The Villa!

27/04
We leave the hotel around 10 am and leaving Colombo is not easy, many military checkpoints, policemen everywhere, guns in their hands, we suddenly feel we are in a country devastated by conflict in a state of emergency, after 4 hours of coach, driving along the coast, looking at villages and seeing the blue sea, we reach our destination the Villa Victoria in Talpe, a true magical place!!The villa is breathtaking, two aisles with wood everywhere, old shutters, 5 bedrooms (we will be ten this week) old genuine antique Indian furniture, paradise garden with coconut trees, a swimming pool and a fabulous view over the beach! It has been created to be a home away from home and it feels magical!! We even have some staff members, a cook and a house dog Billie!! We all feel enthusiastic, a really luxurious amazing house!!!We spend the rest of the day swimming, resting and looking at the indian ocean, a tranquil atmosphere, a really restful house! We watch the sunset on the beach, it feels like we have entered paradise!!!

28/04
The day is spent lazing around in the villa, observing the waves, the sea, the coconut trees, the frangipani trees, swimming, talking together, sleeping, reading in the pool, a paradise!!
So cool to have our lunch and dinner prepared by the villa's chef and to laze around, we both feel we need that time to feel on holidays to recharge our batteries before the next BIG challenge: India! We relax, rest in a magical environment! It feels so secluded and protected, we are so not in touch with the conflict that is devastating the country up north. We hear the violence has escalated and that the LTTE is still encircling people in the north. So sad but so weird to be in a paradise and so close to a violent conflict.

29/04
After a little swim in the pool, Fab and I decide to go for a walk,to discover the beach and explore the coast, it is wonderful, lovely beaches, wild, white and black sand, active sea, lots of waves, the water is green, turquoise, and the places are delightfully unexploited by mainstream tourism. It is beautiful, fishermen on their stilts, nice villas and villages, again very clean. We observe the people, the natural wonders and it is great!! The waves are too big to swim but I manage to dip myself in the water. So nice to stroll gently with my man and the dog Billie who comes with us all the time, a great walking companion!! After so much sport, we have to rest!!The afternoon is spent chilling out, lazing around, swimming, reading in the pool and then it is time to celebrate our birthdays in advance!!! A BBQ has been organised, lobsters, gigantic shrimps, some champagne and creme caramel!!So nice to feel loved and surrounded, thanks to our friends!!! A really lovely eve!

30/04
We spend the morning chilling out in the villa, swimming, chatting, reading under the sun then after a fish soup the 4 of us decide to go visit Galle which used to be a very important port until the 19th century. We take the local bus, noisy but fun, and arrive in town, after looking around the new city, we make our way to the old part of town, the Fort, with its remparts and fortifications. It is hot and sunny and we are strolling gently, slowly, stopping to eat rotis and looking at shops, dreaming of buying old derelict hospitals or colonial houses to renovate! The fort is really interesting to visit, many small Dutch houses, narrow streets, boddhi trees, mosque, churches, greek temples, remparts, old gates, all those buildings were protected from the Tsunami thanks to the fortifications. So nice to walk in a town full of history, it is a really good well preserved colonial era city, it feels very Dutch and very colonial, so interesting and lovely too, watching the sun, walking on the fortifications, observing life, people around us. After a bit more shopping in the new town, we have to meet with Marie and Xavier (friends and guests at the wedding) who are in town for one night, we bargain hard to get a tuk tuk to take the 4 of us to their hotel! A mad fun drive, the tuk tuk is too heavy and I am on top of Fab, lying on Bertrand and the driver is struggling to keep the tuk tuk straight, we then arrive at the hotel to find out that our friends left this morning: complete mix up with dates and mobile phones messages arriving too late!!! What a shame!!We have a drink the 4 of us there, thinking of them, then decide to stay out for dinner, baby Timeo is looked after by his grannies so the parents can stay out late! We find a little local cafe and stuff our faces (literally) with parathas, kuthis and rotis, so good, we are the local attraction, people come to watch us eat, again we find the Sri Lankan very nice, very chatty, very friendly people. After this cheap feast, we decide to take the local bus home, and start to wait for 25 minutes at a corner of a street, buses go past us and never stop!!!Then somebody tells us, after having watched us for half an hour that it is not the place to stop bus and that there is a bus stop nearby!!! What a laugh!! We then go and wait, wait, wait at the bus stop, a tuk tuk driver is waiting for us to be fed up and do business with him, but we wait despite buses going again and never stopping too full or not going to our place!! Then suddenly what seems to be a big red bus stops, as we waive for it and we go and jump in it, it is NOT a bus but a big lorry, looking like a bus but the two drivers agree to take us home, we have a fun ride, laughing in the noisy lorry, imagining the tuk tuk driver seeing us jump in the lorry, so much fun!!! The noise is mad in the driver cabin and we all try to recognise the sights close to our village, hop we are home, thanks for a great hitch-hiking moment! The end of the eve is a bit dampened by finding out that baby Timeo has been ill again, many guests here have been affected by belly issues. Sandra and Bertrand will call a doctor tomorrow to check it is OK. I struggle with a big migraine and managed to fall asleep in pain...

