Holiday Road: A Jorgan Family Experience Part 2

Picking up where we left off...

The next morning, we got an early start on our first adventure, before the sun got too strong.  This is a vital piece of planning when trekking or tripping  through a place like Sri Lanka – the sun is incredibly strong here, so the longer you are out and the closer you are to midday, the quicker you are going to get sunbaked and wiped out.  We met up with the Jones Family right as the breakfast buffet opened, around 8 AM.  There was a nice Sri Lankan spread of rice, curry, dhal and hoppers again.  There was also a lot of fresh fruit, juice, hard boiled eggs, some fresh cut cucumbers and tomatoes and toast.  A little something for everyone. 

We met Kuruna at 9, turned on “Holiday Road” and drove toward our main stop for the day: Sigiriya, which is probably Sri Lanka’s most dramatic and iconic

sight.  Otherwise known as “Lion Rock,” it is a 660 foot high rock monolith that is the site of one of Sri Lanka’s ancient kingdoms.  The rock reaches straight up out of a verdant jungle, creating quite an immense and breathtaking presence.  King Kashyapa I had his winter palace built on the top of the flat rock in the 5th century.  It is said that he kept his harem of 500 women on the top of this rock and lived there with them for about 20 years, before his empire was destroyed by his half-brother.  The ascent is interrupted by caves along the front wall, complete with beautiful frescos inside and reached by a series of vertiginous staircases that are the only way to ascend to the top.  1,202 stairs to be exact.  And we were prepared to climb every single one before it got too hot!

It was hard to understand exactly what the rules were here...

It was a relatively short drive to our destination, getting us there a little before 10 in the morning.  We decided to hire a tour guide and asked Kuruna to assist us in finding a reputable one.  We obtained the services of Neil, who seemed keen to help us with our 4 kids and answer all the many questions we had about what we were seeing.  We put 3 of the 4 kids in carriers, grabbed Kiddo’s hand and headed off to buy tickets.

Walking in, we first got to see the famous water gardens that surround the base of Sigiriya.  Unfortunately, we were visiting at a time when the water level was too low for the water gardens to be at their full operating status.  Neil informed us that the gardens are fully operational when the water is higher during the rainy season.  There are fountains built into the gardens connected to underground water conduits, which power the fountains naturally.  When it rains and the water levels are higher, the force of the water in these conduits pushes the water up and out making the fountains work without any additional power.  The idea of this kind of planning and technology existing here in the 5th century was astounding to me.  I could barely conceive of it now in the 21st century!  Proceeding through these water gardens, we then came to some boulder gardens and terraced green gardens that surrounded the initial sets of steps up to the rock face.  Coming through these gardens, the immensity of Sigiriya rising before us was truly breathtaking!

Now feels like a good time to remind you that making this ascent were the 4 of us adults along with our almost 5 year old, 3 ½ year old, 2 ½ year old and 1 year old in tow.  Kiddo insisted on walking by herself, while Ryan carried Little Boy in our hiking pack.  Zac and Cassidy each carried one of their kiddos.  All. The. Way. To. The. Top.  We were earning our hoppers and happy hour cocktails that day.

We began our ascent up the first sets of stairs, which were no joke.  These stairs were steep!Savannah proudly made every single step on her own.  I was mildly concerned that she would get scared once we got up toward the top (she sometimes gets a spontaneous and random fear of heights).  It doesn’t happen all the time and we never know when it will strike – some days she wants to jump off anything she can climb and other days she says she’s afraid to climb certain playground ladders that are too high.  I can’t explain it – but I thought this would be a problem.  I was pleasantly surprised by how awesome she was, all the way to the top!  She held Neil’s hand most of the way, which he was happy to oblige as he pointed out frescos and ancient guard spots along the way.

It took us about an hour and a half or so to get from the front gate to the top of Sigiriya.  It was such a beautiful vista.  Looking out, there was green forest as far as the eye could see and giant Buddha statues in all directions.  The top of the rock was impressive in and of itself.  There were staircases all around the very top, leading to what was an amazing and detailed palace and citadel.  My first question was, “Who in the world was in charge of hauling all of the food up all these damn stairs every day for all of the people living up here?”  Oh yeah, that and, “Did people have to carry the royals down any time they needed to leave the kingdom?  Or did they walk?  Who drew that short straw and how unsafe did that feel – being carried down 100 flights of steep rock steps on a palanquin?”  No thanks.

