Day:6 (December 24th '09)
On the way from Kandy to Sigriya we visited
Noritake Ceramic Factory
a. A Japanese company with its manufacturing unit 20km away from Kandy. They have an outlet where you can buy dinner/tea sets for a reasonably good price. They also have seconds items which are slightly damaged (I couldn’t find any damage in them :) )which are at a very affordable prices compared to in India.
Batiks
a. This is a factory of Hand made Batiks. There are lot of these along the way from Kandy to Sigriya but we went to Baba Boutique where the factory supervisor religiously explained the process of creating the boutique. The stuff there was really good but it was quite expensive so we had to settle for a small batik.. I've seen such stuff in Rajasthan and other northern parts of India at a much cheaper price… The process these guys are using may be very old and hence all these hand made stuff is very expensive.. The supervisor was saying that because of the war in Srilanka these workers are hardly able to work for 10-14 days a month and they do on a rotation basis.
Spice Garden
a. Ayurvedic garden where they have cocos, vanilla, papaya, pineapple, ginger, cinnamon, choco, lotus, allovera they grow this stuff and convert them to oils that are used in ayurvedic treatment of various diseases .
Again there are a lot of these spice gardens on the way from Kandy to Sigiriya, the one we went to was called Number 9 New Paradise Spice Garden (Check the name) They served us chocolate tea, it was good.. Again if you go the shop to buy any of these stuff its quite expensive.
Dambulla Golden Temple
a. About 200 steps to climb this temple has about 5 caves where there are different poses of Buddha. The temple is completely surrounded by greenery. Photography is allowed but as in all the Buddhist temples you are not allowed to pose for a photographs with Lord Buddha behind you. There is a huge buddha statue in Gold color and I believe to have read somewhere that this is the biggest Lord Buddha Statue in the whole world.
Dambulla Golden Temple
We bought a small souvenir of Lord Buddha made of Mohogany wood for our house from a road side shop.
Sigiriya Hotel:
a. Hotel Sigiriya is good and very eco friendly compared any of the other hotels we stayed here. It was the 4th One day international between India-Srilanka today and since the standard room in this hotel did not have a TV we had to go to the common place where they were showing the match. There were only a couple of other Indian people around but the atmosphere is as charged up as it is in India. Old, young, men, women all stuck to the tv to watch the match and they were clapping for every shot hit by Tharanga and other SL players and showed huge signs of relief when Sehwag and Tendulkar were dismissed, I could see the disappointment in every SL face around when Gambhir and Kohli played marathon innings to get India out of trouble, they were discussing various strategies that Sangakkara could have applied just like we would do in India.. In short, the atmosphere and enthusiasm for cricket is very similar to that in India…
Sigiriya Rock on the way to Sigiriya
X-mas celebrations and food was so damn expensive :)..Its very difficult to find any other restaurants around so we stuck to the hotel restaurant although the vegetarian options are quite limited. The spaghetti was quite decent though. We were in Sigiriya on 24th & 25th December which happened to be Christmas so the buffet was very very expensive (about 1600 INR) and with about 4 vegetarian options so we skipped the Christmas dinner and settled for a portion of French Fries and Vegetarian Sandwich (I had two diaquiris :) ) Interestingly no alcohol is served in any restaurants in Srilanka on all New Moon Days, public holidays including Christmas.
Day:7 (December 25th '09)
Sigiriya Lion Rock: Claimed to the eighth wonder of the world in Srilanka (Like we Indians claim that TajMahal is the eight wonder of the world). Its apparently recognized as one of the Worlds heritage sites. The trek was pretty good. I believe that it was about 118m steep trek but the guide claimed it to be 300m. It rained very heavily on our way up and down which made it slightly more difficult than it would have otherwise been but it was a very satisfying experience. The top of the rock was completely filled with fog. Although the palace is not there anymore this provides a great view point for the surroundings. You should visit the Sigiriya Museum before you start the climb as that gives you a good historical background of the place and the rock. I managed to click some photos on the way up and down…
View from the foot of the rock
Grazing cows..
Entrance to the climb...
Rock to climb...
View from half way up ...
Monkey is also climbing with us...
Lions paw..
It was pouring down at the top ... completely foggy
Day: 8 (December 29th '09)
Pinnawale Elephant Orphanage:
This was our last destination in Sri Lanka on the drive back to the Airport. This Orphanage has around 40 elephants that are taken care by the government. The elephants have a daily routine for food and water. At 9:15 in the morning the visitors can feed the baby elephants with milk and then at 9:45 all the elephants are taken to a river nearby to drink water. Each elephant usually has 200lts of water per day. So they are taken to the river twice everyday. The baby elephants are very cute and but unfortunately they are chained :(. We managed to take some pics posing with the elephants.
Elephants at the orphanage...
The trip was awesome.. With the war now behind them Sri Laka will certainly attract more tourists now than it has in the past 20 years..
