## THE DAY WE BECAME QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE!

Travel #1 Sri Lanka Safari Glam Camp.

Before going into my first instalment of travel in living colours and black & white, let me first give a brief story about myself. I have always dream about backpacking since I was a teenager. You can never see me sit still even at the age of 7, always roaming around and eager to follow anyone that is willing to bring me to anywhere, especially my mom’s friends. If anyone wants to kidnap me when I was a kid, they would definitely succeed. Back then, when both my mom and dad were at work, the only way to entertain yourself is to go out around the neighbourhood, create your own toys (we were poor back then) and have your “kampong” kaki playmates to gallivant around the neighbourhood looking for things to do.

Things we do during the late 70s and early 80s :

1) Catch Spider (Little ones and of course not the poisonous ones) – We would go around the neighbourhood house that has bushes or trees looking for spiders hidden in between the leaves. Once we catch these spiders, usually the male spiders, mind you, we were good at selecting good ones, we put it in a match box, put some leaves in the match box and feed them ants. Why do we catch these spiders and feed them? So that we can prepare them for a fight with another spider.

Credit: Source

2) Collecting mosaic at construction sites – We don’t steal these mosaic but usually collect all the chipped ones that were thrown away or those unwanted ones. Because we didn’t have money or Lego back then, these mosaic were sort of like toys for us. What we do with these is usually to build images, stuff or the best is to challenge the longest domino you can create.

3) Catching tadpoles in the drains – Being the adventurous monsters, my friends and me usually go down to the big drains (storm drains more like it), to look for these tadpoles as an alternative to keep it as our pet, instead of fishes. No idea why we did that, guess the thrill of just going into the big drain exhilarates us.

4) Cardboard Race – The best place to look for thick cardboard boxes is usually at the market, always the place that sells dry goods and not the wet market. Once we have collected these boxes, we will make ourselves a cardboard slides to slide down the highest grass hills we could find to slide down.

OOOPS!!!, I got a little carried away, back to the main topic of travelling. Will go back to childhood activities in another post if anyone is interested. So the adventurous part in me during my childhood days brings me to my passion of travelling. The first place that I would like to share my experience and show to you is a trip I made to Sri Lanka Safari Glam Camp with my travel buddy, Kamisah. We wanted to go to a Safari in Africa but there was an outbreak of Ebola in 2014, hence we decided to travel to a nearby Safari instead. Why Glam Camp you say? Well my travel buddy Kamisah always travels to beautiful and amazing places (translate: not so rugged, must be clean, and a touch of class). She made a thorough research on this and found one that suits her camping style. So I highly recommend for those who wants to venture to a safari, you don’t have to go all the way to Africa, there’s one closer to home in Sri Lanka.

Destination: Mahoora Tented Safari Camp – Yala, in Hambantota Sri Lanka.
Date: 30th October 2014

There is no direct flights to Hambantota, so you need to fly to Colombo first and then take the domestic flight to Mattala Rajapakse International Airport. Since we have not been to Colombo, we decided to have a one night stay in Colombo, before heading off to our Safari Adventure.

Part 1 – Sri Lanka adventure, first pit stop Colombo.

At the airport going to Colombo.

Landed safely and reached Colombo. We are here and at last both of us are smiling. Change to rupees, bought a SIM card to get connected. I know I'm in Sri Lanka because the aroma of the spices fills the atmosphere. We have a Muslim guy as our taxi driver and his name is Nazarudin. Heading to our hotel and its 29 degrees and no air-con in the taxi. Well at least there's some wind blowing in. Passing by with colourful scenery of vehicles, buildings and people. My finger wasn't quick enough with the mobile camera to take a photo of a guy taking a leak in the middle of the road, well don't think I want that picture in here do I?

We stayed at the Galle Face Hotel. Warm welcome and very friendly staff! Our room was huge and beautiful.

A day tour in Colombo before the Safari.

We had a personalized guide to bring us around the city! All arranged by a wonderful special friend of Kamisah from Dubai, Baba Jubir! Off to our day tour in Colombo but unfortunately it was raining. Lukman, our personalized tour guide cum driver apparently can speak Bahasa Indonesia, because he lived in Indonesia for 2 years. He said some Sri Lankan can speak Malay. I think from that instant both Kamisah and I have the same thoughts!! Shit we can't talk in Malay now in case we talk bad about someone. Lukman brought us to a temple near the Sri Lanka port authority. Had to walk up bare footed 11 story high 235 steps. Exercise, checked. He brought us to the Sri Lankan port authority because there's a maritime museum there as well as a temple. Buddha Jayanthi Chaithya is a stupa, a Buddhist shrine, built with reinforced concrete. The stupa is located in Colombo Harbour, Sri Lanka. Walking up 235 steps to the 11th floor while drizzling and barefooted, I must have add a years’ worth of exercise for me at least, but the view is breath-taking.