A salute to Keeeenny on top of Sigiriya

After we took a short rest, had some snacks and let the kids run around a bit, we made our way back down to the van.  It was definitely much quicker going down, although the steep stairs coupled with the view straight down had Kiddo a little nervous at times.  Neil faithfully held her hand and helped her stay calm all the way  down.  There were vendors on the backside waiting for us tourist types to walk by so they could sell us their wooden Buddhas, jewelry and elephants.  We did end up buying a wooden Buddha, but the whole salesman experience took a little of the shine off our Sigiriya experience.  These guys are after the hard sell and they have a hard time taking no for an answer.   They even appealed to the wanton nature of our children in order to get an edge on persuading us to buy.  I was still in my reverie about how incredible the whole place was when I had to start scolding Kiddo for making puppy dog faces at the salesman because she wanted her own elephant so badly. 

Eventually we made it back to the van, where we all crashed into our seats chugging water and cranking the A/C.  It was about 12:30 at this point and we were all ready for a break from the sun.  We stopped for lunch on the way back to the hotel, then returned for a much needed nap.  Afterwards, we took a refreshing dip in the pool where we may or may not have also enjoyed some in-pool cocktails while planning the evening’s events.

Just a short walk from our hotel were the Dambulla Buddhist Cave Temples, which we all wanted to check out.  Cassidy encountered some 3.5-year-old resistance at the idea of this journey, so she opted to stay back for this round and check out the caves on her morning run the next day.  The rest of us changed out of our suits, strapped our kids into their Ergos and charted our course.  Along the way, we encountered our very first Sri Lankan monkeys!  I had been told by lots of people prior to our trip (including Ryan and Cassidy) to steer clear of any monkeys – they can be mean and they will bite, especially if they think you have food.  We had to walk right through a large group of them crowding the stairs up to the caves and hanging from the trees overhead.  I won’t lie, it was a bit nerve wracking, especially with the kiddos.  We had to be diligent about making sure Kiddo didn’t get too close or stare at them too long, as that’s another thing that can provoke them. 

Eventually we made it up the stairs  (so many stairs!) to the cave temple right around sunset.  We checked our shoes in at the front (as you must be barefoot inside all Buddhist temple areas) and I borrowed a shawl to cover my shoulders as we proceeded inside.  The mountain that the caves are built into blocked our view of the actual sunset, but it was really beautiful to see it shining over the valley below.  The temple itself was an impressive feature, established in the 1^st century BC and continuously retouched and added to over the centuries.  It is comprised of 5 different caves all representing different themes and home to about 150 different kinds of Buddha statues as well as many ancient paintings and art pieces.  One room

had over 60 Buddhas inside while another had an enormous reclining Buddha (or “Beepy Boobah,” (Sleepy Buddha) as Little Boy calls it).  The reclining Buddha is significant because it pays homage to Buddha in his last illness, before his death, which then brought him to “parinirvana” or nirvana after death.  The whole temple area was so quiet and reposed, especially as the day crept toward twilight.  It was really beautiful.

We didn’t stay too long, as the monks were getting ready to close down before their night time prayer, but we made it into each room before heading back down the steps in the twilight to get our own dinner back at the hotel.  Once that was done, I took the kids back to the room to shower and get to bed, while Ryan and Zac enjoyed some mediocre beers and talked shop.  It had been a jam-packed day and I was wiped.  After breakfast the next morning, we said goodbye to the sweet staff of Sundaras (who Kiddo and LB had gotten to know pretty well), turned on “Holiday Road” and journeyed back south toward Kandy, our next stopping point. 

After a much shorter, carsick free 2 ½ hours in the car, we arrived at Cinnamon Citadel in the city of Kandy.  We got there just in time for some lunch and then a nap for the kiddos before heading back out.  In the afternoon we started with a visit to The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, a famous Buddhist shrine.  This temple houses arguably the most important Buddhist relic – one of his teeth, found on the pyre upon which he was burned, having survived the fire.  It is said that the tooth was given by one of Buddha’s disciples to a king for veneration.  It was then understood that whoever possessed the tooth was the rightful ruler of that area.  Eventually, a war was fought over the relic and it was ultimately brought to Sri Lanka.  It was enshrined in the country’s capital of the time and was moved each time the capital city shifted, until finally coming to rest in its current place in Kandy (which does not happen to be the capital of Sri Lanka). 

