in any tourist book. I think it is more interesting for you to read about my observations. Or?! Let me know what you think?!

The group is a lovely combination of strong women used to travel the world on their own. We have one retired couple with us (hence the man in the group) who are traveling the world together. I think it is a lovely way to spend your retirement. I hope I can do that also. My room mate is the best in the group. She is a cool chick from London, a mother of two daughters and divorced. We are the same age, we have had similar family "problems", similar problems with men and we are laughing trough the night discussing these things. But we look rather funny together. I'm totally white after a winter in Sweden and my usual blond hair and Annie is totally black, skin and hair. We joke about this and I always start to sing Michael Jackson's song (it doesn't matter if your black or white) in my head while looking at us together. She is teaching me proper English language, since I'm totally destroyed from all the time I have spent in California.

The rest of the group consist of one half Aussies and one half British people. I'm the only one that don't have English as my mother tongue. And I have to say that it is sometimes hard to follow all the British and Australian expressions that I have never heard before. But it is a great group with a lot of fun.

The guide on the other hand, seems to have a complete lack of humor. He is hardly smiling and is taking himself FAR to serious. And as a super efficient Swede that wants everyone to get to the point fast - I sometimes get very bored and maybe even a bit annoyed with his way of telling us things. He repeats everything several times (yeah, I know you should repeat yourself if you want people to fully understand, but that is not how he is doing it) in a way it feels like he is talking in circles. When you are standing in the hot sun, you have even higher requirements on how fast people should get to the essence of the subject. Our guide takes his time. And he says "do you follow (me)" every second sentence. That has a tendency to make me both smile and get annoyed. If I start to say that (do you follow) from now on - you all know where I got it from.

To ride a bike in Sri Lanka is a different experience. Especially when you drive the bike through the city traffic. You have to pay close attention to everything that happens around you and that is a LOT. To cross the street - you need help from someone that can take the role of a temporary traffic police But all in all it is an amazing way to see the sights. The wind cools you down while biking, you are good to the environment, you get a little bit of exercise and you see everything, but are still moving quite fast compared with the rest of the traffic. I wish all my trips had more biking.

One more thing - there are monkeys everywhere. And they are quite sneaky. They will take what ever they can put their hands on. They took Annie's ( my room mate's) mangosteens (a fruit that I learned to love in Malaysia) from her hand. So you better watch out here.

Tonight we are going to Chinese restaurant. It feels a bit funny to do that in Sri Lanka, but it is a recommendation. And we have been eating local food so far….