My two highlights from the month of November...
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| Petronas Towers, KL, Malaysia |
Sri Lanka…After Vietnam, we stopped in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a day in
between flying to Sri Lanka. Saw the
Petronas Twin Towers, stayed in Chinatown and of course, ate so much great
food. At this point, you might be able
to understand why I came home 15 pounds heavier than when I left….Moving on, why Sri Lanka?? Good
question because we were thinking the same thing when we were flying there…We
literally had looked at the map and at AirAsia’s prices and said where is the
cheapest place to fly right now and it happened to be Sri Lanka. And I am so glad we went!!! What a special country Sri Lanka is and I
will never really be able to put it into words… The views from the buses and
trains that I saw in Sri Lanka are images that will forever be ingrained in my
mind. Unexpectedly, I had received a
message from a fellow ’10 Bobcat, Amrit, while I was in Vietnam saying he had
seen my facebook status and that we should hang out when we got to Sri
Lanka. I swear you will find Bates
people in every country in the world and it’s such a plus to traveling because
you get to see a different side of the place than you would have
otherwise. That was definitely the case
for Sri Lanka as Amrit set us up for 10 days of fun and adventure.
We arrived in Sri Lanka about 2 weeks before
their high season so every place was pretty empty but in turn, we got the
monsoons that were still hanging around.
Actually the first 4 days were spent in one of their biggest monsoons in
40 years but we made the most of it.
Before I go on, let me say that the Sri Lankan people are literally the
nicest people in the world but I am very glad that I was not traveling alone
because we got stared at like never before and sometimes it was pretty
uncomfortable. We started in Mount
Lavinia, which is a small beach house south of Columbo and met Amrit and his
cousin for dinner. I won’t even talk
about the room that Nanc and I stayed in that night because it gives me nightmares
and makes me feel dirty just thinking about it…
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| Day 1 - Mt. Lavinia with a view of Colombo |
Next morning, we took the train
down to Hikkaduwa, a beach town and found a room right on the water. A great quality of Sri Lanka is that it isn’t
resorty yet and though backpacking it might be a little higher priced that
other countries, you can find rooms right on the water at small family owned
places. We found a little place to stay called "Why Not?" that was literally on the water and its restaurant was being held up by sandbags. Hikkaduwa
was a nice little town and we spent a few days there just relaxing. One rainy day we hired a tuktuk taxi to take us to
the local turtle hatchery, the moonstone mines and to a spice garden. The whole day our driver was telling us about the history of the land, the tsumani and what countries came to their aid. It’s true what they say, you learn the most
from taxi drivers.
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| Morning fishing waiting for the next round of rain to arrive, Hikkiduwa |
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| Storming sea, Hikkiduwa |
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| Turtle hatchery north of Hikkiduwa with day old baby turtles |
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| Not safe at all! Moonstone mine |
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| Taxi for the day |
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| Finally the sun shining on Hikkiduwa |
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We
hopped a local bus and headed down the coast to Galle to meet Amrit and three of his
friends for a weekend of Halloween parties and lots of laughs. We stayed in the Galle Fort and it was like
stepping back in time into a little town in Europe, which was bizarre but so
nice. It was so different walking the
streets and going places with four Sri Lankan men instead of just Nanc and I
and we felt a lot safer. It was also
nice to be in a car instead of trying to maneuver public transportation in a
foreign country.
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| Driving down the coast |
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| Halloween - we wore togas, of course not realizing at the time that we were in sari land and that we might be offending people, oops |
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| Walking the walls of the Galle Fort |
After Galle,
we all went down to Unawatuna, another awesome beach town. After a night of beach party debauchery, we said
goodbye to Amrit and friends and stayed another night on our own. Then headed down to Mirissa Beach for a
relaxing two days at a beautiful beach that I hope never gets built up. When people found out that we were teachers,
they asked for us to stay and teach there and I was so tempted!! What a perfect simple life.
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| Unawatuna in the morning |
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| Unawatuna at sunset |
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| Mirissa Beach <3 <3 |
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| Up at 7 am to catch the results of the presidential election |
Lastly, we headed back up the
east coast to Colombo to spend two days there with our new best friends and Amrit was nice enough to let us stay at his family's house. Sadly, it was finally time to leave just as another storm rolled in.
Nancy and I officially parted
ways for the first time in a year and it was surreal. She was headed to Dubai and then home to New
Hampshire and I was headed back to Phuket and then home to Boston…
Final 6 days in SE Asia…After Sri Lanka, I flew to Singapore for an extended day long
layover. There isn’t too much to report
back about Singapore, I wasn’t too impressed. A large,
extremely modern city where I clearly didn’t fit in coming off a month of
backpacking. They did have a pretty
unique man-made garden called Gardens by the Bay and a beautiful skyline.
I was so exhausted from all my travels and got so tired of walking
around that I actually fell asleep on a park bench until someone woke me up
because it was starting to ran…Can you even imagine the sight I must have been?! I decided it was time to head back to the
airport to amuse myself because Singapore has THE BEST airport in the
world. I played around with all the
technological toys that were there, watched ESPN and accidentally called my dad
on Skype at 3 am his time because I was so messed up with all the different time
zones I had been in and the little Skype portal I was in said it was 5 pm in
Boston. I think I gave them a little
bit of a heart attack, oops.
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| Gardens by the Bay, Singapore |
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| Singapore at 8 am |
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| Saying bye to Sun, Skyla's manager |
Then it was back
to Thailand to spend my remaining 5 days in Asia in my favorite place, Phuket. Went back to school to say bye to my class
again, said my goodbyes to my ‘family’ and friends in Kamala, had one last meal
at Popeyes and tearfully said goodbye to Skyla…The
treehouse beach bar in Kamala that I blogged about two Christmas’ ago will forever be my favorite
place in Thailand and became my second home.
It provided me with a sense of tranquility and peace and made me a
happier person in life. Thank you Skyla's Beachhouse
Bar for all the memories, the epic dance parties, the best chill out mixes, teaching
me how to SUP, and for dealing with me when I was in rough shape every Saturday
and Sunday. I will make it back
someday.
Friday, I drove
south to spend a night out at Ska Bar with all my favorite people and headed to
Koh Phi Phi for one last hurrah Saturday morning with Bron and 30 other English
teachers. Third time’s the charm for Phi
Phi, definitely one of the most ridiculous and fun weekends of my time in
Thailand and it’s actually a miracle all thirty of us made it out in one
piece.
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| Heading into Maya Bay, Phi Phi Islands |
These last five days in Phuket were
especially amazing, which did not make it any easier to get on the plane to
finally head stateside….THAILAND, You have my heart forever, I’ll be back!
Reports on
my next adventure to come soon………
