My family and I travelled to Sri Lanka for the new year of 2016. From where I lived, Cyprus, It took two long car journeys, a hell of a long time spent at airports and two five hour flights, and we were there! To start we had a week in Hikkaduwa, a beautiful little coastal town, where life revolves around the beach! There I experienced the crazy driving of the buses and tuk tuks, exotic fruit and laidback life of the locals - which, living in Cyprus, I was pretty familiar to anyway. I spent most of my time in Hikkaduwa on the beach, soaking up the sun - well, trying anyway, I was still white as a milk bottle - and in the sea, which is where I had my first surf lessons - little waves for little me, ha. We also had little day trips to places not far away, like Gaule, where we got the bus to see the ruins and the ancient walled city, what an incredible place!
We then travelled to a town high in the mountains, called Kandy. Here we visited the Buddhist temple, of which was one of the most fantastic historical places of worship I had ever been to. Where we were staying, we were directly next to an all girls primary school, where they would sing prayers for 15 minutes every morning, which echoed throughout the entire town. Also a large group of monkeys would run and play in the trees right near our room.
Our final trip before heading back to the capital for a night before leaving, was Pinnawala. Pinnawala was a long two and a half hour trip further into the mountains, but it was totally worth it. The entire little village was based around one single tourist attraction, the elephant orphanage. There is a large lake where the elephants played in the water, sunbathed and got fed bananas, no chains, no restricted areas, just purely in their natural habitat. This experience was literally one of the most soul satisfying, just to see these beautiful animals looked after in the correct way.
Sri Lanka was absolutely amazing! It was definitely my kind of trip, lots to see and experience. I would definitely suggest it to anyone looking to have a little bit of an adventurous holiday!
