Kandy: cultural city + Esala Perahera Festival (August 2013)

After Colombo, we enjoyed a cooler weather for 4 days as Kandy is surrounded by small mountains. Kandy was very crowdy and polluted when we were there but we had the chance to see the end of the Esala Perahera festival which is the biggest event in Sri Lanka. Again we met lovely individuals without taking into account all the little Buddhas we've seen (there are so many!) Check new pics in the usual sections. We are now heading to the North, Jaffna and its islands.

Our first days in Sri Lanka....

If we had to resume our first days in Colombo: colors, spices, kindness, fantastic people but also sleep, eat and preparation for our next 7 weeks here. We have been lucky to find Dijen's family with whom we stayed for 5 days.  We met so many welcoming people here, it is great! We had also the chance to see Lolo & Hamza, our cousins + to be invited by Danu (this lovely Sri Lankan lady lives in Belgium and lent us $40 at the department of immigration without knowing us...) who invited us for dinner with her friends and neighbours. In conclusion, the first 5 days here were spicy ;-) and we are now heading to the North, Jaffna, which has been devastated by the war and volunteer in a school part of an extremely poor community for 2/3 weeks.

Breaking news!!! We are in Colombo, Sri Lanka ;-) and not in Madagascar ;-( as planned for a few months!

Unfortunately we had to cancel last minute our two month trip to Madagascar due to serious security issues exactly where we were planning to volunteer from. We were advised mainly by the French embassy to cancel our arrangements there. We are very disappointed not to be able to support the project we wanted to work on for a while which was to help develop an eco tourism site on the island of Nosy Be. We took the decision 12 hours before our flight was supposed to leave from Nairobi to Antananarivo. We therefore decided to go to Sri Lanka instead. We arrived on 15/08 in Colombo at Dijen's who has a wonderful wife and three kids. We are very lucky to be welcomed so well in Sri Lanka. We will be thinking about our plans here the next two/three days. Our goal is to volunteer 1 month, discover the island, and improve our surfing skills the following. Also, we had our first Indian/Sri Lankan meal tonight...we asked for non spicy dish to avoid upset tummy and our mouths were on fire...let's see tomorrow morning. We will keep you posted ;-) (Am kidding...) By the way to adapt to the culture, I started to grow a typical Indian moustache....but it is not quite working ;-) See below.

Paradise swim with dolphins in the very South of Zanzibar..in Kizimkazi!!!

Check out this video and more pics in our blog! We had time to relax in this nice village and we had the chance to swim for a few minutes with dolphins...oh my god...that was great!

Agnes caught an Octopus...with her hands....arghhh!

...ok...Hadji helped her a bit!....More pics on our usual sections...

Our journey in the North and North East of Zanzibar!

We stayed at Carola's and Mado's thanks to their new business (Kamili View: www.kamiliviewzanzibar.com) in Kiwengwa. We had a fantastic time with them, discovering the local life and visiting a few places further north (Nungwi, Kendwa, Mnemba). Check out our new pics under Tanzania/Foodies/Portraits.

Sunset with Mado & Carola

Zanzibar...here is the real paradise: fishing..sailing on the west coast + life with local community of Kibweni!!

Check out some of our new pics under the usual section "Tanzania", "Foodies" and "Portraits"...

Sailing trip from Kibweni to Changuu island!!

Cuttle fishing trip in Kibweni