Wasswold's Sri Lanka Adventure Day 4

We woke up to a vey nice breakfast buffet but I decided to switch to tea instead of my usual coffee. Sri Lanka has terrific home grown tea and it is brewed before before they serve it to you - no tea bags. The coffee however is usually instant Nescafé. 

A hopper is a traditional breakfast which is made in a rounded pan with a thin pancake type 

batter so when it is done you have a bowl which they then cook an egg in the bottom. Yum! The bananas here are smaller than ours but are very good because they are fresher and don't have to be picked so green since they were probably picked next door! 

We wanted to get an early start today because we were going to climb up the Sigiriya Rock. Sigiriya Rock is the ancient rock fortress that King Kasyapa built in the 5th century and some say is the eighth wonder of the world. Along the way to the rock we stopped along side the road to buy kings coconut which are a bright orange color and are good to eat. Sri Lankans cook with the green coconuts. In addition to eating the meat of the coconut, drinking the “milk” is very healthy for you and contains natural electrolytes. The girl at the fruit stand chopped off the top of the coconut and then poked a hole in the top and presented it to each of us with a straw. We pay good money for this coconut water in the states! When you are finished, the girl chopped it in half and cut a sliver out of the side to use as a spoon to scoop the meat out. The texture and flavor is not the same as our sweetened, flaky coconut in a bag so I would need to acquire a taste for it.

  

 

 

By the time we arrived at Sigiriya, it was 89 degrees- perfect climbing weather! This kingdom would have been something to see in its heyday. It had moats, gardens and fountains surrounding the base of the rock. They are still excavating the site but have restored most of it. Climbing the rock entails walking up many steps. You start with stone steps and then transition to metal stairs that have been installed for tourists. There are winding staircases at one point which were enclosed in a cage to keep us from falling and was probably the only reason that I would have attempted it! I was a little worried that our two octogenarians should attempt this but they had climbed it 11 years ago when the steps were not as sturdy and were determined to climb it again. There are local men who hang out at the beginning of the climb trying to help you out for a tip at the end and who I shooed off first thing! At some points it is slow going because there are many people making the climb. Also there are wasp nests in several places so they ask that you do not make loud noises which may stir them up. Being a primarily Buddhist country, they will not remove them or the dogs and monkeys that inhabit the area as well. 

 A big rock to climb!

  

Almost at the top!

It was sure a sight to see when we got to the top! Since Sigiriya Rock stands alone, you can see everywhere. During the rainy season, the ancient  pools are all full on the top but there is one pool that is always full and they don't know why. Archeologists do not want to risk destroying the pool to figure out what fills it. When we finally made it down, it was no surprise that there were booths of souvenirs waiting for us. My adage, "all rides end at the gift shop" holds true even at the eight wonder of the world! It is common that foreigners are charged more for things in Sri Lanka so when I had my eye on a book about the history of Sigiriya that was 1500 rupees,  Salani had me wait in the bus and bought it for 1,000! Nice!

 View from the top!

 

Jo's second time to the top and this time in her 80's!

 Where is the water coming from?

Yep... that's us...there are separate bathrooms too...what year is it?

Enjoying the air conditioning of our bus, we headed down the rode to a batik factory. I was excited to go here because as a beginner quilter I find myself always heading towards the batik fabrics in the fabric store. Batik fabric is usually very colorful and the design is on the front and the back of the fabric and on our tour we found out how this is done. After a design is drawn, it is traced using carbon paper onto white fabric. The women working there showed us how they then use hot wax to trace a portion of the design on the fabric. The fabric is then put into a chemical bath and then into the color of that day. The next day they trace another portion of the design onto the fabric which is now pink and then dye them into another color. 

  

After about a week, the entire fabric is finished and then rinsed in boiling water which removes all of the wax and results in a multicolored design. 

 The batiks done at this factory are all pictures instead of just designs and they have a large store which we were ushered into at the end of our tour. It was overwhelming and pretty pricey. I don't like to haggle but I do it by accident because I'm so indecisive and flitter from one display to the next, the sales people try to keep up and start making deals! I finally decided on a beautiful batik of an elephant. If the store had been air conditioned, I probably could have spent a lot more time and money in there!

 

We were all pretty hungry by this time so we made our way to a spice garden for lunch and afterwards we had a tour of the garden which was interesting, especially to see what the different plants look like where our spices come from. The hokey part of the tour was when our guide sat us down and showed us all of the products we could buy. I felt like I was at an Amway party! However, Don and I volunteered for a cinnamon shoulder rub which was awesome! Of course we ended up in the gift shop.....

