Going trekking!

Hi.  I've been travelling around Rajastan in the west of India.

I've had a great time looking at big fortresses on the tops of hills and lots of beautiful palaces.  I've been such a busy stuffed traveller that I haven't had a chance to download my pictures yet.

I'm going trekking this afternoon and I won't have internet access for three weeks.  (Just imagine three weeks without screen time!)  You'll hear from me again in October.  I'll upload all my pictures from India then.

If you want to look on a map, I'm going to be in Dolpo in the west of Nepal while I'm trekking.

Bye for now!

Walking on Fire

I've just visited Kandy, which is one of the biggest cities in Sri Lanka.  It has a beautiful botanical garden.

I got a very good view from this tree.  It's lucky that none of the fruits fell down on my head!

In the evening I went to see a Sri Lankan dance.  There were lots of people playing drums and wearing masks like this one.  Can you see all the cobras (a type of snake) on the mask?  Lots of Sri Lankan masks are decorated with cobras and some are decorated with peacocks.  I preferred the peacock ones because I'm a bit scared of snakes!

At the end of the performance, some of the dancers swallowed flames.  I was worried about them getting burned but nobody was hurt.  It was very impressive.  The flames were definitely real as I could feel the heat from where I was sitting.

(You have to be a specially trained Sri Lankan dancer to be able to swallow flames without getting hurt.  Nobody else should try it!)

Some of the dancers also walked across burning coals!

It was a very interesting evening, but I don't think I'll take up flame-swallowing as a hobby.  I prefer travelling around and writing my blog for Adam, Robin and Grace.

I'm going back to India soon.  I'll blog again from there!  Bye for now.

Hillsides and Tea Plants

I've just visited a tea-making factory.  There are lots of tea plantations in Sri Lanka where they grow tea leaves.  (Did you know that tea comes from plants?)  At the tea plantations, they pick the leaves then dry them, put them in packets, and send them all around the world so that people who like drinking tea can buy them.

I wonder if Adam, Robin and Grace's mum and dad drank any tea this morning.  Perhaps it came from Sri Lanka?  (If you want to ask them, it might be useful to know that Sri Lankan tea is sometimes called Ceylon tea.  I'm sure Granny Kath has some in her kitchen!)

Here's a picture of me in a tea plantation!

Here's the tea factory.

The tea plantations in Sri Lanka are in the centre of the island, where it's quite hilly.  The weather is much cooler and wetter.  This makes it a bit like Birmingham!  In fact, there is a town in Sri Lanka called 'Little England' (Nuriwa Eliya in the local language) because it's a bit chilly and it rains quite often!

There are some nice walks and beautiful views in the hills.  This viewpoint is called 'World's End' because there's a big cliff and the path through the hills suddenly stops, so it feels like the end of the world.

There are also some big waterfalls in the hills.  This one is called Baker's Falls.

I enjoyed seeing the hills and the tea plantations but I'm looking forward to going back to the beach where it's sunny.  After all, I can get rained on as often as I like when I get back to Birmingham!

Going on Safari

I've just been on a safari in Sri Lanka.  It was very exciting.  I saw twenty-nine elephants!

Male elephants live by themselves but female and baby elephants live together in groups.  I saw males, females and babies.  

Things are quite tough for the elephants at the moment because there hasn't been any rain for months and months.  Lots of the plants have died and there isn't much food for the elephants to eat.  Next month the rainy season will start again, lots of plants will start growing, and there will be much more food for the elephants.

Here's a picture of me with a male elephant.

I saw the elephants in a place called the Uda Walawa nature reserve.  All the animals in the reserve are wild so it's very different from going to a zoo.  We drove around in a jeep and tried to spot as many animals as we could.

The animals in the reserve have to look after themselves.  Humans don't feed them like they do in a zoo, but no one is allowed to chop down the trees or damage the environment in the reserve.  This helps to make sure that the elephants have a good place to live.

Here's one of the tracks that we drove along in our jeep.

