Saturday- Today started with a 5am van ride up to the middle of the island for a day of tourism. We started the morning with a climb up Sigiria National Park. Sigiria is a giant rock that just juts out of the landscape and was home to a magnificent palace and temple belonging to the king of Sri Lanka. The climb up contains many flights of stairs, some a little more narrow than others. About halfway up there are these small walk through caves with early cave paintings of the Sri Lankan nobility which are amazingly well preserved. About 3/4th of the way further up the rock is the start of the Lion staircase which is marked by two massive lion paws carved into the side of the mountain and straddling the staircase. The stairs towards the top of the rock were obviously fairly recent since they were made of metal, but you could still see the remnants of the ancient staircase which looked more like holds to be used for rock climbing than places to put your feet. At the top of Sigiria were the ruins of the temple and an amazing view of the surrounding jungle and landscape. The climb down was more challenging than going up because of how narrow some of the steps were, but I made it to the bottom just fine and bought myself a stone Buddha, which I bought for a third of the asked price thanks to my acquired bargaining skills (a necessity here). After Sigiria we went to a woodcarving workshop and watched them carve out masks and sculptures from a variety of wood. There is a type of wood called ebony wood which is a beautiful black color and very rare. Only 200 trees can be harvest for wood every year. The carvers showed us how they naturally dye the wood using tree bark, water and lime powder. Very cool. After the workshop we stopped at a spice garden and a tour of the various herbs and spices and all of the medicinal properties. We got a free neck and arm massage using a type of oil called red palm oil, which felt a lot like icy hot. They brought us some hot cocoa made from black tea instead of milk and it was amazing! I bought a packet of cocoa powder and vanilla to sample at home. I also bought some cinnamon powder (Sri Lanka exports 75% of the worlds cinnamon). Our last stop for the day was the cave temple of Dambulla. The cave temple was located on the side of the mountain above the city and it was literally caves with multiple statues of Buddha in each room, some life size and some extremely massive, all of which were carved out of the side of the mountain. The whole ceiling was painting with images of the Buddha in his many different poses. I imagine this temple as being somewhat of a Mecca for Buddhists because there seemed to be people from all over the world in the different rooms praying. It was also very quiet up at the temple and I must admit I felt very much at peace there. It was a little bit of a challenge convincing myself to leave. After a relatively uneventful drive back (less terrifying than usual) we came back to MEF with just enough time to rinse off and change before being wisked away to a Perahera in a small village not too far away. A Perahera is a religious parade where there are dancers, musicians and elephants adorned with colorful cloths and blinking lights. The big male tusker from MEF, Raja, was there to be in the parade along with 5 other elephants. Before the parade we were taken down a back alley to a little shop where we were served some of the sweetest tea I have ever tasted. Because it was such a small village, most of the people had never seen a white person before, so we got even more stared at than usual. I didn't go into the temple because I felt like it would be too much of an intrusion considering how small the village was, and I didn't have anything to offer. The Perahera was relatively quick and we all crashed as soon was we got back. 5am to nearly midnight is a long day.
Sunday- We decided to have a bit of a lie-in today considering how long our day was yesterday, which means sleeping in until 7:30! After breakfast we took a bus into Colombo for a day of shopping and eating. We walked, at my request, from the bus station to Odel and by the end of our hour walk around the city I thought the group was going to kill me for wanting to walk. At Odel we had a light sushi lunch (fortunately everyone in our group of 5 loved sushi) followed my ice cream/cupcakes and a mooch around the shop. For all my American readers, mooching is the act of walking around the stores with no particular goal, sort of like window shopping. We then took a Tuktuk (best described as a three wheeled motercycle with a roof) to Barefoot and had a delicious beer and fries. Aside from being a cafe, Barefoot is a shop with many different types of fabrics and Sri Lankan crafts. It is seen as the fair trade shop in Sri Lanka that all the wealthy tourists go to. Most everything was well out of my price range. We caught a bus up to Galle face green, the only patch of grass is all of Colombo and walked along the ocean (not to be confused with a beach) until we eventually made our way back to the bus station. Along the way we stopped at this really nice hotel to use the toilet and no one stopped to ask us if we were actually guests because of the color of our skin, I'm sure. First time in air conditioning in weeks was very strange. The bus ride back from Colombo was ridiculous. We took one of the local buses for 85 rupees (less than a dollar) and got the craziest driver yet. At one point he almost hit a person because he was swerving into the other lane to avoid hitting a stopped bus! In Sri Lanka they drive on the left side of the road, officially, but most people drive on the left, middle and right side of the road. A bus overtaking another bus in blind turn at night is not out of the question. I was very relieved to be back in Kegalle after that bus ride. I will definitely be taking the train to Galle next weekend, especially after hearing about the massive bus crash in Kandy that killed two people and left dozens in the hospital. Hard to imagine the driving is worse in India.
We also had to say goodbye to Charlotte, who was the only other volunteer here when I arrived and my room mate in the bungalow. For the first 5 or so days here it was just the two of us and I've done all of my traveling with her. Even though there are many volunteers here now, I will miss her and look forward to her visit to the States in the future.
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