Surprising Sri Lanka

It's odd, really.

I expected Sri Lanka to be exactly like India. But it wasn't. That shouldn't really surprise me (it's a different country, after all), but it did. Odd. (How is it different, you might ask? Lots of ways: the clothes, language, customs, food, history, etc. Go to both countries yourselves and then we'll discuss it!) :)

Anyways, Sri Lanka was fascinating and, since I'm behind on blogs again, I'll let the pictures do the talking! Here is our week in Sri Lanka:

We didn't do too much sightseeing in Colombo--but we enjoyed the food...and the ginger beer! Especially the ginger beer! :)







There was security everywhere--especially at the big tourist attractions like this temple. It's nicknamed the "Temple of the Tooth" because there is suposedly a tooth of Buddha inside. (and, no, I wasn't supposed to take pictures of the military...) The picture isn't straight 'cause I was trying to hide the fact that I was taking a picture!


Traditional Sri Lankan Dancers in the old captal of Kandy. They also had fire swallowers as part of this show--it was awesome!






Sigurya is this amazing palace built on top of a mountain. Originally there was a huge lion statue with the entrance to the mountain through his mouth. This picture is taken from the top of the Sigurya.





Monkeys in a row! :)


Aren't they cute? we saw monkeys everywhere: big monkeys, little monkeys, sitting monkeys, runing monkeys, even swimming monkeys!

Adam's Peak supposedly contains the footprint of Adam (if you're talking to some Christians or Muslims), Shiva (according to Hindus), or Buddha (or so say the Buddhists). We never saw it, but we did see an amazing sunrise after waking up at 2 am and hiking the 5 + kilometres to the top! I took the picture on the way down--it was too dark at 2 am!

The aformentioned sunrise...

The other amazing view from Adam's Peak is the perfectly trianagular shadow it casts in the morning. Can you see it between Amanda and I?

Note: I thought that it would be warm enough since we were in a tropical country...IT WASN"T! I hadn't brought a coat either--the one in the picture I borrowed from another hiker who took pity on me!

Rice paddies.

Beachcombing at the beach in Negombo. It was nice to relax on the beach after our strenuous climb up and down Adam's Peak!

Here we are on the way to the airport from Negombo...when our tuk-tuk got a flat!

That's it for Sri Lanka--a short blog on Abu Dhabi is coming next! (P.S. - you can always find more fun pictures in our facebook picture files!)