Obsessions of Asia

We are woefully behind on posting since we came back to the United States. Despite having almost constant access to computers and the Internet, we have focused our time on seeing family and friends. Even for me, it is hard to say, "Mom, I know you haven't seen me for two years, but I just have to get those Obsessions posts done..."

So, without anymore excuses, here come Asia's obsessions:

India- Spitting. An easy one. The average Indian might spit 1200 times per day. And we aren't talking about small little bits of spittle. We're talking about pieces of lung the size of a fist. Sure, lots of Indians also have a paan habit (think chewing tobacco, but different ingredients that also happen to make one's spit Kool-Aid red), but even those that don't chew still spit. And before the spitting comes a noise that sounds like the regurgitation of a cow. Wait, most Indians don't eat cow, so a goat. Like hawking up a goat.

Sri Lanka- Water tanks. What is a water tank you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you even if you didn't ask. A water tank is a man made lake. Sri Lanka has a lot of areas that are at altitude and are very wet for part of the year, but very dry for the rest of the year. So, starting a thousand years ago or more, digging giant water pits became the prerequisite for growing any large city that wasn't on the sea. And they did it with gusto. Some of the cities have dozens of lakes that are far larger than many dammed lakes in the US, and they were all dug out by hand. Or maybe with hands and a rock and maybe a chisel, but you get the point. Good job, ancient Sri Lankans!

Malaysia- Tourism posters. If all the Asian countries were elementary school students, Malaysia would get the "Tries Hardest" certificate at the end of the year. Not only are tourism posters in nearly every window of Malaysia, they are in nearly every hotel and vaguely related travel business everywhere in Asia. They must have printed millions of them. And that makes it even sadder that more people don't visit Malaysia, which really is a spectacular country.

Singapore- Rules. Singapore has rules for everything. And fines for not following most of them. The list of fines in the subway cars was as long as my arm. (We especially appreciated that one of the highest fines was for bringing the smelly durian fruit on the train.) If you like to conform, consider moving to Singapore. If you have ever voted Libertarian or are a card carrying member of the Tea Party, consider vacationing somewhere other than Singapore.

Indonesia- Cats without tails. Didn't see that one coming, did you? We saw hundreds of cats in Indonesia and every one of them had some or all of its tail missing. We can only assume that people think they should not have tails and take it upon themselves to cut off the tails with whatever sharp instrument is laying around when they see a cat with tail intact. We thought that we might see this in other countries, but it was really just Indonesia.

Thailand- 7-Eleven. Think of all the 7-Elevens you have ever seen. Multiply that number by 100. That is how many 7-Elevens are on the average block in Thailand. It used to be a joke in New York that Starbucks would often have locations right across the street from one another. 7-Eleven in Thailand might regularly have three stores on a block. I don't understand how they stay in business, especially since they are more expensive than most Thai businesses, but they all seem the thrive. Since I love Slurpees, I thank the Thai people for making cheap Slurpees available everywhere.

Burma (Myanmar)- Gold leaf. I had never heard of someone's job being to hammer gold until it was gold leaf. In Burma, that ranks as one of the most popular jobs. Where does all that gold leaf go? Buddhists in Burma buy the gold leaf and then rub it onto the Buddha statues (or anything else that they believe should be gold) at the Buddhist temples. This keeps everything bright and shiny. Oh, I should point out that only men are allowed to do this. Women aren't allowed to touch the Buddha statues, but can buy some gold leaf and have a manly man rub it onto the Buddha.

Cambodia- Angkor Wat. It seems sort of lame to be obsessed with your biggest tourist attraction, but Cambodia unquestionably is. It adorns the flag, half the stores in the country are named for it, and it inspired enough awe that even Pol Pot didn't destroy it. And Pol Pot destroyed just about everything in Cambodia.

