Around The World With Lena: Ruins, Elephants and Spices

I don't know if it is good or bad when you get tired from having a vacation?! But I'm tired. :-) In a good way. We have had long days filled with lots of activities and/or transports. But I enjoy every minute of it.

During the last days we have:

Biked some more around ruins
Been on a elephant safari
Hiked to the top of big rock (Sigirya)
Seen more Buddhas statues than I can count
Visited a spice garden
Had many hours of transportations

There is not that much to tell about all the temples and ruins I've seen, more than that they have been interesting and beautiful. I've learned a lot about Buddhism (or rather I was reminded of what I learned in school) and I feel a need to study it a bit more. I learned a lot about Islam while I lived in Indonesia and Malaysia and I feel I would like to know at least that much about Hinduism and Buddhism. It gives me a better understanding of the the different cultures which is very important when you are traveling a lot. Come to think about it - I think it is always important to know more about other cultures. Don't you agree?

I have to admit that I'm not the ruin/temple kind of girl. I can take some, but I get bored quite quickly. So after 2 days of temples and ruins I really wanted to do something else. Of course I enjoyed the sightseeing a bit more doing it on a bike, but I would have preferred do to more 'just' biking. So when the option came along to go on a Elephant safari I jumped on it. I was a little bit worried that we wouldn't see any elephants at all, since you can never guarantee that you will see animals. But there was absolutely no need to be worried. We saw plenty of elephants and some very cute birds. As always I don't remember the name of the birds, but if you are good at birds take a look at the picture below.

The Sigirya is probably the best know landmark in Sri Lanka. It is the rest of the of an impressive fortress built as a royal citadel on the top of a 200 m high rock mass. You can also see some 5th century frescoes there, absolutely beautiful. Our guide kept on warning us, before we went there, how difficult the walk up would be. I was a bit confused about the warning. To walk up 200 altitude meters is not a lot or especially hard. Some of you, that have followed my blog, might remember that I walked up 1200 altitude meters in Norway last summer and that WAS hard (especially doing it in thigh deep snow), but 200 m - I mean REALLY?! But on the other hand - the walk up could be difficult due to bad steps or something. When we arrived there I saw that the steps were quite good. In fact they were a lot better than a lot of other places I have visited before. So almost everyone felt "that was it?" when we finally came up to the top. I'm not sure what is the best: to be expecting the worst (and maybe drop out the activity) and then be happily surprised how easy it was or to expect it to be easier and then struggle a little. Anyhow - the view from the top was amazing and we had our breakfast there in the morning sun.

The spice garden has been the highlight so far. Mainly because I did't have any expectations. (Sigirya and the elephant safari I had expectations on and they were met) We had a great guide that taught us a lot about the different spices and how we could use them to improve our health. As a health fanatic I listened carefully and decided to try all which I found to be extra interesting. It ended up with a bill on 1000 SEK (around 110 Euros). Maybe a little bit more than I planned, but if all goes well it will improve my time on the half marathon. And that can't be bad. The extra added value to this stop was that we all got face-, back-, arm- and leg massages so they could prove how good their different products were. Not bad, not bad at all.

Now we are in Kandy and have spent the morning in a tea factory. It was quite interesting and of course I ended up buying some tea. I went for the white tea, since that is a bit fancier. :-) Let's see what I think about it.

I don't know when I can blog again, since we are about to start hiking. We will spend 2 days hiking up in the tea plantations. I'm really looking forward to that. :-)