Elephants & monkeys (and a few Buddhas)

I like Sri Lanka. It is beautiful. People are friendly. Food is good. Prices are low. Surprisingly little changed since I was here last time seven years ago I think it was. Once again peace is in people’s mind and hopes are up for a surge of tourism. At the same time everyone are holding their breath, afraid of post-election violence. But thinks might work out in the end.

Anyway. Today we started really early in Negombo and headed for Pinnawala and the elephant orphanage there. It is as much a tourist operation as an elephant preservation scheme, but whatever it is, it’s lots of fun. Elephants are just so cool!

In the afternoon our bus broke down on the way to the overrated Sigiriya rock fortress. We spent a few hours on the roadside, trying out local fruits and roti, taking photos of monkeys and chatting up a cow. When the bus was up and running again we skipped the rock and went for the Cave temples at Dambulla (lots of Buddhas, a few monks, more monkeys and some beautiful flowers).

All in all a very nice day.

Arrived to Sri Lanka

I  fell like a jet lagged zombie after the flight Amsterdam-Dubai-Colombo, but now I have spent my first day in Sri Lanka, at a Jetwing beach hotel just outside Negombo, north of Colombo. Here are a few photos from today, mostly of fishermen (and their families) I met on the beach.

Snowy in amsterdam, again

It is snowy here, again. This must be one of the toughest winters in Amsterdam for a very long time. That didn't stop me from biking around in this beautiful city to check out different neighbourhoods. I ended it all with a hot chocolate at one of my favourite bars, de Druif.

 

 

Rodel in Hochgurgl

Our last day in Austria and the snow is falling. In other words a good day for rodel! We went to Hochgurgl and tried their 3 kilometer long run full of tight hairpin curves. Then we took a number of lifts up in the snowstorm to have lunch at the Top Mountain Star Restaurant at 3082 meters altitude. Cool.

Flying high in Ötz

Today we hooked up with Adi at Ötz Air fort some paragliding. A perfect day with blue sky and lots of sun greeted us when we arrived to the village of Ötz. Here we took the ski lifts up to Hoch Ötz at 2179 meters altitude and prepared our kit.
This is a place where you can get thermals even in winter, and indeed we did! I got an almost 50 minutes long thermal flight until I had to give up due to cold fingers (I wish I had those heated gloves, something for next year). The views were truly stunning.

On the way home, the taxi dropped us off outside Shirmbar, a very popular after ski place...

Softening up in Sölden

New day, new village. Now we are staying in Sölden for the last few days of this trip. First activity was a very well deserved visit to a spa in Längefeld, the Aqua Dome. Surrounded by 3000 meter high Alpine mountains, we swam outdoors, softened up in hanging saline pools and whirlpools and sipped some nice grüner veltliner white wine. Then we discovered the huge sauna land, with seven different saunas and a number of pools. Being Germanic, this part of the spa was "textile free". As in nude.
Well, we are brave Swedes, so no problem with that. And my body felt renewed after almost six hours of hot water, salt water, cold water, bubbly water, steam, herbs and god knows what.