Turmeric and Milk

Today you are going to learn about how to drive in Sri Lanka. There are five rules of the road...

1. Luck - you have to be very lucky for no one to hit you


2. Honking - no one listens if you don’t honk


3. Break - this is very important to be able to stop very quickly


4. Four Eyes - you need to have your assistant to see the road that you can’t see. You need four eyes.


5. Confidence - with all these things you need confidence, then you can drive in Sri Lanka!

This was the first thing our guide told us about Sri Lanka as we set out on a day of driving through the country. Safe to say my seatbelt was securely fastened from that point forward.

Sri Lanka was fantastic because it is so unlike anywhere that I had even been before, it’s an amazing fusion of history, culture, religion, nature...everything that you could want in a holiday!
I went to Sri Lanka with pretty much zero expectations, the reasons for choosing it as a holiday destination were vague to say the least. Once deciding that I wanted winter sun, something a little bit different, and having very specific dates Sri Lanka was kind of the only destination that popped out.

But, although Sri Lanka wasn’t somewhere that I had really thought about going, it was a great choice. I like travelling to places with a bit of a culture shock, or somewhere a little bit different, and Sri Lanka was definitely that. I’d never been to the part of the world before and, although I’ve spend a lot of time in Asia, this was totally different to the Asia that I had ever experienced.
I think that the main reason that it is so different is because the country has only fairly recently come out of a horrific civil war. This inevitably left a scar on the psyche of the country, but eight years on from the end of the civil war Sri Lanka is thriving. I didn’t see any evidence of the war and it wasn’t really mentioned to me during my trip, this is one way that the country is different from Vietnam and Cambodia where their history is very much in the open. But it’s not like the Sri Lankan’s are ignoring the horrific history, it’s more than they prefer the tourists to focus on other aspects of their history and culture.

Over my 8 days in Sri Lanka we did a lot, to go through every individual site would be painful for me to write and anyone to read. What I will do instead is give the day by day breakdown of everything I saw after I share my top 5 experiences and moments (I do love a top xyz list).

Kandy Tuktuk races
I loved Kandy as a city, it was cultural, vibrant and reminded me a lot of Hanoi with its big lake in the centre of town. While I loved shopping in the local markets, visiting the Temple of the Tooth and the cultural dance show we saw, my favourite memory is of the crazy tuktuk drivers we befriended. Tuktuk’s are always fun, the roads are manic, you weave in and out of the traffic, you think you’re going to fall out...well, Kandy was on another level! When two groups of us got in separate tuktuk’s and we told our driver “we have to beat them!” he took our words very seriously. Cue racing through red lights, over taking on the wrong side of the road and almost falling into ditches; all in the effort to be victorious! It was definitely dangerous but I have never laughed so hard while thinking that I was 90% likely going to die at any moment. Plus, most importantly, we won!

Local Village Experience
On our busiest day we were told that we were going to go on a canoe ride and then have lunch in a local village. I loved the sound of this because I love canoeing and anything food related is good in my eyes. I was ready to go with my life jacket on when imagine my surprise at not seeing moored kayaks but a very, very basic boat made up of two canoes with benches strapped to a plank on top. Us tourists hopped onto the benches and a little Sri Lankan man took up the oar and started rowing us across the lake. He must have noticed me looking at him because before long he was saying “you take the oar, come help me!” I thought he was joking but when he kept encouraging me to jump in the driving seat I decided to go for it. Anyone who knows me personally will know that I am the weakest person ever, but for what I lacked in strength I made up for in enthusiasm and, as the dream rowing team, my little Sri Lankan friend and I got the group across the lake where we stopped in some muddy reeds. After clambering onto solid land we emerged in a tiny little farm where we would be having lunch. The ladies from the family showed us how to make a mix of curries and accompaniments and ever let us try grating coconut using their special tools. The meal was delicious and full of vegetables and fish, but the hardest thing was mastering eating the traditional way – with our hands. Much, much harder than it looks and I ended up making a terrible mess; but at least it was fun! After lunch I ventured to explore this families little patch and found their tree house, which I had to try out of course! To round off the afternoon we took a hair raising tuktuk ride back to the waiting bus.

The Food
Yes, I know that food isn’t really an experience but as always it did form a large part of my experience and how I feel about Sri Lanka. I’ll start by saying that the food is Sri Lanka is delicious.
Despite most meals focusing around curry, there is a huge variety in the food. Even the food that you might think of as basic has more varieties than you could even dream up – think over 2000 varieties of rice (try the nutty red rice), 29 varieties of banana (try the lemon bananas), and, 15 varieties of coconut (try the king coconut). I found that the best food I had was at the little local places. On the tour I was on, our guide tried to steer us towards big hotel buffets because he was worried that we’d get ill, but funnily enough the only time I got ill was from a hamburger at a 5* hotel – go figure! My meal highlight has to be eating at a local canteen style restaurant in Kandy. We had broken away from the group and basically tried to find the busiest place full of locals. This place was full of Sri Lankan families, and although the language barrier wasn’t the easiest to navigate it was fairly easy to work out. We ended up getting a kind of pick and mix style plate from the canteen area, as a tourist it’s much easier to imagine what you’d like once you see the food in front of you! I ended up with a plate piled high with 4 or 5 different kinds of curry, a samosa, and two drinks for a couple of Great British pounds.
The one dish that stuck with me was the devilled mushrooms, we saw devilled varieties of meat everywhere, but I only saw devilled mushrooms once and they were insanely good.
NOTE: In Sri Lanka devilled anything has nothing to do with those weird stuffed eggs that we have in the West. The devilled is for spicy. Meat (or even mushrooms) cooked in a bright red and fiery, but surprisingly sweet, sauce.

