Finishing one journey and beginning another

This morning was me and Taylor's last day together. We had breakfast together at our guesthouse which was really pretty. We didn't really have any plans this afternoon other than we had to catch the train at 2:30 so we just chilled around the guest house until 11 when we had to check out. We we wanted to have our last swim at the beach but our insane sunburns made us change our minds. We packed up and took a tuk tuk into galle fort to our favorite cafe. The guys were there waving as soon as our tuk tuk pulled over by the cafe. We didn't been have to order, we'd been here long enough for the waiters to have us Sussed. One of the boys looks as though he's only 15 or 16 and he's so lovely! Whenever he's free he always comes over and tries to speak his best English. He asked if we were coming back to Sri Lanka and we said maybe one day and he said "you must come back to galle". If I were to move to Sri Lanka I would here and marry him (sorry Zac). We said our goodbyes to the guys who worked at the cafe and before we left the manager asked us if we'd seen turtles while we'd been here and we said no so he took us out to the outside balcony area where there was a big concrete tank thing full of baby turtles. We'd bee here for 3 days and not once had we seen them! They were so cute but it was so odd to see them! They said when they get older they will set them free into the ocean. We said our goodbyes promising we would be back one day and then got a tuk tuk to the train station. Taylor was getting off at ambaglangoda and I was getting off only at Colombo but it ment we were still on the same train ride. We got on the train and had such mares with our hugely heavy bags and this really nice guy ended us helping us turn. Turns out the nice guy was heading to Colombo with his mate as well so I felt a little relieved that I had someone to share a taxi with to the airport. We got to ambaglangoda and me and Taylor said our goodbyes. We both cried and all the Sri Lankans stared. As usual. The rest of the train ride back to Colombo was so pretty! We trained back right along to coastline in the late afternoon so the sun was really low in the sky. I had some weirdo man sit next to me asking creepy questions and asked for my address and phone number. Being the skilled travelor I am I gave fake info and he gave me his. When we finally got to Colombo I met the guys outside the train and we got a taxi for 10$ Each to take us to the airport. They had a really late flight as well so we ended up going to the beach and going out for dinner before we went to the airport. The 2 guys were really interesting! They work in the mines in Australia and basically work one week travel one week! They've basically travelled the world and there only in there 20s. They shouted me for dimmer cause they knew I was a poor student which was really nice. We got taxi to the airport and we both checked in and they managed to sneak me into there lounge. At 12:30am I has to board my flight so I said thanks and said my goodbyes and left. Today makes it my last day in Sri Lanka:( I've had the most amazing time both volunteering, meeting some life long friends and traveling some amazing places in Sri Lanka. My list I made before I came to Sri Lanka I managed to tick off all the things I wanted to do other than climb Adams peak but it's just not the season but me and Taylor have promised that we would come back in pilgrimage season and climb it. Although the volunteering wasn't as fulfilling as my last volunteer trip to Cambodia I definitely had such a heart warming experience working in the disabled and babies orphanage. Tribal week was definitely a challenge but gave me a huge eye opener to the kind of lifestyle of the tribes in Sri Lanka. Although this is the end of my journey In Sri Lanka it's now just the start of my 3 week holiday with Zac in Thailand which will definitely be a very different type of holiday. 

Sunburns, food and French boys

This morning I woke up early, surprisingly cold because the air con was on full blast. Taylor was still sleeping so I went down stairs and sat on the waterfront. It was still really early so the beach was basically empty so it was really nice. When Taylor woke up we had breakfast down stairs which was your genuine hotel breakfast with toast eggs fruit and tea. We extended our check till 2 so spend the whole morning lying on the beach and swimming. I have been struggling to get any sort of tan here because I've been putting on sun screen so today I just sunscreen on my face and neck and left the rest. Big mistake. Lying in bed currently and I'm dieing. I can literally feel the heat radiating off my skin as well as I'm a tomato. At 12:30 we can back to the house, packed up and checked out. We walked about 50 meters and checked into the hotel that Christina and her friend had stayed at. It was so nice, one pathway back from the beach and it was full of trees and big loungers everywhere. The place was $30 a night which was 15$ each which made me feel a lot better. We dropped our bags off grabbed money and water and walked to the main road to catch a bus to galle fort where we had been yesterday. The bus literally didn't stop for us, I mean it slowed down enough that we had to gain some