I saw lots of other animals as well as elephants.  There were loads and loads of monkeys!

I also saw lots of birds.  Look at this peacock!

I've decided that stuffed travellers quite like going on safaris.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I went on another safari the next day, at a place called the Bundala Reserve, where there were lots of different types of birds.  Soon I'll be an expert on the wildlife of Sri Lanka!

Riding elephants!

I've just been for a ride on an elephant!  You can see me on the elephant's head, with her trunk reaching up for a banana.  Did you know that elephants eat bananas whole, without peeling off the skin first?!

There are two types of elephant: Indian elephants and African elephants.  I rode an Indian elephant (as Sri Lanka is near India).  Indian elephants are smaller than African ones but they're still very big compared to me!  (Uncle Guy had to hold me up for a photo.)

Most elephants are wild animals.  It's a good thing for elephants to live in the wild and it's important for people to protect the jungle so that the elephants have somewhere safe to live.

Unfortunately people didn't always realise this and so they used to capture elephants and make them work for humans.  Elephants that are born captive can't live in the wild anymore as they don't know how.  These are the kinds of elephants that it's OK to go for a ride on.

After my ride, I went to visit the ruins of Polonnaruwa, which used to be the capital of Sri Lanka.  There are some very impressive ruins there.

Once Uncle Guy had seen lots of ruins, he said "I'm ruined!"  I think my friend Adam might like this joke!

I'm hoping I'll see some more elephants before I leave Sri Lanka and I think I'll probably see more ruins too.

The Old Capital of Sri Lanka

I've been to visit the old capital of Sri Lanka, called Anuradhapura.  Sri Lanka has changed capitals a few times and today the main city is Colombo.  Anuradhapura was the capital for over a thousand years though!

The remains of Anuradhapura are mostly in ruins as they are so old.  I wonder if Adam, Robin and Grace have learned about the Romans in their lessons at school?  (If not, I expect they will learn about them soon.)  Well, the ruins at Anuradhapura are as old as Roman ruins.  It was very exciting to visit them and think about the kings and monks who used to live here so far back in history.

I was a London Olympic mascot before I became a stuffed traveller, so I'm only two years old.  I find it hard to imagine a thousand years!

There are lots of Buddhist temples in Anuradhapura, called 'dagobas' or 'stupas'.  To show respect, you have to take off your shoes and your sunhat before walking around the dagobas.  This was quite difficult for Auntie Susan and Uncle Guy as it's so sunny here that the ground was very hot under their feet.  It was OK for me though as I've got fur on my toes!

Some of the stupas are white (like the one in the photo above) and some are made of bricks.

There are lots of elephants in Sri Lanka so a lot of the stupas were decorated with elephant carvings.  I wonder when Adam, Robin and Grace last saw an elephant at the zoo?

Tomorrow I'm going to see the ruins of another old capital of Sri Lanka, called Polonnaruwa, so I'm feeling quite excited!

The Temple in a Cave and the Rock Fortress

I've just visited a temple that was inside a cave!

In Sri Lanka there is a place called Dambulla where the king had to hide in some caves for eighteen years before he got his kingdom back.  He hid with some Buddhist monks.  He was very grateful to them so he decorated their temples as a reward.  Now they look amazing!

I didn't have my photo taken in the temple as it's disrespectful to have your photo taken with the Buddha.  It's important to respect other religions when you are travelling to different countries.  Did you know that, in Sri Lanka, most people are Buddhists?

After I'd visited the caves, I went to see the Sigiriya rock fortress.  You can see the rock in the photo.  The king built a palace on top of it and built stone steps to get to the top.  Small stuffed creatures like me must have got very out of breath when they were visiting the king!

There are some enormous stone lions' paws at the the bottom of the staircase.  Once there was a whole stone lion there, ready to pounce!  I think it would have looked quite scary to a stuffed traveller but I'm sure Adam, Robin and Grace wouldn't have been frightened.

The view from the ruined palace at the top was beautiful.  I just couldn't stop taking photos!

