Sri Lanka!

Hard to believe it's already November. It certainly doesn't feel like it in the land of eternal sunshine. We celebrated Halloween this past week at school, and there was not even a slight tinge of Fall in the air....but I am in the Middle East after all, so I couldn't expect the usual foliage and cider by a warm fire.
My trip to Sri Lanka last month was amazing, and way too short. It was so lush and green, everything was dirt cheap, and the people were open and friendly. I traveled with eight other teachers, although we split into smaller groups after the first day, because people wanted to do different things. We arrived at 5am Sri Lanka time, and hired a van to drive us 3 hours to Kandy, which is a large town in the mountains which is famous for the "sacred tooth relic" which apparently is all that remains of the Buddha after he was cremated. I didn't go to see the sacred tooth, but instead walked around the slightly dirty down, with my two music teacher friends, and spotted about 80 monkeys crossing the road! But first let me mention the driving experience....the roads in Sri Lanka are absolutely crazy. I think the only reason that there aren't more fatalities is because everyone drives slowly because of the conditions. How it works is people pass each other constantly and use the middle of the road as a passing lane, going in both directions. It's very frightening when you're in the passing lane and you see another car coming directly towards you. Will you make it? Luckily, we did every time, usually getting out of the way very, very quickly.
Sri Lanka is a developing country and everything feels a few decades behind the rest of the modern world. All of the cars run on throat-gagging diesel fumes, and three hours into our bumpy, frightening ride, I had a ponding headache. We made it to Kandy and passed out at The Queen Hotel, an old English hotel that had seen better days, but nevertheless still retained some charm.
One of the best parts about the trip was riding in the tuk-tuks, the little 3-wheelers that are all over the country. It's basically like riding on the back of a glorified motorcycle, with a soft top overhead. The sides are open, and it's this tiny little car that zips all over the towns.
Day two I took a train ride with my two companions, Nate and Tom, for 3 hours through the countryside. It was highlight of the trip. We hung out the doorway (which everyone did) and watched the beautiful scenery slip past us. We wound through hills and tunnels, saw various tea plantations, met friendly travelers, and sang songs at the top of our lungs (being dorky musicians) before finally arriving in our destination town, Nuwara Eliya. It was a gorgeous, pristine place, and probably my favorite, for it's natural beauty. It was cool and misty, and we found a wonderful beer bar, which served up a lovely dark frothy, homemade brew. I also bought a Northface backpack for about $55. I believe it's a fake, because it's already ripped on the inside, but it was nice to think that I was getting a bargain at the time (!)
We were pretty beat that night, and after drinking our beer and eating a strange meal in an empty restaurant (everything was very under-occupied, people were really hurting for business there, it was during the off-season), we headed to our empty guest-house and passed out.
The next morning we hired a driver and took an 8 hour journey down to the beach, stopping in the little town of Ella for some fresh tea, and then to a gigantic waterfall for some rock-scrambling fun, before enduring the next several hours in the car. We ate a very good meal in the middle of our journey served by a smiling woman in the middle of absolute nowhere, and despite there being 30 million flies in the place, the food was fantastic. Sri Lankan food is very similar to Indian food. Lots of curries, and the dessert was my favorite; it was a curd, which was basically the smoothest, creamiest yogurt served with sweet syrup, that I've ever tasted.
We finally made it to the beach town of Unawatuna, and stayed at the Full Moon resort, a little spot right on the beach, for $8 a night (shared). The beach was lovely, and we finally had a chance to relax for two days. The rest of the DAA group was just down the beach at an all-inclusive resort (breakfast and dinner with lodging for $23 a night). We had a wonderful time there; drinks were between $1.50-$3.00 and we ate, drank, and danced in the pouring rain at a disco tech on the beach our last night. I wish I could've stayed there for a week or more. I visited Galle fort the day before I left, which is an old Dutch fortress built right on the coast, surrounded by high walls. The streets were narrow and rutted, with European style buildings and flowers falling from 2nd-story balconies. I loved it, and wished I'd had more time there.
I also met a really nice Sri Lankan man who had a house right on Unawatuna beach, and told me and my travel companions about the tsunami experience, and how he and his mother and brother had to flee to the mountains for 3 weeks, and when they came back, there was standing water for weeks and weeks, and bodies caught in barbed wire. It was chilling and sad to hear his story.
I left on the 6th day and headed to Colombo, the capital city, for some quick shopping and eating, before heading to the airport at midnight. I went to a place called Odel, which has namebrand stuff (labels taken off) that is a fraction of the normal nprice. I wish I'd had more time there as well, because I have never seen stuff so cheap. Pants and shirts for $5-7!!
It was very hard to leave. Our flight didn't take off until 5:45 in the morning, and when I got into my seat on the plane, I found that my chair didn't recline. It was a hellish experience coming back, but definitely worth the pain for such an amazing trip. My last glimpse out the airplane window was watching dawn break over the island, which was a deep, rich green, covered with mist. It was breathtaking.