Momentum and jump on while the bus was still moving. We got to galle which we fell in love with all over again. There's no way to explain galle only to say that it's all brick paved side streets that only a tuk tuk can drive down and there's just tonnes of cute cafés, gelato places and surprisingly amazing interior shops and jelwery stores. We made our way up the street stopping in all these jelwery stores that Taylor brought stuff from and we found some really modern but authentic souvenir stores. We had planned to go to a different cafe than yesterday but we walked past and it was full of tourists and the young guy who served us remebered us and called us in. I had thee most amazing oats I think I've ever had in my life. It was oats with dates that I got them to add mango and banna too. It came with a honey syrup and the oats were milky and hot. We sat for hours again using the wifi and lazing on the big couches because the place is just so nice. My sun burn had Definitly kicked in and my whole body was hot and sore. The guys working there just laughed

At me. There was a concert on tonight right outside the cafe that we'd heard about yesterday so we thought we'd go down some streets and shop till evening and then come back to the cafe and have dinner and watch the concert. When we left I asked our waiter if I could get oats for dinner otherwise

I didn't want to eat here and he just laughed and said he could sort me out some oats for dinner. We shopped more and I brought some stuff finally. I brought this elephant dung paper that I had wanted for ages and brought my self a really cute elephant mug. At 6 we walked to the ocean and watched the sun go down over the Indian Ocean. For some reason the place was full of tourists and they just started at us, I don't think they'd seen such sun burnt white people before. We went back to our cafe and sat in our regular spot. Now our third time, all the waiters came and chatted with us and again continued to inform me how sunburnt I was like I wasn't aware. The band started and they were 4 French boys maybe in there mid 20s who were amazing! The small street was packed and the guys sung the kind of chilled music that I love. Me and Taylor both ordered our oats and when they were ready the guys called in from the concert and we had dinner. The oats were amazing just as they were for lunch. We spent the rest of the night listening to French boys sing. One of the main singers had the most amazing voice and both me as Taylor were in love. Taylor ended up buying there CD and we chatted with them afterwards. We got a tuk tuk home back to unawatuna beach around 10 and went Striaght to bed

 

Off to Unawatuna for the weekend

This morning 4am me and Taylor left for unawatuna beach by train. Unawatuna is a beautiful beach down south on the coast. We took a train to Colombo through jungle and forest which was so pretty and then another 4 hours from Colombo down the coast to galle. The train was so crazy as well went from jungle forest to be training along side the ocean. We got to galle around 10:30am and honestly was not expecting galle to be what it was. The whole city was so colonial which the streets being small little alleyways which felt like we were in France or Italy. We were starved because we hadn't eaten since 4am so our driver dropped us at the coolest looking cafe down one of the main alleyway streets.we walked in and I could believe in was still in Sri Lanka. The place was amazing all old and in wood but every modern. On the menu they had salads which made me instantly happy. I orderd a ice latte and a smoked chicken salad which was the nicest salad I have had hear. It's the fresh cold food that you really miss here because of all the hot spicy currys you have instead. The wifi was amazing, the place was air conditioned with huge long lounger couches. We were in heaven and all I could think about was only about 10 hours ago I was digging my own whole to go to toilet and chucking buckets of water on my self to get clean. The place as well as cafe sold amazing jelwery and home decor. Sri Lanka is famous for there stones and gems and Taylor and I had just been saying we really wanted jelwery from Sri Lanka. We ended up buying each other rings that were pretty much identical. There both blue moon stone a Sri Lankan famous gem. We got a tuk tuk to unawatuna and the place is amazing! I wanted to stay cheap but Taylor wanted to stay and after an hour of dragging our bags around in the sand we finally settled at a really nice and expensive place lol. I wasn't happy but Taylor was sick of looking so I said we'd stay one night here and then look for cheaper tomorrow. We took our stuff up to the room which was soo nice and then go Striaght into our bikinis and went to the beach. Our hotel is right on the sand and we sat right outside our place. The rest of the afternoon we spend lying in the sun and swimming every 20 minutes because the heat here is insaine. At around 5 we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. For once we didn't have to dress appropriately and wear pants and shirts which felt great. We walked along the beach and the resteraunts were all very similar but we ended up going to resteraunt Christina had recommended. It was place on the balcony over the water and the food was reasonable price. We had dinner while the sun set and then went back to our place and had dessert. 

