A unique holiday with a unique guide. Part 1
I contacted a local travel company in Colombo by e-mail - I wanted to make my trip rich and interesting. The director of this company suggested that I join a group of Russian tourists of 6 people who were supposed to be driven by a Russian guide (that is, not just a Russian speaker, but a Russian guy). Vladimir - that was the name of our guide. It turned out that Volodya is the owner of a travel agency and personally organizes special ethnic expeditions to different countries, and visits Sri Lanka in January and December. When we first met, Volodya seemed to me a very young man, since at first glance, no one would have given him more than 20 years. But by the tailored manner of speaking and the ability to behave in front of people, it is clear that the person has a lot of experience, it is clear that he treats his work with responsibility and respects tourists.
Well, now I’ll tell you about the trip itself, why I liked it and why in the next few years I want to travel along all the routes organized by Volodya. By the way, this summer I already went with him to Siberia and was simply shocked by what I saw - but this is a separate topic, for a separate story.
So! The travel plan was as follows:
- 7 days by mini-van in the center of the island.
- 9 days on the ocean (with a cultural program)
(Total: 16 days 15 nights)
Negombo-Pinawela-Sigiriya-Polonnaruwa-Dambula-Kandy-Vedda Tribe-Nuwara Eliya-Adam Peak-Hikkaduwa-Gale-Yala Park
Volodya and the director of a local travel agency named Samansiri met us at the airport, put us in a car and drove to the nearest town called Negombo. Volodya rode with us and all 20 minutes, while we were moving to the hotel, he gave briefings and talked about the surroundings outside the window. He talked about what people do here and why in Negombo 95% of the inhabitants are Christians.
First of all, we were taken to a Catholic church, they wanted to show us how local, dark-skinned Catholics hold a midday mass, after which we went to the Negombo fish market.
The fish market is a special exotic, I think everyone has seen it on TV and in the movies: octopuses caught this morning, sharks, rays, shrimp, etc. are everywhere. According to the plan of our guide, we bought ourselves a fresh drink exactly what everyone wants, especially so that in the evening, for dinner, professional chefs cooked it all in the restaurant.
Dinner was excellent, in a restaurant of some very religious Catholics, and this is a whole story: one girl from our group tried to be rude to the local waitress, shouting something loudly at her in English, because she carried her a fork for a long time. At this, a waitress in her 45s looked at our angry aunt with the sparkling eyes of Jesus and stretched out a slightly noticeable smile, begging for mercy. Immediately, we felt a dozen more eyes in the direction of our table - it turned out that all the employees were looking at us with this unique look, as if pitying our souls and asking the Lord to save them. "What kind of sectarianism" - flashed through my head! ) It is difficult to describe this situation in a travel review, but it is key on this day, because if you were nearby and saw the physiognomy of Marina (our rude aunt), you would feel what
At this moment, something truly unusual happened in her head. Marina wanted to get satisfaction from the fact that she punished or humiliated the waitress, she needed to feel that the girl was offended by her and hated her, but instead, she received a completely unexpected answer.
On the way to the hotel, I thanked Vladimir for such an interesting experience and asked: how did he find this restaurant? To which he received an exhaustive answer: "accidentally. " But then Volodya added that he always, on the first day, takes people to this restaurant, because after it, people tune in to the trip as something big, something useful for themselves and really try to develop in this journey, to become better . From the first day, after his words, my journey really took on some kind of inner purpose and a deeper meaning than usual.
On the second day there were no such small miracles. Early in the morning, we went to the central part of the island, towards the rocky fortress of Sigiriya.
On the way, we visited a giant elephant nursery where we had breakfast and a ride on elephants. The kennel is wonderful, but it's a pity for the legless
disabled elephants that are kept there.
But Sigiriya impressed me. Approaching the fortress, we were met by a local Volodin friend named Lal. Together with him, we climbed to the top of the cliff, where the fortress was located. I will immediately warn you that climbing the stairs can be difficult for people who are not athletic, like me - a liter of water, for the entire climb, has evaporated from me for sure. But it’s still worth climbing, the view from the top is beautiful, and besides, the landscape itself will surprise you.