Inside the 'Stupa' sits a Buddha. People comes here to meditate and pray.

It looks like NASA . 11 Floors, 235 steps! ... Verdict? Worth the effort to climb those stairs!!

The view is stunning!

Next pit stop was another temple, the Gangaramaya Vihara, it is one of the most venerable temples in the country, decorated with wonderful brass work, stone carvings, and other Buddhist art. Also a place of learning, it houses a museum, complete with residential hall. Main religion in Sri Lanka is Buddhist, hence plenty of temples to see. Kamisah spotted a man in orange robe (Monk) at the entrance to purchase tickets to the temple! She found this Monk handsome, sexy and well verse in English! She complimented the Monk and mentioned that she is from Singapore. He was excited when we told him we are Singaporeans as he just came back from Singapore. He spoke highly of Singapore, and said that he went to "baydok". Singaporeans should know where he is talking about, Bedok, and not forgetting Mustafa Shopping Mall. LOL!!!

The Handsome Monk

We were walking around the temple and Kamisah asked Lukman about a picture of the Prime Minister, a monk was putting a head gear on him and he informed us that this ritual is the monk giving bless to the PM. Lo and behold as soon as we walk further the monk came looking for us and brought us to a place and do exactly the same to us, bless us with the head gear. That was awesome, but I think maybe he was a little bit excited because Kamisah told him he was handsome. 😃😃😍😍. The handsome monk excitement didn't stop there, he even introduce us to the highest monk there and told him we are from Singapore. You can see the high priest’s eyes immediately lit up and asked the both of us to follow him. He blessed all the 3 of us including Lukman. Lukman was all smile because he felt really proud and blessed. He told us we were lucky to have him as his tour guide because not many people get to experience this. And of course Kamisah said to Lukman it's not us that is lucky it's him that is lucky to have us cause this is his first experienced getting blessed by the higher rank monk. I think these monks were just excited to see us because they just came back from a religious 8 days tour in Singapore.

Yes they keep elephant in the temple

We had about enough of temples for one day so decided to ask Lukman to bring us to a “Tea House” to have our tea break. Tea production is one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka and of course we wanted to try the famous Ceylon Tea at a very special Tea House. Instead of bringing us to a “Tea House”, Lukman brought us to a place that sells Gemstones. I guess being the tour guide he is, he must do his duty to bring tourist to these places to get his commission from. And he told one of the salesman to serve us tea while they show us these stones and tried to persuade us to purchase these gems. Guess Lukman is killing 2 birds with 1 stone. We got our tea and he almost managed to get Kamisah to buy a gemstone, but luckily she did not fell prey to these persuasions. Phew, Kamisah knows I HATE SHOPPING, so we left quickly and told Lukman that we would like to try the next famous thing in Sri Lanka, the King of all crab, a must visit place in Sri Lanka : Ministry of Crab!! And try all the crab dishes there! To our disappointment, Lukman did not bring us there, instead he brought us to his friends’ place that sells crab. I guess that is one of his commission “pit stop” for tourist because we saw the waitress gave him some kind of free coupon meal tickets that he quickly put in his pocket. Kamisah whispered to me, there will definitely be no tip for him but me being me, I end up giving him some, at the end of the night when he brought us back to our hotel. I always put myself in someone else shoes, he might need it more than I do as he did spend the whole entire afternoon and evening bringing us around.

The Gemstones Carver/Maker. Kamisah trying on a gem ring.

The Disappointed face of Kamisah not being at the Ministry of Crab!

More of today pics

Lesson for the day whenever you have a driver and a personalized tour guide:

1. Always do your research first and make sure you record all the names and addresses of the place you would like to go.
2. Inform the guide exactly where you want your next destination going to be, if they don’t understand English, google translate or show them pictures in google images.
3. Make sure he goes where you want to go instead of him insisting that he knows a better place. Be polite by saying you insist as you have to buy something from that place.

So today is our part 1 “The Day We Became Queen Of The Jungle”. :

1) Having our personalized chauffeur.
2) Blessed by a Higher Monk in a temple just like the PM.

Let’s go to the Safari in Part Deux instalments of “The Day We Became Queen Of The Jungle”.

THANK YOU FOR READING Hope you've enjoyed the story and the pictures.