The temple grounds are quite large and include a lot of different rooms and museums.  When you finally do make your way to the tooth itself, you don’t actually get to see “It.”  It is encased in a golden dagoba or stupa behind a glass case.  We wandered through a sea of worshippers, saw the shrine and continued on through.  Ryan and Zach made their way into a large museum at the back of the property, while Cassidy and I let the kids run around in the Audience Hall, an open air pavilion in the middle of the grounds.  We got a bit of attention from some school girls passing through who had all sorts of questions for Kiddo.  She didn’t mind obliging them.  Once the guys emerged from inside the museum and kids had run around enough, we made our way back out.  But not before stopping to view the stuffed remains of Raja, the Maligawa tusker (elephant), famous for having carried the tooth for over 50 years in the final parade of the annual celebration held in the Tooth Temple’s honor.  It felt like an odd thing to view, but was definitely meant to be part of the experience of the place, so we did it.  On the way out, the kids posed for more pictures before we continued on.

We asked Kuruna if he knew a good place to view the sunset over Kandy, so he obliged us by driving us up some back streets over the town where we caught it just at the last minute.  It was a pretty breathtaking view and we got there just in time.  We made our way back down toward the hotel, where we were ready for some cocktails, dinner and sleep. 

The next morning after breakfast and packing up, we headed over to the Kandy Botanical Gardens.  We paid our entrance fee and decided to rent a large golf cart with a guide to shepherd us around the grounds.  This turned out to be a genius idea, as we didn’t fully realize just how large the grounds were.  Because of this, we were able to see just about everything in a reasonable amount of time.  I have to say, I have never seen so many different trees in one place.  Having grown up in the Adirondacks where beautiful trees abound, I am an avid tree lover.  I find myself constantly taking pictures of the amazing tree fauna that we find in our travels and this place was a tree haven.  I could probably post a blog's worth of just the tree photos I took.  I had to restrain myself from

taking an inordinate and useless number of them to begin with.  It was a beautiful stop full of gorgeous views, but I'll spare you the tree gallery.

One of the only shots of all 4 kiddos and you can't even

see the enormous tree roots they are standing in!

We grabbed some snacks and tea for the road, then made our way to our next stop: The Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage.  We accidentally timed this stop perfectly.  We were all hungry and ready for lunch and when we arrived the staff of the Orphanage were escorting the herd of elephants across the road and down the street to the river for their daily bath.  Since we were inside the Orphanage already, we grabbed some snacks and walked around to check things out.  Most of the elephants were down at the river already, but we got to see some up close that had been left behind.
 

The few elephants who were left behind were just hanging out, enjoying some snacks and relaxing, in some holding pens.  Savannah even got to fee one some bananas.  Once we were sure the herd was down at the river, we made our way in that direction just in time to grab a seat at a restaurant overlooking the river to watch the elephants playing in the water. 

Perfect lunchtime scenery.

We wrapped up our lunch session, struck up the “Holiday Road” singalong in the

van after which the kids all promptly fell asleep and we made our way back to Colombo.  We grabbed some fast food just outside of town once we realized we were all too tired to discuss dinner plans any further than that.  We arrived back at our place around 8 pm and unloaded the van, thanking Kuruna for his kind service and care.  We got the kids cleaned up and ready for bed, before we all hung out for one last night before the Jones family departed the following day. 

Looking back, we sure did pack quite a bit into that trip.  But it was a pretty epic adventure for which I will always be grateful.  We got to see a lot of Sri Lanka in a short period of time with some great friends that we may not see for quite a while.  The military lifestyle is pretty tough sometimes, with all of the coming and going and saying goodbye; however, when you have friends like these and experiences like this, you try to stay thankful for the fact that you have these moments at all, instead of never having had them to begin with.  Thanks to the Jones Family for sharing this trip with us and inducting us into our first official FAO experiences! 