01/05
We both wake up late, Fab goes into town with Sandra and Bertrand, I stay in the villa with the rest of the group, they are leaving tonight, we are leaving tomorrow, I want to read, rest, write, enjoy the view of the sea. Fab is going to book the Delhi hotel and do some shopping. Baby Timeo is still weak, and the doctor has been called in, a bad gastro, contagious so he needs to rest and be rehydrated today! Later after dinner, the group is reducing in number, Bertrand's family is heading back to France. Only 6 of us left tonight including baby!

02/05
Sandra, Fab and I wake up in the morning and visit a sea turtle hatchery. Endangered species eggs are being artificially hatched in order to try and maintain the population of the beautiful animals. We learn a little bit about the process, the charity buiyng the eggs from the local fishermen and burried in sand in a protected compound. When the turles hatch, they are being released in the sea under tight supervision so a maximum number of babies survive. Nature still does the selection after all, but more babies make it to the water. We see Green Turtles, Hawksbill, Loggerhead which head looks a little bit like a dog...Sandra and I pick some babies up (Leatherbacks), the tiny animal holding in the palm of our hand. It is funny to think that they will grow so big a few decades on...
We come back to the villa enjoying another fun bus ride before our lunch, we mange to spend few hours in the pool before going back to Colombo. A few hours later, we're back in the heavily policed and militarised city. We walk to get some dinner in a local, and stop on the way to the Cinnamon Grand Hotel (a palace) to have an ice-cream. The place is hosting one of those impressive wedding in the main atrium. Women in colourful saris, men in elegant suits, gigantic bunch of flowers. We watch the show...and return to the hotel to sleep through our last night in pamperland!!! A bit anxious as we are leaving for Delhi tomorrow and have so many expectations and fears about India!How will it be? Will we struggle? It will feel strange to get back on our bacpaking adventure, after having been pampered and in a group...but it is time to start the journey alone again.

03/05
We wake up and meet up with Sandra, Noelle, Timeo and Bertrand to enjoy a last breakfast. We've had a fantastic holiday, we've spent some time with dear friends. In a few hours we'll be in Delhi but the story will be different. We're looking forward to it but we're also a bit apprehensive. Fab especially. The holiday did him loads of good, the comfort, the good food, going back to a familiar surrounding, settling down in one place for while...and not having to deal with the bags...We're excited because we will go back to a more normal and real life, closer to the roots and to the people also. Luxury is fantastic but the drawback being that one tends to live cut off the realities of a place. But for a holiday it is priceless!!

Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Colombo

22/04
We leave in the morning for Kandy. En route we stop to visit a spice garden in Matale then drive through geometric fields of rice paddies, forests, wild flowers and amazing vegetation, very lush. We arrive at the end of the afternoon at our next palace, the Amaya Hills in the mountains around Kandy, a charming hill capital, 465 metres above sea level. The city is nice, with valleys, hills, temples, shrines. After a good rest, we set off to visit some gem stone shops, in which we finally decide not to go. A little later we visit the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. The tooth relic was brought to SL and became the most sacred object of worship in the country. It's a public worship, with the ceremony starting with trumpets and heavy drum beats, an unforgettable spectacle. It's a very beautiful temple, comprising wood and stone carving, wood painted walls, stone friezes, frescoes depicting the story of the Tooth, and its miracles. The temple is quite impressive. We attend a ceremony where devotees pay their respect to the Tooth, some sort of beautifully carved stone box containing the remains of the Buddha. But the process is quite ruled and we do not have too much time to look at any of the main relics, but we do get a gist of the importance of the pilgrimage. The place is very holy and any room it contains is very well maintained and decorated. The people present here in large number are patiently waiting for their turn and everybody is impressively well dressed up. Then we visit the grounds of the temple and slowly make our way back to the hotel, nice dinner, chat and bed time already.

