I'm beyond excited for Sri Lanka at this point. I fly out of Milwaukee on Saturday morning (like less than two days away). As I tell people that I'm leaving for a month for Sri Lanka I often get...

"Oh, sweet. Sri Lanka?"

or

"Tree Bonka? Where's that? Oh, near Africa!"

or

"Why in the world are you going there?"

So, my dear friends I'll explain.

Patrick did a study abroad with his college for a semester in Sri Lanka. We were throwing ideas for our next vacation out on the table and he brought it up. I guess he thought I would say "no" but I didn't. So, now we are heading for Sri Lanka - without knowing a soul - and without booking all of our hotels.

Once we get there things will be beautiful and pretty cheap.

Did you know?

Sri Lanka is roughly the same size as Ireland. The population is about 20.2 million. Most Sri Lankans are Buddhist. Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages with about 73% speaking Sinhala and 18% Tamil. Most college educated folks and governmental folks also speak English. They spend Sri Lankan Rupees there and $1 USD is worth about 100 Rupees.

The weather should average around 75- 90 degrees F.

So, the beaches of Bentota, Hikkaduwa, Negombo, and Galle better watch out!

I'm most looking forward to the food and the relaxation. Checking out ancient Buddhist temples and caves is also going to be amazing. If I'm lucky I'll also see some leopards and ride an elephant.

Keep checking back throughout February to see pics from my trip and to track my adventure across the island.

We snuck into Sri Lanka under the dark veil of morning weighing about 75 pounds lighter! Our bags apparently didn't want to leave Paris so they are still there. We have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for them to arrive.

But, on a more positive note we got in safely and are now unpacking in our beautiful hotel room. We spent about 20 hours in the air and luckily didn't experience any turbelence. Everything flew by except for the Paris - Colombo segment with seemed to be moving in reverse.

Much of our taxi ride from the airport to Colombo was in the dark with thousands of people, cars, dogs, and tuk-tuk's (a 3-wheeler) swerving, honking, and speeding down the streets.

For the most part people seem to understand us and we can mostly understand what they are tyring to convey to us as well. After about 30 minutes in the taxi we arrived at our hotel which is right on the ocean.

Here is a picture from our room overlooking the ocean and lawn. We are here at this hotel for two nights and then we head south to the beautiful beaches of Bentota.

Here is another picture overlooking the lawn and the ocean.

So far things have been working out pretty good. Today we get to buy new clothes and hopefully find some electrical adapters so I can continue to take pictures and write. We may also stop by the LGBT organization in Colombo and say hi.

The other day my laptop finally used that last bit of juice that was left in it's battery. According to our Lonely Planet Travel guide electric adapters were simple to pick up in Colombo. The book has been right about most things except this. We spent a few days trying to find some adapters. We found one store that thought they could use my existing power adapter for my Mac and just pull the cord out. I thought for sure they would either 1.) just break the whole thing altogether leaving me with nothing, or 2.) the newly created electric plug-in would short my computer. I was a bit worried to say the least. We came back a few hours later and they were just finishing up on my new charger. It looked very odd but it worked. So, my computer will be fully charged for the trip. So, far no shortages!

We left Colombo yesterday and traveled south to Bentota. The train to Bentota was packed! A very nice Sri Lankan helped guide us to the correct train and also encouraged two people to get up so we could squeeze all of our luggage into a seat and sit down. It is fairly true that Sri Lankans are friendly and want to help.

The internet in our hotel is wonky so I can't upload pictures. We stepped across the road to an internet cafe so I coud at least update the site.

We are on the ocean and the water is amazing! We hired a tuk-tuk (a 3 wheeler taxi) to take us to Brief Garden today. Brief Garden was the home of Bevis Bawa, brother of the famous Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lankan architect.

Tomorrow we head farther south to Galle where I hope we'll be able to get some wi-fi for my laptop so I can post some of the amazing pictures that we've taken.

