Sinhalese is the native language in Sri Lanka.
Our first steps in this new land. Welcome to the Jungle !
( Retrospective from the 01/31 to the 01/04/2015)
We land on the vast lands of Sri Lanka ( Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka), the heat a guest to our welcoming party.
Various names have been used before for the country: Taprobane, Serendib and Ceylan until 1972.
After asking around and gathering informations, we came to realize that elephant obedience to man didn’t come freely, but a rather high cost. Elephants -have to- be trained according to the usual techniques used all over Asia.
Sadly, those training techniques aren’t very ethical, to say the least. During out trip across the Asian continent, we couldn’t help but wonder "has this one been submitted to Phajaan ?" each time we met one of those magnificent animal.
A lot of the ones we came across were severely underfed, a lot of them in India for example.
This lingering doubt only had one very obvious answer: No more trip with elephants for us..
During this moment, one of his friends was having his SPA-moment.
The chains around their neck is very suspicious, for one. We have to admit, the majestic beasts had awaken the children in us, amazed at one of Nature’s great wonders. So, naive at start, we overlooked those issues and were quite happy to play with "him" in the water, even feeding him jackfruit to thank him !
We head to the small village where Harsha, our couchsurfer will host us for the 3 following nights in his -still under construction- house in the middle of the jungle. Complete immersion!
Exploring around is a real treat.
Here is a curious plant : Balu nagutu, means "Dog tails"
Speak of the Devil... !
The Sri Lankan are kind, smiling people at first, but they get intrigued and curious when we start saying "Ayubowan!"
Sometimes we get to hitchhike our way back to the main road.
The begining of our "backpack only" trip is always a delicate moment. We tend to believe everything we hear or read on the French Ministry of foreign affairs website, saying nice things like "DO NOT GO THERE, YOU WILL DIE!" about nearly all of Asia and most of Africa’s and South America’s countries.
( pronounce "Nourélia")
Standing atop of a 1800m high mountain, this small town was built by Englishmen in dire need of fresh air. If not for the very popular hybrid cars, the town looks exactly as it was in the 50’s, almost untouched by the passing of time. Back to the future, we instantly fall in love with the place.
The air is cooler, and it’s raining when we get there. As soon as the Sun shows up though, Nature unveils itself to us in all of its glory: enless plantations running across vast green vales, as far as the eye can see.
The morning can be really cold up there though, a fact not unknown to the local market sellsmen. Nirvan had to trade 3 of his sweaters, send them back via postal mail in Colombo, for a really ugly padded jacket he fell for.
If anyone manages to find our package with the 3 sweaters in it by the way, feel free to contact us! To this day, we’ve received no news of any kind.
Innocent and carefree as we were then, we toroughly enjoyed our 3 days there.
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Little did we know that the South was patiently waiting, brooding more misadventures for us...
To be continued ...
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