13th March- Sri Lanka bound

Okay, I know I promised I wouldnt be lazy in updating this and in my defense, I wasnt. But it turns out, you kinda have to lug your laptop around to be dilligent and I was contemplating it for about 5 seconds before I decided to leave my notebook behind in favour of internet cafes whilst i was moving. Turns out, it wasnt as convenient as I thought. Oh well, my apologies and here it goes anyway....

We touched down earlier than anticipated despite the slight delay from KL. If you're flying into Sri Lanka, this would be your only gateway into the country. Bandaranaike International Airport is relatively straightforward and it took us merely minutes to clear immigration though I was a bit surprised that they do not sell duty free cigarettes there!! Apparently it's banned. But still, should you feel the need to buy a TV or washing machine, plenty of shops upon arrival...don't ask.

Since we arrived quite early in the morning, we decided to leave Colombo till our last day and headed straight to Anuradhapura, the ancient city capital. Ive been forewarned that people will try to cheat you from every angle here in Sri Lanka, so when the taxi counter (at the airport, mind you) quoted us Rs 10,000 (RM300) for a 5 hour journey up north, i scuffed and decided to head into town to get a bus instead. He couldve been telling the truth, for all i know

me and Zul on the way to town

The tuk tuk which charged us Rs100 just to cross the road. Bastard!





















Me, squashed in between two cushioned seats in our "aircon" bus

Anuradhapura
The ancient city capital

We made it in one piece 5 hours later albeit a bit sore from sitting on a pathetic excuse for a seat on the bus. I must say though, the scenery on the way here seemed all too familiar with its dry red earth, miles of paddy fields flanked by misty mountains. Save for the winding A-road, we could've been in Kedah for all we knew. Anyway, we swiftly checked in, had some really dry fried rice and headed out to venture in our tuk tuk with a driver called Saliya (i think) as a guide.
















Waiting for my nasi goreng

Eh, ane, look! your name lah! :P

We noticed that there were hardly any tourists in Anuradhapura, which we think is due to 2 reasons: 1) it is quite a distance from Colombo, so most ppl would avoid it completely because it's too far. 2) Anuradhapura has seen its fair share of conflict in the past as up north in Sri Lanka was where most of the conflict used to be. So it could be apprehension.

Either way, the dagobas really came to life in the evening, bathed in beautiful light, accompanied by soothing buddhists chants and evidently, lots of photo opps...hur hur hur. The entrance fee to the UNESCO world heritage sites in Sri Lanka are quite steep, but ask around, and I'm pretty sure you can get a good bargain someway or another.