Once we realized that we had a five-day holiday for National
Day in the UAE, we started looking for a place to spend the extra time. We
looked at many countries, but we decided on Sri Lanka. But of course the last
week before a vacation is the longest ever. This last week has been an extremely
long and exhausting week as we prepare exams for our students and wrap up our
semester. On top of it, we had a PD day that required a lot of planning. Needless
to say, I was so excited to get to the end of the day Thursday. After work, I
had to get a long run in, so I ran 8K in preparation for my 10K race coming up
next Friday. Then, Moh arrived in Dubai (he lives in Abu Dhabi) and we headed
to Thanksgiving dinner. We chose a smokehouse for dinner because they offered a
set menu that included many good options and of course, all you can eat. The menu
included:
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| Dessert: we had apple crumble with ice cream and butter toffee drizzle. It was delicious. |
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| Starters: festive chicken wings, smoked beef stuffing, smoked stuffed mushrooms, and pulled lamb sliders. |
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| They had a real smoker on the roof and a guy from New York in charge of the meat! |
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| Dinner: apricot duck breast, smoked beef brisket, smoked turkey breast, smoked BBQ rabbit, mac and cheese, braised cabbage, mashed potatoes with gravy and cranberry sauce. |
After Thanksgiving dinner, we headed to my apartment to grab our suitcases and ordered the taxi for the airport. We arrived to a very busy airport, but we got checked in, took money from the ATMs, exchanged money, and even had time to stop by the overcrowded lounge. We knew it would be crowded because everyone has the same days off, but we expected it to be a little quieter after midnight. Our flight took off at 2:30, but actually ran about 20 minutes late. Emirates is a nice airline, but I was so tired that I didn’t really enjoy the flight. I can’t sleep on a plane unless I am lying down, so I really struggled, but we arrived in Sri Lanka and breezed through immigration. After immigration, we met our driver, Namal and we started our journey. The first place we stopped was for breakfast, which was disappointing because they only offered about one-fourth of the menu. However, we did get coffee, so we were good to go. We traveled from Colombo to Dambulla to see the Cave Temple. The Cave Temple is impressive with many statues of Buddha and decorated ceilings in the side of a mountain (rock). The ceiling is amazing because it actually is part of the rock structure that was engraved and painted. The worst part of the Cave Temple is the hundreds of steps, but it was worth it in the end. You have to remove your shoes in the temple and it had been raining, so of course, that was enjoyable walking around with muddy, wet feet. We took a different route back to the entrance, so we took a tuk tuk back to the car park.
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| Flower people used to offer to Buddha |
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| Entrance to Cave Temple |
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| Greeters to Cave Temple |
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| The Cave Temple |
Then, we headed to our accommodation deep in the jungle to stay in a tree house. The tree house was just amazing. It was charming with hot water and such a sweet, sweet family.
