Looking for the Sun!

When we last left off we were on our way south looking for some heat. Unfortunately, we mostly found rain. We caught a nine-hour night train from Hanoi to Dong Hoi. But, because we booked a little late, we were only able to get a hard-sleeper cabin. Basically this meant there would be six people in a very small space on small mattresses. Image a triple bunk bed. 

Fortunately for us the bed wasn’t that bad; unfortunately, one of our roommates was the biggest snorer in Vietnam. He was a local man, and when John woke up in the middle of the night to poke him in order to make him stop snoring, he was faced with that awkward moment where the local Vietnamese man wakes up in the middle of the night and stares at you and you can’t explain in his language why you are poking him. He then went back to sleep and kept snoring, John put in earplugs. I guess this is how we deal with the language barrier. Either way, we were happy with our trip and we made it to Dong Hoi, home of the world’s largest dry Cave: Paradise Cave.

We would only stay one day in Dong Hoi as the only thing to see is Paradise Cave. We skipped the organized tour and opted for renting a motorbike and driving the approximately 100Km on our own. It was a two-hour ride, but well worth the trip, Paradise Cave was unreal! It was bigger than anything we could have imagined!

As we were leaving the cave we ran into a group of German guys we had taken the Halong Bay tour with. This would be the first time we realize how small Vietnam is and how all the tourists essentially follow the same trail.

After our time in Dong Hoi we made our way to Hué. Hué is a really fun town to visit. It was the first time we found a really fun backpackers’ environment with good parties, cheap drinks and late nights. It was also the second time we would run into our German friends, but this time we would party into the wee hours of the night, with AJ and them partying on the dance floor, while John ruled the pool table (the Viets had nothing on him). AJ figured out the best way to get home quickly was to hop a ride on the rigshaw, but the cheapest way is to be the driver!

After our late night parties, we took in a lot of local culture. Hué is really in the middle of it all. There are amazing tombs in the hills around Hué. We rented a motorbike and visited three different tombs of ancient Vietnamese emperors. Each tomb is like a miniature city build solely to remember this person. The detail, effort and size of each tomb were incredible.

We also had an interesting experience on our way to the tombs. Despite the fact that the roads in Vietnam are completely crazy, people still find a way to drive up to you while your cruising along on a motorbike and strike up a conversation. We were driving down the main street at 40km/h and a local woman drove up beside us and started talking to us, asking where we were from and where we were going. When we told her she offered to help us get there and told us to follow her. She showed us the way to both tombs we wanted to see and then invited us over to her home for fresh tea and fruit. Quite a nice experience, until she asked us to help her fund her kid’s education. We gave her $5 and continued on with our travels. We assume she only stopped us because she was hoping we would give her money, but despite this, it was still nice to visit her local village, hear her story and hopefully, help her out a little.

The next day we hopped onto an organized tour to visit Vietnam’s the former Delimited Dry Zone (DMZ). The tour was way too long (13 hours), and wasn’t really interesting, except for one part, the underground tunnels and the old military bunkers and trenches. 

We made our way to an area of Vietnam that was heavily bombarded by American fighter planes during the Vietnam War. There was a village that made the choice to stay rather than run away. However, they chose to stay underground. The village of 350 people built an intricate tunnel system underground where they would live for six years. There were maternity rooms (17 babies were born underground), rooms for families (they could support up to 6 people in a room) and meeting rooms for up to 50 Vietnamese people. The tunnel system had three different levels, the first level was 15 metres underground, the second level was 18m and the third 21m. It was unreal to spend 30 minutes underground walking the tunnels that locals lived in. An amazing experience to say the least.

The following day we would enjoy our last morning by touring the Hué Citadel before make our way to Hoi An. The Citadel was amazing. It was a city within a city, and within that city there was another city. Yeah, pretty nuts! It was huge, with giant walls, fishponds, elephants, farms, gardens, temples and all this surrounded by a moat. It took hours to visit but the history was incredible.