Holiday Road: A Jorgan Family Experience Part 1

Deployment #2, just after they flew away

One of the best things about military life is the communities in which you find yourself when you move around.  We have been fortunate in our travels to have been a part of some small, but tightly knit communities that have really become special to us.  When we lived in San Diego, Ryan’s squadron, The Purple Foxes, was definitely like an extended family for us.  It was a unique community of people all bonded by a legendary history.  We spent almost 5 years together and survived 2 deployments as a group, supporting each other, playing together and starting families in Southern California.  Our families all keep track of each other still and we try to reunite any time any of us are in the same town. 

In an odd twist, one Fox family in particular got selected for the FAO program at the same time that we did.  We were already close with The Jones’ when we lived in San Diego, so were thrilled when we found out we would also be living in Monterey at the same time as them.  Transitioning away from our happy spot in Southern California was made a little easier knowing we would have the companionship of these friends as we continued down the Marine Corps road.  They helped us get set up in our amazing house near Cannery Row, we shared dinners and birthdays and holidays together and even added a little boy to each of our families during our time in Monterey. 

The Jones family spent their year abroad in Jakarta, Indonesia, having left for their experience about 10 months before we left for Sri Lanka.  When we arrived in South Asia, they were just getting ready to wrap up their time abroad.  We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to cross paths while in the same part of the world, though!  So, the Jones’ decided to make Sri Lanka their last touring destination before heading back to the States for their next posting.  

After a few weeks of planning and coordinating, Cassidy brought her two kiddos over to Colombo.  Zac was still wrapping up a trip in Vietnam when they arrived, so he followed along later.  That gave Cassidy, me and the kiddos several days to do some fun Colombo stuff while Ryan got work done at the Embassy.  We spent a lot of time at home, letting the kids play while Cassidy and I chatted over 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles.  We also went to the park, out to lunch and to a few close places around town.  We had only been in Colombo about a month when they arrived, so we were still getting familiar with everything.  It was so nice to have friends that felt like family around to hang out with, we spent a lot of time chatting about their experiences abroad and framing our expectations for international travel with small children.  Zac and Cassidy’s kids are 3 ½ and 1, so pretty close in age to our own.  We had a lot of information to exchange.

Once Zac arrived, we celebrated Independence Day together at our home and prepared for our first Sri Lankan road trip. Appropriately, our first excursion abroad matched up with the Jones’ last.  We packed up our bags, our gear and our kids and piled into a big van with our driver Kuruna and set off to explore some of the more central parts of Sri Lanka.  More specifically, we were headed for Dambulla, Sigiriya and Kandy.  As we settled into our seats and began pulling away from our building, Zac turned on the song “Holiday Road,” which made me laugh out loud while simultaneously making me thankful we were able to share this exciting adventure with such wonderful friends.  We drove off singing, “Holiday Rooooaaaaaaaad,” ready for whatever Griswold style mishaps and fun were likely to come our way.

Our goal was to make it to Dambulla by dinner time.  We had aimed for a post lunch, naptime exit, but overshot a little, which left us at the throes of the afternoon/evening traffic that plagues the roads here.  It’s about 165 Kilometers (little less than 110 miles) to Dambulla, which would take about 4.5 hours (we anticipated).  It may sound crazy that driving 100 miles would take over 4 hours, but now is a good time to explain how the roads in Sri Lanka work.  Inside the city there is a lot of traffic and, as I explained in a previous post, the rules of the road are not nearly the same here as they are in the States.  Once you get outside the city there is still traffic, but now it is happening on a two-lane (or less) road, with little shoulder and lots of pedestrians and dogs all over the place.  On top of that, the roads get significantly curvier once you leave the city.  We are talking constant, sometimes hairpin style curves, mixed with quick stopping tuk-tuks and randomly crossing dogs and pedestrian traffic.  All of this accounts for your top speed of about 30 mph, if you are lucky – but usually much less.  It easily takes 3-4 times longer than distance would otherwise suggest to get anywhere you want to go, every time you leave the house.  A harsh, but true reality.  Now, add 4 small children to this equation and you have a small understanding of our undertaking.

Once we got going, we all fell into our own little reveries.  The kids all fell asleep after a little bit of driving, while we adults read/closed our eyes/stared out the window taking in the scenery.  This was our family’s first venture outside of Colombo, so although I intended on some good magazine reading time, I found my eyes glued out the window, trying to take it all in as we drove.

