Travel Blog #2: Emergency Vacay to Gal Oya Day #2

Taking a moment to enjoy the simple things in life with my Cotton Balls!

Yeah, that's actually her name. Given to her by me after looking at the stars or planets or whatever those astrology people do with their lives. Also, yes, I am an astrologer. Please do come to me if you are looking for magical letters to name your kid.

Moving on with life...

Look at this view hoomans! LOOK at it!😍 Even though we were on holiday, getting up at 5:30 am was absolutely worth it. So peaceful, so beautiful.

That's Cotton Balls being all rock & roll and sitting on the edge... not exactly the edge-edge... but, it was one of those views which did NOT look like a fun way to head back down.

Anuradha, our host and guide for the day, led the way and we simply followed. He was nice enough to stop every 5 minutes for us to catch our breath... So.Freakin.Embarrassing 🙄

We have hiked before - bragged about it to Anuradha like pros. But duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudeeeee... that was steeeeeeeeeep man. Gahhh! Looking back, we were pretty much whining for 2hours straight till we got to the top. LOL. Poor Anuradha...

There were elephant corridors along the way meaning they too go along these paths, unfortunately or fortunately we didn't come across any but, we did see their poop.

This is Anuradha btw...

A video of yours truly trying not to slip and roll down. They say heading back down usually takes less effort and time. Well, not Monkey Mountain. Died multiple times trying to come back down alive, sliding, falling, tripping on rocks, branches, air... Would have been a whole new level if it rained 😅

Guess who else made it to the top! Whisky, the doggo from the hotel!

Having so many more places to discover in Sri Lanka, for now we are genuinely, GENUINELY euphoric with the whole Gal Oya experience! From the chilled drive, to the cozy Gal Oya Lodge, the fancy picnic, spontaneous trek (day 1), seeing the night sky glowing with stars (yup, almost zero light pollution over there) & making it to the top of Monkey Mountain (day 2).

Would we ever climb Monkey Mountain again? The answer is no, life is too short to do the same thing twice. But would we recommend climbing it? Hell Yeah! It was super adventurous, thrilling, different to other hikes, challenging and also, there was phone signal at times. Which was pretty convenient since we decided to head over to Kirinda before going back to Colombo. So we texted people at home to see if they were oki doki with the change of plans and got the green light! Woohoo!

So if any new plans pop to mind, highly recommend making best use of it since there's no signal at the lodge. Not the usual 'hiking advice' anybody would give but, just saying... Oh and useful advice; carry at least 3liters of water, you will definitely need it and Anuradha brought some bananas which we ate after reaching the top.

Before the hike, the hotel arranged morning tea and butter cake, maybe you could also request for some toast and jam to get the body amped up. Highly recommend some toast. Would have helped us a lot.

Day two at Gal Oya Lodge ended with breakfast, power nap, settling the bills - which summed to appropriately Rs. 28,000 for two - and setting off to our next destination... Kirinda!!!!!!

Gal Oya #2, over and out!