Vietnam- Motor scooters. The average person in Vietnam has 3.2 motor scooters. Approximately. Through a quantum trick, they ride all of them simultaneously. So, while Vietnam has only 80 million people, 250 million people ply the roads on motor scooters at any given time. And most of those 250 million are going down the road that you want to cross. The streets of the large cities look like a moped convention.

Laos- Fruit shakes. I try to find something deeper than a food for country obsessions, but fruit shakes made with fruit, condensed milk, sugar, and ice are what hold the country of Laos together and makes the whole country so friendly. That's pure speculation, but locals and tourists alike can be found drinking delicious and cheap shakes all over the country, and we were certainly fans. For those who are not feeling happy enough after a regular shake, many places seem to offer "happy" shakes, which come with whatever drugs they happen to have in stock (pot in most places).

China- Crotchless pants. No, China isn't turning into 1980s New York. Any child under the age of three in China wears pants with a giant slit down the crotch and no underwear underneath. This allows them to go to the bathroom anytime and anywhere they like. And I do mean anytime and anywhere. Let's say the kid is waiting in a busy ticket line inside the train station with the parent and needs to go to the bathroom--that's what those pants are for. Number one or number two? Doesn't matter. Does the parent clean it up? No. It stays there for others to step in. While China seems likely to take over the world one day, we hope they get rid of crotchless pants prior to that.

Mongolia- Chengis Khan. Yeah, I thought it was Genghis Khan, too, but not in Mongolia. This founder of the Mongol Empire is known for uniting the nomads of Mongolia, declaring war on anything that moved, killing about a bajillion people, and creating the beginning of the largest empire the world has ever known. That, of course, makes him the hero of Mongolia. Based on our experience, I don't see the second coming of the Mongol Empire anytime soon.

There you have it: the obsessions of Asia. Disagree with us? Too bad. Write your own blog. Or leave us nasty comments about how we disparaged your country. That's why our home address isn't on the blog. Well, that and we don't have a home yet...

From Rupees to Rupiah: Financing Asia

All through our travels, people told us how cheap Asia would be...and, looking forward to bringing down our average daily budget, we hoped that they were right. Luckily, they were!

Here are the numbers by country. In case you forgot how we do this, these numbers are for two people, including visa costs and all costs on the ground (and in the air if we took internal flights). Sometimes we also include the cost of a flight into the country if that was the only way to get there.

India: $53 per day. Visas cost $74 each at the embassy in Istanbul. India is one of the cheapest countries we've been to, so staying there for five weeks did wonders for our financial (if not gastrointestinal) health. Hotel rooms ranged from $10-$25 depending on level of comfort (except in Mumbai, where it's hard to find a double for less than $50); restaurant meals could usually be had for a buck or two, and street food for pennies; and train transport in sleeper class cost less than a hotel. Not getting ripped off on cabs and tourist excursions required some negotiating.

Sri Lanka: $80 per day (including flight from Chennai, India, which costs about $120 per ticket; $53 per day without flight). No visa fees. Sri Lanka's hotels and food were a little more expensive than India's, but it made up for it with what is possibly the world's cheapest public transport on a $-per-hour basis. If you plan to visit more than two historic sites in the "Cultural Triangle" area, getting a pass can save you $25 or more.

Malaysia: $47 per day. No visas. Some travelers complain about Malaysia being pricey, but as it turns out, the only traveler item that is really expensive in (Muslim-majority) Malaysia is beer! As long as you don't drink much, the country is terrific value, especially considering how developed it is. Air-con double rooms with shared (but very clean, hot-water) bathrooms cost $10-$15, and delicious, cheap street food abounds. Transport is a little pricier than some Asian countries, but you usually get comfortable, AC buses on smooth roads. We stuck to the peninsula this time and didn't do any fancy tourist excursions, but our memories of our previous trip to Borneo are that prices were very reasonable there, too.

Singapore: $111 per day. No visas. We only spent two days in Singapore, so this is kind of skewed, but it's certainly one of the most developed and expensive countries in Southeast Asia. Most of the cheaper hotels are in the red light district, where we found a decent private room for $35 a night. Public transport, museums, and restaurants are comparable to Western prices, but taxis (which are metered, hallelujah!) and street or food court foods are relatively cheap.

