Brotha In Sri Lanka Day 2

We are on our way to Kandi. I'm so grateful and humbled to be around so many colors. The buses are colorful. The clothes and buildings are colorful. The structures and lack of major roads and signs of modernity reveal this as an obviously poor place, but I've never felt disconnected from my origins. I'm here as a comparatively "wealthy" tourist but I feel much more comfortable in the slum. Well, I guess that's easy to say when crime isn't a threat (although theft is high anywhere people are poor). Our driver is giving us a ton of good info, from red bananas to the fact that they rarely see a black American here. We can tell, haha. They stare. Hard, long and often.

I caught a coughing fit so we pulled over and bought me water. 89 cents for a liter. 70 rupees. This was outside of the tourist area. I pulled out thousands and I looked like an idiot. But they were just more shocked to see me than anything. Probably one of the morse shocking things to happen to them. Random black American pulls off side of rural road, buys water and bounces. Few minutes later we tried this tasty, exotic (to us, apparently EVERYONE ELSE has eaten rambutan before) fruit. There are many skinny dogs on the street. Vegetables and fruits are plentiful and high quality here and it shows in the appearance of the people.

The elephant orphanage was WONDROUS. Full of rescued elephants. I could say a lot about the humbling experience of coming face to face with one of the most majestic creatures some entity had the imagination to create, but the video of me being apprehensive about getting REALLY close (of course I had to touch it and StarPower in front of it), should tell it all. This wasn't a zoo, btw. It's an orphanage, a park, and only the horny elephants are chained. The rest roam pretty freely. We were in THEIR home: 

From elephant dung to elephant dung paper!

We took a tour of a shop where expensive elephant dung paper is made. That's right, paper made from elephant crap. 

Just passed some trees that looked like they were full of hanging black fruit. But they were bats. I have loved to see them fly away in a frenzy.

From the "rolling room" to the way the herbs look in the paper,
this does not look like it's about making tea.

The tea factory was very cool. We went from the paper shop before this, to the rolling room here, then she showed us the leaves and it looks like she's showing us how to wrap them. Only thing you need after that is that fiyah, haha. 

We visited a famous Buddhist temple. I had to wear a sarong around my waist because I couldn't get it in shorts. There was a TON of people. I loved that it rained when we arrived and stopped when we walked out. The treasures and decorations were spectacular. I've been considering becoming a Buddhist so the info given by our guide, along with the temple experience, provided me with a good bit of foundation for my spiritual journey. Here's some video from the trip:

I just saw a G-Unit tuk-tuk. Crazy. 

The ride home was excruciatingly long and dangerous on the wild, narrow, slick roads. So glad to get home.