Emmy in the Rice Paddy: Sri Lanka: Mirissa Beach

Andrea and I sat on a bus, squished uncomfortably between people for the 7 hour journey south to the beach. However, when we arrived at the beach it was an absolutely LOVELY day. It was about 3:30pm and we still got a hot afternoon in! The beach we settled on was called "Mirissa Beach" (we opted to skip the popular party beach "Unawatuna"...both because we didn't feel like partying and because we wanted to stay in one place for two nights!) The beach was very quiet, not rocky, and had some good waves.

When we finally headed home to Shehan Guesthouse (we loved the family there!) the mother who ran the guesthouse cooked Andrea and I one of the most delicious feasts I have eaten yet (See pic below!) I was a little nervous I would get sick, but the food was just so SO good! Traditional Sri Lankan ;)

Exhausted, the following morning Andrea and I hauled ourselves out of bed to go whale watching (what everyone does at Mirissa Beach). It was a splurge for us, but we saw dolphins, experienced it, and will probably never do it again. Hilariously, on the boat many people got very seasick. Every child (there was a big Indian family onboard!) and several adults were throwing up after only a half hour or so of being on the boat. Let me tell you, that boat was rocking!!! I consider myself very comfortable with water and boats, and even I wanted to get off/ wouldn't be offended if the tour was cut short. It was 4 hours hahaha.

We did see some beautiful dolphins though! To me, it was worth it to experience whale watching for the first time in such a cool location as Sri Lanka. Not sure I would do it again though! (They also served stale sandwiches and pineapple slices onboard...very few takers!)

As soon as we came back we were off to Colombo via train! While we didn't think this train ride had any more male stalkers, we were wrong (see future blog post on Colombo!) However, I had a grand time waiting for the train to come: There was a Mom and baby goat on the train tracks! I went up close to them and stared at them. They stared back. I never realized how scary goats look up close! Their eyes are literally on an angle on the far ends of their heads (not as extreme as horses, but not like monkeys!) It's pretty freaky when you're up close. I also captured an awesome shot of religious diversity at the train station: A Buddhist monk and a Muslim man standing next to each other waiting, in their respective attire.

One more (awesome) story: As Andrea and I were waiting, this sweet (beautiful) little girl came up to us wanting to practice English. Her family was with her initially, but when she approached us a second time she stood so close to me that Andrea whispered quickly to me "grab your bags her family sent her over to us to steal from us." I have to say, that I was thinking the same thing. It turns out that this girl was genuine. Andrea and I felt really badly for thinking the way we did, but we've both been around for awhile. You can never be too trusting (sad but true). The girl's family came over to us (her Mom, sister, and a friend's family) and we all talked for a half hour. I always travel with some magnets and keychains from Chicago because you never know who you may meet and want to be remembered by. Sure enough, I had one Chicago magnet left! I unzipped my bag and gave it to the girl and her sister. (We got a great picture of this). Then the little girl took Anddrea's hand to "protect" her and show Andrea where her train car was haha (again, I have an awesome shot of this).

Unfortunately, my computer is about to die (It has been through a lot this year to be fair!) so my iPhoto Library isn't properly loading. I will need to check it out at the Apple store and hopefully be able to add the photos to this post once I'm stateside (next week!!!)

For now, enjoy the photos that were able to load. Also, Happy New Year 2013 from Yangon, Burma!