Indonesia: $102 per day. One-month visas on arrival at the airport cost $25 each. Indonesia was surprisingly expensive, though that's largely because we did a lot of pricey activities like SCUBA diving, chartering a boat to Krakatau volcano, and a few other organized tours. No-frills internal flights between the islands were a pretty good deal, usually less than $50 one-way and could be booked just a day or two before. Buses and trains on the ground varied a lot in price and quality. Hotel rooms for $10-$15 could be found, but were usually pretty disgusting; if we wanted cleanliness and AC, we usually had to pay at least $25. Cheap street food could be found in most places, though not so much in touristy Bali, where we usually had to shell out for real restaurants.

Thailand: $83 per day. No visa fees. Considering how many touristy activities we did in Thailand (diving, elephant training camp, etc.), this is a great average. Hotel and transport standards are pretty high, but competition for the tourist buck keeps prices low. Markets selling cheap local food are pretty easy to find, and even fancy restaurants are probably cheaper than the Thai restaurants you find at home. Just try not to get robbed, which could certainly send your costs soaring!

Myanmar: $77 per day. Visas cost $27 each in Bangkok. This average includes flights into and out of Yangon from Bangkok ($130 each roundtrip), which accounted for one-third of our expenditures there. Once you're on the ground, Myanmar (Burma) is super cheap in all categories, though its rough roads, ancient vehicles, and power cuts often made it feel more like traveling in sub-Saharan Africa than Southeast Asia.

Cambodia: $53 per day. Visas cost $20 each at the border. Cambodia is excellent value. $11 a night got us rooms with bathroom, AC, and sat TV in both Siem Riep and Phnom Penn, the two most touristed cities in the country. Markets and restaurants offer cheap food; bus transport and tourist site admissions are pretty reasonable. If we had stayed longer, or ventured out to less touristy places, it probably would have been even cheaper, but even so, Cambodia was one of the cheapest destinations on our trip.

Vietnam: $66 per day. Visas cost $45 each in Phnom Penn, Cambodia. Vietnam's one of those countries that feels more expensive than it is, probably because people are trying to rip you off almost continuously. But we did manage to stay in some pretty nice hotel rooms and eat decent food for not a lot of money. Trains cost more than buses but are much nicer (which isn't the same as saying that they're actually nice!), especially for overnight travel. Halong Bay overnight cruises can be an especially good deal for a decently swanky experience...provided your boat doesn't sink in the night, of course.

Laos: $57 per day. Visas cost $40 each at the border. Laos is pretty poor, so the roads and buses aren't always the nicest, but hotels were quite comfortable, food was inexpensive, activities like kayaking were very reasonable, and prices overall about as cheap as could be.

China: $92 per day. Visas cost $160 each in Vientiane, Laos--the most expensive of our entire trip. (They are about $100 less expensive for non-Americans, though.) Yunnan province, in southwestern China, was incredibly inexpensive; with $10 hotel rooms and cheap bus rides, it cost no more than Laos, where we had just come from. As we moved east and to the bigger cities, things got more expensive, though you could always find cheap and tasty food, even in Beijing. In general, China didn't feel overpriced considering the good quality of rooms, trains, and food that we got, and some tourist attractions, like the Forbidden City, were surprisingly reasonable.

Mongolia: $121 per day. No visas needed for Americans, though most nationalities need one. This number is high because we spent 6 of our 8 days in the country on a private jeep tour of the Gobi. If we'd managed to find a couple of other travelers to share the tour with, costs would have been halved. Otherwise, the country's pretty budget-friendly: In Ulaan Bataar, the capital, a hostel room with breakfast, Internet, and shared bath cost $15; there were expensive restaurants and cheap local-food canteens to choose from; and the 15-hour train from the China border cost around $9 for seats, or $25 for sleeper berths.

