While the food in India was amazing, and we met a number of kind Indians we’d hope to meet again (as you might have read about in our India post)…
…as a whole, we felt more in tune with the people of Sri Lanka.
(And the food is great too, but we’ll get to that later! Oh ho ho, you know I’ll get to the food eventually…)
As unfamiliar as we were with India and Sri Lanka before our time there, and in talking to a variety of Indian people, it seemed (before we had ever been there) maybe Sri Lanka wouldn’t be worlds different than India. I mean, on a map to an outside it looks pretty close, right? And “the landscape is just like southern India”, countless Indian people told us. And “the food is similar,” we were also told. And who were we to argue? 🙂 (We should have known, having lived in New Zealand, how annoying it is when people compare it to Australia. “It’s so close, right?”😜)
However, once we arrived, I feel like we IMMEDIATELY noticed a BIG difference in the people of Sri Lanka versus India.
Actually, the first thing we probably noticed as we drove from the airport to the house we were staying in was, “WHOA, look at how nice they keep their tuk tuks!”
Yes, the State of the Tuk Tuks was Clue #1 that we weren’t in India anymore. The Sri Lankans seemed to take pride in their vehicle conditions (we even saw some cleaning and polishing there! jaw drop!), and that had not been our experience in India.
The first place we stayed was in a lagoon area with many waterways and too many boats to count.
The local night fish market was one of the most “hoppin'” places we saw.
We always, always took the option of having our local hosts make the most local food they could for us. For example, below you can see the spicy coconut we’d have each morning for breakfast with our rice and curries and daals…similar to India but definitely not Indian food!
After the craziness of India, we were ready to relax in Sri Lanka!
We took it easy and, after leaving the lagoon house, stayed for a week in this lovely rental right on the beach in southern Sri Lanka.
Here, our host’s morning specialty was egg hopas!
He also loved to make us string hoppers to go along with our daals and curries.
We had him make us our breakfasts and late afternoon lunches, always requesting whatever he found fresh at the market or other traditional local dishes he thought we should try.
Morning tea was wonderful and we enjoyed these interesting chairs with “moveable” arms. Now, let’s see if Matt can build us some… 😉
Life here was easy. We ate good food and…
…every day we walked along the beach to swim with turtles!
Yes, every day we walked to this nearby lagoon with shallow water where we could lure the most giant sea turtles right too us with green algae gleaned from the rocks at the beaches.
Or of course, you could skip harvesting the green algae yourself and pay these guys under the umbrella for theirs. 🙂 We got to chatting with several of them over the week we spent there (and got our algae from them for a fraction of the price they were charging, which was nice 🙂 ).
Other than the turtles, my other favorite thing we did was visit a cinnamon plantation.
Now let me tell you, Jessica loves her some cinnamon! And Sri Lanka has THE best cinnamon in the world.
PSA: Honestly, if you’re not buying cinnamon that comes from Sri Lanka, you’re getting bleh cinnamon. Trust me — do a tasting. You’ll taste the difference!
We learned all about how cinnamon was discovered (Ceylon is the “old” name for Sri Lanka, so sometimes it’s labeled “Ceylon” — those of you who have read old British literature may recognize this 🙂 )…
…and then we got a real-life demonstration of harvesting cinnamon from a man who comes from a long line of what I’ll call Cinnamon Farmers.
I mean it. The tool he used was around 50 years old. I was impressed that they’ve found no way to improve on it; they’re sticking with it!
We got to learn EXACTLY how to cut, peel, and do every single complicated step.
It took awhile, but we learned! And I loved it! Fascinating. I didn’t know I could appreciate my beloved cinnamon even more now. 😉
For over an hour, we each took turns sitting on the ground and doing each step ourselves, while learning techniques and asking questions about their lives revolving around the cinnamon harvest times.
Soon we realized that we were going to get our own cinnamon “sticks” at the end — ones we’d made by hand!
We learned how to tuck them into each other…
…and about the drying process. (We had to wait awhile for ours to dry over the coming weeks of our trip. So much more cinnamon appreciation.)
Eventually we had to leave our lovely Sri Lankan house…
…next stop: Bangkok!
