The first weekend: busses and blessings
Door: Mariah Carey
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Andrea
08 December 2015 | Sri Lanka, Deniyaya
As I write this blog, on the 8th of November, I've been in Sri Lanka for exactly one month. During the week I work in the girls home, but every weekend it's time for something totally different: adventure time!
Every weekend I go on trips with my fellow volunteers. On my first weekend, we went to the Sinharaja Rainforest in Deniyaya with a group of twelve volunteers. Up till then, I had only seen the way from Colombo Airport to Galle, two temples on the Hinduistic festival 'Deevali', my neighbourhood in Galle (not touristic, so lots of staring) and Galle Fort (very very touristic, so I felt less 'weird' walking around there). I was already adjusted to tuktuk drives, but this trip offered a new experience: travelling with the public transport.
The trip to Deniyaya was a three hour bus drive. I thought it was awfull. First of all, the bus is made for Sri Lankan sized persons. I'm two metres longer than that. We were lucky enough to find a seat, but the bus was super crowdy. People were leaning and touching and I felt really uncomfortable. The bus stopped every minute and this bus driver was specialized in sudden stops (like every other bus driver, I've found out now...).
After this journey,we got a tuktuk in Deniyaya. We could have walked, but the rain was pouring. I still felt a little uncomfortable, so I was happy to go to my bed after a nice dinner. The next morning I felt way better, luckily. It's also okay to not love every minute of this completely new life.
We got into our jeep and I was ready for this adventure! We drove on narrow roads in hill country until we reached the start of our hike. We saw loads of rice fields on our way to the jungle. We also already spotted our first king fishers, which are super rare in the Netherlands.
The hike was amazing. It involved lots of climbing and we spended half our time checking our shoes for leeches (which where everywhere!). Luckily the salt we put on our shoes and socks was working. We spotted mostly insects, lizzards, birds and a small snakes. We heard the monkeys, but never saw them. We also have monkeys in our garden at the volunteering house sometimes, so it didn't matter that much. After a swim in a water fall, which was an amazing experience, we hiked back. A great first weekend!
In the next blogs I will describe my other weekends. It's a little twosided to experience all these great things. At one hand, it's great to get to see more of this amazing country. It's nice to do something different after a week of hard work. But it also feels weird to be able to do this while the girls we work with are always locked up in the transit house. Their world is no bigger than the fences surrounding them. It makes me realize how blessed I am to be able to do all these things. How different would my life have been if I was born in Sri Lanka?
Every weekend I go on trips with my fellow volunteers. On my first weekend, we went to the Sinharaja Rainforest in Deniyaya with a group of twelve volunteers. Up till then, I had only seen the way from Colombo Airport to Galle, two temples on the Hinduistic festival 'Deevali', my neighbourhood in Galle (not touristic, so lots of staring) and Galle Fort (very very touristic, so I felt less 'weird' walking around there). I was already adjusted to tuktuk drives, but this trip offered a new experience: travelling with the public transport.
The trip to Deniyaya was a three hour bus drive. I thought it was awfull. First of all, the bus is made for Sri Lankan sized persons. I'm two metres longer than that. We were lucky enough to find a seat, but the bus was super crowdy. People were leaning and touching and I felt really uncomfortable. The bus stopped every minute and this bus driver was specialized in sudden stops (like every other bus driver, I've found out now...).
After this journey,we got a tuktuk in Deniyaya. We could have walked, but the rain was pouring. I still felt a little uncomfortable, so I was happy to go to my bed after a nice dinner. The next morning I felt way better, luckily. It's also okay to not love every minute of this completely new life.
We got into our jeep and I was ready for this adventure! We drove on narrow roads in hill country until we reached the start of our hike. We saw loads of rice fields on our way to the jungle. We also already spotted our first king fishers, which are super rare in the Netherlands.
The hike was amazing. It involved lots of climbing and we spended half our time checking our shoes for leeches (which where everywhere!). Luckily the salt we put on our shoes and socks was working. We spotted mostly insects, lizzards, birds and a small snakes. We heard the monkeys, but never saw them. We also have monkeys in our garden at the volunteering house sometimes, so it didn't matter that much. After a swim in a water fall, which was an amazing experience, we hiked back. A great first weekend!
In the next blogs I will describe my other weekends. It's a little twosided to experience all these great things. At one hand, it's great to get to see more of this amazing country. It's nice to do something different after a week of hard work. But it also feels weird to be able to do this while the girls we work with are always locked up in the transit house. Their world is no bigger than the fences surrounding them. It makes me realize how blessed I am to be able to do all these things. How different would my life have been if I was born in Sri Lanka?
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