So, Asia had a few expensive countries, but was mostly pretty cheap for us. Hope that this post was slightly helpful to you if you're planning to backpack through Asia. If you have any questions, leave a comment and we'll do our best to get back to you!

String hoppers, noodle-newtons, rottys, and other foods of Sri Lanka

As our plane was touching down in Sri Lanka, I reluctantly struggled out of my deep, cushy, first-class seat and wondered aloud what the food would be like. We didn't have a guidebook for this country, just a few printed-out pages from a Lonely Planet PDF (not including the food section), so I hadn't been able to do my usual exhaustive advance research. Ah, well--sometimes it's nice to be surprised!

(Andy then pointed out that we had had Sri Lankan food before--in Belize, of all places, we'd eaten at a random Sri Lankan restaurant in the small town of San Ignacio! I'd completely forgotten.)

We were soon reintroduced to the major staple of Lankan cuisine: Rice and curry. For around $1-2 US, you get a plate of rice, dollops of several different vegetable curries/salads/sauces, delicious dhal made with yellow split peas, and some saucy chicken or beef if you've paid extra for it.Is the food spicy? I'll just let Andy's sweaty face answer that question for you.

In the town of Kandy, we had to buy some...candy.! The pink one is coconutty and the brown one more sugar-flavored. We had similar sweets last year in Trinidad and some other tropical countries in South and Central America, and weirdly, everywhere we've had them, these sweets have tasted a little like bacon grease to me.
Bake houses, or bakeries, are incredibly popular all over Sri Lanka. We didn't find much street food, but you could always pop into a bakery for a snack. Here we have a typical spread including a curry puff (triangle, left), a jam pie (semicircle, right), and the ubiquitous chicken sausage roll (like a big pig...I mean, chicken...in a blanket, center).
We always try to try the weirdest juice flavors we can find, and Sri Lanka offered up two gems: wood apple and nelli. The nelli (left) tasted vaguely pear-like and was nice. The wood apple was gloopy, brown, and I don't even know how to describe it except to say that one glass was enough for both of us forever. It is a really popular flavor in SL, though--you can also find wood apple jam, pudding, etc.
Another Sri Lankan staple food is something called a hopper, which comes in many variations. The plain hopper is a dosa-like, rice-flour pancake cooked in a special pan that makes it come out bowl-shaped--thin and crispy on the edges and thick in the center. Kind of like a bread bowl, and can be eaten with sweet or savory toppings. (Most other hoppers are like this one but with other stuff added to the batter, but as we were to learn later, the "string hopper" is a different animal!)
This is what rice and curry looks like in a slightly more upscale setting--many bowls of fun curried veggies and meat to eat with your rice.

The wade, or vadai, is a lentil-based fried disc--not a ton of flavor, but hits the spot when you're on a long bus ride and a vendor comes down the bus aisle with a basketful. As with most fried things, it's significantly better when still warm.
The best flavor of ice cream in Sri Lanka is fruit and nut. The ice cream itself is green, for some reason, and has raisins, bits of glaceed pumpkin (which are usually dyed red), and cashew in it. It may sound weird, but trust me, it is good. I put away several liters on my own over the course of the week there.
In India, roti is bread, but in Sri Lanka it is more like a pancake, wrapped around a filling of curried potatoes and vegetables, or beef, or chicken, or fish. Amusingly, it is sometimes spelled "rotty." These packets are sold cheaply at bakeries and make a great snack. Near the main gate to the ruins of Sigiriya is a little canteen used by park workers that was churning out hot, fresh veggie rotis, which made a perfect breakfast before the climb to the top of the rock.

