where's wolmut?: sri lanka-licious

hiking thru tea plantations

surfing mirissa beach (emil is still stuck out there)

elephants at yala national park

ceylon tea plantation

tea factory gangstas

sipping coconuts in galle

the galle face hotel

laurel says:
visiting sri lanka has never been on my "must see" list. so when our buddy rob (better known in certain circles as 'hot rob') sent us an email and said, "hey guys want to meet me in sri lanka march 1" i didn't have a lot of expectations. plus he said it would be good training for our upcoming trip to india since sri lanka was like "india light." turns out, sri lanka is a pretty spectacular place. the small size of the island- about the size of ireland- makes it a relative breeze to explore. and there is such a huge diversity of sights to take in. we started our adventure in galle, an old fort town once used by the dutch to export cinnamon. the town retains a strong colonial vibe and the sunsets over the indian ocean are out of this world. our next stop was the beach town of mirissa where a handful of beach bungalows and sand in your toes restaurants offer a very laid back, undiscovered feel. it was tempting to just hole up on the beach and stay for days, but sri lanka had so many other spots to offer that we had to keep moving. the next destination- yala national park- turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. yala has one of the highest concentrations of leopards in the world and you can do africa-type safaris thru the national park in hopes of spotting one in the wild. we must have had our stars aligned, because we eye-witnessed an incredible feat. a stunning leopard ran right past our jeep, scaled a tree and killed a very unlucky monkey right before our eyes. it all happened within about 15 seconds but the adrenaline rush lasted for hours afterwards. after having our circle of life moment, it was time to beat the heat and head for the hill country. the entire inner core of sri lanka is laden with rolling hills covered in tea plantations. it makes for some fantastic views, delicious cups of ceylon tea and much to my shagrin- huge hikes. one of the best parts about having our buddy join us is that it forces you to do things you may not do on your own. and by that i mean waking up at 2.30am and scaling sri pada- the 4th tallest mountain in sri lanka and the main pilgrim trek for buddhists each spring. three and a half hours, 5200 stairs and 2200 meters later you are rewarded with a magical sunrise overlooking the valley below. was it worth it considering i could barely walk 2 days later? questionable. but there were 80 year old women, make that barefoot 80 year old women, making the trek along with us so i can hardly complain. we capped off the trip with 2 blissful nights at the historic galle face hotel in colombo. this grand dame has been around since 1864 and has hosted just about every vip who has breezed thru sri lanka from the rockefellers to the wolmuts. overall just a fabulous trip. no doubt it is a trek to get here from the usa. but the kind people, stunning landscapes and diversity of activities make it more than worth it. thank you to rob for making it all happen!

fellow pilgrim at sri pada

summit of adam's peak (sri pada)

emil says:
thanks to my buddy rob for suggesting we meet him here in 'india-lite'. what a kik-asss unique place to see. coming from sanitized japan laurel understandably only cried two times at the visa office in the imposing capital of colombo. its got that same honk honk traffic and nowhere to hide with a million degrees of heat hitting you in the mush. its a lot to handle coming from bow to your sensei japan. sri lanka is a rather small landmass with an intense amount of geographic diversity making for a fabulous rush of stimuli in a brief period of time. every 3 hours of travel by motorcycle, train, tuk-tuk, or van with alarmingly loose lugnuts gets one to an entirely different scene. three hours from the airport we were at a historic dutch fort town waking up to a muslim call to prayer from the nearby mosque, three hours later we are surfing at mirissa beach that goes down as my favorite beach to date outside of a slice of heaven on the galapagos, three hours later we were in a bumpin range rover on safari with laurel yelling at the driver to 'floor it...floor it....its on!!' as we watched a furball of fury leopard take down a grey haired monkey from a tree in mere seconds, three hours later we were up in the hills on a tea plantation sipping ceylon tea where mr lipton probably made his fortune, three hours later we were brutally laboring along with hundreds of buddhist pilgrims up 5800 steps (laurel cried here a third time) to the top of adam's peak to catch a sunrise i wont soon forget. it has only been 3 years since this country was embroiled in a 30 year civil war. and in the last 3 years this country has seen some monsterous growth particularly in the tourism industry. my next google search will be 'top 10 sri lankan companies' and i will try to get involved. this place is booming and with peace only recently realized there seems to be plenty of growth in its near future.