My Trip To Sri-Lanka

Its been really a long while since I lasted posted here. Part of the reason is that for the past 9 days I was visiting Sri-Lanka as a vacation with my family... The schedule was full and I had no time to check online... Anyways, the trip was magnificent and Sri-Lanka is indeed a beautiful country in terms of natural scenery. Sri-Lanka is a small tropical green island in the Indian ocean. It takes about 6 hours 20 minutes to reach Sri-Lanka from Jordan. We stayed in 3 different cities in Sri-Lanka, and in each city we were hosted at a different five-stars hotel. Five-stars hotels in Sri-Lanka are much more elegant than those in Jordan, there is a huge gap of quality between them.

Sri-Lanka as a whole country seems like a resort. Wherever you set your sight on, there is either a beautiful river, a wild ocean, or some exotic looking trees. Greenness is everywhere, but Sri-Lanka's tropical greenness is more attractive than the greenness you might encounter in some European countries. For example, I visited Romania in the old days and was astonished by its greenness, but the problem was that their thick forests are almost inhabited by one type of trees, so although its green, all that green looks the same. On the other hand, in Sri-Lanka, forests are inhabited by a wide variety of trees making them more enjoyable to watch.

Sri-Lanka's people seem too concerned about elephants as for them elephants are historically Royal animals... They have both wild and domestic elephants... They even have an orphanage for elephants, so if an elephant was hunted, killed, or died for any reason, that orphanage takes care of their children (it seems that elephants are family-loving animals). And as my dad jokingly pointed out, they seem to take care of elephants more than humans!! The most stupid thing was that they on the first day, we paid $30 to see the elephants, while they have elephants in the streets. Its like making someone pay money to visit a cats zoo here in Jordan - when cats are found in every garbage dump around the country!!

One of the scenery that really made me say "WOW" (which I very rarely would say) was a small Island in the ocean from one of the hotels' balcony. Just when I got to that hotel went up to the room, and opened the curtains it was out there... A small Island visible from the balcony... I couldn't but say "WOW"!! It felt like Hawaii was right next to me!!

Buddhism is the major religion in Sri-Lanka with 69%, Hinduism has 15%, while Christianity and Islam take almost 7.5% each and 1% others. Religions in Sri-Lanka co-exist peacefully without complications. You can find a Buddhist temple, a Christian church, and a Muslim mosque built all next to each other, and people respecting each person's choice. For example, marriage between couples of different religions is a widely acceptable practice in Sri-Lanka. Unlike say Jordan, where marriage between people of different religions is a highly charged phenomenon.

I have bought a book titled "The Buddha and His Teachings"... Having read a little about Buddhism, it seems to be different from other religions like Christianity and Islam that enforce the belief in God, on the other hand, Buddhism is mainly an atheist religion that isn't based on the idea of God. I might post one or two posts regarding Buddhism after I read more about it. One interesting thing I learnt about Muslims in Sri-Lanka is that they may marry upto seven wives... I dunno how they managed to stuff marriage with yet 3 more wives than the four they already had!!

The trip was costly - almost 800JDs per person - so this makes it 3600JDs paid for our four individuals family!! That amount includes everything from the Airplane ticket, the tourism agency, and day-to-day charges, shopping and others. The tourism agency provided residence in five-star hotels with breakfast and dinner. It also provided a guide, a small van and a driver. The van was under our full command since we didn't join any other group.

Check these photos:
1- The elephants orphanage: 1 2
2- Tribute for the horny girls: 1
3- My parents riding an elephant: 1 2
4- River: 1 2
5- Island on the balcony: 1 2 3