Tan = Happy

So, as I previously wrote, or at least thought, I will try not to be too much of a bore with lots of details and pictures of all the cool things I saw in Sri Lanka... instead, I'll share the parts of the trip that were the most interesting. I'll start by saying that when I booked my flight, I checked and rechecked the flight I was supposed to get and still managed to book the wrong one.... A friend of mine did eventually convince me to change it, something about landing in Colombo alone in the middle of the night and hiring a driver and going through the jungle to meet everyone else just seemed like a bad idea. Especially with the whole fighting thing going on. There was a group of about 10 of us that loaded into a school bus, were dropped off at the Sharjah airport and boarded a middle of the night flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

When we arrived, after quite a bit of haggling, we ended up on this Vegas Style bus with all our luggage shoved in, girls dancing around, hanging out the windows, camera flashes every two seconds and all I could think was really? How am I ever going to survive a week of this? People are way, way, way too excited. I just put on my sunglasses and closed my eyes. We did have the opportunity to use the classy bathrooms on the side of the road, yes, it was just a hole in the ground. We arrived in Kandy, this crazy little town in the hills, I wasn't too impressed. I did get to lay by the pool and saw a few cool Buddhist temples, but I was ready to leave the next day. We stopped off at the Elephant Orphanage, which was basically too depressing for words.

Five of us hired a driver to take us to Adam's Peak and then on to Unawatuna, a beach town on the southern coast, we did decide to avoid the east coast, you know the risk of dying and all. Adam's peak was amazing, my packing job was not. I brought all this random hiking gear, winter clothes, head lamps, etc. to Dubai just in case I decided to hike. Well, in my haste of packing for my trip in under 10 minutes (I chose to go to Ikea for the day instead of pack my backpack... which, for those of you that were in Florence would recognize...) I didn't bring ANYTHING to hike in. It was unbelievable, if I was at home, I would have been so prepared for an international trip, but the Dubai Lisa doesn't seem to know how to be prepared for anything anymore, I was lucky I had my passport. The hike was literally 4800+ steps up to a well, peak, and another Buddhist temple. This girl Michelle, aka Irish, and I decided it was necessary to practically race to the top, because if we did, the sun would totally come up earlier... we were the first ones up, along with this 20 year old college guy we met on the plane, and were freezing as we waited for the sun to rise, I didn't have a melt down as I did at Kilimanjaro, so that was nice.

The road to the beach was ridiculously windy and the driving was a slow go, except that it felt like we were going a zillion miles an hour, on the wrong side of the road, passing vehicles and getting passed and basically narrowly avoiding head on collisions at every turn. It was sort of like an out of body experience watching it all happen from above, it wasn't until I realized I was actually in the van that I began to get scared for my life. We saw tons of tea plantations, locals, tiny towns and the VIP rest stops, they were nice, kind of like the equivalent of finding a McDonalds bathroom in Europe, very exciting.

We then went to the beach where we basically stayed at the nicest resort in town (amazingly cheap) and lounged around for 4 or 5 days eating buffet meals, a typical breakfast consisted of an omelet, french toast, regular toast, some fruit, coffee, and that was just round one, seriously? Dinner was the same way, I basically ate more than I thought humanly possible. A couple of nights there was this band, which was awesome. We sat around singing and cracking up for hours. Even in the nicest of places, we were still in Sri Lanka, and there were creepy bugs, a spider that literally terrified me to the point that I thought my throat was closing and then the cockroach incident. So, Michelle and I were sharing a room and had the funniest time. One night I was sound asleep and she basically punched me and said, oh you are still here, I screamed like a crazy person and then was up forever laughing. I woke up a few hours later being eaten alive by mosquitoes and really, really hot. I basically threw a fit right then and there. The next day we got one of those mosquito net things and as I was all tucked into bed, she was still getting ready for bed and saw a cockroach. She was outside the net so I just sat up and started directing her what she should do to make sure the cockroach didn't get into any of my things. I was saying things like, if you'd put up my shoes, that'd be great, could you close my backpack?, will you lift up my clothes and shake them out? I think she was so freaked out she just did it. Lucky for me since there was no chance I would be getting out of my bed.

The weather was both really hot and really rainy. One day when half the crew decided to head out snorkeling at this private beach and it was just dumping rain, a friend and I decided to hang back and just lay around. Eventually the sun came out and he wanted to start drinking, it was way too early in the day, but eventually I agreed, I know, shocking. I ordered a vodka soda, again surprising, and he ordered a Strawberry Daiquiri, figuring, hey we're on the beach get something tropical, the waiter did what we started to call the head boggle, and said oh yes, sir, no problem sir, we can do that. Next thing you know this yellowy colored icy drink comes out in a martini glass, my friend tastes it and says "Yes, very good, this is perfect." while I am thinking it looks like the worst drink ever. Once the waiter goes away, my initial thought is confirmed. Terrible. But, really, if that's the biggest complaint of the trip... I managed to burn myself so badly on the last day that it seriously hurts to sit down or lean back, which made for a great flight home. On the way to the airport we stopped in this town, I can't remember the name, to check it out and have some dinner. Every restaurant has the same menu for about the same prices and we're sitting at this one overlooking the beach, umbrellas in the sand, the whole thing and I look over and there is this creepy mural of the tsunami and people swimming in the ocean and standing on the roof tops, eerie. We decided to go to dinner someplace else. While we were sitting at dinner in this open air restaurant type of place that was pretty sketchy, rain was dumping down and the facilities left a lot to be desired, a friend of mine said "You might want to just lean forward a bit, there's a cockroach right there behind you and I ate my meal there anyways." Let's just say the expectations for cleanliness are at an all time low.

In my typical shopping style, I avoided the bargaining, cheap clothes and jewelry that everyone else purchased, and instead bought overpriced souvenirs at the Colombo airport after eating a snack and having a drink at 2:00 in the morning at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

At the end of the day, Sri Lanka was a great trip, good people, ridiculously inexpensive and a great tan. The surreal part of the trip was that when I got off the plane, I thought, ugh, it's so nice to be home...

I hope to add some pictures soon!