My friends and I set off one Saturday morning to Kandy. It was the first time I was driving my car up country. My best friend and I decided to share the driving between us. I thought I would drive the easy part since I wasn't sure of the winding roads closer to the hill country.
For those of you who don't know where kandy is, it is the hill capital of Sri Lanka. Its a beautiful city with a rich history.
We set off early in the morning around 5.30am, I thought that we can get to kandy in 3 hours tops since its only 130km, but it took a very long time. Kept me wondering whether its something wrong with the drivers or car :-). My car is a suzuki swift with a 1300cc engine and auto gears so its not something that can speed fast up the hills. My friend kept complaining how the pick up is bad compared to a manual, yes yes i've heard that story before.
We reached Kandy, but we were not sure of how to get to the city, the exact routes that would take us to the city centre. It was a small adventure finding ourselves to the city AND finding a place to park. Spirits were high and the three of us were anticipating a good holiday :-).
We first went to the Dalada maligawa, also known as the temple of the tooth relic. As buddhists its one of our most sacred placess of worship. We bought a lot of flowes and lamps to offer to the Buddha, but alas we were first attacked by a gang of monkeys. A gang of VERY hungry monkeys who wanted to eat the flowers, we discovered that they love to eat the middle of the flower. We then bought more flowers and went up to worship. We spent sometime at the temple it was refreshing. But then it was crowded and there was a crowd of women who kept reciting verses very loudly which disturbed people. I think people think the louder you recite the better lord buddha will hear you. But i believe in silent prayer. I wowed to my self to come more often to Kandy, since it felt so relaxing.
Our next adventure was finding the hotel where we were supposed to stay. It took us around the "Nuwara wewa", kandy river. It was such a lovely sight. I was thinking how lucky people are to live there and go to school it seemed like heaven.
Drove up to the hotel, first impressions were honestly not good. The hotel looked small, the reception area looked old. But all three of us were very excited by the spa brochure that they had. We were thinking we would definitely go for a massage during our holiday. A porter came to guide us to the hotel. Walking up the flight of stairs my impressions got better, it the dining area was better than the lobby, much beter. Swimming pool seemed small. There was a noisy group of people who had come that day. Playing very loud music, there goes my afternoon nap I was thinking.
We went up to the room, it was nice, the view from the room also looked refreshing. We went down for lunch almost immediately, it didn't offer much choice for my vegetarian friend. But we were enjoying being with each other. It felt good. It was after a very long time that the three of us had come on a holiday, now when I think back the three of us had probably never gone on a holiday together after school. Hmmm............and that was more than 10years ago.
The evening was spent talking about various stuff. It felt really good. Sometimes we are so caught up in our worlds that we think that our problems are unique to us. But when when us girls get together we realise that most of our problems are the same for all of us. We all face it, we all go through it, the more you talk about it the more you feel better.
The next day we went for an amazing massage. We all went for a head, neck, back and shoulder massage. It was truly out of this world. I vowed that I should go for massages more often. Its truly a relaxing experience much healthier than going out for a meal :-).
That was the end of our holiday. Three girls on their own, one of those rare occasions I felt good that we were grown up and independent.