Hotel Bentota lies suavely on the beach on the sunset side of Sri Lanka. It's a real James Bond set piece, all modern and angular, with the staff rushing to bring you icy cold towels and put a drink in your hand when you arrive. But instead of handsome secret agents and Grace Jones or Thumper, its peopled with sagging pensioners and aging German baby boomers with beards.

Hotel Serendib is designed by Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most famous architect, recently deceased. We took a three wheeler (still a thrill, like a bumper car ride with an edge) to visit the estate of his late brother, Captain Bevis Bawa, at Brief Garden. Serendib, for those who don't know, is a very old (Arab trading days I think?) name for Sri Lanka, and is of course the root of the word serendipity; there are so many unexpected pleasures here, so its apt, but I wonder what the word for unexpected hassle is, as that would fit at times, too.

Here was one of our beautiful Bentota evening views from our balcony at the Hotel Serendib.

The former Dutch fort town of Galle in southern Sri Lanka miraculously was saved from immense damages in the 2004 tsunami that devasated much of the island. (The high fort walls protected the inhabitants from the massive wall of water.) The town has tons of stuff to do: shopping, eating, day trips, and plenty of sun. The unsultry underside of Sri Lanka can be more than a bit irritating, literally.

The local touts (storytellers hoping to dupe foreigners with some sad story or amazing exclusive merchandise offer just for them) can wear down the nerves of most people. Many of the prices for everything from a tuk-tuk ride to a buddha statue in Sri Lanka have two faces - a price for locals and the foreigner price. Haggling for a good deal is a carefully researched adventure. But, probably the most irritating thing about Sri Lanka so far has been the bugs!

The past two nights our sleeping bodies have been the feast of nasty little bed bugs! Our arms, ankles, hands, and backs are spotted with little red bug bites.

Leaving Galle will be sad because of the routine we have comfortably fallen into but I'm delighted to finally get away from these annoying nocturnal creatures.

P.S. - I almost forgot about the other guest that dropped by our room a few nights ago. He thought he could just watch over us from our mosquito net. I don't think so...

Finally someplace with internet!

For the past few days we have been enjoying the mountain views from Sri Lanka's hill country. We've stayed at a fancy place that doesn't have any bed bugs but also didn't have internet as our guide book suggested!

Replacing our nocturnal creature visits at night we now are enjoying hot water bottles in our beds when we return from dinner. The temperature in Newara Eliya - where we have been staying for several days - is much cooler than the other places we've stayed in Sri Lanka and at night I've actually been wearing sweaters! Crazy, huh!

We are on our way today to Sri Pada (Adam's Peak) where we will take a pilgrimage with potentially hundreds of Sri Lankas up the mountain to see the beautiful sunrise. After Sri Pada we will be heading to Kandy where hopefully we'll get internet access and do laundry.

I've got tons of photos to put up from our safari at Yala National Park, Buduruwagela, and Ramboda Falls so check back soon.

It's been almost two weeks now that I've been in Sri Lanka and I've got some POO to share with you. Oh, what is POO you ask??

Pseudo-Original Observations – I know I’m a genius, right.

I’ve got lots of POO from my time in Sri Lanka thus far. I’ve started to collect my favorite POO and thought maybe I’d share some of my POO with you…

10. It’s really hot!
9. Monkeys can be kind of scary.
8. Don’t look up into trees filled with fruit bats.
7. Everybody is looking for your Rupees. (My favorite is the man who asks you for 20 Rupees after he points you in the direction of a urinal in a public bathroom. Like you wouldn’t find it otherwise!?)
6. Laws Traffic laws are irrelevant.
5. Climbing Sri Pada on a Hindu holy day is a very bad idea.
4. Germans smoke a LOT!
3. Eating with your fingers is messy - but liberating.
2. Driving in Sri Lanka is not for the timid.
1. When you don’t quite understand what is being said to you, smiling and saying “yes” to your driver can lead to things you never really wanted to go to. Believe me.

