Visa issues....

This week we finally heard from Rashmee about the visa situation. She has been trying to call the visa office for us to get an extension. She finally reached them after a week and a half of trying. The final verdict was that it would take a out about 6 weeks for our. Ida's to be extended. Oh developing world beaurocracy... Actually, I know people have had similar issues in Canada  so can we really complain. 

The suggestion all around was that it would just be easier to leave the country and then come back, because getting a visa on arrival for another 30 days is easier. Le sigh. Being poor student we were a lot peeved at this state of affairs. But we sat down at Moonstones and searched for a few hours Wednesday night and found relatively cheap flights and accommodation in the..... Maldives. So after a challenging and dirty bus ride from tangalle to Colombo and then onwards to negombo with a stay at a hotel with mattresses. Ore than 2 cm thick and hot water and wifi we are now eating a yummy (and expensive) cafe breakfast at the airport waiting for our flight.

*the Colombo bus station was epic. There are actually 3 bus stations there.  Two private and a public. We were befriended. Y a man who may have wanted to marry us. But he did manage to guide us to an air on bus ( no money requested). But when I shook his hand goodbye he held on a little more than was comfortable.  Once we were on the bus he came to our window a few minutes later and knocked and gave us the thumbs up sign. We also met a man who lived in new york and studied political science. He had so many questions about French vs English canada. He made krista and I feel shame for our lack of grade 10/11 social studies knowledge... Sorry we are physios!

Airport

Weekend #3 - Udawalawe & Poya

Friday after work we tried to catch a bus to Udawalawe park and spend the night in a hotel outside of the resort. But Friday we were in the field and didn't get home until late. So by the time we got to the buses they were few and far between. So we delcided to get up at the literal crack of dawn on Saturday to bus out there and go on a Safari.

We managed to make a bus in Tangalle and changed over successfully in Embilipitya. We were dropped off into the lap of an awaiting Safari driver and after accepting his initial ow season offer we took off with him in the back of his 4WD army green truck.

On our way to the park we passed along the dyke of the reservoir and saw our first Elephant!

 

A lone male probably begging food off the passer-bys.

Krista in the truck working on what would eventually become the best windswept wolverine-esque hairdoo in the history of Krista hairdoos.

 

After paying the foreigner fee again! We picked up a guide who came with the park fees and were off. The road was definately 4WD necessary. This is a bit of a tamer section at the beginning of the park. There were peacocks and peahens all over the place. Sadly, its another month until their breeding plumage comes in.

We stopped at one of the "tanks" as our guide called them. There was a crocodile cruising around. The water buffalo in the water were unconcerned. Apparently crocodiles only go after the young and they were on the bank circled by the adults. 

Another crocodile sunning on the bank.

This is Krista and our first sighting of elephants within the confines of the park!. I think this was a mom and a few of her children. 

This was the largest group we saw of the day. This mom had a young calf and was nursing it under this tree while she was snoozing.

Some of the other members of the group. They were all grazing. They sort of whack at the grass then find a good chunck and twirl it until they get it then shove it in their mouths.

Our guide kindly took a picture with both of us and the elephants. There are better pictures, but I thought this one was hilarious.

One of the teenagers was getting curious and thought that she would come and eat near our truck.

She got pretty close. I probably should have smiled bigger, but I was concerned about the approaching elephants....

When it was time to move on, the elephants had sort of surrounded the vehicle As we drove, there was a mom and her baby beside the road. When we passed she got stressed and made a charge for the truck with ears wagging and trunk sticking out. Luckily our guide was swift and scared her off as he got pick an waved his hat round.

It was good to be reminded that these are wild animals.

My camera battery died at this point, so forgive the lack of pictures.

Next we came across a young male standing in the middle of the road. As we approached he trumpeted and rand into the brush. He was calling his mom who came up close to the truck and started growling. A low rumbling growl. She eventually relaxed and we Krista got some nice pictures of the pair.

