Our foodie tour of Sri Lanka began in the revamped Singapore airlines lounge in Perth.  And despite the impending 13 hours travel time, the food looked so good it had Lea quipping “I guess I’ll try my…Laksa”, which was the first, and some would hope last pun of the holiday.

Despite the success in the lounge, we were not initially seated together on the plane, however, after a Sunderland-esque early check in and very un-us complaints, by the time we boarded our seats had been changed! Our plans to thank the seat movee who made it happen were short lived as his vociferous complaints to ground staff, air staff and anyone nearby without headphones caused us to shrink into our seats…luckily we had those headphones.  Headphones also came in handy at Changi as the lounge had Christmas carols playing on repeat causing even James to say “too early”.

First stop Colombo. After a couple of regular days sightseeing of Buddhist temples, Hindu temples, Mosques, markets, monuments, margaritas and more, the worst thing to happen was that James managed to unintentionally sight 3 snakes in one day. In the food highlights was our first morning at some street markets where we shared what would turn out to be the best egg hopper we’ve ever had (the fact we were having egg hoppers at Easter wasn’t lost on us, we’re just reticent to make any Easter jokes, less we get crucified by our readers). We are also glad we clarified what the main ingredient of Dolphin Kotthu was before ordering.

Another food highlight was on our drive South, sitting over a beach enjoying kotthu roti and warm beers. Then we made it to Galle, a picturesque fort town south of Colombo destined to become a future Sri Lankan disneyland, where we embarked on our first proper food “tour”. It wasn’t great, but at least we got to explore the town with a local…a local who’d recently returned from 24 years overseas and now lived a mere 4 hours away from Galle…and got to taste food at a total of two locations, both hotels that were between meal services and forced to be open by our guide, a lady from out of town who constantly talked down about this great country. You wouldn’t be surprised if they were so annoyed with her, that they’d keep some dodgy prawns aside just to make some unsuspecting tourist ill and make her look bad. So anyway, here I was, a tourist, not suspecting a thing, eating some rather awful tasting prawns out of politeness (as I didn’t want to make the terrible guide feel like she’d done a bad job!)

Fast forward a few hours and after enjoying a sunset over the Indian ocean (big change for us), I found myself contemplating whether I could vomit accurately enough (in hindsight the answer is no) to get it between my legs while sitting on the loo as it didn’t seem either end would take a gentlemanly break to allow me to turn around. Something had to give, and that thing was romance, as Lea got to witness a very unsettling South East Asian silhouette performance through a glass door not two feet from the bed (unfortunately not a silent show). And despite no request for encores, the show continued for 14 hours straight. No sleep was had that night, nor many other nights with the local AC units glowing like nightlights to let you know they’re on, and, assumedly, hilariously set at 22 to highlight the Catch 22, whereby it was too hot to sleep without the aircon on, but too bright to sleep with it on.

The morning of the poisoning I had received my first Buddhist blessing (in such a Buddhist country that the mosquitos have grown lazy and even the dogs are confident to sleep on the middle of the road and receive no harm), and although I didn’t feel the “good luck” part of the blessing that day, I’m assured that on my deathbed I’ll gain total consciousness…so I guess I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

The early trip cleanse and weight-loss routine didn’t stop us from enjoying our journey, or Lea from trying all of the delicious local food (it was about a week before I could look at anything closely resembling what I’d had that day). Some of our amazing adventures included:

• Tuk tukking all over Colombo and Negombo;
• Carb loading on pina coladas after an unforeseen period of fasting on a near private beach in the south;
• Enjoying stunning views of Ella rock while watching the Anzac day clash;
  • And due to a power outage in town needing to constantly top up my esim data to the point it would have been cheaper to fly to Melbourne to go to the game;
• Soaking up a picturesque view over the hills and tea plantations travelling by train from Ella to Nuwara Eliya;
• Discovering that, surprisingly, alcohol seemed to be everywhere and in everything;
  • We assume this is why they put liver cleansing turmeric in EVERY dish (the proof’s in my now blue AND yellow shorts)
• Admiring the locals insistence and courage in wearing white shirts despite eating curry for every meal, with their hands!
• Got lost looking for a waterfall in a tea plantation: met with smiles from all the locals, who’d usually say goodbye when we said hello. I don’t know why they say goodbye, we say hello.
• Spent a morning at the local horse races in Nuwara Eliya;
• Got caught in the rain and took refuge at the ironically named Windsor hotel, which resembled more of a bomb shelter, not helped by the lights going out every time lightning struck;
  • The only other inhabitant, a local bar fly, watched on curiously as two wet foreigners giggled in delight eating deep fried garlics and watching the intermittent local soap opera behind the bar (between outages)
• Went on a tour of a tea factory that was steeped in history;
• Staying in a dry (no alcohol) zone near the temple of the tooth in Kandy;
  • Our smuggled holy water might have cost us our deathbed total consciousness…..
• Being disappointed that it wasn’t the “temple of the tooth fairy” as Lea had earlier suggested, as I was prepared for what I assumed was a gold coin donation at the entrance pillow;
• Spending the day in a local house cooking the most yummy food of our trip;
  • One of the chefs told us how she’d been to the north once and there was no point in returning as there is nothing to do there.  Rather like the reply you get from a Hobartian when you ask it it’s worth visiting Launceston…although with a little more history behind it.
• James had his first ever massages with a male masseuse…and nothing moved. Not that there’d be anything wrong with that…;
• Having a frog in (at least) 2 of our bathrooms and in Sigiriya James found a lizard hiding in Lea’s bags. She asked if I could monitor it, I said I think it already is.
• Getting up at stupid o’clock to climb Sigiriya rock despite having a perfectly good pool looking directly at it;
• Pretending to know way more about kangaroos than we ever thought we’d need to;
• Seeing wild elephants! Hundreds of elephants, and crocodiles, monkeys, peacocks, and a mongoose on safari in Udawalawe!
• And thoroughly enjoyed our time in a wonderful country full of such friendly people.