That’s all the POO I have for now.

Sri Pada, or Adam’s Peak, is a pilgrimage site sacred to all the religions in Sri Lanka. The Buddhists hold that the summit of this mountain, the second highest in the island, is Buddha’s last footprint on earth as he ascended to Nirvana. Christian tradition holds that it is Adam’s first footprint on earth after being cast out of Eden, and some Hindu’s believe it is Lord Shiva’s footprint. There is a remote Buddhist monastery at the top, and the ideal pilgrimage is to make the 7 km hike up the 6,000 foot mountain.

We reached the vicinity of Sri Pada on Friday, only to learn that that day that was a Hindu holy day and the beginning of a three day weekend in Sri Lanka. With the pilgrimage season already at its peak in January and February, this meant that there would be tens of thousands converging on Adam’s Peak. As our driver navigated the narrow winding mountain road with about 18” of shoulder and no guard rails to prevent us from tumbling down the mountain side to our deaths, we turned a bend and saw vans and rugged buses packed with people lined up for a mile. The bottleneck was a checkpoint to check bags and vehicles for explosives. Luckily, as sudu’s we were waived to the beginning of the line and through the check point, arriving at our cute guest house built into the side of a mountain with stunning views of Adam’s peak.

There was a really festive air about, with families and school groups on pilgrimage bathing in the stream behind the guest houses, music and chanting in the air, and kids rough-housing. Birds whirled around the tree branches in the valley and I felt like I was in Rivendale. We grabbed dinner and some sleep before waking at midnight to begin the hike (2am is the recommended start time to reach the peak in time for sunrise, but the crowds required an earlier start). We started out, climbing rough stairs and passing booth after booth selling Buddhas, knit caps to ward off the 55 degree chill, stuffed animals, and World Wide Wrestling memorabilia. With the many vendors and excitement in the air it felt more like a county fair than a pilgrimage. A party-like – not solemn - atmosphere prevailed along the winding route lit by flouresent tubes, with groups of teenage boys making a huge ruckus. Soon we came to a bridge and a human traffic jam, with pilgrims coming down from the mountain unable to exit and pilgrims on their way up similarly jammed. The natural leaders in the crowd emerged, including our driver, who soon teamed up with a man in a red sweater to shout, threaten and cajole people into workable but still haphazard routes of ascent and descent. After an hour, we were on the move again, but about a quarter mile from the top, and thousands of stairs later, we hit another human logjam.

By 4:30am, after an hour of waiting and no body coming up or down, it became obvious we had a problem. It was difficult even to raise my hands to my head (the international sign of frustration, head in one’s hands). The crowd was getting restless and frustrated, and seethed to and fro almost to the point of being very dangerous. We decided to head back and plotted out our exit strategy. Patrick and I each had separate occasions where the crowd’s push took us nearly off our feet on the steep steps. While we didn’t see the sunrise from the summit, we saw it on our way back to the guesthouse, and it was just as beautiful.

As I round out my time in Sri Lanka I have finally realized the excessive amounts of news and juicy celebrity gossip that I've missed. I can't believe that no one even told me that Anna Nicole died! Britney is in rehab??

I'm totally craving all the news that I've missed. Viva le TrimSpa!

Please tell me that Jake Gyllenhaal came out while I was away. I had a dream about a week ago that woke me from my slumbers where Jakey - he said only I can call him that so don't try using stealing my pet name - scolded me for not calling him back right away as he requested (I waited a day in my dream) and he told me to always call his cell not his ground line. I think I was having a vision of an oracle that day, hopefully.

I'm dying for news so send all your juicy morsels to me here.

Somebody asked about the food. It is one of the highlights of our trip for sure. We have had a few bland, faded buffets (pronounced here the British way: BOO-fay) or Western food whose taste doesn’t match our nostalgic craving, but overall the food has been excellent.