After our time in the citadel we waited for the bus we had booked for the three hour ride to Hoi An. To our surprise we ended up being put on a sleeper bus that was passing through town. It was comfy, albeit, a little weird to be lying in a bed for such a short journey. Never the less we made to Hoi An and we were ready to enjoy the everything about this amazing town. More on this in our next blog entry!

Back on the Road

Our last blog update was when we had to head back to Canada due to John being very sick. That was just over 3 months ago. Well, time flew while back at home. We got to visit family and friends in Granby, Montreal and Toronto.  

AJ got to work a little, John helped out his brother with some home renovations, we got in a little volunteer work, we enjoyed an epic 45cm snow storm and we even got engaged!

Next thing you know, we had waited the 90 days that the insurance company had told us would be necessary in order for John to be insured again. The conditions that had put on us was that his symptoms would either need to be steady or getting better for 90 days so that it would not be considered a pre-existing condition. Fortunately for us, John’s health just got better and better, and with lots of luck on our side, he was able to completely recover from GBS in an incredibly short amount of time (after talking to people about what happened to John, we heard some real horror stories about other people sick with GBS and the incredibly long recovery times – months/years – that they had to go through). 

And so, eager to continue our travels in Asia, we shopped around for a flight to Vietnam. What would you know; we found one leaving on January 1^st, the 91^st day since our return to Canada. 2013 would be a good year in Asia!

Now, enough about old health problems and cold Canada, we are now in Vietnam! Our first destination would be Hanoi. Too bad Hanoi is damn cold this time of the year… Never the less we’ve made the best of this amazing second chance and we soaked up as much as we could.

During our short three-day stay in Hanoi we visited a ton of museums and temples, walked all over the city and ate some really good food. We took time to visit the History, Women’s and War museums, while also checking the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh’s body still lies today (it looks like he’s taking a nap) and the old Hanoi prison where American war prisoners, including John McCain, were held during the Vietnam War.

We saw this explanation in the woman's museum. We thought it was pretty timely since we are now engaged.

Visiting Ho Chi Minh was quite an experience, as the complex where they keep his body is tightly guarded by the Vietnamese military. When you walk in the room where his body is kept, you are told to walk straight, have your hands by your side and to keep moving. Never the less, it’s pretty amazing to see his body, over 40 years after he died in such good condition. Unfortunately, we can't take any photos of him...

The Hanoi Prison was even more intense. The torture exhibits, propaganda on the walls and tours of the tiny solitary confinement cells where prisoners were kept, was creepy to say the least. It was the first and hopefully the last time either of us had been in a prison!

The streets in Hanoi are pure chaos, with motorbike zipping all around you as you try to cross the street. It’s a pretty amazing site to be seen, especially since they find a way to avoid hitting you and each other, all while never really stopping. You can also buy anything you want on the streets. 

Say you have an interview and forgot to wear a suit, no problem! You can buy a suit, shoes and a tie all on the side of the highway, not to mention buy a baguette for breakfast and balloons to celebrate. Hanoi has it all!

One of the most impressing parts of Hanoi is the clothes boutiques. It’s pretty obvious that Vietnam makes most of the clothes sold in the west. There are “Made in Vietnam” stores everywhere selling any American brand you can think of for a fraction of the cost. How about a North Face jacket for $30? If we weren’t planning on travelling for such a long period of time, we would have bought so much stuff!

After our quick three-day stop in Hanoi, we booked ourselves a two-day one-night cruise on Halong Bay. Vietnam has proven to be the cheapest place we’ve travelled so far, and the quality of accommodations and food has been really high. The cruise was no different. We were amazed by our room, the food and, of course, Halong Bay! It’s amazing what $55 can get you!

We were fortunate to be on the boat with some really people who helped make our tour a memorable one!

Next, we are headed south. We will be visiting the largest dry cave in the world, we’ll check out some other amazing Vietnamese cities and hopefully, find some warm weather! 

