Our flight to Sri Lanka was a mixed bag. Everything ran very smoothly at first: it left on time, the plane itself was a bit old but was ok, the passengers were all terribly nice and polite to each other, food was fine and we enjoyed a glass of wine each to celebrate the beginning of the holiday. Then just after I had popped a cheeky diazepam and was drifting into a lovely deep sleep I am violently woken by mum shouting the dreaded "ELEANOR!!!!" and before I knew what was happening she threw up everywhere! Now I'm not so sure the food was actually that good and we will never eat prawns on a flight again! So we arrived in style, tired and stinking of vomit. We were met by Thanuri's father and brother who drove us back to their house. It's a beautiful home, which they had built for them 9 years ago. When approaching the house, they beep the horn and the "help" come and open the gates for them! We are staying in a nice guest room downstairs with our own bathroom and views over the garden. The whole family are living here: Mother, Father, Thanuri, her brother Themal (who is on holiday from University in America) and her older sister Amaya with her husband Birendra and son, Sevindu. He is definitely the prince of the household, demanding that everyone kiss his feet!
Thanuri's House
Our room
A whole cooked river fish was presented to us for lunch which was delicious. Mum and I had both decided we would like to wear saris to the wedding, so as soon as we'd finished our lunch, despite being absolutely exhausted, we went off sari shopping with Thanuri's lovely friend Dilini. It was almost impossible to decide as there was so much choice of colours, fabrics and patterns but after about an hour we were both happy with our selections. Then we had to go to another shop to get matching fabric for the "jacket" (the top you wear underneath the sari) and the underskirt. After we bought that, we met up with Thanuri and her mother for the first time! I hadn't seen Thanuri since she left St. Mary's in 1992 but we wrote to each other quite often and more recently we've been in touch via Facebook so I knew what she looked like, but it was really nice to see her again. From there we went to the seamstress to get measured up and left her to make the garments. Arriving back at the house at 9pm we could not be happier to fall straight into bed and slept for a good 12 hours!
Curry for breakfast! Which is eaten with the right hand. They also had bread and cereal which was nice as eating curry and noodles that early in the morning was unusual for us! Anyway, there's no danger of going hungry here as our hosts (and the 2 girls who help) are wonderful cooks and incredibly polite and hospitable. We did a couple of things in Colombo on our first full day, visiting the National Museum and Independence Square. The weather is great, up to about 31 degrees is about as hot as it gets this time of year. Sri Lanka is very pretty - mostly much cleaner and more organised than India, which we are more used to. Returning to the house we had a traditional Sri Lankan lunch of curried prawns (which were amazing) and some other dishes which I can't remember what they were but tasted great! Then it was off out again to get various wedding things sorted, suit fittings etc. Thanuri has decided not to do a fully traditional wedding, so the men will be wearing Western suits. But it will mainly be a Buddhist/Singhalese ceremony. Driving around Colombo on New Years Eve is a nightmare with so much traffic it takes ages to get anywhere! NYE is quite a big occasion here, but not as important as the Buddhist New Year in April so actually everyone was so exhausted when we got back that we just had a light dinner of buttered roti (yum) and curry then everyone went to bed before midnight. That was until the clock struck 12 and all hell broke loose with deafening fireworks going off all around us!
Mum under the enormous tree outside the museum
Outside the museum
Today we are just chilling at the house sorting out our plan for the rest of the trip after the wedding. We will go to a few places including Kandy and Yala National Park, and then spend our last few days down South at the beach. Tonight we are staying with Thanuri's uncle because she will start getting ready at 3am tomorrow morning!
I can tell you all about the wedding in the next few days :)
Love from Eleanor xx
No comments:
Post a Comment