The basic staple here is rice and curry, and while the Indian buffets back home give a sense of the basics, Sri Lankan food is so much better. First, its very fresh. Traveling around the island we’ve seen endless fields of vegetables and unending market vendors selling their fresh produce. Virtually everything is made from scratch (even if you wimp out and order a cheese sandwich, the sandwich bread is usually home-baked). I feel so passionate about the food here that hopefully my obsession to detail doesn’t come across as pseudo-pornographic.

Rice – the rice is not sticky rice, but keeps its particularity. Most of it is white; we were given red rice once or twice to impress – its supposed to be healthier. In 1989 I had basmati rice on occasion, but not this time. And of course, you fill your plate from the center out with the rice until it looks like a Buddhist dagoba. At restaurants, servers usually dish it out for you slowly, like a striptease.

Other great rice-based dishes include hoppers (a bowl shaped pancake), string hoppers (rice noodles), and a real delicacy, pitu, which is rice and cocunut mixed into a firm dry cake. Kiri-bat, or milk rice, is my favorite treat, sometimes served at breakfast, which are cakes of moist rice and coconut milk formed into rice crispy bar-like squares.

Curries. This is the infinitely variable “stew” you put on the rice. My favorites are “alu” (potato) and dal (lentils, I think) but I like it all. There’s also “Lady fingers” (okra, if not mistaken), and all sorts of pickled-seeming vegetables. I’ve even had a stunningly delicious cashew curry and a garlic curry, with big obscene garlic gloves. Kurt enjoys chicken curry, which sometimes – though not always - is a couple chicken legs in a bowl of spicy juice. We’ve also had fish curry, which is peddled every morning by real-life fish mongers who go door-to-door selling it. The fish comes in big chunks from large catch. We’ve avoided the curries with little dried silver fish, which seems much easier to avoid than during my 1989 trip, when those little beady fish eyes seemed to stare me down at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The curries range from bland at the big tourist oriented buffets to way too hot to handle for me. The juice of the curry is often coconut-milk based (similar to Thai food).

Sambul. This I think is Portuguese influenced (as is the introduction hundreds of years ago of chilies, which is in everything). Sambul is ground coconut mixed with chilies – the darker red the sambul the more chilies and therefore the hotter. It’s a condiment that allows you some control over how hot the food is.

Fruit. Oh my God. It’s like visiting a strange paradise planet. The signature is probably papaya served with a small slice of lime; the lime juice is a perfect compliment. There’s also mangos (Kurt’s a fan of mango shakes), small bananas called “ambule” that are really good, huge avocados, coconuts (alas, we’ve avoided the straw-in-the-king coconut experience – we’ve both had it before and its not really our thing – but we do eat & love it in all the curries and sambul) and more exotic stuff like custard apple (it really is like sweet fruit meet meets cream), and out-of-season mangosteen. We’ve had the giant jack fruit served as a dessert. Also, passion fruit, itty-biddy oranges and watermelon (which I think of as a quintessentially American treat).

Breads. Many of us have had the crispy papadam in America. Roti is a rich, heavy unleavened flat bread that is to die for. Sri Lankans will enjoy it with chili, but I just like it plain. Foreigners get lots of sandwich bread toast at breakfast with jams and butter, too.

Desserts. Buffets and Sri Lankan’s shared love for sweets means that my dream of losing a few pounds during our month here is just that – a fantasy. My favorite is curd and treacle (or Sri Lankan “honey,” which is actually a sweet syrup made from palm trees instead of maple trees). The curd comes from water buffalo and is universally served in a clay pot, and then the diner trickles treacle on to taste. There’s also waddalapan which is similar to bread pudding, all sorts of egg-based custards, ice cream, and for sober souls: fruit. I also had the best tiramisu of my life here, at an Italian-owned restaurant (there are many restaurants run by bi-national couples where one spouse is Sri Lankan and the other European).

If Sri Lankan food isn’t sensual enough, you eat almost all of it with your hand (the right one)!

Entry contributed by Patrick.