Colombo, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Day 3 There are 8 UNESCO world heritage sites in Sri Lanka. Today we saw 2 of them! That’s right! We saw 25% of Sri Lanka’s UNESCO world heritage sites (look at me throwing that math in there in the first paragraph! Keeping it educational!) in one super hot, sticky, sweaty, exhausting day. We started out the day at 7:30 am (so early! ) and headed to Lion Rock which is “the” place to go in Sri Lanka. For some reason, even though there are no Lions in Sri Lanka, and never were, their mascot is the Lion and their original name means The Lion People. So, some Prince who was not the rightful heir because he was the son of a concubine overthrew his brother to become King and decided to build his palace on top of this mountain. And he built a giant lion near the top, but all that is left are the feet because it was built from plaster, not granite. Wasn’t very forward thinking of him, was it? I mean, we could have gotten much better selfies if there was a whole lion there, but oh well. C’est la vie. (Didn’t know we spoke French, huh? Well I can also count to 10!) At the bottom are the oldest continuously maintained gardens in the world, not the oldest, but the oldest still around. That’s the kind of superlatives they have here in Sri Lanka. Then there’s lots of steps. (No superlatives come with these steps except from thetwinsontour.) Lots of steps. Luckily, they are broken up into small manageable sections, and even though they are not equitable in size, none of them are tall steps. They are old and a little worn, but still in pretty good condition. The only problem is that there are no handrails, but there are usually walls. The top of Lion Rock is not really as high as it looks from the ground. I mean, we made it all the way to the top fairly easily, and I am not even sore the following day. It’s about 1200 steps to the top. When you see our photos, you may say that looks really familiar, just like something out of a Duran Duran video, and you would be correct! They filmed their Save a Prayer video all around Sri Lanka. If you look it up on the YouTube, you will see Simon Lebond dancing around atop Lion Rock. We love the 80’s even if we’ve never heard of that particular Duran Duran song. It’s not as popular as Hungry Like a Wolf. Then we went to some ancient temple ruins (insert name here). Like the Angkor Way of Sri Lanka, but smaller. To go inside the temples, you have to take off your shoes and hat. It was just way too hot and sticky to take off our tennis shoes (socks are allowed. Sri Lankans may be strict about Buddah selfies, but they are not strict about bare feet. I think it has to do with the ground being too hot to walk on) and go in them when you can stand outside and see nearly everything. The coolest thing was the monkeys running amok amongst the ruins. We spent a lot of time taking pictures of them. They ran from one temple to another, and then they were just all sitting in a row on the wall in front of a big stuppa begging us to take their pictures. Needless to say, you don’t have to tell thetwinsontour twice when it comes to picture time. Even our guide Su was taking pictures. That’s how you know when you are photographing something special–when the guide starts taking pictures. Do you know how many times he has been to these temples in the past 18 years? And how many monkeys he has seen in that time? So this was a good thing, a really good thing. Until they started chasing each other and swinging through the trees over our heads because that’s terrifying. But when they sit still on a wall, that’s amazing. Sri Lanka has more national holidays than any other country — there are 25 of them. So it only makes sense that we would be here to celebrate one of them. We got to experience the New Year! Sri Lanka celebrates the New Year when Pisces changes to Aries, so the date can fluctuate. And to celebrate, you shoot off fire works at the auspicious time. When is the time auspicious you ask? They don’t make it easy and just use midnight. You must check with the astrologers to find out the exact moment that Pisces changes to Aries. This year it started at 8:40 pm. But, not only is there an auspicious time, but there is also an auspicious period! This is the time it takes for the transition to be complete– kind of like an eclipse– the time from when the transition starts to when it is complete. It could take 8-9 hours depending on the year. This year it was 4 hours. During the auspicious period, it is bad luck to start anything– work, eating, imbibing spirits– which would seem to put a damper on the celebrations because it basically sounds like nap time. But, what may be most curious of all, is that even though it is New Year, nothing changes. It is still 2017. They don’t celebrate like the Chinese with the year of the rabbit or goat. There is some astrological calendar out there that tracks the difference in the years, but they don’t use it. After getting their independence from the British in the 50’s, Sri Lanka tried out using this calendar, but quickly abandoned it after a few months because suddenly they were 4 months behind the rest of the world. Basically for us, the New Year means less traffic because everyone has left town to go to their villages. Less traffic means less Dramamine for thetwinsontour. This is a very good thing. That’s about it for day 3 in Sri Lanka, and for the year. Love, thetwinsontour Ps. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook! You won’t be disappointed.