After Sigiriya, we went straight to Lal's house. Where his wife cooked dinner for us according to local traditions. And that's why I like Volodya's travels - we were in this house not as tourists, but as friends of a friend of this house, and, accordingly, the attitude towards us was the same as towards living people. The food, of course, was spicy, although the hostess assured that she almost didn’t put pepper especially for us. ) Some dishes, of course, were quite edible and everyone had enough to eat. Lal, especially for us, even fried meat on coals, although he and his whole family are Buddhist believers and, accordingly, vegetarians. Lunch began at 2:00 pm and ended with gatherings with tea and local sweets closer to 6:00 pm, so these good-natured Buddhists rolled us with their comfort.
Leaving the hotel early in the morning, we began to have breakfast right in the garden. The hotel was in the thick of the jungle. All around, we were surrounded by tall trees intertwined with vines and created a powerful, green wall - an incredibly fabulous landscape. I felt like an English lord - swaying in my chair and drinking black Ceylon tea with toast and jam. But as they say - time does not endure, and we went to another attraction - the medieval capital of Polonnaruwa.
The ruins of the city of Polonnaruwa are well preserved and it can be determined from them that the civilization here was "God forbid"! Huge complexes made of hewn stone, libraries, temples, giant stupas and much more. The water supply system, for which a giant dam has been built, is especially striking.
Rejoicing at the success of the "ancients", we went to another historical attraction - the cave temple of Dambula. To be honest, Dambula did not impress me - a lot of tourists, impudent monkeys, and somehow neither history nor spirituality was felt there. wandered through these
caves with a bunch of Buddha statues, listened to stories and went to the wonderful city of Kandy.
We stayed in an old hotel in the very center of the city. I remember the hotel very well, because inside everything is made of valuable rocks
wood and everything here radiates history: steps worn to the bend, antique lamps, chairs and other furniture - all from the 19th century. Director
of the hotel said that R. Kipling himself stayed here, in one of the rooms - I, as a person passionate about history, was extremely pleased
imagine in my mind a person of this magnitude, walking around the balcony of the hotel 150 years ago, where I was at the moment.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the hotel, but it is located next to the Temple of the Tooth Relic and next to another, large, old hotel.
The city itself is remembered for its comfort and very interesting, Anglo-Sinhalese renaissance architecture (note: the Sinhalese are the main nationality of Sri Lanka). Kandy is the cultural capital of the island, like ours, Peter, only smaller, of course. It is enough to take one evening for a walk around the city and you will have time to see everything there, and it is certainly worth it.
On the very first morning in Kandy, we set off in an easterly direction outside the city - we were to meet with the Veddas - a primitive tribe. The road ran through the mountains and was very impressive with its most beautiful landscapes - here you have lianas hanging over the road and colorful birds, giant monitor lizards crawling along the road and much more. In general, 1.5 hours of travel flew by unnoticed and we arrived at the reservation area of the Vedds. I must say that they are not savages at all: there is a school, a hospital, a shop, and every local man has long dreamed of building a brick house for himself and moving into it from his hut.
But you can still see something ancient here. The Veddas are excellent at hunting animals with bows and arrows. When we first arrived in their village, Volodya met with a local aborigine, hugged him for a long time, talked about something, and after 20 minutes we were called to one of the clay huts to taste treats (As Volodya later explained - with the Veddas, after a long separation, you can’t immediately get down to business, especially if you know each other - you must share everything that has accumulated in life during your absence. ).
On the table in the hut there were many different fruits, vegetables, traditional cakes and, of course, the main dish - wild boar meat. The meat fried on fire was cut into large plastics and laid out on a huge dish, and an arrow was stuck in the center of the dish - exactly the arrow with which the boar was shot. I'm certainly not a gourmet, but I liked the surroundings. After the treats, we met the Chief of the tribe and several guys showed us their traditional dances. It was also great to try archery - we spent not
less than half an hour.
