Having to finally feel the excitement of WWW after missing last year’s trip to down south was just what I needed to distract myself from school pressure with countless assignments yet to come up. That morning when I woke up early to get ready, I was feeling a rush of curiosity, knowing that anything could happen. Moreover, as time went on, with the blessing from my parents, I joined the rest of my friends at the gate. I would consider our trip to be quite extraordinary, compared to the rest of the WWW trips. The trip, known as the HeART of Sri Lanka, as the name mentions, was heavily based on Arts. I, as an individual not at all interested in Art, was, to say the least, worried. When I say ‘worried’, I wasn’t scared of doing Arts, it’s just that I was worried that I would have to engage in activities that I am not interested in, for a whole week. But no, as soon as the activities from the first day started rolling, funnily enough, I forgot that ‘worry’ was even a word. It’s psychotic what hanging out with just the right people can do to one’s mind.
Started the trip with the bumpiest train ride of my life, almost as if there were rocks on the train track. The first destination was Kandy. After about 3 hours of travelling, we reached Kandy, surprisingly it was oddly crowded for a weekday. We walked to The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, or in Sinhala, Sri Dalada Maligawa. Me and Thisali, being Buddhists, did what’s known as a flower offering, as simple as it sounds it’s an action where I offer flowers to Lord Buddha. Me, Aadhya, Sofia and Thisali went around the temple finding architectural structures that we could include in our Art journals. Being familiar with the temple, I appeared as a tour guide for the rest of the group, which was very enjoyable. After an exhausting walk at the temple through the busiest paths, we went to the bus. How happy we were cannot be described in text, after hearing we were going to a Pizza place once we got to the bus. Yet, Jed, Avi, Ben and Luka’s plan of “Prime Positioning” at the lunch table was successful as they ended up having most of the pizza. After a rather exquisite meal, we made our way to the place we were staying, an Anti-Hotel named Helga’s Folly. Seeing the odd paintings all over the walls at the place, it was eerie, in fact very eerie. But that eeriness which grew out slowly, was oddly emphasising the speciality of the place, which helped me realize why it’s known as an Anti-Hotel. Towards the evening, when everyone was drawing, I went around photographing the strange but cool things at the hotel. After dinner, we played murder mystery but I was too sleepy to understand what was going on. I roomed with Ben and Jed. It was fun, mainly the conversations about life as we were about to sleep.
Starting with a very hard-to-beat and eventful day, the second wasn’t exactly as exciting. NOT that it wasn’t fun, just not as exciting. We left Helga’s pretty early, after reflecting on our first day, and made it to a Batiks factory, where we were luckily able to engage in some batik making. After making one, not to exaggerate but I have no idea how these workers make batiks so perfect. The amount of practice that probably required them to perfectly align the wax is too much to think about. Wax is what’s used to cover the subject to prevent paint from covering the whole clothing. After Batiks, we went to the hotel known as Diyabubula near Dambulla. This hotel was once the house of Laki Senanayake, a famous sculptor and painter of Sri Lanka, who sadly passed away in 2021. They were kind enough to arrange a beautiful lunch at Diyabubula. Then, we were offered a tour of the property, before everyone started journaling their experiences in a form of art. Where, once again me and Aadhya roamed around photologging all the sculptures and designs. Afterwards, we engaged in some sketching of architectural insights of Laki’s office and his garden, which I must say was very peaceful and relaxing, a lot coming from someone who’s not so interested in arts. As the evening was rolling off, we reached the place we were staying at, Back of Beyond, near Pidurangala. Luckily Peter and I were granted the best room out of the other rooms, which we were really happy about. The day concluded with dinner and we went to sleep right away.
Now day 3, the most exciting day of the whole trip!! Starting the day off with cycling in Polonnaruwa, the day couldn’t get any better. As we got to the ancient city, we started cruising around the city on our bikes. Didn’t continue for long. 10 minutes into the bike ride, Peter crashed into me!! What’s surprising is that the pain was completely covered by how funny that interaction was. Not that I wasn’t in pain, imagine you on top of a bike on top of a person and all this happening with a great amount of speed, I was covered in a couple of wounds, which I considered them as marks of memories that I will never forget. Honestly, despite the pain, that accident made the whole trip more fun for me. About after an hour of cycling, we stopped by the shops, where me, Aadhya and Luka got matching bracelets, as well as me and Sofia. Sadly mine and Sofia’s bracelet broke on the 5th day at the swimming pool. We were about to leave the shops, where I was buying ice cream when I got attacked by monkeys. Someone reading this might say I had a very bad day but no oddly enough all these encounters with suffering made the trip a whole lot better. It’s very interesting how pain at the perfect times can add so much emphasis on every small detail. As we returned to Back of Beyond, we were suddenly greeted with the biking group. I quickly rushed to Chiran and hugged him since I haven’t seen him in months, as well as Yethmin and Hani. But they didn’t stick around for too long, it was just the perfect amount of time for me to share my experience at Polonnaruwa. The day came to an end with the perfect relaxing art activity involving a natural paint brush created by things found in nature.
Day 4 was short but interesting. It started with us waking up at 4:30 in the morning to climb the Pidurangala rock, which not to mention I have done many, many times. However, this was the first time climbing the rock in the morning. I remember complaining about not climbing in the evening and getting extra sleep, saying that it doesn’t make a difference, but I have to admit, I never knew how pretty sunrises can be till that day. Thank you Ms Eagle for planning the trip so perfectly, and without a saying, really grateful for getting Mr Marlon and Mr Hentz as our supervisors. Jed and I cruised back down from the top of the rock within 5 minutes, to be more precise 15+ minutes before everyone else did. We walked back to the hotel, had breakfast and packed our bags, concluding the stay at Back of Beyond. Everyone was so excited to have a 5 star meal at Heritance Kandalama, architectured by none other than, Jefferoy Bawa. At the hotel we were greeted with a tour around the property before we ate lunch. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay at the hotel but we were there for a long time in their library reflecting on our day 4 and journaling our time at Kandalama with art. Towards the evening, we went to our final hotel and final destination before returning home, a hotel known as The Other Corner (TOC). Out of the hotels we stayed at, this was the best one with all the facilities we could ever ask for. In the evening, we spent some time at the pool with everyone but the water was freezing cold, so it was such a pleasure to have warm water in our showers after 5 whole days. Everyone was tired and went straight to sleep right after dinner.
The last and final day was brief, we engaged in cooking a Sri Lankan dish, which I’d say was very fun but once again very brief. After lunch, we left straight away to get back to school. During this WWW, I have learnt a lot about others and about myself. Thank you everyone for the times we had! And thank you teachers for creating the best micro WWW trip. But nevertheless, I was so ready to feel the warmth of my blanket.