Our New Friend Guillain Barré

Back in Kuala Lumpur for the third time in a month and a half we decided to stay at a different place this time around. As much as we’re not fans of KL, it was nice to be back in a familiar place. This time around would be a little different, we had visas to take care of and we were meeting friends from Montreal for the first time on our trip. We spent our first day back running between the Vietnamese and Chinese embassies working out our visas for the next few months of travelling.

The next few days would have us touring the city again with a couple of friends from my work who were travelling in Malaysia for a week. We took an improvised walking tour, visited the national mosque, checked out the Petronas towers (again) and ate some great Indian food.

Five days later we made our way to the airport and hopped on a plane for a short flight to Langkawi Island in northern Malaysia. Here we would meet a third friend from work and her boyfriend; we were slowly building up quite the crew. Cheap drinks in hand (Langkawi is a duty free island), some of the best Indian food we’ve ever eaten and good people with us, we were set for some good times.

Unfortunately for us, everything would change two days into our trip in Langkawi. On our second night, Anne-Julie asked me a few times if I had a cold as my voice was starting to sound nasal. I thought nothing of it, I knew I didn’t have a cold; I figured it would just pass as things usually do when you’re travelling for a long time. That same night, after a few drinks at the local beach bar, we headed home and got ready for bed. While drinking water before going to sleep (best way to prevent a hangover!) I noticed I had trouble swallowing as some of it was coming out of my nose. It was late, so I figured it was nothing a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix... Unfortunately this wasn’t the case.

The next morning my voice was still nasal, any liquid I would try to drink was still coming out of my nose, and my head wasn’t right, while looking quickly from left to right things would move very slowly. Anne-Julie didn’t like the symptoms one bit and said we had to go to the hospital. And so, after a brief call with the insurance and in my best beach outfit of a basketball jersey and swim shorts, we hopped a cab and made our way to the local hospital. After a short 30-minute wait, I was in front of a couple of very young doctors who could at best be described as resident doctors back home. They didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me, so out came the tests. Blood test. ECG. Chest x-ray. CT scan. Then I was told I would need to spend the night. This wasn’t looking good.

On our way to my room, AJ beside me, a nurse behind me, pushing the wheel chair they insist I sit in, the elevator doors open and we see droplets of blood all over the floor. We both look at each other, thinking the same thing… this wasn’t looking good. Once in the room, I’m told I need to fast for the night, as they aren’t sure what further tests I may need to take the next day. A couple of nurses come into the room and try and put an IV into my arm, neither were able. They just kept giggle as they jammed the needle in and out of my hand, saying my veins were too small. Fed up with their incompetence, I told them I didn’t need an IV for one day, I would be fine. I told them they could leave. Twenty minutes later, another nurse, seemingly more senior comes into the room and insists that I get the IV. She manages to get it into my arm, near the crook of my arm. Minutes after she leaves the room, the IV needle in, but without an IV attached to the needle, the whole area under the tape that is used to hold the needle is covered in blood, blood is slowly running down my arm. I don’t think she did it right… I call another nurse into my room and show her the blood; she grabs a paper towel from the sink, wipes up the blood, and then tells me this is normal.

Throughout all this Anne-Julie has headed back home to call the insurance and see what can be done for me. The hospital had told us we couldn’t make outbound calls, we would have to use the payphone, but they couldn’t give us any change or tell us how to call Canada. I was stuck in a bad hospital and I was not allowed to communicate with anyone on the outside. This wasn’t looking good.

AJ came back in the early evening just in time to see a “doctor” for the first time since I was sent through triage. This “doctor” looked just like the nurses, she was barely twenty-five. By the time she walked in and started talking to us in broken English, both AJ and I were sick of dealing with amateurs. Since she never introduced herself, we stopped her and asked her who are you and what do you do here? “Doctor” was the only answer we got. To which we responded, “Really?” All she could tell us was that we would need to wait until the morning to see a specialist. While this news was slightly reassuring, we pressed for a bit more information. We asked what kind of specialist I would see; this is when we were told “specialist of everything”. How nice is that.

