Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a beautiful island dominated by breathtaking landscapes, astonishing temples, friendly people and tasty food.

I traveled there with my sister and a friend of us a few years ago and I just can’t stop thinking about my voyage there since I came back. First of all, even though the plane tickets are expensive, the country itself is relatively cheap, so I pretty much enjoyed eating and shopping there: I actually bought a lot of local things like pants, dresses, bracelets, buddha statues, copybooks, etc…The food is very spicy but delicious – it’s not my favourite cuisine though as I don’t like spicy dishes but I really wanted to eat locale so I ate anyways.

Second of all, Sri Lankans were so welcoming and kind. We met a lot of people there and they introduced us to their culture, which is something I will never forget: they taught us the Sri Lankan dance, a few words in their language and we learned a lot about Buddhism and Hinduism [rituals and practices]

Third of all, what I really loved in Sri Lanka is the simple fact that when you walk on the streets of Kandy or Colombo, you have monkeys casually walking next to you, it is amazing and I loved that. As a matter of fact, my sister got attacked by one; he wanted to steal her umbrella, it was fun to watch. We also went to see the elephants in Pinnawala: it was the first time I ever saw an elephant and I literally fell in love, they are such adorable and loving animals – even though they were not particularly comfortable to sit on. [On a side note, I recently discovered that the elephant park we went to, mistreats the elephants so as an animal lover and as a person against animal abuse, I will never go back there and I won’t advice anyone to go there.]

Another great experience we’ve had there was the tuktuk [image below]: it’s a local baby taxi car – it was fun especially with the way most Sri Lankans drive [fast and recklessly] and the heavy rain.We went to several cities in Sri Lanka: Kandy, Dambulla, Bentota, Beruwela, Nuwara Eliya, Sigiriya, Pinnawala and Colombo [it was my least favourite city], I was impressed by the landscape of the island and architecture of the temples [See images below] – each city was different of course and what I loved the most was the beach in Beruwela, the tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya, the golden temple in Dambulla and Sigiriya

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Dambulla, Golden Temple

Kandy, World Buddhist Museum 

Temple of the sacred tooth relic, Kandy 

Nuwara Eliya

Sigiriya