Last day at Tribal

This morning we had our favourite coconut noodle thing for breakfast and then went To pre school for the last time :( today we taught the body parts and played games like "heads knees and toes" the kids were cute as usual. At lunch time I have gave out the little magic cards I got from my countdown purchases haha and the kids loved them! We also brought bubbles for the kids which entertained them for about an hour. Me and fay had a photo with all the kids and then said our goodbyes. It's always sad saying goodbye but always weird because they don't really understand that we're not coming back the next day. We walked the dreaded walk home the last time which I am not going To miss. Today was the hottest it's been so far so when we got back we literally just chucked buckets of water on ourselves fully clothed. We got backed and ready to go and went down to the boys to try and let them know we want a tuk tuk. The next hour and a half we spent trying to get a tuk tuk Which me and fay just wanted to go and were so over the locals and there lack of English. We had no idea whether a tuk tuk was coming or not but the grandma called us into the house and gave us lunch while we waited. You have to understand that we were literally sweating before we even sat down and then she brings out hot soup. Like soup is for cold winter nights. That general knowledge applies to everywhere all over the world no matter what country your in. Because we don't have spoons and cutlery in Sri Lanka

She brought out literally 2

Big loafs of bread that shed cut into huge  chunks. I especially was so sick of all the bread we had been eating but with no cutlery we basically had no choice but to use the bread to eat our soup. We couldn't help but just laugh at our self and how sweaty we were eating got soup. The tuk tuk finally came and again the goodbyes were awkward not because are they didn't understand we weren't coming back but because they had no understanding of English so all we could say was "thankyou". I wasn't sure if we should hug her or something but the way they all looked at each other we said just said our goodbyes and got in the tuk tuk. The driver who was 16 took us into town and got us on a local bus which we got there early enough to out all our huge bags somewhere and I secure a seat. The bus was packed but I had a seat right by the window thank goodness otherwise I would have puked all over that bus. We brought a mango and watermelon for the ride home which was the freshed thing we'd eaten all week. The drive home was so pretty I couldn't believe the views. Fay slept the whole way as she does. the drive was really long which I wasn't expecting so we only made it home around 6:30 so the trip ended up around 4 hours. I got back to the house excited to see everyone and to use the toilet and shower haha. I forgot the new lot of

Volunteers had arrived so when I opened the gates I was greeted by a bunch of randoms. All the girls were out in town doing stuff but later when they all got back we all went to slightly chilled to celebrate and say goodbye because we Taylor are off to the beach tomorrow

Morning so we won't see them again. I was so excited to get wifi because being at tribal I was out of reception for 7 days. With in that time Zac had his 21st, it was our anniversay and Zac was getting his teeth done. Andddd I hadn't talked to mum and dad in a week and I felt like mum was proebebly stressing big time.

We had a really nice dinner and it was good to be around tourists and people who spoke English. Me and Taylor have to catch train to the beach tomorrow jich leaves at 5 so we've gotta up early tomorrow. We headed back to the guest house to pack and get ready for unawatuna. We said goodbye to Damika which was really sad and I was quickly able to give him my feedback on trial week. He was really upset and shocked I hear about my experience so we was going to head to the village tomorrow to go and talk to them. Packing it then only hit me that it was my last day in kandy and I wouldn't be coming back. It was sad but i felt like id done my bit and was ready to leave.

second to last day

This morning there was no banging loud music to get woken up too so we were up at reasonable time at 6:30. I'm never one to wake up early usually but for some reason being in Sri Lanka all of us