We continued on our journey, we saw a jackel, hornbill, spotted deer, wild boar, monitor lizards, grey heron, hawk eagle, Sea eagle (not seagull), monkeys, parakeets and other marvelous bird.

We also went to the place where you can spend the night for a fee. The guide showed us a tower to climd with great 360 view of the reservoir and the mountain range. He pointed out some of the small towns up in the hills and Adam's peak.

On our way out of the park we saw another group of elephants and some more birds. 

The bus ride back was just as sucessful and even more cramped, but we made it home tired and happy.

 SUNDAY-

Today we tried to go to the market, but everything was closed. We were offered watermelon from people and strolled around. Today is the full moon holiday (Poya) so it wasn't a major shock to find everything closed.. We also saw a motorbike get sideswiped by a bus right beside us (we were on the sidewalk). The fellas on the bike were alright, but not so much the bike. I hate hearing the sound of crunching metal. There were lots of people on the scene to help and being that no one was seriously injured we felt it was okay to move on a after a few minutes.

Weekend #2 - Blowhole and Rock Temple

SATURDAY -

We woke up on Saturday morning to monsoon rains. The lagoon outside of our place which is about the size of a football field, filled 2 feet higher than the level it was sitting in a few hours. We spent the morning having a slow breakfast and reading and catching up on a few things we neglected over the week. Then I said, enough of this. We are Vancouverites, when did a little rain ever stop us from doing anything. The answer is fairly often, but since the rain had begun to ease we decided to get out of the house.

The staff at Moonstone called a Tuk-tuk for us and we were on our way. After hurtling down the main road a few clicks we were off in the "sub-urbs" again. Passing a few lagoons, produce stands, cows, mangey dogs and homes along the way.

Our driver let us out here. He told us to go up these steps to get to the blowhole. He waited, we went.

I would call them stairs, but they are not really stairs. They are stone steps that are crookedy ad jaggedy.

This was a small beach on the way to the Blowhole. I could stay here for a while.

We paid a foreigner fee to get in. I am thinking it was about 3 times as much as the locals pay. But its not like I can try to fake that I am from this country. Not by a long shot. Anways there were more stairs to the top of the rocks and then a fantastic view of the hole. There were lots of local people there taking in the sight. We waited around for about 10 minutes before things started to take off and the blowhole lived up to its name. 

 Blowhole in action.

The crowd of people where hoooooooooo-ing and hollering to encourage the spray to come up.

 A snap of us in front of the hole. We didn't get to close as suggested by the signage. And the bars.

We were just about to leave when the blowhole gave another shorter and less impressive performace, but it was appreciated, none the less.

Krista posing in the mangroves. Some of the people from work had tried to take us with them when they went last week, but we missed them because they were super late for the arranged meeting time, and they took a bunch of photos and posed here, so we took some too!

SUNDAY -

At our usual Saturday night dinner at Ruwan's (our landlord's) place we arranged a tuk-tuk ride from his brother the tuk-tuk guy to go to the Muligiri rock temple Sunday morning.

Again, another crazy tuk-tuk ride through town and into a more rural area. Our guy once again dropped us off and pointed to some stairs. So, we climbed them.

The stairs leading up from the parking lot to the ticket office. Where again we had to pay a foreigner price. C'est la vie I guess. The guy at the ticket office was albino and spoke pretty good English. He told us to check a few rooms on this level then head on up in the other direction.

There were several little rooms in the rock temple Each had granite walls that were covered (every inch) with either a painted pattern or scenes like this one. Even the roof was painted.

Each room had a massive yellow Buddha in a side-lying position along the back wall. I am not really sure what the significance of that was. But it was cool to see. There were also other statues of the Buddha in each room.

This is looking up form the bottom of the big granite rock to the top.

A little lizard we found basking in the sun on the terracotta roof tiles. We saw Sri Lankan people carrying these up as we were going down to repair the temples at the top. Probably another reason we pay a foreigner entrance fee ;)

 

Krista climbing even more stairs!

