Honeymoon - Day 3: Sri Lanka - Anuradhapura and Elephant Ride

Today, we first headed to some historical sites at Anuradhapura.  This was the capital city of the first established kingdom in ancient Sri Lanka and Sinhalese people.  We would see our first stupa of many on this trip.

We saw the largest man made pond in Sri Lanka, which is 15 feet deep, and 6x the size of an Olympic swimming pool.  Also saw the third largest building of historic times (159 x 52.6 x 9.5 m).

We also tried a king coconut - very refreshing!

After the morning sight seeing, we headed towards Sigiriya, where we would get to go on an elephant ride!  Been looking forward to this part quite a bit since I have never been on an elephant before.  While the excursion was called an 'elephant safari', it turned out it was more like a ride around a pre-determined loop in what seemed like a super large backyard.  They were ready with the touristy things like selling bananas and what not too.  Having said that, it was still pretty awesome to be on top of an elephant!  Loved every minute of it (note to self: will add elephant pictures once I get my hands on them)

After the elephant ride, we stocked up on water and beer, and also bought some corn from the street side.  The corn was pretty delicious.  We were also up-selled to consider purchasing a few add ons to our trip.  After looking at the various offers, we decided we would do a spa.  So we booked a spa for the 2 of us for tomorrow, before our hike to the Sigiriya Fortress.

We arrived at the hotel at around 3pm-ish where we would spend the next 3 nights at.  Sadly, the beer we bought fell on the ground and so all that hard work of buying the beer was wasted.  We would later end up just buying beer from the hotel.

The first room we got was pretty bad (above).  It was very dark, the fridge (aka a bar fridge) smelled and was dirty.  After talking to the staff, we got switched to a top floor room with a view.  Apparently this was a downgrade from the previous room, but we couldn't quite figure out why - since it was cleaner, and we loved it.  There was no air conditioner though at this hotel called Hideout Hotel, Sigiriya.  The beds are had nets to prevent mosquitoes and bugs from getting in.  The water pressure for the shower was also not too strong, and hot water was not necessarily present all the time.  To sum it up, this place seemed more like a camping cabin than a hotel room.  The staff was super friendly and nice though.  We would later find out that their kids live in the US.

The dinner at the hotel was pretty yummy.  The hotel strived to make 'local' food for the guests, so we got to try a bunch of local food without having to leave.

Oh, and the hotel also had fireflies.  It was pretty seeing the fireflies

Tally for the Day:
Beer (830 Rm)
Water (450 Rm)
Beer repurchased (400 Rm) 

Streetside corn (90 Rm)
Dinner (850 x 2 = 1700 Rm)
Tips for elephant ride and room (450 Rm + 100 Rm)
Spa (75 USD)

Total Spent for the Day: 4020 Rm + $75 USD = ~$ 103 USD