It was now late, so AJ headed back home to get back in contact with the insurance and try and get me the hell out of there. Luckily, the insurance also wanted to get me out of this hospital, but it would depend on what the “specialist” would say the next day. They needed to be told that I should be moved.

The horror in this hospital continued all night. At one point my IV line filled with blood so the nurse disconnected the line, dropped it into the bathroom garbage while it drained, and then connected back into my arm without disinfecting anything. When I asked if it could be cleaned, she said it was ‘OK’. I was breaking down at this point, feeling weaker and speaking worse by the hour, but receiving no care. It was no longer only my voice, I was now having trouble walking.

It turned out AJ’s night hadn’t been much better than mine. That night, for the first time during our three and half months of travelling, bedbugs attacked AJ as she slept. Drained from the ordeal we had been through that first day, she turned on the lights, killed as many as she could and then crawled back into bed to try and get a few more hours of sleep before she would come back to my side at the hospital.

Early in the morning AJ was back at my side in the hospital. She had worked with the insurance all night and they were ready for me to get out of there, but we just needed to hear from the “specialist”.

At one point, while we were waiting for this “specialist” to show up, both the Canadian embassy and the insurance called the hospital and asked to speak with the doctor. The only doctor that was around was the one that told me to wait for the specialist. When we asked her to talk to the insurance and tell them what was happening, she said she had no time and didn’t want to talk with anyone. How helpful.

Finally the specialist showed up. He said he wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, he said he would need an MRI and to talk with a neurologist, but his hospital had neither of these. We would need to be transferred! Best news yet.

Nearly two days into this whole ordeal, we had received a few diagnosis’s, all of them unconfirmed and a little off the cuff. The first was Bulbar Palsy, the next was Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS), and then as we waited for news from the insurance and sat in the hallway hoping for them to call us as we couldn’t call them, the stupid little doctor came around and said as she walked by, “I talked to some specialists, I think it’s a brainstem stroke”, and then walked away like there was nothing to it. Had I been strong enough I think I would have ripped her head off, but luckily for her I was getting weaker and weaker by the hour, at this point I was now having trouble walking. When AJ mentioned this to the insurance, they said they couldn’t take the risk; they would have to do a medical evacuation. They were sending a jet with a doctor and two nurses and would be moving me to Bangkok.

Before I would leave the hospital there was one thing I still had to do, tell my parents. The insurance called them and patched me in. The last thing I wanted to do was wake them up at 6am and let them know I was very sick in the hospital with some form of paralysis, but I was terrified and concerned it could get worse while we were still in this hellhole with little to no care; I had to let them know what was going on. That call was difficult to say the least.

On our second day, at 9:15pm two ambulance/taxi drivers showed up and said they would be taking us to the airport. We were expecting doctors to show up, this is not how we thought it would happen. When we asked where I was going, they said Kuala Lumpur, but they could barely speak English. We didn’t want to go, this wasn’t what the plan was, but when we pressed them for more information, they told us they assumed it was KL, but they didn’t really know. Desperate to leave this hospital, we decided to follow along and hope we would somehow make our way to Bangkok. Thirty minutes of crazy ambulance driving later, we arrived on the landing strip of the airport and were told to wait; a plane would be arriving in 20 minutes. Some guy came along and said he needed our passports, we didn’t know who he was, but at this stage we didn’t really have many options. AJ handed them over. This was longest 20 minutes of our lives.

And then the plane arrived. Everything changed. A professional doctor with a suitcase of medicine and two competent nurses jump out and start checking on me. In the first five minutes with them I got better care than I had received in the last two days in Malaysia. They performed an ECG, checked my blood pressure, heart rate, lungs, set me up with an IV in my hand, game me medicine for the plane ride and brought AJ cheesecake to cap it all off! They even gave AJ some meds for the turbulence on the plane; the stuff basically numbed her face and knocked her out in ten minutes. They loaded us into a six seat jet with room for my stretcher and flew us into what I would say is the nicest hospital I have ever seen.