Krista sitting at the edge of the rock with the valley behind her. Almost at the top!

These stairs to the last level were crazy. I don't think this picture does it justice. They were steep and headed  at an unusual angle. They were mind boggling like something you would expect to see out of one of those optical illusion paintings.

Temple at the top.

We saw these monkeys on our way down. The moma has a baby. So cute!

View up the rock again with a bell in the foreground.

View from the top.

Our legs were pretty beat after doing the climb. And we were really sweaty. But it was worth it. The few temples we have been to have an air of peace and serenity about them. They seem to always be very calm places with good energy.

At Work

Navajeeana

I took some quick pictures at the end of the day today. Just to give the people back home what a physio gets to work with in Sri Lanka. Enjoy!

 

Me and my 83 year old osteoperotic hip fracture patient. She is a trooper, coming for 2 one hour sessions each day.

Maru, Genius (his nickname) and me. Students we are workingwith from Colombo university. They taught us how to wrap amputee stumps today!

One of the curtained off treatment areas. Complete with untrasound machine. Vindya the rehab assistant is way ahead of the RAs in Canada and uses that thing "like it aint no thang".

Outdoor parallel bars. Enough said.

Shelf o' toys and the first stationary bike ever.

The rehab gym with the neuro bed. 

The fan was broken until yesterday. So this room just got a whole lot better!

First Weekend

We planned on going to Ho-o maniya Blowhole with some of the therapists and staff from the centre. But when we showed up at the centre we were shooed away by the security man. We decided to wait outside the gates for our friends to meet us. We waited for 45 minutes allowing for some rubber time. We thought that the rain probably kept them away. So we left. We called home talked to some of our family members for a bit, then headed to check out the beaches.


Our beach dog

Unfortunately that afternoon it was really rainy. It is the monsoon season after all.  While we were walking along the side of the road, a dog decided to start following us. We were wary at first thinking it might want our snacks or have rabies or something, but no, she just wanted some company. She was a very nice looking dog and really friendly. She would jaunt up ahead of us and then turn back to make sure we were still there.

Empty urchin shell

We check out the two beaches close by, and after getting caught in a minor rain shower we went for some rice and curry in a 2nd floor restaurant with a killer view. Rice and curry and Coca-cola. Life doesn't get much better. Our dog friend came with us of course, and the woman at the restaurant told us that this pooch follows all the travelers and even tried to hop into their vehicles. While we were eating lunch the local house crows kept trying to get into the buffet. The did manage to get a few papadoms.

View from the restaurant

After we went to the beach again and found some really awesome shells. The it really started to rain. And get windy. So one of the guys under a beach hut beckoned us under. Turns out this is the fat, bald guy that our Canadian liaison warned us about. Ooops. Luckily we managed to escape after a brief converstation.

waves crashing the point rocks

That night our landlord made us dinner and we watched copious amounts of GLEE.


On Sunday we arranged to travel to Kalemetiya lagoon via our landlords nieghbour/brother's tuk-tuk. We got up pretty early and then headed out. On a scale of granny to death gripping the side rails of the tuk-tuk, he was about a 7. So it was a nice peaceful drive.

Kalemetiya turned out to be amazing. Its not the right time of year for birds, as most are in their summer nesting grounds, bu we still saw  fair few. We also saw crocodiles and monitor lizards and water buffalo. In the park we hired a man to paddle us around the lagoon. That was pretty neat. Krista and I aren't sure how to boat actually works being that physics is neither of our strong suits, but we didnt tip and got back to the shore in one piece and dry.

stretch of unoccupied beach opposite the lagoon

crocodile

After our boat guide cut us own some young coconut to drink and eat. MMMMMMM, Refreshing!

land monitor lizard

 Krista wondering if the boat is going to tip

wild peacock

wild buffalo

Water flowers

the lagoon

water lily

mmmmmm, coconut water!