Nephew Gray has many talents!

  

Alex being a good sport and having a cinnamon face massage!

To end the day on a truly cinnamon note, we arrived at our hotel which was another in the cinnamon chain, was handed my much needed cinnamon wash cloth and then promptly drank some cinnamon tea. I was truly a spice girl!

Wasswold's Sri Lankan Adventure Day 3

Temples, Villages and Elephants...Whew!

We were at the bus at 6 am because we had a busy day ahead of us. After a quick picture of all of us sporting our reunion shirts, compliments of Jo and Don, we were on our way. We are so fortunate to have our bus driver Samon! Driving in Sri Lanka is crazy! There are no highways in this area, just two lane roads which drivers pretend are 3 lanes! When drivers pass, they just pull out and squeeze between the cars. It's kind of a  continuous game of chicken! There are plenty of things to look at along the way. The scenery is beautiful with green hills and lush flora and fauna. We passed through many towns along the way so it was interesting to view the shops, homes, and people. 

 

 

Our first stop was a city called Dambulla where we visited the golden temple. This is the largest and best preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka. There are 5 caves that have statues and paintings primarily of Buddha. When visiting a Buddhist temple, people are required to wear long pants or skirts which cover the knees and shoulders must be covered and no shoes. We didn't count but there were a total of 153 Buddha statues, 3 statues of Sri Lankan kings, and 4 statues of gods and goddesses. During this experience, we were introduced to our first Sri Lanka monkeys who ran around everywhere like squirrels do at home. There was a wire fence surrounding the temple to try to keep them out but I spotted a daredevil who did some slack lining across hanging flags to get in! 

 

Sami placing flowers by a Buddha which is tradition.

 

Our next stop was to the village life experience. This is a fairly new tour put together by the locals which our tour guide Maleen highly recommended. We were greeted by a local and promptly taken down a dirt road to board a wooden cart pulled by oxen. It was a bumpy ride which made me thankful for the invention of rubber tires and it involved a lot of loud commands from the driver to the oxen who seem to not follow directions the first time they're asked! Along the route we passed many rice paddies being tended to. It looked to be very hard and muddy work. After disembarking from the cart, we loaded up into canoe-like boats and were paddled through a section of a man made reservoir to a little village home. The first structure we saw was a tree house and we had noticed other simple platforms in the trees on our short journey to this point. These are not for kids, as my American brain first thought, but are necessary to have above rice paddies for the workers to rest during the hottest part of the day and to stay in during the night to keep watch and prevent elephants and other animals from entering the fields. Fireworks are used to scare them away. It was fun to channel our inner child and climb up in one although I don't think I would ever sleep - I would be too afraid of falling out!

The simple village house has half walls made of mud and a thatched roof made from palm tree leaves. The floor is hardened mud and oxen dung. It was a hot day and the house was surprisingly cool. This was very significant for us to experience because my sister in law, Sani, raised her girls in a home similar to this until the oldest was six years old. I think the girls, now in their 20's, enjoyed sharing this part of their past with us and we enjoyed being able to experience it first hand. A village woman demonstrated how to shave coconut meat and prepare a bread called roti. All of the cooking is done over a wood fire in the back of the house. She also used a flat stone and stone rolling pin to crush the ingredients for a coconut relish called pol sambol ( coconut, onion, chilis, lime juice). They served this to us on a basket lined with a lotus leaf and herbal tea in a coconut shell. Delicious!

 

Working in a rice paddy is muddy work.

 

  

 

Thilini watching the roti demonstration.

 

 

 Into the boat we went again and rowed into a larger part of the reservoir where there were lily pads everywhere. The boat rower ( captain?) stopped and made hats out of the lotus leaves. Back on shore we walked to another village house where the women there demonstrated making pumpkin curry and then fed us a wonderful lunch with different native dishes. Again we ate on lotus leaves...no need for a dishwasher! 