Here things were tough at first. I was still getting worse. My speech had gotten extremely nasal (people could barely understand me), I had trouble making the mouth movements needed to pronounce certain letters or words, my legs had gotten weaker, most of my strength was gone, all my reflexes had stopped working, I had double vision when I looked up or down, I was sensitive to light, I had headaches all day and my palms, fingers and forearms had gone numb. Shit was bad.

Then they started to perform tests. First were the MRI and the nerve test. My first ever nerve test… electrical pads are stuck all over my face and then small shocks are introduced to see how my nerves react. Then on my legs, bigger more painful shocks. It was all necessary, but really unpleasant.

The good news was that the MRI confirmed my brain was ok, no stroke. All signs pointed to Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS), but they would need to perform lumbar puncture (needle into the spine) to test the spinal fluid to confirm the diagnosis.

GBS is a when your body attacks its own nervous system. It’s usually the result of some sort of viral infection where the virus’ DNA looks like your own nerves’ DNA. When the body creates the white blood cells needed to kill the virus, the white blood cells attack both the virus and the nerves that look like the virus.

It made sense that this is what I had; I had always figured the only thing that could stop me was me :)

In the interim, as they worked towards a diagnosis, the doctors quickly got concerned that if I continued to eat and drink on my own I could get something in my lungs as my swallowing was pretty weak. They didn’t want me to develop pneumonia, which could slow down any potential recovery. This meant I needed to have a feeding tube put up my nose. Eating cans of Ensure through my nose, three times a day for three days was awful! 

In the end I had the clinical symptoms of GBS but the lab tests were never conclusive. Never the less, all the doctors agreed it seemed to be of GBS. I was quite lucky with my symptoms as most cases involve complete paralysis of the body, starting with the legs as it works its way up. Including paralysis of the lungs; many patients end up on a respirator.

I was put on meds for five days via IV. The meds I received killed all my white blood cells so that the ones that regenerate don’t remember the initial virus and as a result, they wont attack my nerves. The nerves then just need time to regenerate.

They never know how long it will take to fully recover from GBS. It can go as quickly as it came, or it can take months and even years to fully recover. Only time will tell how long it will take for me to get better, but all initial signs are very positive. I seem to be one of the lucky ones.

As I write this we are nearly two weeks into this whole ordeal. The IVs are out, the five-day medical treatment is over, my feeding tube is out, I’m back on solid foods and I’m walking again. About a quarter of my reflexes have started to come back, albeit very slowly and they are still very weak. My whole left side is weaker than my right side but my endurance is getting better. And, thankfully, I am back to speaking, nearly normally. Overall things are really positive.

Never the less, despite the positive turn this has taken, it still means we need to unfortunately end our trip for now. My insurance wont cover the potentially long term rehab I may need, but they are willing to fly us back to Canada where I can get this care for free. Moreover, they will not cover me if I were to have any sort of relapse during the remainder of our trip. We are definitely disappointed to come back to Canada on these terms, only after four months of travelling, but hopefully this doesn’t mean our travelling is over, for now, its just a road bump!

My insurance, Travel Cuts (RBC), was amazing throughout this whole ordeal. They transferred me to Bangkok hospital, one of the best hospitals in Asia if not the world. They also stayed in constant communication with us making sure we were comfortable with every decision that was being made. The Bangkok Hospital is fantastic, the care and staff is absolutely amazing. My hospital room was nicer than many of the places we had stayed in over the last three and a half months of travelling. The doctors, specialists, nurses and therapists were all incredible. My family was also great, calling every day to make sure all is well and supporting us throughout this entire ordeal. And last but certainly not least, I was so lucky to have Anne-Julie at my side throughout this whole process. She was always fighting for what was best for me. Making sure I was ok and getting better, and always asking the right questions to ensure we understood everything that was happening. She was my guardian angel!

