23.09. - Alternative facts and a spontaneous idea 💡🐘

Today, we left our accommodation around 9 am and headed towards Habarane. First, we were stuck in traffic for about half an hour on the outskirts of the city before we could finally continue towards Dambulla. After a 1.5-hour drive, we stopped at the World of Spicegarden. A friendly man who looked like a monk or guru guided us through the show garden. The main theme of this facility was not only the different spices but also alternative medicine (Ayurveda). During the tour, we learned about traditional medicine with 3000 years of experience. The spices we usually use for cooking were combined with other spices to create various oils, ointments, detoxifying weight loss programs, and much more. We gladly listened to the explanations of the individual effects and tried everything that was offered to us, such as hair removal cream, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, which were just a few miracle weapons of this type of medicine. Then, we were suggested to participate in an experiment to prevent arthritis and rheumatism. Two apprentices were called and they gave us a "free" massage, which we found very relaxing and refreshing. At first, it was only the hands and arms. Eventually, there was a sample for the whole body, including the feet. I welcomed this very much as I had been experiencing back pain for a few days and had some hope that this would be good for my back. After about 30 minutes, we were completely massaged and we each gave the apprentices 1000 rubles. We thought it was appropriate. As we later found out from our guide, in a salon, it is common to pay between 5000 and 7000 rubles for a simple massage. Okay, good to know. For a brief moment, we felt a little guilty, but after all, there was no price list and it was only mentioned as a small donation. After the massage, we received a piece of paper with recipes and products that could be purchased in the in-house shop. Since we were very impressed with some of the things, we loaded all these products into our basket. He added everything up and the total came to 32,600 rubles, which is equivalent to 180€. Okay, this was way above our budget and in my opinion, not worth it. When he noticed our resistance, he started bargaining, but Stephan was not interested. We took the special spice tea and a pain relief ointment. This still amounted to 5400 rubles, which is 30€. Okay, let's take it and then leave. This was starting to get annoying. In retrospect, I can say that the massage was very good, the "master" introduced us well to the art, and everything was very educational. After all, I am not opposed to natural medicine and I believe that in some cases, it is better for the body than chemical medications. However, now we continued with our Toyota towards Dambulla. There, we visited the Cave Temples. The ascent, once again, involved climbing many different high stairs up to a plateau. On the way, we met a couple from Bremen, Germany. We talked more and more with them. Then, we were assigned a "German" guide who told us about the 5 cave temples carved into the rock. The caves varied in size and were intricately designed. It is definitely highly recommended to climb the many stairs and endure the unbearable heat. After the tour, we paid the guide 500 rubles per couple and started our descent to the Golden Temple. We continued to chat with the Bremen couple about our different experiences and realized that they also had problems with tipping and the guide's poor English skills. Upon reaching the foot of the rock, we stood in front of the Golden Temple with a golden sitting Buddha and a golden stupa. We said goodbye to each other because our driver was already waiting at the gate. Wanting to be nice, we suggested taking a lunch break to our driver. He was happy about it, so we drove towards the hotel. After a short while, he wanted to take us to a tourist village where we could go boating, cook in banana leaves, etc. We had no interest in that at all. So we continued...10 minutes later, we stopped in front of a "hotel". Yes, here we can have lunch. Well, we thought, maybe it's better than our gut feeling suggests. So we went inside. Unfortunately, our plan to have a cold drink and something small from the menu didn't work out. The waiter made it clear to us that they only serve a buffet. Stephan gave in and we were given a discount. We later realized why, the food was really bad and it was also quite expensive at 3300 rubles. We were not very happy, but we had to consider our guide's lunch break. After about 4 minutes of driving, we reached our next accommodation, which was located on the edge of the town and was quite peaceful. Encouraged by the street advertising of Minitha National Park, we increasingly felt the desire to go on a jeep safari. Upon arriving at the hotel, we asked if our plan to visit the national park was feasible. Yes, with the remark "it will be tight" and that we could have expressed this idea earlier. But our guide showed flexibility and organized a jeep to fulfill our wish. Thanks a lot for that! :-) We quickly drove to the nearest ATM to be able to pay for the not-so-affordable spontaneous idea. Back at the hotel, the jeep arrived. We got in along with our guide and drove to the park. We had to hurry because the last entry was at 4 pm and it was already 3:32 pm. On the way, we stopped at a shop and our guide organized water bottles for us. We arrived at the gate right on time at 4 pm, Stephan paid 6700 rubles for the ticket, and off we went. In the forests, we only saw a small monkey and a pair of peacocks. Then we reached the vast open green areas, and there they were. Two herds of elephants with several young ones. We drove towards them and turned off the engine. We took many photos, observed the animals, and they came closer and closer to us. Our eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm. When we drove a bit further to the next, larger herd, we saw pregnant elephants and elephants with their little ones. We stood there for over half an hour, observing the animals. We had never been so lucky on any other safari. Around 5:40 pm, almost right at sunset, we unfortunately had to start our return journey as we were supposed to leave the park by 6 pm. Our tracker sped up. On the way, we encountered an impala family and some monkeys in the trees. Happy and satisfied, we returned to our accommodation and had to hurry a little because dinner was served at 7 pm. We quickly showered and changed clothes before heading to the dining area. We ordered two beers and waited for our food, which was served quite quickly. After the salad, we wondered where the beer was?! After a short while, a tuk-tuk arrived and a man sprinted into the kitchen with four cans of beer. They actually arranged for the tuk-tuk to fetch beer just for us instead of simply saying they didn't have any. It was a really cool action! We had a good laugh about it, finished the rest of our meal, and then went to our room. Once there, we wrote travel reports until 10 pm and then fell asleep with beautiful images of elephants in our minds.