Kandy, Sri Lanka

Kandy, which is the capital city of the Central Province, is the second largest city in Sri Lanka. It was also the last capital city of the ancient kings' era in Sri Lanka.

Kandy is home to the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth which houses the relic of the tooth of Budda.

The city is located in a very picturesque, mountainous region of Sri Lanka, which is not far away from the tea plantations.

The Temple of the Tooth

A Srilankan school in Kandy

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12/3/2014 Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, Sri Lanka

Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage was the first stop during our three-day trip. We hired the car with the driver, which is quite a good idea and also a popular way of travelling across Sri Lanka. The cost is not high and you can get wherever you want and stop when you want. 

It took us about two hours to reach Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. The entrance fee for foreigners is 2500 rupees and only 250 rupees for Srilankan.

The Orphanage is not too big, but located in a beautiful place with picturesque landscapes all around. 

In one place there were baby elephants, which were chained and because of that they could not move too much. Two of them tried to play or fight with each other which was quite entertaining especially for school children. 
There was an opportunity to feed a big bottle of milk to a baby elephant for additional fee.

In another place there were big elephants with an amazing landscape in the background.

In the Orphanage there are also disabled elephants which lost their legs during the war as a result of land mines.

After leaving the Orphanage we crossed the road and went down the street to the river. On the way we stopped in a place in which a lady showed us how they make paper out of the elephant dung. They also make different kind of souvenirs, but I did not decide to buy anything.

At 10 a.m. the elephants are brought by their trainers to the river and finally they can enjoy bathing being watched by tourists.

I liked the Orphanage and it is definitely worth visiting. I am sure that people who work there do a great job and take care of animals, but seeing sad eyes of elephants made me kind of sad, too. 

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9/3/2014 Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

Sigiriya, known also as Lion Rock, is an ancient palace embracing a 200 metre rock. It was selected by king Kasyapa for his new capital in the 5th century. 

Nowadays it is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. 

The entrance fee costs $30 (3900 rupees) for foreigners and only 25 rupees for local people. Those enoromous differences of entrance fees were introduced about two years ago. I can understand that foreigners may pay a bit more, but those fee differentials are unacceptable. I really do not think it is good for Sri Lanka in the long run. Definitely they are earning a lot of money right now, but I don't think it will last for too long as foreign tourists already complain about it. You can read comments on tripadivisor and see that people are not happy about it. So instead of visiting Sri Lanka again or encouraging friends or family to do it, they will decide to go somehwere else e.g. Thailand and it will be really hard for Sri Lanka to get tourists back. Even when you talk to local, educated people they don't think it is the right way what they do with foreigners, especially that at the same time there are no proper facilities like toilets or restaurants.

The rock looks huge, but in fact it does not take too much time to climb it. While you climb, you pass some paintings on the wall, then the Mirror Wall and you reach a place where you still have to climb the Lion Steps. On the top of the rock you have some ruins of the buildings and beautiful, green landscapes all around you. The visibility was not the greatest, but there is nothing you can do about it. All in all, the trip was nice. 

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6-7/03/2014 Flying to Sri Lanka

On 6th March 2014 it was time to go on our three-week holidays to Sri Lanka. The flight was from Edinburgh to Istanbul with the Turkish Airlines and it lasted four hours. The time difference between Edinburgh and Istanbul comes to two hours. When we arrived to Istanbul we were directed to the exit where we could catch another international connection. The Istanbul Ataturk Airport is quite huge with lots of passengers. You can pay with euros in many places. It took us ages to find bottled water as there are a lot of shops with perfume, alcohol and cigarettes, but no water. Finally after walking through almost the whole airport we found small bottled water. While standing in a queue a Turk jumped the queue in front of us. How nice! Welcome to Turkey:)

The flight from Istanbul to Colombo was at 1a.m. and the plane was almost full with lots of foreigners, the majority of whom was from Ukraine. During the flight we were trying to "catch" the time as the time zones were changing all the time. When finally we managed to fall asleep for two hours, the local time in Sri Lanka showed 7 or 8 a.m.

We had one stop at the Maldives whose airport was located close to the ocean and the views during landing and take-off were so picturesque that it's simply impossible to describe.

Flying to Sri Lanka

The Maldives

The Maldives

The Maldives

The flight from Male to Colombo lasted about one hour and we reached Sri Lanka about 2:30 p.m. The first meeting with the heatwave was hard. There was no wind and it was so humid that I was struggling to catch some "fresh" air. 

Sri Lanka

The passport control was quick without any questions. We bought our visas online before leaving the UK and they had all information in the system. You have to pay $30 for the visa to Sri Lanka. 

Then we went to reclaim our baggage and unfortunately my suitcase was damaged so we had to spend some more time at the airport. We were contacted with the Turkish Airlines worker and we made a claim. Then he took us to another building where the departures take place and we went to the Turkish Airlines office. They showed us a suitcase which they wanted to give us instead of mine. The suitcase wasn't so bad, but it wasn't as solid as mine and I don't think it would last long. So we decided to buy a new one here in Sri Lanka and try to get money back when we come back to Edinburgh. We will see how it will work. 

After leaving the airport my parents-in-law were waiting for us and we took a van and went to their house which is located not far away from the airport. The first views of houses, shops and stray dogs were kind of shocking to me. 
Then driving on those roads is crazy like as if there are no rules. They blow the horn constantly sometimes without any reason. At least for me it is much too much. Apart from that some people walk almost in the middle of the road, school children come back home on the same side of the road as the cars behind them. It is so dangerous and it looks like nobody cares about safety which I cannot understand. 


My parents-in-law live in a residential complex close to Colombo and a town Ja-ela. There are about 1,400 houses which are really nice.

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