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The above blog was written about 10 days ago when I was still in the hospital in Bangkok. We weren’t ready to post it right away. Here is an update on what has happened recently.

We returned to Canada on October 3^rd. I am already back to 90+% of my old self. My voice and talking are back to normal, my strength and walking are back, headaches and double vision are gone. I only need to work on my endurance (16 days in a hospital can do that to you). As well, I need to wait for all my reflexes to come back, but it’s not something that keeps me from being functional (some people don’t have reflexes – its not the same as your reaction time). Time should help regenerate all this.

I’ve seen a neurologist here in Montreal already, and she says I look fine; I seem to be out of the woods. We are now waiting the 90-day period the insurance requires me to be stable before I can be re-insured without any pre-existing conditions, and then we are off to finish what we started.

Philippines in January anyone? 

Beach Life in the South of Sri Lanka!

It was time for the beach. Despite it officially being the monsoon season in the south of Sri Lanka, we decided to give it a go anyways.  The downside was that it was often cloudy and it rained everyday, but usually only for an hour or so. The upside was that it was still very hot, and it was the low season for tourists, which meant the prices were really low and we could negotiate a lot!

The first place we went to was Tangalle. The water in the ocean is so rough and has such dangerous currents that you cant swim in the water. Waves come sideways and even backwards, the undercurrents are really powerful, and there are big rocks in the shallow part of the water. 

Fortunately for us, we were able to get accommodation with breakfast in a really nice resort for $23 a night (usually $65/night). We lounged on the beach, swam in the pool, canoed in the lagoons behind the resort and even played beach cricket with some local tourists.

I ended up getting a real crash course on the danger of the water. While playing cricket on the beach the ball went into the water. It had happened a couple of times and the locals would go into the water up to their knees and wait for the waves to bring the ball back so they could grab it. When I tried I went just a little deeper, but still below my waist. A wave knocked me off my balance and the undercurrent took out my legs, I was very lucky one of the guys I was playing with reached out his hand and dragged me back in. After that, there was no going close to the water anymore! 

Unfortunately for AJ, she was disturbed while sun tanning on the beach by some local farmers and their heard of water buffalo :)

After Tangalle, it was time for Mirissa. This extremely small village is right on the beach, but since it was low season, there was virtually no one here. The water was a lot safer and we could swim everywhere. Given the low season, we were able to get accommodation in a small basic room for only $8 a night, by far the lowest we’ve paid since we’ve been traveling. The only excitement in Mirissa was the Roti and Dhal for breakfast and the afternoon boogie boarding. We moved on pretty quickly from here.

While traveling to our next beach village, we caught a glimpse of these guys: Stilt Fisherman. They sit on their stilts all day, that have been handed down generation from generation and they fish from there.

Finally we arrived at Unawatuna. The knock on this place is that it was too developed. Well, in the low season this means you actually get to meet other people and have a bit of nightlife, this was perfect for us! The locals in town were so nice and we met some really cool travelers to spend out days and (late) nights with. As well, thanks to the low season we were able to get an amazing beach side hotel for cheap again!

The first couple of guys we met were Gavin and Ash. While having dinner and drinks we began chatting and asked them what brought them here. The answer surprised us a little to say the least. Turns out Sri Lanka is a huge cargo ship base; boats that travel long distances will stop over in Sri Lanka due to its strategic positioning between Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The guys were former military Special Forces and now work as armed security on the ships to protect them from pirates, particularly off the coast of Somalia. We called them “Pirate Hunters”, but in reality they try to avoid engaging the pirates at all costs. They tend to be on the boats for two to three months at a time and can go weeks without seeing any other ships the ocean. But they also do occasionally get an RPG aimed at them… The knocker for us was when they let slip, “the money is good; $40K a month”.  After our night with them, we began to notice that tons of the foreigners in Unawatuna were “Pirate Hunters”. Big, tattooed military guys everywhere, pretty nuts. Fortunately, they were all cool and were just looking to hang out and meet people (they had all been on ships for two to three months). This first night proved to be one of our best partying nights in months.