Once I'd visited the rock fortress I went to stay in guesthouse where they serve delicious rice and curry.  In Sri Lanka, people eat rice and curry for breakfast but I think Adam, Robin and Grace only eat it sometimes for dinner.   

Kingfishers and Human Fishers

Hello from Sri Lanka!  Sri Lanka is an island and people eat a lot of fish so I decided to visit the fish market on my first day here.  I have never seen so many fish in my life!  Have you?

This market was on the beach.  It's quite different from the markets in Birmingham!

Next I went on a boat trip on the canals around Negombo.  (Negombo is a town near Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.)

Once upon a time, Sri Lanka was ruled by Holland.  The Dutch rulers built the canals (people from Holland are called Dutch people).  Did you know that there are lots and lots of canals in Holland and now there are some in Sri Lanka too?

I had a lovely time on the boat trip looking for wildlife.  I saw some big lizards called Water Monitors.  I also saw two different types of kingfishers.  They have blue backs and they are very beautiful.  They also fly very quickly so they are hard to take photographs of.  Luckily my Uncle Guy is quite good at taking photographs!

This one was a very big kingfisher.

This one was smaller, like a kingfisher in England.

We got off the boat part of the way through the trip to see how coconut drinks are made.  The man in the photograph climbed into a coconut tree and walked along some ropes to collect the milk.  It looked very difficult and a bit dangerous.  I was quite happy to stay on the ground and watch!

I'm already enjoying my trip to Sri Lanka a lot.  It is very hot and sunny here because it's quite close to the equator (the line around the middle of the world where the weather is hottest).  I expect I will see lots more interesting wildlife in the next few days!

Lots of Languages and Religions

Hello from Manali - a town in the Himalayas with lots of old wooden buildings.  I'm relaxing here after my trek.    

You must be wondering why I haven't said 'hello' in an Indian language yet.  When I was in South America I learnt to say 'Hola, Robin!' in Spanish, but it's a bit more difficult here.

There are lots of different languages in India.  For example, when I was in Delhi there were lots of people speaking Hindi and when I was in Amritsar (looking at the Golden Temple, remember?) lots of people spoke Punjabi.  So which language should I learn?

  

It's a difficult decision for a very small traveller like me - I don't really have room for lots of different languages in my furry head!

There are lots of different religions in Indian too.  You saw my photos of the Golden Temple, which is a holy place for the Sikhs.  Here is a photo from a Buddhist monastery in Manali.

And here is a photo of a Hindu temple in the woods near Manali.

Hinduism is the biggest religion in India but there are lots of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and other religions too.

Next time you hear from me, my photos will look very different as I'll be on the sunny island of Sri Lanka, near the south of India.  Wish me luck for the journey!

The Biggest Mountains in the World

I've just been trekking!

I started in a place called Manali, in the Himalayas.  The Himalayas are the tallest mountains in the world (Everest is in the Himalayas).  They are so big that they stretch across lots of countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Tibet and China.  I was in the Indian area.

Here is one of my campsites.

There were lots of beautiful flowers in the valley.  I was very lucky to see them as they only grow for about a month each year during the 'monsoon season'.

The seasons are different here from in Birmingham.  All of the rain falls in the 'monsoon season', from June to September.  For the rest of the year it's dry.  I bet Adam, Robin and Grace sometimes wish it was dry in Birmingham for most of the year!

Unfortunately my fur got a bit wet because of the monsoon but then I got into my tent to keep dry so that was okay.

Lots of sheep and shepherds live in the hills in the area where I was trekking.  Soon they will have to go down into the valleys because there will be lots of snow on the mountains in the winter.

I'm afraid I didn't climb any 6,000m mountains on this trek - sorry Robin!  The highest I climbed was 4,300m.  It's still quite high for a stuffed traveller though!

Now I'm relaxing after my trek and eating lots of curry - the main food in India.  I wonder when Adam, Robin and Grace last had curry in Birmingham?  It's quite popular in Britain too.

One more thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!  I hope you had a good day.