Are so used to walking up at 6- 6:30. I really like it but there's no way I'll be getting up that early in Wellington when it's freezing in the morning. We got ready and went down to the house and we were given our favourite noodle things or breakfast along with a cup of tea. When I get home I want to figure out what they are because we thinking it's some coconut and brown sugar mix inside the noddle thing but we don't know. We got the bus to pre school but the teachers wernt there. This kids were all there so we knew it must be on but it was only an hour later the teachers arrive. No one really has phones or anything so if some ones you just have to presume there coming and wait for them. Today we taught the kids animal names. We had drawn out copies of different animals and we used broken up leaves and paper to collage onto the animals. After we had lunch but me and fay Chose not to eat it because firstly it was a really weird lookin soup and secondly because today was the hottest it's been since we've been here and we both couldn't manage drinking hot soup in this heat. The last 2 hours were the teachers time to teach so we both chilled. I finished my book which I finished in 3 days. You know the days are pretty chill here when it takes me only 3 days instead of months to finish a book. After class we were dreading the walk home because we were already sweating in the shaded classroom and we now had to walk half an hour in the mid day heat. My legs felt like jelly and my hands were shaking which I though was strange but then fay pointed out the same thing that it was because we didn't eat lunch today. We started walking home and I tried to occupy my mind to make the walk seem faster and to avoid fainting. About 10 minutes into walking which is ages when your walking in this heat, a tuk tuk stopped next to us and inside was our grandma who offered us a ride home. We were stoked!!!!! We got back and went Striaght to the well to splash our sleeves with later which feels like heaven. We made tea ( who

Knows why we drink tea I this heat but we just do) and out grandpa have us a little plastic bag of food. Inside was rotti triangles stuffed with a spicy vegetable filling. These things are my favourite Sri Lankan fooood so me and fay were happy! A man arrived on his bicycle

With a half a jack fruit which i had before in a curry when we did the cooking class. The jackfruit is this hugeeee big spikes green fruit that is Sri lankas like most prized fruit. You see them all on trees but when we go to the fruit market we hardly see them. Our grandma brought us over some which inside is all stringy and yellow. When we made the curry we used the stringy things has like a noodle salad thing and then inside these big chunks are these huge pip things that look like really big broad beans. We watched some of the locals eat in next to us and they chucked away the stings and just ate the big chunks. I smelt it and it literally smells identical to pink bubble gum. We ate it and it tastes just how it smells and it's amazingly sweat! I loved

Mine but fay was not impressed at all. By far was the best lunch I've had here on tribal week! Fay went to sleep as she always does after pre school and I went and sat under the coconut tree in the shade and red my book. After a while fay came out and we had tea and a biscuit. It was so early in the day and we really wanted to do something seeing as it was our last full day. We decided we both really wanted to see the elephants so we went and talked to the boys but they kind of us ignored us. Me and fay were sick and tired of all the lazing around.

We were told at the start the grandma would take us to so stuff etc but this whole time she never once took us anywhere. We were seriously thinking about packing up and leaving until the grandma came and got us as said she would take us to the elephants. We were so confused but anything was Better than nothing so we packed water and sun screen and followed her. We walked for about an hour through the jungle slowly collecting more and more little kids until we had 7 little girls following us. The jungle was so pretty but not Lush like you would think but very vast and desert like Africa. We walked hundreds of these amazing little tree houses high up in the trees. The girls and the grandma all walked in barefeet carrying our water bottles on there heads. They stoppe every 10 minutes to pick random things off the trees for to eat. Most of the time I felt like we were eating full on plant but sometimes you could get a slight understanding why they would eat it because it would be slightly sweet. I got some of the most amazing film footage on my camera of all the girls walking in a line in the jungle with water bottles on there head. At one point I think there was

A elephant up a head by that all the girls were acreaming stuff but the grandma turned around so Quickly me and fay didn't know what it was. We sadly didn't see any elephants just shit load of elephant poo instead. We saw the most amazing scenery and was walking about around 5:30-6:00 my favourite part of the day when the sun is slow in the sky and the feilds of forest turn orphanage. We walked back via the big lake where the boys from our village were

Swimming. It made me think of the boy who died in the lake just yesterday. We walked back to towards home and dropped us into one of the grandmas sons house. He made us write our info in his address book and he gave us his because we wants us to write him a letter. No Idea how they get mail in these remote areas but I guess it's worth a try. We got home and showered because we were filthy and sweaty. I looked like a local Sri Lankan my legs were so brown from all the dirt. We had dinner, tonight I think we had a proper cooked meal because everyone kept asking "Hondi?" which means "good" I think they were very proud of the meal. It was really

Good! It was a soup thing with bigs of

Homemade hot Dahl (bread) that we dipped it in with. After dinner we hung out with the boys and played cards. Its really nice to talk to them because they can kind of understand a little bit of English. we played music, they smoked and they danced because they were sad we were leaving tomorrow. We found out all about who was brothers and how they were related etc. It was really interesting!

