No piranhas!

As our loyal readers (we have those, right? Right? Guys?) may remember from the comments section of our very first post to this blog, my friend Casey recommended foot leeches. Ew.

Well, as we were preparing to leave Kandy for Galle in Sri Lanka (see Emily's most recent post), we realized that the name of the place she'd found us on AirBnB was the Leynbaan Villa and Fish Spa. We wondered, could this "Fish Spa" be the very same bizarre tradition my friend had encouraged us to partake in? Upon arrival, our suspicions (fears?) were confirmed:

That was that. OBVIOUSLY we were going to do this crazy thing if it was happening in the very lobby of our own guest house. We even got a discount!

But what IS a fish spa? Are they leeches? No, not exactly [citation needed]:

(Shoutout to Josh on this one)

I was actually pretty excited about this. Emily was ... not, but did it anyway, making the same face for the whole thirty minutes:

Then it was my turn. And you know what? I really, really liked it.

It's a weird feeling, to be sure. Hundreds of tiny sucker fish constantly moving around your feet and hands - and more, if you find the right establishment, but Emily was very firm on that point: extremities only.

So if you're ever in Sri Lanka, check it out! I wanted to do it in Bangkok, too (where it was even more inexpensive), but the "No piranhas" sign was a dealbreaker for Emily. I tried to convince her that the sign was a good thing, but she felt very strongly that the very fact that it needed to be explicitly mentioned meant that somewhere a piranha HAD made it into the water. So I can't give a firsthand recommendation for fish spas there ... yet.

Oh, by the way, Em's Flickr feed has more pictures! So if you want to see everything we've been able to upload, don't forget to check out her photostream. If you're particularly interested in Bangkok, she even set up a separate photoset.

We didn't JUST ride elephants

These posts have gotten out of order because Em and I had been hoping we would be able to upload pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't have any luck at the internet cafe last night, so we're probably from here on out just going to do text posts until Hawaii or Seattle, since we know people there and hope to convince them to let us use their computers.

Our second day in Kandy, Sri Lanka, involved more than just the elephants (see Emily's post). We hired a tuk-tuk for the whole day, and while our driver, Suresh, spoke little English, he knew a lot of great spots. He showed us trees with branches heavy with bats, thousands of them, looking like seed pods except for the occasional lazy flight to check if anything tasty had happened by.

So many bats!

He showed us a porcupine vendor, selling needles he'd plucked, or the whole (live) animal if you wanted (we didn't). He bought us coconuts and red bananas, the former sourer than in West Africa, the latter sweeter. But that was just the little stuff.

After the elephants, we went to a tea plantation. At the factory, they show you the whole process to make the various teas. (I'd always assumed green and black teas were from different species, but they're both made from the same tea plant, the difference is in the preparation.) Then you get a complimentary cup of tea, which is very good marketing because it tastes so good that you can't help but want to buy some. Which we did. Then Suresh drove up into the plantation itself, acres and acres of tea bushes.

Here's Suresh!

From there, we wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens, but a rainstorm was looming so Suresh brought us first to a gem museum. Sri Lanka has over 140 precious and semi-precious stones found in its mines, and all the mining is done by Sri Lankan companies, no outside interests. After the tour and video, you have the chance to buy them, loose or set in jewelry. Em really liked it; they treat you like an important jewel trader, sitting at a private table with the stones on a viewing tray while you discuss cut and color and clarity...even if you're just buying some cheap aquamarines or opals.

The rain had come and gone by the time we'd had our fill of discussing the finer points of turquoise, so we headed to the Botanical Gardens.  Just beautiful. The cactus house was closed, but we saw some great orchids, a vast expanse of grass, an avenue lined with hundreds of palm trees, a tree kind of like a great oak in that branches might dip back to the ground (but very different in that when they did so, they dropped roots and became trees in their own right), and groves of giant bamboo!

We ended the trip by traveling up the mountain to a Buudhist temple with an 88-foot tall statue on top, the second tallest Buddha in the country. They let you take the stairs about halfway up the back of the statue, where you get a stunning view of the valley Kandy is nestled in.

See why we wanted to wait for pictures??

Before saying goodbye to Suresh, we gave him a small cake and a Buddhist talisman for prosperity that we'd bought at the temple, because it was his birthday! And because he was great. If you ever plan a trip to Kandy, we highly recommend him. Drop him a line at kandyblackboy@yahoo.com, and tell him we said "hi"!