23/04
After a good night we set off to visit the botanic gardens of Peradeniya, spread over 50 hectares, and containing many species of trees and plants. Along the walk we discover trees onto which thousands of giant bats hang head down in an eery and screekie scream. Some of them fly in order to cool down. It is rather special... Beautiful plants and flowers, some with an incredible flashy turquoise-blue tint, giant fig trees. It is a very relaxing start of the day. We spend the afternoon at an elephant orphanage, see the massive baby elephant milk bottle feeding (each is around 5 litres and each elephant needs a good half dozen of them). We then cross the road and head for lunch over the river. Just as the food is arriving, so is a herd of hundreds of elephants, going to the river for their daily bath. The moment is magical and each one of us really gets hysterical... The experience is absolutely magical, some elephants dip in the water completely with only their trunk (or their bum!) sticking out of the water. The little baby elephants are also present, the young ones playing or even wrestling in (giant) splashes of water. The rain starts to fall and the colour of the sky and the river change to a golden colour. What a background, what an experience...we're delighted, we take our fruit plates and go feed the big animal. They come and pick the fruit with the end of their long trunk, funnily terminated by some sort of finger that allow them to literally grab the smallest edible things. The enormous and imposing animals are however very delicate and gently pick the pieces of delicacy we hand them out...we love it...Such a nice moment! Us, adults feel like children again in this magicval setting!
At the end of this lovely afternoon we return to Kandy to attend a traditional dance performance. The show is split in different parts and scenes, alternatively showing aspara dances, warriors, musicians etc. The entire show is accompanied by drums and the dances slowly become acrobates, jugglers and stuntmen. The dresses and costums are colourful and the show is quite spectacular. Back at the hotel we meet up with Marie and Xavier for drinks after a massage for Fab and Bertrand and a reflexology session for Val. It feels nice to relax, visit and not worry about anything!!

24/04
Today will be another beautiful day. We leave Kandy for Nuwara Eliya, not in the tour bus, but by train. This journey is one of the most beautiful route and way to explore Sri Lanka. The track climbs up the hill to the mountain town in the middle of tea plantations and overlooking the valleys, rivers and waterfalls. Lanscapes are breathtaking and superb. Men and women working in the plantations hand picking tea leaves, in a sublime combination of tendre green leaves and colourful saris... On the train, locals play music, sing, watch the rolling lanscape, take pictures and films, interact with us. All eyes keep looking outside, and all of us spend time switching between our sits and the train steps, sticking our head or our entire bodies out of the open door and windows. Kids smile to us, play with us, the train officer literally falling in love with Timeo and plays with him the entire length of the trip. Station after stations we progress, stopping here and there, watching the ancient tradition of the toll ring catching. After this very scenic and spectacular train ride, we reach the Nuwara Eliya Grand Hotel. The hotel is one of the relics of the British empire, a very beautiful colonial building, very exclusive, but quite old. All the rooms and corridor and made of dark wood, in a Victorian style. We feel like going back in time, a suspended time. We team up with Sandra, Bertrand and Timeo for a walk to the town centre and visit bazaars and old market. We leave them for further explorations but the town is quite small and does not offer much to see. We all have dinner together and some of us go to the old bar for a snooker lesson we've arranged with the bar tender, stuck in his mid 1800's all white costume!! The snooker tables (3 of them) are enormous and sometimes receive Sri Lankan and international tournaments. It is a real honour and experience to play on a 120 year old snooker table, brought here by the first colons on the back of elephants from Colombo!

