Kalutara was our last stop in Sri Lanka. After being on the move and exploring so much, we needed a few relaxing days on the beach before heading back to the States. Kalutara is pretty well known for sustaining serious damage by the tsunami of 2004 - you can see before and after pics here. Our visit was about 2 years following the disaster, and honestly our resort looked pretty good. I think the area has recovered rather well, and tourists are starting to visit once again (apparently Kalutara is very popular with the Germans!).
Our time in Kalutara was nice - on our first night we enjoyed a spectacular sunset on the beach. We really didn't do a whole lot during our time there other than relax on the beach, sip cool drinks, eat delicious food, and play with a baby monkey(!). One night we had a fresh lobster dinner that was incredible! We also endulged in Ayurvedic oil massages on the hotel roof - which felt pretty good but left us smelling like food for days! All in all, it was a good way to spend our last days in Asia!
Kandy was our second stop in Sri Lanka. We took a cab from Colombo and drove for a few hours through the lush countryside. Before we got to Kandy, we made a couple of stops, first to take an "elephant safari" through the jungle, and second, to the Pinawalla elephant orphanage. Elephants are a popular tourist attraction, especially all of the baby elephants at Pinawalla. One of the babies we saw was just 10 days old - cute! Our last stop before reaching Kandy was for tea at our taxi driver's house. It was somewhat of a surprise to be welcomed into his home, but he and his family were very nice.
After tea, we at last arrived in Kandy. Our hotel, the Earl's Regency, was a spectacular five star hotel on the edge of town, and we had a fantastic view of the Dumbara Valley from our balcony.
Our sightseeing in Kandy included a walk around the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, which had, in addition to all of the exotic plants, thousands of huge fruit bats (3 ft. wingspans!!) hanging from the trees, rather large scorpions, and several monkeys (one of which was more than ready to aggressively defend the trash can in which it sat!). We also toured the Temple of the Tooth, which houses the Shrine of Buddha's tooth relic, dressed very stylishly in makeshift skirts to cover our bare legs. Later we ascended to the top of the hills overlooking the city to see the Bahiravakanda Buddha. On the recommendation of our hotel, we also went to see a performance of traditional Kandy dancers, fire-walkers, and fire-eaters, which was very impressive. We topped off our time in Kandy with a trip to the Pizza Hut that we spotted in town - American food had never sounded so good!
Our time in Colombo was fairly short. We arrived from Delhi pretty late, probably around midnight, and we headed right to our hotel. Although we were close to the ocean, we couldn't see much in the dark. The hotel was awesome (particularly compared to the one we had stayed in the night before in Delhi), and when we opened up the doors to the balcony the next morning, we had a beautiful view that allowed us a tantalizing glimpse of the Indian Ocean! Our itinerary didn't allow for any exploring in Colombo, but before our cab drove us to Kandy, we stopped at Beach Wadiya for a really nice lunch. We were right by the ocean, and we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves! Lunch was good, the staff was super friendly, and we enjoyed a few Lion beers (a Sri Lankan "social lubricant") as we relaxed.
We were a little nervous coming into Sri Lanka because of the ongoing civil war there between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, a militant rebel group. Since Colombo is the capital, violence has been particularly prevalent in that city; in fact, we heard that just a few days after we flew out of Sri Lanka, there was a bombing at the airport! However, we never saw any evidence of the conflict the entire time we were there, and for that we are very thankful!