It was during this time that I truly realized how driving in Sri Lanka is on a whole other level than anywhere else I have ever been before.  Here’s the thing, even though you aren’t going very fast, there is a constant kind of lurching forwards and back, particularly with the kind of stick shift van we had for this trip.  Because traffic, twisty roads, lane swerving, and pedestrians and dogs cause constant shifts while driving, the van spends most of its time speeding up and slowing down over and over and over again, all while twisting down winding roads.  Not to mention the fact that you have to quickly disengage your reflex to grip the seat every time you swerve into the other lane to pass the vehicle in front of you only to play chicken with an oncoming bus, tuk, motorcycle, or cyclist.  The center line is more like a suggestion, not necessarily an indication of lanes or rules.  At this point, I decided looking out the side windows was my best option…

Wyoming - so beautiful but miles and miles of empty space 

As I gazed out, I started to notice a lot of similarities from other road trips I have taken in the past.  Have you ever driven through a desolate area and then come upon a small town, out in the middle of nowhere?  The kind where you drive through and find yourself wondering about the people that live in that town.  What do they do?  Is their family there and why do they stay so far removed from everything?  I think about these things all of the time while I am traveling.  I always want to know everyone’s stories.  For instance, we did a road trip through Wyoming a few years ago and driving there felt like being on another planet.  There was so much wide open, empty space with nothing for miles and miles except flat, dusty, tumbleweed littered landscape.  Then here and there, small houses, sometimes all alone and sometimes in groups, would dot the landscape. It is easy to forget, while living in highly populated areas, that these vast expanses exist in our country. But people have homes out here, just out next to nothing except dust, wide open space and the emptiness of the desert landscape.  What do they do for fun?  Where do they work?  How do they spend a Saturday night?  I'm endlessly curious.

In a different way, I had these same thoughts driving through all of the small towns along the way to Dambulla, peering out at the houses and people passing by.  But different from Wyoming, there are countless towns here, with lots of side streets, homes and people.  And here they are having the same kind of Sunday I might have if I was still living in the States, but somehow it still seems like another planet.  These are the things that make me realize just how incredibly vast this world truly is, but also how small it is too.  Small towns on the other side of the world make me realize that so much of life is exactly the same everywhere on the planet, it just looks a little different depending on your latitude and longitude.  Everyone here is doing their market shopping on Sunday afternoon or heading home to get dinner ready.  They are raking their front yards and sweeping their front stoops.  They are washing cars, playing Cricket, and carrying sleepy toddlers home for nap time.  And yet, despite the sameness of it all, it feels so vastly different here.  These aren't manicured streets, sidewalks and lawns I'm seeing as we drive by.  This is a mass of humanity, moving about seamlessly among tuk tuks, bikes, motorcyles, cars and busses.  People shopping at roadside market stands, stepping over broken curbs and scattered bits of trash in their sarongs and sarees.   It's the same basic plotline but the characters and setting are vastly different.  I find comfort and fascination in all of that.

And then there is the sudden sound of kids vomiting in the car….wait, what?!  As I was writing those last notes, I was torn out of my existential reverie by the sounds of Little Boy whining, then shouting, then vomiting the entire contents of his stomach all over himself and his car seat right next to me.  Apparently, the constant push and pull of the van finally got the better of him.  We lurched forward through the traffic to a nearby grocery store parking lot as he helplessly whimpered at me.  We jumped out and removed Little Boy, car seat and all, onto the dusty dirt driveway of Cargill’s grocery.  I ran inside to buy some soap, water and napkins to try and clean the massacre.  We stripped him down in the parking lot, rinsed him off, changed his clothes and gave him a small snack to settle him, then stripped the car seat and did our best to clean and rinse then recover it in plastic bags to continue on our way.  He had been rear facing, which for this winding, jerky ride was, in hind sight, a bad choice.  We flipped him around, discarded our pukey trash and continued on down the road.  Zac played “Holiday Road” again as we pulled away, making us all laugh and adding a little necessary levity to the situation.

