something like a fashion post

All right! Let me take you for a walk in Diyatalawa! First I show you how the people dry their clothes once there is a rain break and some sun.

Then on your right side you will meet the lady tailor Gertrud. She is very sweet and I gave her some work to do! You will the results later.

On the left side there is these 2 guys, I dont know their names, but they know me. Because I enjoy so much dogging in their piles of old clothes, mainly coming from the West. 80ies jackets and sweaters. But on the picture you see the winter collection "made in Sri Lanka". I bought a silk safari print jacket which got transformed into a sari blouse. Which I am wearing without a sari. I hope that is ok.

 

I took my safarishirt out to the Barefoot Cafe in Colombo, to drink a nice papayajuice. The Barefoot cafe is the place where you can spend hours looking at the beautiful handloom fabrics they sell (like that table cloth). Fortunately the EC-cash machine did not work that day, so I only bought a post card.

There was also a retro poster exhibition. One poster illustrates the sri lankan railroad experience. I add a picture from the train in Diyatalawa.

Puja, sunset & tea time

We had a hindu priest coming over to make a tradional ceremony for us (puja). The altar decoration was pretty amazing: flowers, bananas, cake, inscense and rice and sound and fire and many good wishes and blessings for all of us and our families.

On Tuesday we took the train to Ella, a town  which has a bit more to show ans therefore also more tourists. We had a nice tea time in a chic old hotel, including a panoramic view down to the valley.

We also went to see the Rawana Waterfalls. Rawana is the name of a daemon who is very famous in hindu story telling. Around this waterfall there is supposed to be the cave where he was hiding a beautiful girl named Sita. Her boyfriend had to come all the way from India to get her back...

This morning we climbed up the hill next to the temple to watch the sunset. The air was very clear and very fresh and the light was very bright. It is really powerful to start the day like that:

This is a snapshot from Bandarawela town, where there is a big tea shop. And seems like Dracula build a castle there, too..

Besides this life goes on as usual in the villa... and I got in contact with fashion again! I found a kind of second hand market on the street where you can buy fancy 80ies sweaters (from Europe and the USA I guess)- very funny! One 80ies safari print silk jacket will be transformed into a sari blouse, I will show you the result. Another shop I found is selling used old handmade night dresses which are really beautiful. And of course I gave my favourite pants to the tailor to make a copy. The tailor is called Gertrud and she seems really nice. I have the feeling the next post will be a fashion post....

Buddha and the umbrella

Seems like Buddha is using the same trick as the sri lankan local people do: they wear an umbrella to not get tanned. The Buddha on the right side doesn't care too much- maybe because he is over 2000 years old anyways...

This is Ravi, the wonderful man who takes care of us.
He also makes sure we bring some flowers to Lord Buddha!





And this is impressions from Sri Lankan photo shooting in Bandarwela. Luckily we need the photo only for the Visa application.

The view from our balcony when the sun has gone.. and there is no rain.

Madame yogateacher took us for little hike to the mountains.
There we are sitting next to the Buddha with the umbrella.

The was a storm, trees fell onto cables, so we have no electricity. Only a few lamps are working because they are connected to an extra generator. (The internet works somehow..) Now even those lights are off, so I will go to bed. If I find it :)