Sri Lanka: I Win!

Earlier this month, the wife and I traveled to Sri Lanka with our friends Kimmy and Jesse Bean. Before describing Sri Lanka, I just want to clarify one thing, they were all naysayers. Leanne for sure. She did not want to go, had no expectations and doubted what she called "your pick" on vacation destinations. I had always wanted to go to Sri Lanka, for no reason other than I had never met anyone that had ever been there except our old next door neighbor who looked like the kind of guy who took "spiritual yoga retreats" to this random piece of land south of India.

Turns out, my pick was awesome. Sri Lanka was beautiful, interesting, peaceful and unique. We flew into Colombo at 8 am, an hour-and-a-half time difference from Malaysia and had to wait on the plane while they sprayed it down with some odd aerosol can that was similar to what soccer players get sprayed with in Europe when they are hurt.

After those two odd introductions to Sri Lanka, we were on our way. We headed straight from the dirtiest capital city I have seen in a long time to the southern coast and to our home for the next four days, Unawatuna Sri Lanka.

The southern coast of Sri Lanka is excellent. Clean, Gatorade-blue water, cheap curry houses and friendly people made this one of our favorite places we have visited during our time in Asia. We spent our days visiting the city of Galle ( say ya'll minus the y and plus a g where they y was), on the beach and in our house that overlooked the whole bay.

We ate curry, drank cold Lion beer, napped and read (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, buy it), it was exactly the break we needed after such a long stretch in Cambodia. It was a retreat in every sense of the word. Restful, interesting, unique and slow; the country was remarkable.

Sri Lanka is a gem, a place that feels distant from anywhere else; where you look at the ocean and realize that there is nothing between you and Antarctica but the Indian Ocean. That is quite a feeling.

To those naysayers. I win.

(Pictured above: Sri Lankan tuk tuks, buses, Leanne walking in Galle, a snake charmer in Galle, Colombo, Sri Lankan curry, and the Galle Fort)