25/04
Today we take our bus to Colombo, through the beautiful tea plantations again. Pretty much same route as the train but closer to everything. We also make a couple of stops for lunch and tea. The road is quite challenging and bends are numerous. Late afternoon we arrive at our next palace, another British empire heritage splendour, the Galle Face Hotel, on the sea front in the middle of Colombo. Once again, a stunning colonial influence building with a great swimming pool, in which we all have a swim after a straining day on the bus. We watch a beautiful sunset under the American embassy mirradors and machine guns and coastguard boats patrols...weird!We feel the city is under alert and that the war is not so far, many police patrols, military men in the streets but the hotel feels like a secluded palace...while outside there is a certain tension.

26/04
Today is shopping day and we trek aboard tuk-tuk to the fashion malls and shops of Colombo. We have lunch in a local eatery with Bertrand and Olivier. More military presence and few stops at police checkpoints but not much more than that...again so strange for a country in conflict! We spend some more time in the swimming pool and do absolutely nothing else at all...Little note on this; we both start feeling something is missing a bit and slowly realise that we did not have to organise anything for our stay. This is a holiday, pure and simple. The buzz of looking for an accommodation for the night has disappeared. How did we get to and from any place? Where is the dodgy hotel, the grubby room, the badly wired electricity, the shabby backpackers, the disfunctional air-con (forget this last one, we found it!), where is the bloody heavy bag (21.5kg!!) that has been killing Fab's back for too long?????? Where are we?? What's happening??? Which planet is this??? Is this normal?????? Well, yes, in the world of luxury travel and four or five stars hotel, all of this is normal...We are being pampered. It feels REALLY good. Nothing to worry about, we're being taken care of! For a while...but we also long to get back to our backpacking experience. For the moment we are enjoying the friends, the lovely palaces, the safety and luxury feeling.

The Wedding!

21/04

The morning is busy for Fab who goes to visit one of the finest caves temples, in Dambulla while I decide to chill out and spend some time with the bride to be and friends at the swimming pool, we chat and do manicures and pedicures under the sun! Sandra is very relaxed for somebody who is getting married in a few hours, I am impressed!
Fab enjoyed his morning, he thought the temples, in 5 caves, full of sitting and standing buddhas were inspiring and outstanding. He loved the mural paintings of scenes from the buddha's life and the solemnity of the place. We all meet around 12ish and go for lunch, a nice moment. Fab is Bertrand's best man so he gets ready with him in our villa while I stay with Sandra and her cousin to prepare the bride, make up, hair, dress, hard with the heat!!Sandra looks amazing, we all feel quite emotional but it is already time for them to meet to do their wedding piccies. A bit of a rushed time for Fab as he is also the wedding photographer!!!
All the guests gather around 4pm, we are then taken to an idyllic spot near the lake by dancers to wait for ther couple. They arrived led by an elephant, on a buffalo carriage, impressive!!!
The ceremony is a mix of traditional Sri Lankan rituals (prayer, tieing the fingers together, cutting a coconut shell) and more Western elements (readings, flute, music). After this special moment, we all share some drinks, looking at the lake and the sunset, such a wonderful location!!
The diner is then served in a fantastic wooden house, with hundred of lanterns, multicolored lihting the path, very magical. It reminds me of Hoi An, it feels surreal and so beautiful. The evening is nice, diner is traditional Sri Lankan food, we dance on 80s music and some even finish in the pool fairly late!! So nice to be with our friends to share their special moment here, in a superb and wonderful place.A truly unique experience and a memorable wedding!

Dambulla

18/4
We leave Singapore, and after a short flight, we finally land in Sri Lanka, very excited to meet our friends soon!!In Colunbo, a driver meets us to drive us another three hours to the little resort in the North West of the country where the wedding will take place. It is hot and humid but the sky is red, warm and the first impressions are good, we feel surprised: the driver rides the car like a mad man, overtake badly, speeds, it feels mad but the villages we see are clean, nice, the forests lush and everyone wave at us from the cars around, we discover the country in the light beam of the car in a crazy way. The driving is even madder than in Vietnam!! Loads of people are walking on the road making things a little scarier (for them). Fab sleeps in the taxi as the driving makes him feel uncomfortable, I let go and trust the driver ability to manage the traffic, and his mad crazy drive takes us to the beautiful Amaya Lake hotel. As soon as we arrive, we met with Sandra, Timeo and Bertrand, we feel quite emotional to hug them, catch up, see them after 4 months on the road and for such a special occasion. Hugs, drinks then bed time!! We feel excited, exhausted and happy to be here with them in such a gorgeous hotel: nice swimming pool, a lake, forests, in a 4 stars palace!!! What a change for us!