Not 40 minutes later, I was in the middle of mapping out a place to stop for a rest when, from the backseat, Kiddo could be heard wretching.  Thankfully, Cassidy was primed and ready, helping her catch most of it in a bag.  We pulled over again, cleaned her up, and continued along.  The winding roads, the constant gas then brake style of driving and Kuruna’s insistence that we were “just an hour away” were not working well for us. I have done lots of road trips with my kids that have covered many more miles than we intended for this trip and I’ve never gotten carsick myself or had one of the kids get carsick along the way.  I was honestly shocked when Little Boy got sick.  But I was downright flabbergasted when Kiddo threw up.  This situation was a sharp lesson in some of the tangible differences between experiences in America versus Sri Lanka. 

A Seeming Oasis in the Midst of Our Troubled Times

In the bustle of Kiddo’s car sickness, we missed the turn for the spot I had picked for our resting point.  We asked Kuruna to flip around and head back to Castle Park Restaurant, a spot with a park and a restaurant (according to Google), which was up a narrow and bumpy road.  Unsure of our location as we bumped anxiously along, poking our heads around in curiousity, we finally saw a sign ahead.  We rounded the bend, all ready to breathe a sigh of relief and get the kids out of the car for a little while, when we approached 2 large iron gates.  That were closed.  The park had closed 40 minutes ago.  Damn it. 

Feeling the sting of defeat at a moment crucial to our sanity, we had to make a decision on the spot.  Press on and just try to get there or find another resting point and take a break?  Kuruna assured us it was only another hour or so to our hotel.  None of us believed him, but we still decided to turn on a movie for the kids, pass out some snacks and fruit, and press on. 

1 hour very slowly turned into 2 and a half, when our third puking casualty in the back of the van hit: Cassidy’s little one had just succumbed to the lurching of the van as well.  She cleaned it up as we drove, insisting that we should just get there.  So that’s what we did.  I found myself watching the map as we slowly crawled toward the hotel, feeling like if I watched our progress and could see how close (or how far we still were) somehow that would make it more bearable.  But finally, around 8:30, we pulled into the Sundaras Resort.  We all leapt from the van, anxious to escape the pukey fumes of the van, get cleaned up and finally eat the dinner we had been postponing for 3 hours.  Thankfully the hotel continued their dinner service until 10, so we were glad for small miracles such as this. 

While I had been watching the map, I imagined this “resort” to be a little more refined than what it turned out to be.  Don’t get me wrong, it was perfectly respectable.  The staff even kindly greeted us at the front desk with some delicious, fresh juice upon our arrival.  But when one hears the word “resort,” a certain expectation is created.  This was another example of my education in the art of "lowering your expectations."  It's necessary to remember that most things do not typically mean the same thing here as they mean in other places.

We dropped our things in our rooms and had our first look at Sri Lankan style hotel hospitality in one of the smaller towns.  Our room was small, but large enough for us each to have our own sleeping space.  There was A/C (yay!), although it was a single wall mounted unit that we were encouraged to keep off unless we were in the room using it.  Through the second door we discovered the bathroom was partially outside – quite a surprise!  The toilet and sink were in an all tile room that opened to a walled in outside room, where the shower was located.  The shower head was over a slab of concrete raised over some rocks, covered by trees.  There were no lights in this shower space, just the dull beam from the dingy light in the tile room.  The kids thought it was awesome that there were geckos climbing all over the walls and that they could shower outside – I was less impressed, but again, it was perfectly fine.  I was glad for the geckos, as I hoped they would keep some of the mosquitos out of our room while we slept.  It seemed that our room was a bit more rustic than maybe some of the others in the place, but it was definitely manageable and we fared just fine in it.

This was during the day, at night it was also pretty while lit up

Can you spot our thirsty new friend?

After we checked out our room, we layered on the bug spray and went to find the buffet, which was around the backside of the hotel.  This, too, was located outside, under a pavilion.  On offer that evening was some standard rice & curry, assorted vegetable curries, dhal, salad, and spaghetti, of all things.  I was as surprised as anyone, but it was a relief to know the kids would have something to eat besides the plate of watermelon that they found on the dessert table.  They were also making fresh hoppers – we ate quite a few of those.  We had some with the curry, but we enjoyed a fair number drizzled in honey as well, for dessert.  Yum!  As we ate our dinner, we noticed that the hotel had a pretty nice pool,situated behind us, with a swim up bar that appeared to be open late.  As tempting as that was, we chose to get the kids into the rooms and ready for sleep instead.  It had been a long day for everyone and I think we were all ready to put this one to bed.

To Be Continued...