Aluvuhara

From Sigirya we drove to Kandy, a big city in the middle of Sri Lanka. On the way we stopped at Dambulla. Here you can find an enormous cave temple, about 150 meters up in the rocks. Inside the caves there are about 800 Boeddha statues, from small to very big. This is unbelievable.   We also stopped at Nalanda and Aluvuhara. In Nalanda you will find a gedige, build in a mixed style of Buddhism and Hinduism. Unfortunately we were more focussed on that irritating man who was following and annoying us all the time. At the Rock Monstery in Aluvuhara you will find (again) a giant Buddha statue and in the buildings around the complex you will find some interesting stuff, like the horror room. Many colorful statues of devils and sinners showing a various ways of terrible punishments handed out in the afterlife. Believe me, you don't want that to happen with you. Outside there is also a small golden statue of a monk.  This day it was obvious that the car and driver came in handy, since all these temples were pretty far apart and we did not spot any public transport busses around.   Aiaiai !!

 Kandy

Kandy is a big city, with some interesting sites. Among others there is the Temple of the Tooth, the big citylake and a local, daily market. The first one is really interesting. For the Sri LAnkan people this is a very holy place, unfortunately bombed a few time by Tamils. 
It is also possible to visit a performance of the national dance (I guess it is more a touristy thing, because it is more an acrobatic show than actually dancing) and there are many small streets with some interesting shops.

Just outside Kandy there is a large Tropical Garden complex. We normally don't like these kind of gardens, but this one turned out to be a very nice, very beautiful and big garden. They set it up beautifully and we could spent a few hours to around. Specially the 'palmtree boulevards' were special. Definitely worth a visit.

Kegalle

This of course was a very special experience and one of the highlights of Sri Lanks. In Kegalle there is a elephant orphanage, where the government keeps about a hundred elephants. They get fed every day and also twice a day the elephants are led to the river where they can take a nice cool bath. To get to the river the elephants have to cross the roads in the village. It is really big fun to watch all these giants having fun in the water, you can easily sit here for a few hours. 
In the orphanage itself the elephants can be touched as long there is a guard around. If you don't give them a tip, you only have 20 seconds to shoot a photo. If you pay, the guards are friendly and you get time enough to shoot some nice pics.

Nuwara Eliya

This colonial town up in the mountains is a touristical place for the local people. The city is mainly build with English-style colonial houses.  There is even a complete golf course present for the golf freaks, of which there are plenty around. There is even a all England club, where it is necessary to dress up and smell good; so for us it was impossible to get in. Unfortunately it was very cold when we were here and the rain poured out of the sky. That is why we did not stay here very long and probably missed a great area.  The area of Nuwara Eliya is full off tea factories and of course you can visit them. I think the women who are plucking the tea have a really bad job. It is hard work and it pays very poorly. I don't know anymore how much, but I would not do it for that money !! A woman tea plucker

Ella
Close to Nurawa Eliya there are some beautiful villages to visit. Especially Ella is great, but also the area of Bandarawela and Haputale are great. In Ella you have a great view over the valley and it is said that if the weather is perfectly clear, you can see the ocean from Ella. A few kilometers out of Ella the biggest and wildest waterfall of Sri Lanka is located. Of course we had to see that. The owner of our guesthouse (Sunny side Lodge) told us it was easy to walk to the waterfall, only a few kilometers. But after 2 hours walking we still did not see the waterfall. So we decided to take a motor cylce taxi. And it turned out to be that it still was 1 or 2 kilometers further on.
It was too bad that the waterfall did not contain lots of water, so the 'heavy wild' waterfall was not that wild. At the bottom of the waterfall loads of people were washing themselves and we were a interesting touristic attraction for them. We climbed up as far as possible (there was not very much water this time of year) and set down to wath all those people at the bottom of the waterfall. 
On the way back to Ella a friendly truck driver gave us a ride to Ella in the back of his truck, so that was pretty easy.

Tissamaharama

From Ella we went to the Yala Park in the South East of Sri Lanka. We stayed in Tissamaharama, from were we rented a jeep with 2 other Dutch people we just met. Since the safari is pretty expensive it is advisible to share a jeep. Renting the jeep costed $60,  the entrance fee to the park was $12 each, $6 for the park guide and we had to pay $2 to the driver.
We were pretty lucky I think with the safari, we did see a lot of animals. Mainly elephants, but also crocodiles, buffalo's,  deer, lots of different birds and some big leguans. 

In Tissa we also celebrated Christmas, which is mainly a matter of drinking as much Arrack as you can. Our guide was completely drunk, and  our driver was not completely clear also. The Christmas trees were filled with small and colorful air balloons.