19/04
Today is a free day, we are all relaxing before the wedding, the guests are slowly arriving, dealing with their jetlags and the heat! We relax, swim, eat a lot ( so nice to eat tons of food: I so enjoy the breakfast, with croissants and little cakes!!), we chat a lot with our friends, catch up with the group of friends and family: it will be a small wedding around 30 people, mainly from France and some Sri Lankan guests, how exciting!! Both of us are hapy to be in a nice setting, a gorgeous lake, a swimming pool and I even treat myself to a brilliant massage in the ayurvedic centre of the hotel: FAB!!! A nice day to ease in as it somehow feels weird to suddenly be in a group, even of people we know, in a different easier nicer environment, what a shock after nearly 4 months alone on the road!! The luxurious bungalow we are staying in is very posh in comparison with our $10 a night guesthouse and we have very different conversations to the ones we have been having for the last few months with travellers, we feel a bit outsiders, on a different planet but nothing bad, just very different!! This little time here is going to be a holiday within the trip, an easy fun moment for us.

20/04
We are in the cultural triangle of Sri Lanka and there are many sights to visit and our friends have planned some excursions so we can discover the area even before the wedding! Today is sightseeing day and we end up in a small bus with a guide, feels weird to discover the country that way but easier, so much easier!! The mood is really positive, everyone chats, laught, despite the tiredness and the heat!! During the drive, we see many ripe rice fields, lots of lakes around, they are actually artificial reservoirs (ancient ones)to hold rainwater! We arrive in Polonnaruwa, the ancient medieval capital of the country, we visit some large structure built of bricks and see lots of ruins. We then go and see some massive buddhas sculpted in stone, those statues are full of dignity, strenght, and it is beautiful, very inspiring!!
I like watching those colossal figures carved in the stone, the recumbent buddha and the seated buddha in meditation are particularly amazing. I find it a bit hard to focus on sightseeing as it is weird to be in a group, to see our friends, to be with people, we chat all the time, spend some time with baby Timeo who is so brave, coping with the heat and the changes with big smiles, there is so much to catch up on!!! But we are happy to go with the flow, to see this site, full of archeological importance (long ancient old civilisation here) but also of important religious significance!! We have lunch then it is now time to climb Sigiriya, the lion rock, the citadel which rises high above the flat plains!This place is really impressive: a massive rock fortress built in the 5th century AD, a mad man's vision, a king who transformed a rock into an almost impregnable fortress! There are great paintings in some rock pockets, some steep rock surface so highly polished that one can see its relflection in it, hence the name mirror wall. I love the paintings: beautiful women painted on the stone. It is hard to climb, so many steps and so steep!!!Above the courtyard are a number of hornets nests, quite scary!! We then reach the pathway in between the paws of the lion, it is a difficult climb, despite the railings, quite mad!!! The summit was used for the palace of the king, we all watch the remains of the foundations, like the pond filled with water and the crazy beautiful view. Fab and I keep being surpprised by this country, clean, beautiful, lush and with a great culture, so many ruins of very old civilisations, temples, monuments, buddhas everywhere (apparently Buddha visited Sri Lanka three times!) and 70% of the population is buddhist!We also feel the hindu influence a lot, in the architecture, in the way people act or dress. Weirdly enough, we are not very much informed of the conflict going on in the North of the country, yes we see many police and military check points (the bus is often stopped and there are military men everywhere) but it doesn't feel unsafe or too tensed. We feel secluded here, in the tourist oasis, we don't really hear about the humanitarian crisis or how the government is fighting the Tamil Tigers! The day has been so tiring with so much to do but we now both have to run around as soon as we reach the hotel, as it is the stag and hen parties tonight (we are both organisers!)
A quick shower, more running around to plan things, then men and women split to start the eve!! It has to be soft as the wedding is tomorrow...few silly games for both of them, reenactement of the proposal under water in the pool, some drinks,Sandra and Bertrand are a bit of a hit in the hotel tonight, him running around with a superman underwear, her with a mad pink t-shirt, looking for men to sign it!!!Some little presents, some drinks and we all meet again to finish the eve, quite cvilised!!