On our way to Horton National Park, our taxi driver stopped in a small village to grab a quick breakfast bite, and we decided to join him. We ended up with two...pastries(?) made of cooked noodles molded around a coconut-and-molasses filling. Like a giant noodle-newton. It may qualify as the weirdest breakfast we have had yet in our travels (and that's saying a lot), but it wasn't terrible.
For some reason, all yogurts in Sri Lanka have gelatin in them. Even the drinkable ones, which (if the one I tried below is representative), are the consistency of milk with no noticeable gelatin-aided thickening at all. So, is Sri Lanka sitting on a big excess pile of gelatin or something? Big points to anyone who can solve this mystery for me.
EGB is a beverage widely advertised in Sri Lanka. Andy had to try one, and found out that it stands for Elephant Ginger Beer. He was disappointed to find out that there's no elephant in the drink--Elephant is just the name of the food company (they also makes ice cream). It was a pretty good drink, not overly carbonated. And bonus points for the returnable, reusable glass bottle!
It wasn't until we got to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and our last stop in the country, that we discovered that a string hopper is not at all like all the other hoppers. Instead, it is a floppy disk made of steamed rice noodles. Very tasty when served with Sri Lankan yellow dhal!
A tasty mango juice in Colombo. Big chunks of fresh mango blended up with ice and water and some sugar. I was mildly afraid that the local ice and water would kill me, but they didn't!
Breakfast in Colombo: string hoppers with dhal and chicken curry sauce, two vegetable roti triangles, and a bottled mango juice.
We went to a slightly expensive (for us) restaurant in Colombo, which means dinner cost around $15 US. It specialized in Jaffna-style curries (Jaffna is the northernmost city in Sri Lanka), and we both decided to be adventurous and order a bunch of stuff we'd never heard of before. We were amply rewarded with one of the most delicious memorable meals in some time.

Clockwise from top left: string hopper pilaf, made from chopped up string hoppers, curry leaves, and spices like cinnamon and cloves; saffron rice; a sweet beef dish; garlic curry, complete with about 100 cloves of garlic; and "ash plantain" sambal, which was basically banana chips and raw onions in an amazing sweet-and-spicy sauce. If that sounds good to you (and it is, I promise!), I suggest you pay a visit to Palmyrah restaurant in the Hotel Renuka the time you're in Colombo.
Last day in Sri Lanka = finally time to try a faluda! I was wary of this drink (also found in India) because it is rosewater-flavored, and I'm not a big rose-flavor fan, but it turned out to be a subtle and delicious combination of ice cream, milk, rose syrup (that's the red stuff on the bottom), and little jelly-like seeds. As I learned from the locals behind me, you mix it up before drinking it/eating it with a spoon.
Our friends Rashad and Emma--who introduced us to many fine culinary experiences in Cairo--had been to Sri Lanka recently and suggested that we might like to check out the high tea at the fancy Galle Face Regency hotel in Colombo. Expecting a lot of caffeine and a three-tiered plate piled high with cucumber sandwiches, Andy was not too excited about this idea, but he did a complete 180 as soon as he found out that this tea was an all-you-can-eat, sweet-and-savory buffet! It was basically like a wedding reception cocktail hour (well, minus the cocktails) that lasted four hours and cost $10 per person.

Not sure where to begin, you can see that Andy's first (of many) plates is loaded with chicken sausages and little cakes, scones and whipping cream. The little shot glass is a supersweet passionfruit jelly (Andy had five), and there was endless orange juice, iced tea, and iced coffee as well as pots of tea. I ate a lot, too, thanks to the waffle and pancake stations and sandwich station where a carver would cut the crusts off your sandwich without your even asking.

High tea was an excellent way to end our eatings in Sri Lanka. Overall, the cuisine was tasty and not too expensive. Not pictured in this post is all the Chinese food, which is also really popular in Sri Lanka and is sometimes the only restaurant food you can find if you don't want rice and curry. Colombo probably had the best eats, but we enjoyed food all over the country--guesthouses often cook up very good meals, better than many restaurants. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed eating.

Andy goes to Kandy (and Tara, too): Sri Lanka

We have a lot of Sri Lanka pictures, so I won't waste much space with an introduction. However, a special thanks to Emma and Rashad, who essentially planned our Sri Lanka itinerary for us by sharing theirs.

