First THE vacation!
What can I tell you,
except that with so many people envying us this trip there had to be a glitch!
The glitch here was that I who never fall sick, got the fever. And what a
fever. 104 degrees on Sunday evening two hours before our train to Chennai.
Kids safely at in-laws place. My parents giving me glaring looks. Dad grumbling
that “this is not an entrance exam that you
HAVE to leave. You can always do this later”. After all the planning
that we’d done, do this later? No Ways!!! Armed with tonnes of medicines, we
said our goodbyes and got into the train. The journey to Chennai was a blur. I
remember people making room for me to lie down, almost fainting in the Volvo
bus, throwing up at the Chennai station the next morning. Its all very vague.
The only thing I remember very clearly is me telling random people “I’ll be
fine. We have 9 days there. There is no way I can be sick for 9 whole days!”.
We reached Colombo without further mishaps. Colombo
airport seemed like a resort with all the tropical plants and greenery around.
Have never seen so many orchids together. Met our driver and officially started
our FIRST vacation post kids! Onward to Dambulla. Keeping Dambulla as a
stopover, we did Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa the next day. I was feeling much
better, almost like myself. Climbed up 1500 steps..the view was definitely
worth it! A huge palace atop a rock. Interlinked pools, murals, shining walls... Magnificent. Saw a lot of ruins with numerous Budhas’. Sitting , standing, lying
down. What was common across all the statues was the serenity exuded. Calm,
peaceful. Its as if nothing could matter. You could stand there for ages
looking at him. Over enthusiasm invariably results in a fall. Very
predictatably the BH fell sick.
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| [The entrance to the palace on the top of the rock] |
For the next 4 days that’s all we did. Fall
sick in turns. In between lying comatose, we managed to visit Kandy and
Nuwaraeliya. Fortified with various antibiotics and analgesics, like resolute
tourists we climbed every rock, scaled every metaphorical peak and saw
everything that these places had to offer. Kandy had a traditional Srilankan
dance performance which was amazing. Vey similar to theyyam, the dancers wore
various masks and sang as they danced. Beautiful performance. Not to miss.
We were getting better and better, marked mainly by how
our appetite improved. By the time we reached Nuwaraeliya, I was fine and
ravenous. Days of not eating properly had made me so irritated with life in general. A mini hill station. What struck us both was how beautifully everything was maintained. Clean. There were bins all around and everything was very tidy. (Colombo, though was a different story!)
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| [Murals] |
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| [Swimming pools with a view for the royalty] |
The road to Nuwaraeliya was beautiful flanked by
vegetable farms on one side and the hills on the other. Roadside shops burst
with fresh produce. Lettuce of all varieties, leeks, cauliflowers, cabbages it
was a tantalizing sight. Reinforced the fact that we had to get our house in
the hills. Ended our trip with three days of relaxation at the beach. Bentota.
Snorkelled, gorged on sea food, slept, walked on the beach, relaxed. Then off
to Colombo for one last day of frantic shopping. It’s a very lovely country and
really friendly people. The food was very similar to Kerala food and there were
no delicacies per say.
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| [1 day old baby turtle] |
The whole trip, in
spite of the fever, was just pure relaxation. No shouting Mowgli Mowgli
every second minute. No worries. Eat, drink, read, sleep. Bliss. We did miss
the two imps, the BH more than me, and preponed our flight back. I for one was
pretty happy with not having to rack my brains over what to make for breakfast,
lunch and the like. There were things that they would have also enjoyed like
the trip to the turtle hatchery and playing in the beach. But that’s okay. We normally take them along wherever
we go and for kids their age they have travelled quite a lot. Hoping that this
turns out to be an annual affair. Maybe not so long. But at least a week
without kids. Just seeing the expressions on people’s faces when we told them
“we have two kids” made this trip so worthwhile!!! ( most of them thought we
were honeymooning! Hohoho)
Mowgli and Bambi had
a gala time at the BH’s place and at mine. Barring one or two times when they
missed us, the rest of the time they acted as if they never even knew us. Bambi
was initially reluctant to come to us, but after some time she cooly shifted
loyalties from my mom to us. Mowgli, on the other hand, hugged and asked us
the usual million dollar question “ what did you bring for me!”
The trip ended on our anniversary with the BH gifting me a sapphire. :-)
Cheers to years of togetherness.
Seven years down..
Many more to go...
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