We were also fortunate enough to meet Quico, an amazing Spanish guy who is traveling across India and Sri Lanka by bicycle for six months (check out his shirt: Bike + Home = Bike Home). He was really fun to hang out with, funny, generous and really well traveled. 

Needless to say, with good company like this we had an amazing time and some really late nights! We even hit up our first club, I made sure to wear by best outfit for the occasion!

Our only cultural outings were a brief trip to Galle and a Sri Lankan cooking class. Galle is a small port town not far Unawatuna. The Portuguese, Dutch and English had all taken turns conquering and influencing Galle. It is really picturesque thanks to the huge ancient fort walls that surround the town. It was nice to see a historic city like this that was still functional and not in ruins like the others we had visited. 

The cooking class was amazing, we were very lucky to find such a nice chef who was able to show us his personal secrets!

Polonawura, Trincomalee & the Highlands

We arrived in Polonawura by tuk-tuk from Sigiriya. It wasn’t the best 45-minute drive we had ever had, but it certainly beat riding yet another jam-packed bus. The heat in Polo was intense. In the afternoon the power in the city is cut, as electricity in region is low due to a lack of rain. Most of the electricity is hydro based, and with no rain for over nine-months, there's less and less electricity to power the city. We took this in stride as we asked our guesthouse where we could find a pool and we headed there for the afternoon. In the evening we were fortunate enough to be invited by two vacationing Sri Lankan’s to join them as they went to watch the sunset over what remained of the lake (it was over 75% dried up). The view was amazing, and even though they couldn’t speak much English, it nice to hang out with the locals.

The next day we rented a couple of bicycles and explored the ruins that are scattered across the city. With the entire historical site covering a width of over 4kms, a bicycle is a must! There are temples, Buddha’s and stupas everywhere, with many dating back to the 10th century. Our personal highlight was the 14m long lying Buddha carved into the side of a giant rock. It is an impressive site to be seen.

After our short stay in Polo, we heeded the advise of a couple of locals and headed north to the beaches of Trincomalee. This meant we were now headed into Tamil territory for the first time in our Sri Lankan journey. Tamil people are mainly in the north and east of Sri Lanka. For decades a bloody civil war was fought between the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Sri Lankan army as the LTTE sought to separate parts of Sri Lanka to create an independent state. The war ended in 2009 when the Sri Lankan army destroyed the last of the LTTE in extremely bloody battles that used tactics that will likely one day be condemned as war crimes.

The four-hour train to from Polo to Trincomalee was nice, albeit quite slow. We noticed that one of the cabins of the train was a gift from Canada.

From the train station in Trincomalee we took a bus to Nilaveli, which had been recommended to us as one of the most beautiful beaches in Sri Lanka. The bus ride from Trincomalee to Nilaveli had us driving in front of a former UN Refugee camp and numerous military checkpoints. The camp was empty as were most of the checkpoints, but it was a sobering reminder of how recent 2009 is.

We arrived in town and searched for a guesthouse. With AJ’s birthday only a couple of days away, we splurged and got an expensive (read 55$ a night) hotel. Wow, were we disappointed! The AC didn’t work, the internet didn’t work, and apparently monkeys had eaten the hot water line, so we had no hot water. What a joke. After a couple of hours negotiating and changing rooms, we had the price dropped and realized we wouldn’t be staying here nearly as long as we planned.

We headed out to the beach, which was beautiful, except that it was 45 degrees outside and there was no shade on the beach; just 40m of perfect sand that was so hot you could barely walk on it. As we tried to walk down the beach we came to a military base that broke the beach in two. We were waved down by the military lookout post and informed that we couldn’t walk through this 150m stretch of sand, we would need to walk around the military camp by going through the village. What a mess!

