The Gluten Free Travel Blog

Just a quick update to show some photos of what I’ve been up to in Sri Lanka. The Buddhist temple is the Cave Temple in Dambulla. I wish I’d taken a picture of the never ending stairs you have to walk up before you get to this cool UNESCO heritage site!

It’s been a busy couple of days in Sri Lanka. Well, by busy I mean it’s been three days spent in the most terrifying automobile rides on the planet. My taxi driver splitting lanes on the freeway at 95 MPH in South Korea doesn’t even compare to the crazy of driving in Sri Lanka. The second day here was spent in Kandy, the old Capitol and home to some amazing sites. Beautiful Buddhist temples built long ago, located in a hazy, foggy mountain city.
After walking around and checking out all the Kandy sites, it was back in the car to a spice garden. They’re huge on Ayurvedic medicine, so I got to learn about all the different oils and herbs and how they cure everything. Honestly, I would recommend skipping the spice garden. It was a forty foot walk down a path and back without much reward.
After the spice garden it was on to the elephant orphanage to play with elephants. It’s crazy how big they are, and they’re roaming free everywhere. You can walk right up to them, feed them, ride them, really anything you want to do. It was pretty cool.
New Year’s Eve was spent playing ping pong, chess and drinking some terrible local rum. All in all a successful close to 2012!
I’m sure anyone reading this just wants to see the pictures, so here goes:

Please, next time I think it’s a good idea to spend three days flying on four different planes somebody should kick me in the head. But, after San Francisco, Newark, Frankfurt and Doha, I finally made it to Colombo, Sri Lanka. I just checked into my frugal accommodations (no, seriously, the room rates in Colombo start at $9 per night), and the weather is really nice. I had a nice 45 minute conversation with the taxi driver on the way. This beautiful island has had a bad run. Between a thirty year guerrilla war and losing 50,000 people in the 2004 tsunami, I’m amazed to see everyone smiling here. This place has a ton of potential, and I’m really looking forward to traveling around here. Now it’s nap time…