Back in the city of Kandy, we returned at five o'clock in the evening and immediately went to the show performance of Kandy dancers. The dancers are very funny, they are not at all up to ballet, but if you consider that this choreography is more than 2000 years old, then this is, of course, excusable for them.
In the temple of the tooth of the Buddha, immediately after the dances, we were shown the box where this tooth is stored. Whether there is a tooth inside the box is a mystery. But the fact that this relic -
great value for the locals is a fact. Enemies of the Sinhalese state even tried to destroy it repeatedly, since it is believed that with
the destruction of the tooth - Buddhism will fall in Sri Lanka and, as a result, the statehood of Sri Lanka will fall.
Having walked around the territory of the Temple of the Tooth Relic, we had dinner in a restaurant, returned to the hotel and settled down on the balcony with a bottle of local rum (if you take local rum, take red - very good).
How great it is to wake up early in the morning, go out onto the balcony with a mug of strong tea and watch the awakening of the city, especially if this city is the city of Kandy.
On the fifth day we had to go to the tea capital of the island of Sri Lanka, where the famous Ceylon tea is grown. Before leaving the city, we visited the huge botanical garden of Peradeniya. Peradeniya Garden - that place is wonderful in all respects, you can walk all day and not get bored. Here you can see giant bats hanging upside down from palm trees and giant baobabs. It was here that we had an incredible meeting with local students. We met about 30 young Sri Lankan boys and girls walking with their English teacher. Passing by each other - we exchanged greetings and all kinds of "highs" and "halovs", then Volodya suddenly began to babble about something with their teacher in English and understood! These two "gang leaders" decided to arrange a cultural exchange between us, which we happily picked up. First, we told each other about ourselves in general terms, then the students began to demonstrate their traditional dances to us, in response I performed a Cossack lezginka. Well, at the end there was a song: first, one of the students sang his traditional song, which all the students sang along with. From our side, Volodya took the initiative, since everyone from our group was deprived of a voice. Volodya began to sing the most patriotic song: "I will go out into the field with a horse at night" and no matter how much I listened to our pop singers, I have never heard anything like it. Volodya sang as if he had reincarnated into this horse and into every spikelet in that very field, one of our ladies even had a tear roll down - he sang so penetratingly.
We spent about 3 hours of our time on the garden and headed towards the exit from the city in order to do everything. It should be noted that the road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya is the most beautiful road on the island. It’s unlikely that I can describe it at its true worth, but I really liked the beautiful place where we dined on the terrace overlooking a multi-kilometer valley - the view there is heavenly. After lunch, in the same place, nearby, we climbed to some tall waterfall, where we refreshed ourselves and sunbathed, and then moved higher into the mountains.
High in the mountains, the town of Nuwara Eliya is spread - "little England". It is really cool here and we were even told that in winter, rarely, but there are real frosts. It is here that the most valuable tea is grown. Here I realized that you can’t buy such good tea in Russia, it is scarce here and all is bought up by English companies, so we can only try it here.
The town itself was a pleasant surprise - it is a completely different world in relation to the entire island - fir trees, milky fog in the morning, well-groomed streets and English mansions scattered over the mountains. The British both lived and live here since the time of colonization and apparently do not want to leave this fabulous town at all, and I fully understand them - I would have settled here myself.
We stayed in a hefty log cabin overlooking a mountain lake. The house is very interesting and unusual, built "with soul". It can be seen that all the decorative details were placed in it with the sense that the builder thought about every detail. Here, spruce cones are nailed to the walls and the tables are covered with knitted napkins, in a word - a teremok. In my view, the owner had to be a creative person with his own unique inner world and the soul of a poet. But everything turned out to be a little different. Tamils. In general, a person from the category of those whose orders are carried out before they are pronounced aloud. The image of this man did not at all put up in my head with this fabulous house, which Colonel Soman built with his own hands - it's a pity
there is no photo left.