Needless to say our plans to celebrate AJ’s birthday here and spend five nights in a nice hotel fell through. Two days later we would spend eight hours on three different busses as we made our way to tea country in the Sri Lankan highlands.

What a difference eight hours makes. We arrived in Nuwara Eliya, the highest point in Sri Lanka at nearly 2000M, and we were immediately taken back by the weather, cold, cloudy and rainy. In only eight hours we had gone from 40+ degrees to 8 degrees!

In Nuwara Eliya we would prove to be quite lucky. The best guesthouse in our guidebook happened to be at the bus station looking for tourists to fill its last rooms. We had been hoping to find a room in this place for AJ’s birthday, but figured it would be full. Instead, we got one of the best rooms in this old colonial house. The room came equipped with a fireplace, cable TV and internet, definitely a couple of luxuries we enjoyed on the rainy and cold days in Nuwara Eliya. We wouldn’t do much during our two days in Nuwara Eliya except eat, walk around and drink, but as we were celebrating a birthday, this was actually just perfect for us!

Our only special outing was for a day at an Ayurvedic spa for AJ’s birthday. Quite an experience to say the least. They started by asking us to take our clothes off (except our bottoms, but tops off) in front of them, and then they have you sit on a couple cold plastic chairs in a cold room while they pour a quarter cup of oil on your head and proceed to rub it into your hair. From there you lie on a “massage table” which consists of a piece of wood that is barely cushioned and they massage you for an hour. The massage was nice, albeit mine was a lot more painful than AJ’s (Special observation: In Sri Lanka, the masseuses massage women’s breasts). Finally, they finish with the steam bath. We each had our turn in this death chamber type of box. You lie in a box that looks like a coffin, except your head sticks out (kinda like a guillotine), and steam rises from the bottom of the box under your body. It worked pretty well; it’s just a little scary to climb into.

From Nuwara Eliya we hopped a train to Ella. This is the most scenic train ride in all of Sri Lanka, and also one of the busiest. With only 2^nd class tickets left by the time we got to the train station, we hoped we would be able to get a seat on the train (2^nd class doesn’t guarantee a seat). Boy were we wrong! When the train arrived there were so many people in the train you couldn’t even get into the door, let alone the main train cabin. Passengers had trouble getting out there were so many people, getting in was almost impossible. People were hanging out the doors, pushing to get into the main cabin, passing bags over everyone’s heads, it was nuts. We’d never seen anything like this before. We climbed down from the doorway of the 2^nd class cabin we had tried to force ourselves into and walked into the first class cabin. Lucky for us, we found a couple of empty seats and asked the kid working if we could pay the difference in our ticket prices so we could sit in the front. It worked! For 600 Rs (4.60$) each we were now in first class with leather seats, an onboard movie and wireless internet. It was like a completely different planet.

Ella was mildly warmer and very scenic with beautiful hikes to the various viewpoints around town. Unfortunately for me, I had fallen slightly ill over the last day and a half and my energy level was really low. Never the less we trekked on and hiked two hours up to the summit of Ella rock. I was drained and ended up having a 30 min nap on the top of the mountain… We then followed our guide back to his shack at the bottom of the rock and gave him a tip for showing us the way to the top. He seemed really pleased with our $10 tip, so pleased he brought out all kinds of sweets for us and gave us a small bottle of honey made from the local mountain bees. Not a bad tip for us either!

After a couple of relaxing days in Ella we hit up our last spot in the highlands, Haputale. This meant going back up slightly in altitude and heading back into the cold once again. Regardless, it was worth it. The view was epic and being surrounded by tea plantations on every side was amazing. We took a tour of a local tea factory, and headed up to Lipton’s seat. This viewpoint is where Sir Thomas Lipton (as in Lipton Ice Tea, etc.) would come and look over his estate when he was in Sri Lanka. Pretty amazing view!

Our next and final destinations in Sri Lanka are along the south coast as we give the beaches a second shot!