Marshall 12/31/12:
Ok - we got the temples out of the way yesterday. Thank goodness. We still had our almost English speaking guide though, so more fun was in store for us... sigh. We started with the Botanical Gardens which were actually just across the street from our hotel. Luckily, we got a new guide in the Botanical Garden who's English was MUCH better than our guide and as an added bonus, our tour included a family from Bahrain. The gardens were beautiful, and we probably have some great pictures, but the fun was chatting with the Bahrain family. It was a mother, father, and two girls. The mother was in a headscarf but not full face covering. As it turns out, the mother is a doctor who did her intern work in Chicago of all places. So her English was quite good and we chatted, laughed, and walked our way thru the gardens. I don't think we necessarily listened to our guide although he was pretty good. It was way too much fun talking about the types of plants we had versus the ones they had. Sadly, the tour ended and we had to part ways.
We went to the tea factory next. I was expecting a pure tourist cheese factory and while it was, it was also at least partially cool. The tea was definitely good too! Lacinda couldn't resist purchasing a few things and then we were off to the spice farm. This was the true cheese. And the hard sell on natural spices to heal the headaches, the digestion, or the stress. Egads! Luckily, we hadn't eaten lunch so we could beg off the truly long version of the 47 selling points of natural health!! Seriously, they were going to go thru 47 different things that could be cured naturally. Once we finally extricated ourselves from that mini-hell, we got a quick bite and then went to the wood-carving store. I was expecting another hard-sell store, but they let us look and answered questions and the big pieces were absolutely amazing. The prices were equal to the beauty so we couldn't walk off with any of it, but we talked about the need to, so the people at the store were mollified.
We continued the day with the Kandy dancers. It was a nice slice of culture. The dancers were young and energetic, except for the guy playing the mini-cymbals. I swear he ate the magic brownies before the show and was just hoping to make it thru the dance so he could satisfy his munchie-craving. Hehehe. After the show, it was dinner time. Instead of going back to the hotel, we had the driver drop us off at a hotel in downtown Kandy. It was New Year's Eve so we could have tried to hang out with the cool folks and drop a few hundred bucks in the process, but traveling is hard work, so we settled for a few drinks and once we finally found our driver again, we went back to the hotel and rung in the New Year by snuggling under the covers fast asleep. Lame, I know, but being with the one you love is worth every party that you have ever survived. So Happy New Year and see ya soon!
Ok - we got the temples out of the way yesterday. Thank goodness. We still had our almost English speaking guide though, so more fun was in store for us... sigh. We started with the Botanical Gardens which were actually just across the street from our hotel. Luckily, we got a new guide in the Botanical Garden who's English was MUCH better than our guide and as an added bonus, our tour included a family from Bahrain. The gardens were beautiful, and we probably have some great pictures, but the fun was chatting with the Bahrain family. It was a mother, father, and two girls. The mother was in a headscarf but not full face covering. As it turns out, the mother is a doctor who did her intern work in Chicago of all places. So her English was quite good and we chatted, laughed, and walked our way thru the gardens. I don't think we necessarily listened to our guide although he was pretty good. It was way too much fun talking about the types of plants we had versus the ones they had. Sadly, the tour ended and we had to part ways.
We went to the tea factory next. I was expecting a pure tourist cheese factory and while it was, it was also at least partially cool. The tea was definitely good too! Lacinda couldn't resist purchasing a few things and then we were off to the spice farm. This was the true cheese. And the hard sell on natural spices to heal the headaches, the digestion, or the stress. Egads! Luckily, we hadn't eaten lunch so we could beg off the truly long version of the 47 selling points of natural health!! Seriously, they were going to go thru 47 different things that could be cured naturally. Once we finally extricated ourselves from that mini-hell, we got a quick bite and then went to the wood-carving store. I was expecting another hard-sell store, but they let us look and answered questions and the big pieces were absolutely amazing. The prices were equal to the beauty so we couldn't walk off with any of it, but we talked about the need to, so the people at the store were mollified.
We continued the day with the Kandy dancers. It was a nice slice of culture. The dancers were young and energetic, except for the guy playing the mini-cymbals. I swear he ate the magic brownies before the show and was just hoping to make it thru the dance so he could satisfy his munchie-craving. Hehehe. After the show, it was dinner time. Instead of going back to the hotel, we had the driver drop us off at a hotel in downtown Kandy. It was New Year's Eve so we could have tried to hang out with the cool folks and drop a few hundred bucks in the process, but traveling is hard work, so we settled for a few drinks and once we finally found our driver again, we went back to the hotel and rung in the New Year by snuggling under the covers fast asleep. Lame, I know, but being with the one you love is worth every party that you have ever survived. So Happy New Year and see ya soon!
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| First tree we see in the botanical garden- a Drunken Pine, from New Caledonia. They grow this way because of the wind. |
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| Marsh enjoys the Drunken Pines :) |
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| Different type of pine than here at home |
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| Oh, how I wish these were big lovely birds. Not. Huge fruit bats... very scary. |
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| Bamboo |
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| Giant bamboo, complete with graffiti |
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| Another example of a house or landscape plant we use here in its giant native format |
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| Avenue of Palms, I believe planted by some visiting Arabian prince in the 1940s... |
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| Orchid House. I will spare you and only show a few photos. As usual, I am a sucker for flowers and have about 50 pics. |
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| The daughters of the Bahraini family we toured with |
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| Big BIG old spread out very cool tree I had to go visit. Tree Huggers on vacation |
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| I think the guys from the hotel driving us around thought we were nutty Americans, come 5,000 miles to commune with a tree. Guess they just don't know me. The tree and I had a lovely visit. |
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| The outdoor ampitheater at the local University, which was nearby and we also peeked at |
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| Some nice trees on their campus as well |
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