Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has to be one of my favourite places in the whole world and SHOULD be on your bucket list. The people are wonderful and there is so much to experience. I visited initially when working there in Feb 1975 and loved the place so much that I took the family there in 1978. Other working visits followed. There is wildlife and history in abundance. We spent time in Wilpattau north of Colombo and also Yala wildlife sanctuary in the far southeast. In both we saw wild leopards although the wild elephants of Yala eluded us! But we saw working ones on the roads. Our driver was Mr Jofa - a muslim in a predominately buddhist country and he was great - taking us off on side-trips to places like a tea plantation, batik dyeing factory and spice growing farm where they were close to our planned route which was : Colombo - Negombo - Wilpattu National Park - Anuradhapu - Trincomalee - Polonnaruwa - Sigiriya - Dambulla - Kandy - Nuwara Eliya (in the temperate highlands tea country) where we stayed in an old tea plantation owners bungalow - Yala Nature reserve - Tangalle - Dondra Head (where we met up with Jay`s family) - Hikkadua - Bentota - Mount Lavinia and finally back to Colombo
The history of the island is quite amazing and many buildings and temples dating back 1500 years remain along with `tanks` - man-made fresh water reservoirs built by one of those ancient rulers. We stayed in a Rest House on stilts over a man-made tank at Polonnaruwa and climbed Sigiriya rock (gazing at the 1500 year old wall paintings of maidens) which another ruler built his palace on the top of to avoid assassination. We spent a night on the east coast at the Sea Angler`s Club in Trincomalee where we swam in the harbour that my father set out from the survey the Burma beaches before the Allied invasion against the Japanese during WW2 and Gill got bitten by a Barracuda leaving 4 nice tooth marks in her armpit area! There are naturally occurring mineral deposits containing precious stones like star sapphires (see picture 36) and more spices than you can shake a stick at. Oh and snakes of course. We saw a couple including a cobra. And then there were the fireflies in our room in the Horizon on the south coast where we turned out to be the only guests as the season ended the week before but they stayed open specifically for the Cooke family!. We sampled our first ever passion fruit juice, cooked plantains, hoppers and jaggery (to die for!) because this was before the days when exotics were flown in to UK supermarkets.
Many of the beaches are superb, and in particular Hikkadua which is also blessed with excellent coral reefs to snorkel on, - you will see a picture of the kids there with a baby elephant below, but many more including Tangalle, Bentota and Negombo. Inland again Kandy has a temple dedicated to a sacred relic - one of Prince Buddah`s teeth. We were allowed to enter the inner sanctum to see the case containing it but it was hidden under a huge metal bell as it is only allowed out for very special occasions. Kandy also has a fantastic Botanic Gardens with massive stands of giant bamboo and huge fruit bats roost there and then right in the centre amongst the trees in front of the Queen`s Hotel the red ants bite like fury if you have open sandals on like Jacky did.
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