Our short flight from Chennai was greatly improved by an upgrade to first class. Thanks, Kingfisher Airlines! Maybe they upgraded us because I was tall and didn't look like I would fit in the standard, diminuative Indian-sized seats. Or maybe we smelled so bad that they didn't think anyone should have to sit next to us. Whatever the case, it was great.
Once in Sri Lanka, our first stop was Kandy. Kandy has the most religious Buddhist site in Sri Lanka, so it gets a lot of monk visitors. But most monks seem to have things that we do not, like umbrellas and cell phones. They must have missed the vow of poverty day. Or maybe we are poor...
Kandy has a huge, manmade lake in the middle that has quite a bit of wildlife. Here is a giant water monitor swimming.
Kandy also has a good number of macaques, which are cute little monkeys unless this is your car.
Tara is very proud of this shot of four cuddly monkeys on a roof.
The lake also has fruit bats that roost in the trees. Hundreds of them were settling down for the day's rest on this morning. They make a lot of noise.
This is it: the most famous site in Sri Lankan Buddhism. What could be so sacred? The Temple of the Tooth! This temple houses a tooth of Buddha himself! Maybe. The story goes that someone stole it off of the burning funeral pyre and brought it to Sri Lanka. It slowly became the center of power in Sri Lanka and you couldn't rule unless you had the tooth. So, multiple groups, including the Europeans, claim to have destroyed the tooth over the years, but others claim that it was a fake that was destroyed. Tooth or not, we refused to pay $10 each to see an old tooth, but it was nice from the outside.
This giant, reclining Buddha is maybe 30 feet long. And, like most of the Buddhas in Sri Lanka, it looked like it was freshly minted at a Chinese plastics factory.
We went to the Kandy Museum only because it was free with another ticket we had. We were the only ones. Tara was very bored until she discovered the coconut bench exhibit. A coconut bench is a little bench with a sharp knife attached that is shaped to get the inside of a coconut out for making coconut milk or otherwise disemboweling your coconut in record time. Tara and I once made coconut milk from scratch, which is a huge pain, and she had the fleeting belief that all she needed to do was get one of these coconut benches and she could quickly make fresh coconut milk all the time. I talked her off the ledge just as she was about to buy one on eBay, but she still has a soft spot for them.
Another plastic-looking Buddha with Tara for a size comparison. I feel like it came straight from Legoland.
Several people have asked if we saw cobras in India. No, we didn't. No one charms snakes anymore, apparently. But you do see a lot of items like this mask that show the historical importance of the cobra. I plan to start wearing snakes in my nose like this once I return to the US. I think it will help my job interview chances.
We went to a dance show where they also wore masks like this.
After Kandy, we went to Anuradhapura, which has a different kind of monkey.
And massive flooding. Much of Sri Lanka was underwater while we were there. This temple is normally on the bank of the river. Now, it is part of the river.
Taking a picture of these birds is a bit like a tourist taking a picture of a pigeon in New York. People question your sanity because they are everywhere. But they look so much nicer than a pigeon.
Anuradhapura is the historical capital of Sri Lanka and is filled with stupas. Nope, we'd never heard of them, either. Buddhists bury important Buddhist things inside and then build huge solid brick structures around them. They sometimes then enclose that under a wooden structure. This one is a couple thousand years old and reflects nicely in the flood waters.
Peacocks are native to India and Sri Lanka. Like most wild animals, though, they don't let you get very close before running away.
Moonstones are half-circle stones at the outside of a door. This one is about 1500 years old and apparently one of the finest in Sri Lanka. We thought it would look nice outside our door, but we couldn't carry it (and don't really have a door).
Our little motor rickshaw that was showing us the sites in Anuradhapura risked his rickshaw and our lives to get us through the floodwaters. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but we could have potentially got our shoes wet.
This stupa was the third largest structure in the world after the two great pyramids when it was built in the second century. It has some incredible number of bricks. Enough to reach Pluto or Andromeda or something. A lot. And it is mossy, which I like.
