So I finally made it out of Hyderabad. At the very last minute, Salim and I decided to go to Sri Lanka! It was incredible. We flew in to Colombo and I had my first taste of beef in 5 months. yeehaw... We drove 3 hours south from Colombo to Bentota, and stayed at the Taj Exotica. Bentota is a tiny little beach town that I could call home very easily. Since we only had 3 days, we decided to do nothing but play in the sun and eat and the Taj Exotica was the PERFECT place to do that.
Our room had a view of the pool and ocean, so the first thing we did was tap into the minibar for red wine then went directly to the lanai. We got to the hotel just as the sun was setting. We took a few pictures and since we were feeling decadent, ordered room service for dinner and called it a night. Saturday was gorgeous, and we order more room service and had breakfast on the lanai (sensing a theme?). Afterwards, we jumped into our suits and went to the beach to play in the Indian Ocean. The water was was warm, the sand was so soft and the waves were scary but fun! I had my first experience with getting stung by a jellyfish, which is not as exciting as it sounds. We dried off on the beach and bought two wraps from a local for 800 Sri Lankan rupees (about $8 US) . Next stop was the pool. Did I mention the swim-up bar? We hung out there all afternoon, and I tested the limits of my sunblock. By the end of the day I was fried, tired and SO relaxed.
That night Salim and I had booked a table on the lawn of the hotel's Asian restaurant. When we got there, we were the only people there! It was like they had opened the entire restaurant for us. They had set up a table with a white table cloth in the middle of the lawn a few feet from the ocean. We dined by candlelight under the stars and felt like royalty. A few more tables started showing up as we were finishing, but we had the lawn to ourselves for quite some time.
The next day, Sunday, I realized just how burnt I was and decided to skip direct sunlight. Salim had arranged an elephant ride on the beach, which was so cool! I did not have any desire to ride it, but it was great to pet it and feed it whole pineapples. Afterward, we found a couple of pool chairs in the shade and relaxed by the water. Later that evening, we went gem shopping. Sri Lanka is known for it's gems, so we thought we should see what it was all about. We went to one gem shop and spent ages looking at things. They had a little museum next to the shop as well as some workers creating pieces of jewelry. We got a little something to remember the vacation, but I think we were a disappointment to the jeweler that kept insisting on showing us 2.5 karat rubies. All that shopping wore us out so we went back to the room for a room service dinner then bed.
Monday came way too quickly. I was so sad. Luckily, our flight was a little later in the afternoon, so we spent the morning lounging. Packing was so hard because I did not want to leave. We had room service one last time then said goodbye to our little haven. The drive back to Colombo was miserable. We had the worst driver. My theory is that he was used to driving a tuk-tuk, not a full-sized care, because he had no idea of the size of the car he was driving. He would brake and honk incessantly at things that were many feet away. Salim's theory is that it was his first day driving. I felt like the drive back practically undid all of the relaxation I had gotten while in Bentota. We finally made it to the airport in one piece and got on our flight fairly painlessly. We are back home and planning our next vacation. I am officially addicted.