Ayobowan :)
On the way from Kandy to Sigriya we visited
Noritake Ceramic Factory
a. A Japanese company with its manufacturing unit 20km away from Kandy. They have an outlet where you can buy dinner/tea sets for a reasonably good price. They also have seconds items which are slightly damaged (I couldn’t find any damage in them :) )which are at a very affordable prices compared to in India.
Batiks
a. This is a factory of Hand made Batiks. There are lot of these along the way from Kandy to Sigriya but we went to Baba Boutique where the factory supervisor religiously explained the process of creating the boutique. The stuff there was really good but it was quite expensive so we had to settle for a small batik.. I've seen such stuff in Rajasthan and other northern parts of India at a much cheaper price… The process these guys are using may be very old and hence all these hand made stuff is very expensive.. The supervisor was saying that because of the war in Srilanka these workers are hardly able to work for 10-14 days a month and they do on a rotation basis.
Spice Garden
a. Ayurvedic garden where they have cocos, vanilla, papaya, pineapple, ginger, cinnamon, choco, lotus, allovera they grow this stuff and convert them to oils that are used in ayurvedic treatment of various diseases .
Again there are a lot of these spice gardens on the way from Kandy to Sigiriya, the one we went to was called Number 9 New Paradise Spice Garden (Check the name) They served us chocolate tea, it was good.. Again if you go the shop to buy any of these stuff its quite expensive.
Dambulla Golden Templea. About 200 steps to climb this temple has about 5 caves where there are different poses of Buddha. The temple is completely surrounded by greenery. Photography is allowed but as in all the Buddhist temples you are not allowed to pose for a photographs with Lord Buddha behind you. There is a huge buddha statue in Gold color and I believe to have read somewhere that this is the biggest Lord Buddha Statue in the whole world.
Dambulla Golden TempleWe bought a small souvenir of Lord Buddha made of Mohogany wood for our house from a road side shop.
Sigiriya Hotel:
a. Hotel Sigiriya is good and very eco friendly compared any of the other hotels we stayed here. It was the 4th One day international between India-Srilanka today and since the standard room in this hotel did not have a TV we had to go to the common place where they were showing the match. There were only a couple of other Indian people around but the atmosphere is as charged up as it is in India. Old, young, men, women all stuck to the tv to watch the match and they were clapping for every shot hit by Tharanga and other SL players and showed huge signs of relief when Sehwag and Tendulkar were dismissed, I could see the disappointment in every SL face around when Gambhir and Kohli played marathon innings to get India out of trouble, they were discussing various strategies that Sangakkara could have applied just like we would do in India.. In short, the atmosphere and enthusiasm for cricket is very similar to that in India…
Sigiriya Rock on the way to SigiriyaX-mas celebrations and food was so damn expensive :)..Its very difficult to find any other restaurants around so we stuck to the hotel restaurant although the vegetarian options are quite limited. The spaghetti was quite decent though. We were in Sigiriya on 24th & 25th December which happened to be Christmas so the buffet was very very expensive (about 1600 INR) and with about 4 vegetarian options so we skipped the Christmas dinner and settled for a portion of French Fries and Vegetarian Sandwich (I had two diaquiris :) ) Interestingly no alcohol is served in any restaurants in Srilanka on all New Moon Days, public holidays including Christmas.
Day:7 (December 25th '09)
Sigiriya Lion Rock: Claimed to the eighth wonder of the world in Srilanka (Like we Indians claim that TajMahal is the eight wonder of the world). Its apparently recognized as one of the Worlds heritage sites. The trek was pretty good. I believe that it was about 118m steep trek but the guide claimed it to be 300m. It rained very heavily on our way up and down which made it slightly more difficult than it would have otherwise been but it was a very satisfying experience. The top of the rock was completely filled with fog. Although the palace is not there anymore this provides a great view point for the surroundings. You should visit the Sigiriya Museum before you start the climb as that gives you a good historical background of the place and the rock. I managed to click some photos on the way up and down…
View from the foot of the rock
Grazing cows..
Entrance to the climb...
Rock to climb...
View from half way up ...
Monkey is also climbing with us...
Lions paw..
It was pouring down at the top ... completely foggyDay: 8 (December 29th '09)
Pinnawale Elephant Orphanage:
This was our last destination in Sri Lanka on the drive back to the Airport. This Orphanage has around 40 elephants that are taken care by the government. The elephants have a daily routine for food and water. At 9:15 in the morning the visitors can feed the baby elephants with milk and then at 9:45 all the elephants are taken to a river nearby to drink water. Each elephant usually has 200lts of water per day. So they are taken to the river twice everyday. The baby elephants are very cute and but unfortunately they are chained :(. We managed to take some pics posing with the elephants.
Elephants at the orphanage...The trip was awesome.. With the war now behind them Sri Laka will certainly attract more tourists now than it has in the past 20 years..
Ayobowan :)
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