These island people don't drink too often but when they do, they make sure they do a proper job of it. The national booze called Arak, a strong water colored alcohol made from toddy which is the fermented sap of the coconut tree. This here is a local pub. These dudes around the table aren't sitting by choice, but because they couldn't manage to stand. Woooow...
In Lanka people don't only ride the train, but even when there isn't one they use the tracks as roads. Here a young mother is taking her son to school. Where else... on the tracks.
The woodlands around Ella have some beautiful sceenic views. We camped in these forests for about a week after which it was even weird to get back into "civilization".
This is a waterfall by the town of Ella way up in the mountains. Camping by it is really loud, but in the morning the power-shower does wake u up :-)
Thanx to the early Portuguese, Duch and British "visitors" Cristianity is quite popular in some parts of the island.
Most of the local kids on the tea plantations don't really have shoes or any kind of footwear. Of course there are some exceptions to the rule. Here is one.
Most of the Sri Lankans drink their tea black, with some sugar. The tea you find even in the cheapest shops is real delicious.
However the Indian style milk tea is available as well. Here is the white stuff wholeheartedly recommended by this young milk-man.
Hey you... whacca doin' in the bushes?!
There is so much tea to weigh...
After each full bag they walk to the assembly point where the loot is weighted and examined. This estate only produced green tea, so it was real fun to make fire in the evening and try to roast and boil some freshly picked leafs right from the source. The outcome was questionable. It tasted like a weak green tea. (according to Gabri: VERY weak.)
Watching the ladies picking tea is nice, but I guess doing the picking isn't as pleasant. They put a big bag over their forehead that hangs down on their backs. This is what they fill with the young top leafs. A full bag does give a considerable strain on the neck muscles.
We have been sincerely welcommed again by the good Tamils and stayed on this little plateau in the middle of the Tea estate for quite a few days.
We got to the hearth of the island where up in the mountains the landscape is dominated by tea plantations. Here most of the workers have been brought from south India, so we again found lots of Tamils. Such as this group of kids on their way home from a Tamil primary school.
The highland trains of Lanka are real classic looking wooden trains that look like something straight out of a spaghetti-western. Painted wooden seats, no windows etc. The stations are also old school. This one here is a lovely old schedule board that is just nice to look at even if you aren't taking a train.
This one is a nice carved statute that we've found in a Hindu temple around Dambulla. The hindu population of the island is mainly on the north around the Jaffna peninsula and in the highlands of the centre, working on the tea plantations. Thank to these good Tamil people, hindu art is manifesting it's beauty as we can see.
When one stands up here on the top of this rock, all he can hear is the sounds of the Sri Lankan jungle with it's millions of inhabitants from the animal kingdom. This is a time travel, because this sound is the same that people must have heard hundreds of years ago standing up on the rock.
This huge rock in the middle of the northern jungle is called Sigiriya. On top of it the ruins of the King Kassapa palace. The whole thing is surrounded by a huge network of beautiful gardens and water reservoirs.
This one I don't know much about, we just chanced upon it in the jungle. I hope I will look like this at the age of hundred and twenthy 'though :-))
Buddha statues are everywhere. They are usually display the Buddha in teaching position, or at the moment of his death (the final one). This huge one at the entrance of a hidden cave is the latter.
This here is the dramatic entrance of the Golden temple in Dambulla. There are countless cave temples around the whole area dating back to about 700 BC.
In Lanka if you own a rikshaw, you aren't necesarily a rickshaw driver. People also use it as a family car. So lots of them are real nicely done up.
This is Anuradapura, the old Capital of the early kingdom, also one of the most important buddhist pilgrimage sites. This one here is a gigantic Stupa built real skillfuly.
The biggest percentage of the island's population is Buddhist, and not only that, but after the followers of Buddha got expelled from India , Sri Lanka became one of the main strongholds of Buddhism.
So guys, we ran out of visa at last (it seemed like a week) so we had to hopp on the evil iron-bird and come over to the island of Sri Lanka earlyer refered to as Ceylon. This large size rare animal is claimed to be the pride of the island.
By the locals it is called: elephant.
