Welcome to the story of my most adventurous family
holiday. On a whim, my parents decided
the south of France just wouldn’t cut it this year, so they mustered all their
adventurous spirit and booked a holiday to Sri Lanka. So naturally I tagged
along…
There seems to be two ways to visit Sri Lanka as a tourist;
firstly, the nitty gritty backpacker trail. This option seems to appeal to the
young, free of cares and equally free of showers – exciting but less than
family-friendly. Option number 2 is to
be driven around in a private car with your own personal tour guide. Whilst option 2 seems extravagant, it is a
very common way to travel in Sri Lanka and very reasonable price-wise. My
parents decided that if they were paying out for such an exotic trip (and
considering they’re not really the target audience for the hostel scene) we
went for option 2.
When we met Ude at the airport, we were expecting a driver
to drop us off and pick us up. What we got was a tour guide, and from his big
smile to his passion for sharing the details of his country with you, Ude was a
great guide to have.
Three things stood out about my first glimpse of Sri Lanka:
1.
The scenery – everywhere is so green and
thriving with life
2.
Roadside stalls everywhere – who buys a rubber
dinghy on a road in the middle of nowhere?!
3.
The driving is a whole new experience.
I once read that the chaos on the roads you see on TV
programmes about India is not all aggressive beeping and it would seem to be the
same in Sri Lanka. Beeping the horn seems to indicate an intention to overtake,
which in itself is done with the most minimal of space. Cutting corners on
winding mountain passes also didn’t seem to be a problem, neither did the
ad-hoc occurrence of a line of tuk-tuks in between the rest of the traffic.
After this initial culture shock, we were pleasantly
surprised to learn hotel customs of being greeted with a cold flannel (scent
optional) and a drink of fruit juice.
Our first hotel, Chaaya Vilage was located in a small town called
Habarana, which serves as a popular base for the local historic landmarks and
national parks. On the first night, we came back from dinner to the sight of
monkeys in the trees above our cabins. The next morning we were greeted by the
sight of an elephant being walked along the river that bordered the complex,
with a romantic mist softening the scene: and we felt we’d arrived in Sri
Lanka.
Sigirya Rock
Our first sightseeing destination was Sigirya Rock, also known as the Lion Rock. Sigirya was the seat of an ancient settlement, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the presence of ancient frescoes, which survive intact without restoration, with the exception of two figures that were deliberately defaced, although no-one really knows why. Visitors walk over a moat, then through the site of the King’s pleasure gardens, complete with gravity-powered fountains, before reaching the rock, which juts of the surrounding tropical landscape like an iceberg in the ocean.
We joined the throng of tourists on a slow upward climb
before ascending a staircase to the viewing gallery that has been created for
the paintings. The frescoes are undoubtedly impressive, in that they are full
of colour, yet they were painted with simple materials like the ground that
makes up termite hills. Our guide explained that the Rock is also famous for
the ancient ‘gravities’ (graffiti’s) of visitors to the site over the ages.
Climbing to the next level, visitors are faced with a steep staircase, guided
by two huge lion paws. This side of the rock once bore a huge lion head, inside
which the staircase lay, but that has since weathered away. At the top of the
modern staircase (the ancient staircase consists nothing more than some shallow
indentations into the rock) the site of the extravagant royal baths lay before
us. According to our guide, the primary
purpose of the top of the rock was not for residence – that would be far too
impractical – but to bathe. How on earth building a set of baths on top of a
huge rock and shifting water up and down it was practical must baffles me and
no doubt several archaeologists. Nevertheless, it was undoubtedly an impressive
feat.
Elephant safari
That afternoon we went to Minneriya National Park, a site
recommended by our guide for elephant spotting. Our first sights included grey
langur monkeys, leisurely crossing the road and lounging in the trees, both a
grey-headed and a white-bellied fish eagle along with pelicans, black-headed
ibis, egrets and a stork, gathered in a picturesque group on the edge of a huge
lake. Then we saw the elephant. A lone male was lingering in a small thicket –
it’s amazing how well hidden such a huge animal can be. Luckily, he decided to
exit said thicket and stroll casually along the plain for us to see.
When it was time to move on, we continued to drive around
the big lake. We rounded a corner to see the breath taking site of a herd of
about 30 elephants! They were fairly fearless when it came to humans, which
allowed us to get quite close to these magnificent wild creatures. A young
elephant clearly got a little over-curious and a little too close to us; we
thought it’s mother was going to charge but it turned out she just hot-footed
it over to the jeep to push him back out of harm’s way. As we made our way back
out of the Park, we came across a slightly smaller herd of elephants, allowing
us another chance to observe them in their natural habitat and watch their
group dynamics.
No comments:
Post a Comment