As much as we stereotype banyan trees as being part of India, we never saw one. In Sri Lanka, though, you see them from time to time. They are just fig trees, but still nice.
We went to Sigiriya, an old monastery and gardens on top of a massive rock, on a day when the rains had stopped. Everything was still flooded, with many of the staircases turned into small streams. More fun for everyone!
Here is a view of the top of the massive rock with the monastery ruins on top.
We liked this sign. People would walk by and immediately become silent, but then become very loud three steps later. The fear of bees that were as big as our bodies kept us silent a bit longer.
At Sigiriya, they have some cliff paintings from the sixth century that are very colorful and well-preserved. Apparently, from the fifth to the 12th centuries, lots of locals inscribed grafitti, mostly relating to how hot the women were. Women wrote about how jealous they were and men wrote poetry to the women. Around the 12th century, the grafitti suddenly stopped being poetic and became more bawdy.
The top of the monastery was guarded by a massive lion. Only the paws remain, but you can see how large it once was.
Our taxi driver really wanted us to see the giant golden Buddha. It is both giant and golden. They like Buddha a lot in Sri Lanka.
The views from the top of Sigiriya are really nice, though a bit misty like most of Sri Lanka.
Okay, so after posting a picture of Tara with bird poop on her head, I have to post my own pooped upon picture. At least it was my sleeve and not my head.
At Horton's Plain National Park, the sun came out and we had a beautiful hike to the "End of the World". The valley below was still clouded over, but the park had several nice views.
Here is another shot.
The park also has hundreds of lizard species. This one looked really nice and Tara got a good picture of it.
I spotted a little bee-eater in the distance, but this was the best picture we could get. Not exactly sure of the species, but quite colorful.
The waterfalls in Horton Plains were made more impressive because of the flooding. Lots of little steps down also create a lot more noise than most falls of this size, so it sounded much larger on the approach to the falls.
On the way out of the park, this sambar deer thought we might have some food to share. We didn't so he left. We thought this might be common, but since our guide was snapping away on his camera phone, we decided it must not happen that often.
We saw a troop of toque macaques while leaving the park. Tara informs me that a toque is some kind of hat, which makes sense given the hair these guys have. This one may have had a disease because his face was a hot pink color and he looked crazy.
We then spotted some shaggy bear monkeys, aka the purple-faced langor. They do, indeed, look like shaggy bears.
Here is a normal toque macaque who had the best hairdo.
We stayed for a couple of days in Newara Eliya, which seems to be the tea center of the universe. Every hill in the area is covered with tea plantations like this one.
Then to Colombo. Colombo is full of bigger buildings, but we finally had some blue sky days.
Colombo has a long beach stroll, which was hopping with a holiday celebration the day that we arrived.
In Colombo, we went to tea at a fancy hotel (the Galle Face). I normally hate tea, but this one was an extravagent buffet, which made it good. Also, this chipmunk cleverly stole sugar packets, ripped them open, and ate the sugar out while clinging to the blinds before tossing his used sugar packet on the nearest table and leaving.
A sunset over the ocean of Colombo.
The Sri Lankan flag is a good one with an armed lion. If Sri Lanka were to fight a war today, its best hope is that the armed lion would come to fight on its behalf. Unfortunately, all the lions of Sri Lanka were killed a long time ago.
Sri Lanka has many gems, and lots of stores displaying them in the window. Despite being tempted to become international gem smugglers, we decided not to risk jail in any of our upcoming countries.
That brings us to the end of Sri Lanka. It rained a lot, but we still saw as much as we could. We thought about going to the north that was controlled by the rebels until recently, but we have heard it isn't very exciting. Something for next time. We do hope that the country recovers from the heavy flooding. The water may destroy much of the rice crop, the most important crop of the country. If you have some extra money laying around, google Sri Lanka flood donations and give it to a good cause.