 

 

But the day was not over...oh no! Back on the bus we went but just down the road to our Jeep safari into Minneriya National Park. By this time it was about 4pm which was a perfect time to see "the gathering." During the dry season in this area, which is now, herds of elephants gather to eat the lush grass and drink the water in the man made reservoir. We were expecting to see a few elephants but ended up seeing about 100...up close and personal! Our jeep driver, along with several other jeeps, brought us right up next to these magnificent creatures! These were open jeeps so we could stand up and get a great view. There were a couple of times that a jeep would get a little too close to a baby, so the matriarch would posture herself as if to charge until the jeep backed away. There were quite a few babies and the littlest ones would walk underneath the mama and then the other elephants would surround the mom to protect the baby even more. The grass was the big attraction and they were very busy grazing. We noticed that they would pull up the grass with their trunk and then swish back and forth and back and forth before they put it in their mouths. They do this to dust off the dirt. Paige noticed that the babies were not very good at the swishing part and just tap their trunks a couple times on the ground to try to emulate their elders. Elephants have always been special to me, I guess because the females are the boss, they have awesome memories, and are admired for being big and wrinkly! This was definitely a wonderful, bucket list check off experience!

 

 

 By now we are definitely very hot, tired and dusty so when we arrived at our hotel, we welcomed the traditional cool, cinnamon infused washcloths that were presented to us as we walked into the lobby. This was the Hotel Habarena Village which was part of the Cinnamon chain of hotels in Sri Lanka. Similar to a cruise ship, we had our own reserved table in the restaurant for the Oswell family (close enough) where they offered a delicious buffet of traditional Sri Lankan dishes, Asian dishes and a pasta bar(!) A perfect way to end a fabulous day! Needless to say, we were all exhausted!

 

  

Wasswold's Sri Lankan Adventure Day 2 Nagumbo

Friday, June 16

Well we are already on Friday - Thursday was lost to traveling. Needless to say, we spent our first day In Sri Lanka relaxing and catching up on our sleep. Our hotel is in Nagumbo, right on the beach of the Indian Ocean. It is a nice beach but swimming was not allowed due to the riptides and there were some strong waves. The pool was perfect and that is where we stayed most of the day. 

 

Breakfast at the beach!

 

Checking out the Indian Ocean

Dave and family joined us for lunch and we walked down the street to a small restaurant that claims to make the “best burger in town.” Well of course we had to try them and they were actually pretty good. There are stray dogs everywhere here and we were entertained by puppies that wandered in while we were eating. Apparently they were owned by the restaurant employees and when they saw we liked them, they brought in all of them for us to look at!

 

Best burger in town 

The roads are very narrow here and you have to remember to look to your right when crossing the street since they drive on the opposite side of the road than we are used to. We navigated our way down the street again to dinner at a very trendy restaurant. One of their special features were the fish spa where you could soak your feet or hands in fish tanks and the fish will. nibble away your dead skin. Paige and I passed on the event but Don and Alex enjoyed it. Dave was disappointed that there were so few fish. Later we learned that several of the fish had died the day before. A bad way to go….

 

We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow and we need to report to then us at 6am!

Wasswolds Sri Lankan adventure Day 1

Travel Day

Wednesday, June 14

Today is the most anticipated, highly planned day! For a year we have been working on getting our crew of 11 to Sri Lanka to visit Don's brother Dave and his family. It has been about 13 years since we have seen them - other than Facebook - so we decided we would make a visit. We being Don's parents, Don's sister and her family ( husband Lee, and teens Anna, Kate, and Gray) and our family. 

We stayed overnight near the airport since we had to catch a 7am flight to San Francisco. Since we have such a large group, we used a travel agent to book all of our flights. However, my family had a little trouble with our tickets at check-in and fortunately our travel agent answers his phone at 5:30am! Everything got taken care of in the end with the wonderful assistance by Kerri Ann at Virgin Airlines. 

 

The downfall of traveling around the world is just that - it takes awhile! I'm typing this at 40,000 feet with only 2 more hours to go to Singapore. When we land it will have been a 16 hour flight! Unfortunately we are in economy so we don't have those nice lounge/beds to stretch out in but they have fed us twice  ( why do we get hungry just sitting on our behinds?!) and we have unlimited movies to watch. So far I've watched the new Beauty and the Beast, Girl on a Train, and Hidden Figures. I don't get to the theatre much so it has been great to catch up on some pop culture. Im trying to get up every once in awhile to walk around and most of us are trying out compression socks which is reducing the swelling in my legs but my neck seems to be getting larger.....

 

Interesting bathroom feature in Singapore 

From Singapore we have another 3 hour flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We land at midnight on June 15. Dave has arranged to have their friend who is in the tour business to be our guide during our visit which includes picking us up at the airport in the middle of the night and taking us to our hotel. Stay tuned!

