A quick trip to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka was a very interesting experience in getting up close and personal with elephants. This huge 25-acre (10 hectare) elephant sanctuary lies in a coconut plantation located halfway between Colombo and the hilly royal city of Kandy.  The orphanage was initially designed to care and protect baby elephants found in the jungle who have lost their mothers.

They started in 1975 with five baby elephants. The green elephant pasture grew to become an orphanage, captive breeding ground and nursery known to have the largest captive herd of Elephants in the world. The facility has become one of the popular tourist attractions in Sri Lanka and its income from tourism are used to care for the elephants.

The elephants roam around freely during the day and the event not to be missed during your visit is to witness the elephants' social activities as they bathe and play in the Maha Oya River.  

You might notice that a lot of travel recaps invade my recent posts. I think I'll be spending half of 2013 on staycations. My days and most evenings are spent at my work desk. I am surprised that I have no complaints. I stay late, because I often forget about the time at work. The difference between then and now is, even though tasks can be more challenging, everything feels right. On my way to work most mornings, despite being aware of a busy day ahead, I feel a wave of contentment. Today is another day of learning, not only about the things I do, but about myself. How I respond to the given situation of the day and how I can further improve. Gone are the days when I had to cry before leaving the front door of our apartment during week days. I suppose this is how contentment feels like, it feels good and so does its sibling named happiness.

When someone asks me the question, are you happy? I am now confidently glad to answer, "Yes I am."  It's my turn to pass this question to you, the same way someone did to me some time ago.

Are you happy today?

Have a beautiful weekend everyone!
Love & Light,
Arni

After a relaxing day in  Colombo, we hired a taxi driver as a tour guide to take us to Kandy. We stopped by Geragama Tea Plantation and Factory  where we had an educational tour in the art of tea making. Sri Lanka is the world's fourth largest producer of tea. It was interesting to see the process from wilting and preventing oxidation of the plucked tea leaves, rolling, drying, and sorting all the way to packaging. The famous Ceylon Black Tea is not to be missed and our trip was concluded by enjoying a cup in the tea room.

It's Ramadan in Dubai and we have a week left before I could happily gulp a cold soothing beverage while I'm out in the open. Where we are, it's unlawful to be seen eating and drinking in public. Being in a 49 degree Celsius ( 120 degree F) weather, we spend most of our time indoors in the confines of air conditioning. At the end of Ramadan, we look forward to having a 2-3 day non-working holiday in August for the festive season called Eid. 

Gangaramaya Temple

Around the same time a couple of years ago, our Eid holidays allowed us to have a total of 5 days off because it fell next to a weekend. I was supposed to travel to Spain with friends in an arranged tour since my husband didn't want to go anywhere. At the last minute, the whole tour package was cancelled because everyone in the tour backed out. I still wanted to go,but the overall expense for traveling solo was double than what I have personally budgeted for. I was extremely disappointed. 

Surprise Surprise

My husband decided to book a trip to Sri Lanka for us instead from the Travel Fund. He made all of the arrangements.  It was a trip of comfort this time around, not our usual backpacking ride-on-top-of-a-jeepney kind of trip. It was one of those rare moments where the accommodation was booked in advance and (gasp)  in a five star hotel. 

On the night of our departure, I was surprised to find an Emirates Airline Pickup Service at our front porch.  To my disbelief, he got us Business Class tickets. When we reached the dedicated Business Class drop off area of Dubai Airport Terminal 3, we were both in for a treat at the check-in counter when we were sent to First Class instead. It was one of those really unbelievable moments where we were both amazed and felt really lucky!