Sigiriya Rock
Sigiriya Rock is at its essence a big old rock, but in Sri Lanka’s history it holds particular significance. King Kasyapa chose Sigiriya as his new capital after he killed his father and usurped his brother to get the crown. Because of this family betrayal he needed a secure place to set his capital that could be easily defended, where better than a 200m rock? He built beautiful water gardens, covered the walls with richly coloured paintings of half naked ladies, and half way up the rock built a gateway in the form of a lion.
This lion gate is where Sigiriya gets its name, which literally means the Lion Rock. When the King Kasyapa died, Sigiriya was abandoned as the capital and the palace was taken up as a Buddhist monastery until the 1300’s – unsurprisingly the monks got rid of most of the paintings of the naked ladies, apparently breasts are distracting when trying to gain enlightenment! Luckily some of the paintings did survive and you can still see them, miraculously well preserved, when climbing up the rock.
With all it’s history, Sigiriya Rock is one of the must visit sites in Sri Lanka. It’s not for the faint hearted, to get to the top you have to climb approximately 1200 stairs and some of the heights can be stomach dropping. But the stairs aren’t as bad as they sound and there are plenty of things to stop off and see along the way. The bit that some people leave out is the final set of steps up to the very top of the rock where the palace building was. The steps up are incredibly steep, very rickety, and very narrow; but the stairs are worth braving for the views from the top. Dress in loose clothes and take plenty of water, it’s a hot and sticky climb to the top but definitely do it.
PRO TIP: start early, you don’t want to be climbing in the heat of the midday sun!

Udawalawe safari
Before going to Sri Lanka I had never done safari. Mainly because I hadn’t really gone anywhere where it was an option, and honesty it wasn’t something that I was dying to do. Having said that the idea of seeing beautiful animals in their natural habitat was not something that I was going to turn down.
Sri Lanka has a huge variety of flora and fauna, and they have an impressive 22 national plants to protect it. Udawalawe National Park is one of these 22 and is known as the best placing for seeing Asian elephants. I expected the park to have more ope plains, but it's mainly bushes and scrub - but this didn't stop us seeing any elephants! We were lucky to have a couple of opportunities to get really close to the elephants, at one point I could have reached out of the jeep to touch them, and saw dozens of elephants around the park.
Although seeing the elephants was an amazing experience, one of my favourite memories was not elephant, or even animal, based at all. Driving towards the lake, where the elephants gather to drink and wash, we came across a giant puddle and a jeep completely and utterly stuck in the middle! The jeep being stuck, and watching the drivers try to put their heads together and figure out how to get it out, was funny enough but the real hilarity came from the couple who were stuck in the jeep and how furious the woman was. We were all heckling and laughing, but this woman was having a fit while her poor husband just sat looking sheepish.
Eventually the drivers managed to haul the jeep out of the mud and they went on their way, I'm sure it was a lot more fun than an observer than a stranded victim!

PRO TIP : Sri Lanka has a non-exportable currency so you can only really get it in-country. When you land in Colombo there are cash points and money exchange desks. I went for the cash point because I have a card that doesn’t charge me extra fees, but I know some of the exchange places offered a guarantee that they would buy back any left over currency when you leave the country (you can’t change it back outside Sri Lanka either). I actually didn’t have any money to change back in the end so it wasn't an issue for me!

For those of you who noticed that I never explained the title and are interested, Turmeric and milk is what the medicine man in the herb garden used to make his miracle hair removal cream. Apparently use it for a couple months and hair will be gone for years! Is this the secret that the hair removal industry don’t want you to know about?

Day 1
Arrive and Settle In
Overnight: Colombo

Day 2
Naramwela Market
Dambulla Rock Temple Complex
Polonnaruwa Ancient City
Overnight: Sigiriya

Day 3
Sigiriya Rock Fortress
Kayanwala Local Village Experience and Canoeing
Matale Spice Garden
Gem Museum and Shop
Overnight: Kandy

Day 4
Kandy City Tour
Temple of the Tooth
Geragama Tea Factory
Cultural Dance Performance
Overnight: Kandy

Day 5
Tea Plantations
Ramboda Waterfall
Nuwara Eliya City Tour
Overnight: Nuwara Eliya

Day 6
Udawalawe National Park and Game Drive
Overnight: Udawalawe Nation Park

Day 7
Ratnapura Gem Mine
Independance Square, Colombo
Gangarama Temple, Colombo
Overnight: Colombo

Day 8
Colombo Beaches
Mount Lavinia
Train Ride
Head Home!