Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has been a wonderful surprise! We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and tried to change our Indian money at the airport. But we had forgotten that it is illegal to take foreign currency out of the country. We were a little stressed but our worries were quickly put at ease when a taxi driver offered to change it for us on the black market. It's silly now to think that we were worried at all. Of course there would be a black market here that was alive and well. We paid our driver in Indian rupees and he took us to the home of the Seneviratnes, parents of S's co-worker, in Kandy. Kandy is the second largest city in the country and it is known as the cultural capital- it was the last city to fall to colonial rule. Kandy is amazingly beautiful and I might go so far as to say the nicest city in Asia- it is really clean, people are really friendly and it is very beautiful as the city is located in a valley surrounded by hills. In the center of the city is a big lake and it is so incredibly peaceful to stroll around.
The Seneviratnes were so kind to welcome us into their home even though they had not previously met either of us. They really made us feel comfortable and really helped us plan out our 8-day whirlwind trip. Daisy cooked delicious food for us that we will never forget. We were so full yesterday after breakfast from the hoppers, jam and multiple curries that we were not even hungry by dinner time.
This morning we headed out early for Dambulla, a town that has amazing temple caves that date back to 2nd Century BC. On our way to the cave temple entrance, we walked past a active monastery and the monks invited us to chat with them. They brought out a large tray of Sri Lankan sweets and bananas and we spent the morning chatting with them. One of the monks randomly asked S if he was a vegetarian and if he was into yoga. After the monk found out he was right, the monks jokingly told S to join them in the monastery and become a monk, but not before they asked me if it was okay. All the while, there were about 10 little monks-in-training standing in the doorway smiling at us and nervously running away when I tried to ask them questions in Sinhala, the official language of the country.
After Dambulla, we took the bus to Sigiriya, which has a 262 m hill that was turned into a palace in the 5th century. We climbed the 1500 steps up to the top, along the way admiring rock paintings of buxom mistresses that were the concubines of the king in the 5th century. We are now about to go enjoy some curry and rice before we head off to bed.