Lee & Lucy

We set off from Hotel Sigiriya and were dropped off on the main road a few minutes later. We knew that we were going on a “Village Experience” tour, but wasn’t exactly sure what it entailed. Next thing we knew; we were being ushered on to the back of a bullock cart!

The bullock slowly pulled us up the main road, with the driver occasionally muttering words at it. Since we were on the main road, the realisation that cars, vans and tuktuks were all overtaking us – and very closely we might add – Lee pulled Lydia in closely.

As we were plodding along, we came to a slight decline in the road, the driver jumped off the cart - ah, must be to lighten the load, steady the cart … oh no, the bullock started to poo! Lydia’s face expressed it all!

We came off the main road and bumped our way down a dirt track. At the end of the track, we got off the cart and headed towards the village… but we came to a lake. Can’t go around it, can’t go under it, we’ll have to go over it! We were taken across on a traditional catamaran, which was very pleasant, until we arrived at the other side. The landing bank was a bit muddy; the driver tried to dock against the driest part. Lee volunteered to climb out first, next thing we know the driver was nearly covered in sh*t again, Lee slipped in the mud, fell backwards, whilst holding on to the driver’s hand. It was quite the sight! Luckily, the girls and I got off without incident. Lee was taken away to the village well to clean up.

We were lead up to the main hut in the village, welcomed by a local family, who were going to demonstrate how they prepared and cooked their food. (Of course, this was very much geared towards tourist, but still felt very genuine). We were shown how to grind spices, deshell rice and scrape coconuts – we all had a try and commented that the village women probably wouldn’t need gym membership, as they’d get all the exercise they’d need from preparing meals.

Most of the kitchen equipment was stone based and generally handed down through generations. I was impressed how clean and hygienic it all was.

While the food was cooking, the girls went for a little explore in the village and found a tree-house.

Lunch time. Wow, what a banquet! We were presented with a selection of dishes, including coconut roti, fried lake fish and mango based curries.

We ate our food in a traditional way – from a banana leaf, using only our right hand.

After lunch, we said goodbye to the village family and were treated to a ride back to the main road in a tuktuk. This was the first time the girls had been in a tuktuk, they loved it!