Sri Lanka Part One!

Its hard not to miss home occasionally. When you are so far away, life goes on without you (as life is wont to do), with babies arriving (congrats Triona) and engagements (congrats Rob and Ciara) and new jobs (congrats Peelo – yes some people are finding new jobs!!!!). Despite the fact that I am having the time of my life, I miss home. For all the snow, recession, doom and gloom, I miss it!

Thankfully, Sri Lanka has stepped into the breach to take care of business. We arrived here late last Saturday, almost a week ago. Our plane landed in Colombo at about 11.30 pm. Having left a chilly enough Delhi just under four hours previously, I was suitably wrapped up in long trousers and a fleece. With the temperature at 26C as we stepped onto the tarmac, said fleece has now joined my thermal tops gathering dust at the bottom of my rucksack.

This was a stop on the itinerary I had gotten pretty excited about, (I'd done some research, substantially more than for either India or Nepal, which is not, admittedly, to say a huge amount, but I read!) to the extent that i had to keep reminding myself not to wish away the time in India as the anticipation grew – and finally, we had arrived.

Sri Lanka is a winner on so many fronts! More relaxed and easy going than India, what we have experienced so far is a beautiful country with incredibly friendly and welcoming people. I immediately felt at home.

To top it all off, we were going to meet with Schmo's brother in law's father, Lucky, who grew up here in Colombo and as fortune would have it, is currently on holidays here. Lucky has gone far, far above and beyond the call of duty to make us feel welcome and at home and for that, we owe him a huge debt of gratitude. We had the opportunity to join him for a swim at the Sinhalese Sports Club, which was a really glorious way to spend a morning. Think a beautiful outdoor pool, balmy temperatures, a little oasis of calm in the chaos of a big city! We followed that up with a leisurely and extremely tasty SriLankan lunch buffet after which he directed us to some fantastic shopping destinations, much to the dismay of my budget traveller's wallet!

This evening, we once again joined Lucky and some of his friends for a meal of hoppers! Anyone who has visited Sri Lanka will surely have tried them; anyone who visits here in the future – you should not leave without sampling this traditional meal For the uninitiated, from the only recently initiated (so forgive my inadequate description), hoppers are a little like a bowl shaped pancake. We started with an egg hopper, which is a hopper, with an egg cooked at the base of the bowl. This was shortly joined by a chicken or fish curry and some plain hoppers. I'm afraid the heat of the chicken meant I was too chicken to try the accompanying red chilli chutney! However I am reliably informed it was fab!

I'm already trying to work out how I can try to recreate these when I get home. I'm going to need a whole new set of kitchen implements!!!

On Saturday, HUGE thanks to Ajitha (Lucky's friend and one of the hopper party!) we head off out of Colombo for 7 days to see some of the sites Sri Lanka has to offer. These include the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnawala, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa, Nuwara Eliya and Kandy. I'm so excited to see these incredible places and hope to have lots of stories and pictures for you in a weeks time!!!