This ain't Instagram

Arriving in Kandy, my momentary relaxation was immediately put to the test with the usual onslaught. Kandy may only have 120,000 inhabitants, but it is just as packed, crowded, loud, and chaotic as Colombo. The Temple of the Tooth, located here, supposedly houses a tooth of Lord Buddha himself, attracting many pilgrims from the country and tourists alike. In my atheist opinion, the temple is certainly worth seeing, but it is also a place of incredible greed, which annoyed me to no end. Not even in a temple was one safe from show-offs and scammers, and after some discussions and heated dialogues, I was completely fed up. Aside from that, I spent a whole week in Kandy, painting the walls in a small hostel in exchange for food and lodging. Sounds crazy, and it was. But for me, it was a good opportunity to do something I really enjoy, to not spend unnecessary money, and still get to know people. The owner was never really there and left all the employees and volunteers like myself to their own devices, which led to a very relaxed atmosphere but chaotic organization and a rather run-down condition of the hostel. Almost every day, you could find the entire staff lounging in the common room, stoned, even in the morning, and nobody could really understand why I preferred to go painting instead of joining them. I didn't feel entirely comfortable in the company of exclusively Sinhalese men between the ages of 20 and 30, but nonetheless, they treated me respectfully, and so I slowly opened up. When 2 more volunteers and some other travelers arrived after a few days, it became much more social and pleasant. Even another trip to the city was fun because I could be much more relaxed in the company of others. Luckily, I got along great with the two other volunteers, Cameron, a funny, heavy-drinking Scot, and Thien, a sweet, absent-minded French-Vietnamese girl, and we often met up again after Kandy. But the highlight of these days was definitely our trip to Ramboda Waterfall, which turned out to be a real, cross-dangerous jungle expedition. Two of the locals who "worked" at the hostel claimed to be the only ones who knew the way directly TO the waterfall and that we could swim in it. The "tourists" only go up to a lookout platform by the road - we now know why. So, 5 of us backpackers, plus the two locals, rented a van and a driver and set off for the waterfall, an hour and a half outside of Kandy, in bright sunshine. When we arrived, it was already drizzling, but we were motivated and looking forward to a dip in the pool at the base of the waterfall. Not even half an hour later, we were stuck somewhere in the middle of the jungle, in pouring rain, on an untraceable path, with the two locals only half convinced that we were on the right track. Since we were now higher up in the mountains, it had also gotten noticeably colder. This wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't been literally covered from head to toe in leeches. These little buggers drove us insane because they managed to get through every crack and even crawl up our legs (tight running leggings!) to our crotch. Even the mesh of our running or hiking shoes posed no problem for them, so we found them from our hairline to between our toes. We all slipped in the mud on the steep, slippery slopes several times, and after just under an hour, we arrived at the waterfall, covered in mud, completely drenched, and with numerous bloody bites. A bit overzealous, we took off all our clothes and crawled on all fours up the slippery rocks to the top pool. The water was cold, but I loved it and splashed around for a while. It took us a while to realize that the leeches were obviously floating in the water too and were silently reattaching themselves to us. And as soon as you removed one, two new ones were already attached. The way back was extremely unpleasant and rushed, and it was no fun at all to be cold, wet bodies in cold, wet, and muddy clothes. The muddy slopes that we had previously slid down now had to be climbed, and everyone in the group was slightly panicking and paranoid about the leeches. Unfortunately, these creatures often transmit various diseases, and I was the only one in the group who had gotten vaccinated against them. Max, an Aussie, later found a leech in his hair on the way back, which had already been sucking for quite a while and was as thick and long as my little finger. And I have long fingers, very long fingers. Nevertheless, the adrenaline kept us going through the rain, and when we reached the van, we threw all our shoes and clothes into a big pile, quickly peeled off all the leeches, and sat in our bathing suits in the damp, cold van. I rarely looked forward to a long, hot shower as much as I did then. Thankfully, on the recommendation of the locals, we bought a large plastic bottle of "Raah" at a shabby roadside stand, a homemade rice schnapps with fermented coconut oil (as far as I understood). The terribly stinky brew warmed us up a bit (before it gave us diarrhea). In the evening, we laughed slightly maniacally about the trip and could only shake our heads at why we would put ourselves through something like that. Nevertheless, we would all do it again in an instant.