Unusual moments and meetings on this day did not stop. In the evening, after a short rest, we went to dinner to visit another of Volodya's friends. It turned out that the most ordinary Sinhala family was waiting for us for dinner: Katarina, the sister of Volodya's partner, brings up two schoolgirl girls alone, works on a farm and dreams of moving to warmer climes closer to the sea.
Dinner was modest, but everything was cooked at home, just as they cook for themselves for the holidays, and our arrival was undoubtedly a holiday for them, since Volodya leaves them 5.000 local rubles for each visit, which is equal to half their monthly salary . You should have seen how they meet our guide - like a last hope. And they look at him not as a person with a babos, who right now will roll off five of them, but precisely as a person who gives them a chance. Katharina's eldest daughter is graduating high school next year and they may already be thinking about going to college. Well, if Volodya continues to help them, then the youngest can be sent to study abroad! )))
On the sixth day, it seemed to me that I was living in Sri Lanka for a couple of months - it seemed that I knew its whole history, I understood the meaning of the Sri Lankan Buddhist teachings, etc. Volodya is great in this regard, he is trying to show us the world of these people, the position of these people. I didn’t even notice that I was interpreting some of the actions of local residents in my own way until Volodya explained it to me. It was the same during our trip to Siberia, when we went to the community of Old Believers and it turned out that they are quite sane guys who just got the courage to live the way they want.
At breakfast, we discussed our impressions of the past five days and after that, we went on a tour of an old, but still operating, black tea factory. It turns out that the finer the tea grains, the stronger the tea - the strongest tea is called "give" or dust in Russian. Well, in general, I learned a lot of new things for myself there. I especially liked the equipment at this factory - the machines are 80 years old and they still work and supply the world with tea - this is depreciation! )
After the factory, we walked around the city: visited the city park, went to the old Anglican church (where we were told how it differs from our Orthodox one), visited the old post office and wandered around the shops in the city center. After dinner, we were all sent by bainki to get some sleep before the night climb to Adam's Peak.
If anyone does not know, Adam's Peak is a tall, sacred mountain, where at the top is the sacred footprint of the Buddha (footprint in stone). The ascent takes 2.5 hours. According to the rules, you need to climb to the top before dawn and meet him there in order to receive some kind of divine blessing... Contemplating the dawn on Adam's Peak is a worthwhile and unique thing, from the top of the Peak the whole district is visible for many kilometers, and a blanket of clouds creep far below.
It was not possible to see the "footprint of the Buddha" itself, because it is all lined with rags and strewn with flowers, but to be honest, this does not disappoint anyone there, since few people rise just to look at the footprint. In general, Volodya suggested that we believe that we are making a real pilgrimage, for which everyone asked himself a difficult question that had been tormenting him for a long time, and at the top, after overcoming 5500 steps, he had to give himself an answer to it. I received this answer. ) We went down at 9:00 in the morning without feeling our legs, we really wanted to sleep. Sitting in the mini-van, everyone immediately turned off - plunged into a deep sleep.
I opened my eyes when everyone climbed out of the minivan, it felt that the temperature outside was noticeably higher than in the last couple of days - this meant that we had already descended a little from the mountains. The car stood next to a three-story mansion - the former estate of some English planters converted into a hotel.
While the breakfast table was set for us in a small cozy garden, Volodya led us along a path somewhere through tea plantations. After walking 100 meters, on a hill, we opened the richest view of the mountains, but the most magical thing about it was that in this very place where we stood, there was a chic pool - the best gift after 5 days of endless driving, walking and mountain coolness! )
We arrived in Hikkaduwa, on the ocean coast in the evening, on the eve of sunset, just in time to take a shower and meet the sunset in a restaurant on the Indian Ocean to the sound of the sea.
this is only half of what I wanted to tell, the continuation will be coming soon.