3rd at tribal week

This morning I woke up really early cause my heads itchy, i think I'm being paranoid and think I have nits from the girls Lying all over me. We got up and had these savoury vegetable buns and tea for breakfast. Both me and fay have run out of bottled water and we can't drink the water from the well cause well get sick. I tried to translate if we can boil water and then drink it but they didn't understand. We just have to drink tea all the time to stop us getting de hydrated. We took the bus to pre school and had the First two hours again with the kids. We went back over fruit we learnt yesterday and today we decided to teach colours.we used coloured balloons and blew them up and then the kids had to run over to things that were the colour we called out. The excersise went really well and we got them to draw something that symbolised each colour in there book. We had lunch with them (curry and rice) and then we just watched while the kids got taught by the teachers. At 12 we walked home in the burning heat. The walk home is always a killer. I timed the walk exactly 35minutes from the pre school home. We got back to the house and no one was there, the shop was even closed up which I haven't seen before. The bunch of boys were there and me and fay in the shade to try cool down. Usually the lady gives us food after we get back but she wasn't here so we were kind of hungry. We both were craving fruit so we walked round trying to find fruit on the trees. There's a huge mango tree surrounding the house but all the mangoes looked way to unripe. We picked some off he ground but they were hard as. Some boys managed to get us some passion fruit from one of the trees which was delicious! We noticed the coconut tree and because we hadn't had much water today I was craving some coconut water. Fay tried to climb up the coconut tree but that was a fail and eventually we convinced one of the boys to climb up. He was up before I could even take a photo and he brought down 3 coconuts with him. One he had them down we had the dilemma of getting them open. The boys didn't understand but eventually someone came back with a knife and cut the coconuts for us so we could drink the water. I for some reason expected the water to be cold but it wasn't that was a let down. We drank the water cause we knew it would hydrate us. One of the ladies showed up and went and picked a hard mangoe to the point that it's white and hard inside. I know a lot of Sri Lankans eat it hard here so we tried it. At first it's kind of shocking and really sour and then some how you get used to it, it's kind of like eating a sour green apple. we both started to really like it. The grandma finally arrived a couple of hours later and took us to our little shack to have lunch. It was curry and rice that shed obviously picked up in town. She also have us a rambutan which is basically a lychee but they don't call them that in Sri Lanka. After lunch fay went for a sleep ( shit the girl sleeps a lot) and I went and red my book outside. Some of the little girls came and plated my hair and poked my skin and watched it go red and then back to normal colour. It's crazy how interested they are in out skin colour. Later everyone was back at the shop Doing there usual, eating the tobacco stuff and the leave and white stuff as they do. I went and had tea and just sat with everyone. As it got dark me and fay went to the well to wash ourselves. We found the best time to go is when it's just hit dark because then the  people from the road can't see us. Of coarse the little girls came over and watched us. Pulling the the bucket up with the pully is harder than it looks so the little girls pulled our water up for us. I shampooed my hair and put soap all over me and then the girl said "sit" and she dumped the water on me. It was the most refreshing thing ever although it got none of my shampoo out. The girls continued to help us while we all laughed and the girls sneakily stole some of my body wash to make them smell nice. After washing, all the boys were playing cards outside so we went to join. We played trumpts with them and they actually picked it up which was really cool! We played for ages until this family arrived that we'd never seen before. As soon as they showed up the boys stood up Striaght away and gave there seats to them. For the next hour more and more randoms arrived and this one man who was dressed a lot nicer than the others, I mean had shoes and a shirt on, was talking to one of the boys very firmly. Me and fat sat and watched and it was the most intriguing conversation and I had no clue what they were talking about. We had dinner which was again curry and rice and then we went Straight to bed. The heat and minimal water really tired you out. Feel like I'm on survivor lol 

Can't sleep

It's 12:40 am on wednesay morning and I've woken up sweating and I can't get to sleep! I feel so hot! Fay just woke up making really bad pain noises and has just walked outside! I presume she needs to go to the toilet. She's just come back in from the toilet and turned the light and asked if I have any pain medicine! She says her head hurts and she can hardly talk. I just gave her some noflam for the pain and she says she thinks it's from the chlorine drops we put in our water to try and purify it. She's lied back down and says she can't really breathe but she thinks it's cause she's panacking. I'm sitting with her until she falls back asleep again cause I can't sleep either cause I'm sweating and all my mosie bites are itching!