Mirissa - My last post didn't publish, so I will have to back track quite a bit. Since leaving India Kevin, Lori and I have been on the move. When we arrived in Columbo we headed straight to one of the ancient Buddhist cities, Anuradhapura. The train ride there wasn't long compared to some of the marathon rides in India - only about 6 hours. Once there we had a hunt for a hotel in the dark that ended at a great hotel called The Grand. It had a beautiful sunrise view over a lake overlooking another ancient city, Mahintale. We spent the morning going around in a rickshaw looking at many pagodas (big white Buddhist shrines), Buddha sculptures and ruins. We ended up at the Maha Bodhi temple, which has the oldest authenticated tree in the world and is a branch of the original Bodhi tree that the Buddha attained enlightenment under from India. From there we headed to another ancient city, Polonnaruwa. Here we got to stay in a family home where we had some of the best curry dishes for lunch and dinner. Polonnaruwa is a bit smaller than Anuradhapura, so we went around on bicycles. The Gal Vihara was the most impressive statue group, with a reclining Buddha next to a standing Buddha carved out of the rock face. From there we went in luxury (an A/C car) to Sigiriya, where there are original frescoes still visible on the rock and a palace perched on a rock. The view was absolutely stunning. We got to watch a storm coming in before we hustled down the thousand steps to avoid it. We then drove to Dambulla where we climbed more stairs to get to the Buddhist caves. The bus ride to Kandy was longer than expected, but once we made it there we checked into a really neat hotel that is over a hundred years old. Our adventures around Kandy took us to the Temple of the Tooth that is supposed to house one of the Buddhas teeth (it is in many boxes that no one can see, so we had to take their word for it!) We also saw some traditional Kandian dancing along with the hundreds of package tourists. We then took a day train to the hill station of Ella. We got seats in the "observation saloon," faces backwards and has huge windows. The view of the tea plantations and hills reminded me of Darjeeling. The cool temperature was a nice change from the rest of our travels. We went on a little hike the next day to Little Adam's peak for an amazing view through Ella Gap. We also got to have a tour of a tea plantation. It was really neat to see how it is processed and how they come up with the different rating. From Ella we took three buses to arrive on the south coast at the beach of Mirissa. We decided to splurge and stay at a resort. So for the past two days we have been lounging on the beach, gorging ourselves on the breakfast and dinner buffets and generally relaxing. Yesterday we got a tour of a gem factory where they cut the gems and make jewelry. The lack of technology surprised me, but it was informative. We were going to move on to another beach, but are enjoying ourselves so much that we have decided to stay for as long as possible.