Return to Kalpitiya

Our friends, Fabian and Iris, arrived in Colombo the day after Dom’s dad left.  We hunted them down at the airport to share a ride back to Kalpitiya where we spent our last 9 days working and hanging out with friends.  


We did a bit of kitesurfing


Helped Fabian and Iris with their creative hotel projects 


And celebrated Jen's birthday!! :)


Negombo

For Yves' last few days, we stayed at a small family run guesthouse near the beach in Negombo.  We spent a lot of time hanging out in the pool and visited Negombo’s fishing market, beach, and dutch canal.


One evening, on our way to dinner, we happened upon a kite festival on the beach where crowds of kids were flying elaborate kites of all shapes and sizes.  Some were huge or had crazy long tails, while others were decked out with LED lights.  After dinner, we hung out at the kite festival concert for a while and then stopped to watch a local wedding ceremony on the beach that had live musicians playing really nice traditional music.


Dom's dad is a really friendly person who loves to talk to people.  Locals in Sri Lanka are so genuinely friendly, so Yves would often stop to chat with them.  On his camera, he had pictures of snow in Canada that he enjoyed showing to the locals. The funny thing is that it actually turned out to be a great way of fending off vendors in the market.  The locals who genuinely wanted to chat with him would look at the pictures with interest, but the ones who just wanted to make a sale would quickly get bored and race away to the next potential buyer. 


After our visit in Negombo, Yves returned to Canada.  We were really happy to have the opportunity to travel with him and have so many wonderful experiences and adventures together!  We look forward to the next time :)

Kandy

From Sigirya we went South to Kandy.  Our plan was to take the train to visit the highlands, unfortunately, the "first" class car (the only car with reserved seating) was temporarily cancelled for the next few weeks.  We were a bit disappointed, but since we weren't thrilled at the idea of standing in a hot crowded train for the entire 7 hour journey, we decided to stay in Kandy for a couple of days.  

We took it easy exploring the streets and discovering all of the delicious restaurants, markets, and temples in the area. 


On our way to Negombo we stopped to visit a tea plantation, where learned all about how the various types of tea are grown, picked, processed and exported. 

Sigirya

After visiting all of the Stupas in Anuradhapura, we made our way to Sigiriya. Who could say no to a little 5:00AM morning mountain hike to start the day!  

Thanks to an excellent tip from our friend Christos, we opted to climb Pidurangala Rock for $3usd, to see the sunrise and a beautiful view of Sigiriya (instead of spending $30usd to climb Sigiriya).  We were a bit surprised that there was a small section of boulder scrambling at the very top, making it a bit more treacherous for Dom’s dad. 


But we all made it up and down safely - it was definitely worth it!!



We returned to our guest house for breakfast and a nice mid-day nap.  Jen was super excited to have traditional Sri Lankan Egg Hoppers for breakfast!!


In the afternoon, we went on a jeep tour safari to the Kaudulla National Park.


We saw a handful of monkeys, lizards, and a variety of birds.


But the highlight was the elephants - we spent hours watching about 100 elephants grazing around us.  Jen was in heaven!


Our day ended by a nice dinner into the town where Dom discovered his favourite Sri Lankan dish - Kottu Roti!








Anuradhapura

After a week of relaxing on the beach, we set off to explore the countryside. From Kalpitiya, we took a tuk-tuk and 2 local buses to get to the historical city of Anuradhapura.  We arrived late-afternoon with just enough time to take a quick stroll through town and visit the local market. 


We found a really nice restaurant at the Little Paradise Tourist Guest House, with great food and a friendly owner, so we decided to book the next day's city tour through them.


The next day, we had an early morning start in our tuk-tuk, for a full day of sightseeing.  We visited pretty much all of the temples, ruins, and stupas within the UNESCO protected city.  


By mid-afternoon, we understood why they recommended starting so early.  It's mandatory to remove your shoes when near/within the holy areas, and the clear skies and 40+ degree heat made the stone tiles extremely hot!  Even many of the locals were wincing and prancing around the sites, seeking the tiniest patches of shade to stand on to give their burning feet a break.


Funny story - this picture looks like Dom asked to take a picture with this Monk, but actually it was the Monk who asked if Dom would mind being in a picture with him :). 






Kalpitiya

After our 6 month stay in London, we decided to bring Dom's dad, Yves, on a big adventure to Sri Lanka!  Our first stop was near a small town called Kalpitiya, where our friend Peter has opened a new kitesurfing school and hotel called Surfpoint Sri Lanka Kite Village.


Our final weeks of work in London were rather stressful and exhausting, so our number one goal for our week at the beach was to simply hang out and relax at the beautiful beach and hotel.


Many of our kite friends were there when we arrived, so as always, we were greeted with huge smiles and open arms.  It was great to introduce Yves to part of our kiting family. We all enjoyed each others' company with plenty of laughs, fun, entertainment, and memories to go around.  On one day, Yves got to experience his very first tuk-tuk ride, along the bumpy local dirt roads into town.  He described it as being both exciting and terrifying, but he really enjoyed the new experience!


Dom also gave his dad a few kitesurfing lessons, so Yves learned some basic kite control skills and then went out body-dragging in the water. He had a lot of fun dragging through the lagoon, but wasn't a big fan of the ocean because of the strong waves.