First night in Meemure (Sinhala: මීමුරේ)

This is a continuation of a previous blog post "Journey to Meemure."

Day 1

We reached the camping tents that we were supposed to stay the night after a 20 mins walk up a small hill. It was both a joy and hard effort to climb up the hill with all our baggage. Surprisingly there were no leeches even though the surrounding was damp.

The camp site was about 200m away from the house of a villager who prepared us meals thereafter. The meals were surprisingly delightful, I'll write about that later. So after we reached the house of the villager with our guide, they offered us tea with "Kithul" Jaggery. 

Having tea the Sri Lankan way.. It was the best!

The tea and jaggery made us revitalized after the long journey. They had prepared our lunch even though it was around 3.30pm when we reached there.

The interesting thing about having tea or any other food in Meemure is that there is no time allocated for lunch or tea. In a traditional Sri Lankan house, you could have tea at anytime and you will be offered food anytime during the day. Meemure has preserved the same culture for this many years.

My wife having lunch on Day 1

At around 4.00pm we had lunch. It was the best lunch I ever had in my whole life. The food was absolutely brilliant. The protein of the diet was dried fish but I suppose it would suffice the need since dried fish has a huge protein content.

After having lunch we decided to stay around the tents and the house for the rest of the day since it was late around 5 O clock in the evening. The darkness started to set in around 6 pm. The villagers lighted up some lamps where we were dwelling outside playing cards. The climate was very pleasant. Not too cold, not hot at all. It was the perfect climate as one would describe.

Chilling while playing some cards

One more special thing was that water was FREE as it should be. Water in its purest form flowing all around you. Paradise. We had a bath in when darkness was setting in. We had to carry the oil lamps with us to the place we had a bath where a mini waterfall was formed from a water spring with an aid of a tree trunk. As cold as the water was it a so much fun to have a bath in the dark with all the friends in these conditions.

On our way to the water spring

We had dinner around 8.30pm which was equally delicious. It was pitch dark outside. It felt strange to live without electricity but we were getting used to it. We had brought some head mounting lamps and torches for us to assist in finding our way and finding things. However, all the necessary places were lit up with oil lamps. The best feeling was that we were disconnected from the whole world. No mobile signals, no electricity no radio/tv signals. It was one of the best feelings in my whole life.

After dinner we went back to the tents(camp-site) where we were supposed to stay the night. For the group of 9, we had 3 tents. There was a larger tent and we huddled up into one tent and had some chit chat before going to separate tents to get some sleep.

Me trying to convince someone something I don't know probably :D

Here are some photos from our spontaneous photo shoot..

                                                          

Stay tuned for the next blog post "Day 2: Enchanting Meemure"

Journey to much unprecedented "Meemure" (Sinhala: මීමුරේ)

Meemure is a picturesque village which is not yet harmed by the so called technology and human advancement.

We, a group of nine, traveled to Meemure in the first week of February 2015 and it was a journey which cannot be erased from my memory forever. I might not be mistaken if this is the most splendid village in Sri Lanka. The villagers who are in love with the flora & fauna here always have a smile on their face and often a loud laugh about something. From the center of the village your can see vast stretched of paddy fields and other crop and spice plantations.

How we got there:

We started the journey by a hired van at 6.30 am. from Colombo.

We took the Colombo - Kandy road until we reached Kandy.

After you reach Kandy from Colombo which is a 3 hour drive, you should continue to Kandy-Mahiyangana road. Then in 43 KMs you will be in Hunnasgiriya, from where you should turn a sharp left turn to the historical Hunnasgiriya-Meemure road. This is initially a tar laid road but once you pass 25KMs down the road, it starts to get really bumpy. REALLY.

It's better to drive cautiously after passing 20KMs down this road since you will not have mobile phone signals after 5KMs into this road. In 30KMs you will reach the village of Meemure.

However, in order to really experience what it's like, you have to travel by foot for 2-3 KMs into the village on a muddy/dusty road(depending on the weather) until you reach the village houses on top of hills where you have no electricity.

We were accompanied by a blind guide. Yes "B L I N D" meaning can not see; but he was faster than us and he knew the paths in and out around here.

After 20-30 mins by foot we reached the picturesque village of Meemure at its best!

One can see paddy(rice) fields then the forest and through the forest up and above, the mountain "Lakegala" in the background. It was a magical view indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakegala

Await for "Our stay at Meemure" in the next post!