Update: We have arrived at Singapore in only 15 1/2 hours..woo hoo! 9009 miles! Changi Airport is very nice and looks more like a mall than an airport. Our last leg has been delayed an hour so we will have 3 hours to hang out. The flight to Sri Lanka is 3.5 hours. 

 

Our Sri Lankan family met us at the airport at midnight with a bus! 29 1/2 hours of traveling!

Happy 90th Birthday Weekend

March 6, 2017

This last weekend I was fortunate to celebrate my mom's 90th birthday with my family. Because she loves the mountains, we decided to think outside of the box and rent a beautiful lodge just outside of Estes Park for our large crowd. Five out of her seven children were able to come, along with eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren as well as assorted spouses. It was a very fun time with lots of food, spirited card games, shopping and even a walk or two. We even had a private viewing of some neighborhood elk who decided to visit our driveway a few times! Definitely a memorable event for such a special and wonderful person. Happy Birthday mom!

 

 

  

 
  

  

  

 

California Capers Day 2

Today was Spa Day for the Ostwalds. This was a belated Valentines Day gift to each other or it could have been viewed as a part of my month long birthday celebration! Anyway,  it was wonderful to alieve our bodies from all of the  electronic punching, desk sitting, and weight of the world aches and pains - if only temporarily!

We then took our newly revived bodies out for a walk which led us to the Torrey Pines State park. We had hiked here last October with our friend Karen. It was a good thing we had because today most of the paths were closed due to the excessive rain in the area. It was still a beautiful walk and we were able to clock 12,000 steps on the outing.

Later that night we may or may not have "walked the golf course" in the dark so a certain person I know could smoke his cigar. It was enchanting even in the dark but worry-wart me was glad to have the flashlight on my phone so we wouldn't walk off a cliff into the ocean!

It will be sad to leave in the morning even though the weather was crappy. I guess we will just have to come back!

Note-(Monday) Turkish Uber driver to the airport gave me another good hike to do when we come back as well as some great places in Istanbul and Bulgaria! Cheers to Uber and our diverse country!

    

Torrey Pines State park

 

Goodbye for now Torrey Pines!

California Capers Day 1

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Don was out in San Diego on business so I decided to join him for this 3 day weekend. Unfortunately, it is rainy and chillier than Denver but we didn't  let this stop our sightseeing. We are staying on the Torrey Pines golf course in LaJolla so of course we wanted to investigate this beautiful and famous course first thing. We found that in order to get a tee time you need to book about 3 months out so I felt bad for the diehards who were out in the rain trying to enjoy their long awaited experience! However, the next best thing to golfing the course was visiting the golf shop! 

We found our way via Uber to the La Jolla village. Don is a huge proponent of Uber and I have begun to see why. Typically the drivers have other jobs and are quite interesting to talk to. This particular driver told us about the baby Harbor Seals on the Children's beach so we headed there right away! By this time it was raining pretty good but we are true Colorados who carry a jacket everywhere, except for maybe mid July in the desert, so we were comfortable. Oh those baby seals were so cute! The beach where they "haul out" was designated a human children's beach originally but in the 1990's the harbor seals decided that it should be for seal children instead. It is so heartwarming to see the mammas take care of their babies. Harbor seals do not like to touch each other but that doesn't apply to mammas and babies who touch noses quite frequently. It is hilarious to see the antics the babies do to convince their moms that it is time to nurse!

We debriefed and dried out at one of the San Diego microbrews- Karl Strauss brewery. Another Uber driver was a retired businessman who sold microbrew systems at the beginning of the whole micro-brew surge in the 90's. I'm thinking his Uber driving was definitely just a hobby to get out of the house! 

The rest of the day we meandered around the village, explored a cave and watched the surfers. The waves have been particularly huge this time of year and they got really big around 5pm. Surfing definitely attracts thrill seekers and in this neck of the world surfing attracts those who also can tolerate cold conditions! A terrific seafood dinner topped off the day. P.S. The Uber driver back to the hotel sold yachts for a living! Too bad we're not "boat people!"

 

The Beautiful Torrey Pines golf course

  

Mamma Habor seal with her pup

 

  

Outside of ocean cave.                                                                           124 steps down to the Sunny Jim cave 

 

Thus cave is named Sunny Jim because it looks like the profile of Sunny Jim which was a popular cereal in 1902

 

  

  Not a cookie cutter husband!                                                   Great shopping!