It is the little things

It is the little things that remind me I'm in Delhi. The way each week the dogs outside my neighbor's gate seem to have a slightly fancier place to rest - the most recent addition being some shade provided by a rainbow striped umbrella. How driving back from the airport this afternoon we passed approximately 20 men dressed in white and orange riding camels. The slightly crazy mural painted on the wall of the water department which includes a giant octopus with a third eye. The yellow and green tuktuks trolling the streets for passengers. These are just a few of the things that remind me I'm in Delhi. After all where else you could see this all within one car ride?

On safari in Sri Lanka

Another of the stops that we made was a short visit to Yala National Park in the Southeastern corner of Sri Lanka. One good thing about jet lag is that it sure makes it easy to wake up for a 5:00 safari - didn't even require an alarm clock. We headed to Yala because it has the world's (?) largest concentration of leopards. Not that that means that leopards are easy to find. Other animals are much more common…we saw a plethora of water buffalo, several jackals, wild boar, mongoose, spotted deer, peacocks a plenty, crocodiles, an eagle, monitor lizards, lots of colorful birds - including the national bird of Sri Lanka, and finally….as we were getting close to having to leave the park, all but hidden back in the trees a leopard. Or was it a pair? Hard to tell, but at one point I thought that maybe I saw two waving tails. My pictures - poor as they are - are still a better view of it then I had with my eye (its all about the zoom!). At least I was able to leave satisfied, knowing I had "seen" a leopard even if we didn't manage to see an elephant despite being told they sometimes roam through the hotel grounds.

Tea, tea, as far as you can see

The last week of my vacation I headed to Sri Lanka. With just a week there we decided to do an overview of some of what the country had to offer…namely tea plantations, national parks and the beach. I've been to tea areas before. After all Turkey has a vibrant tea culture with tea grown in the Rize area and India proudly boasts its Darjeeling tea. However I ended up being overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the land dedicated to growing tea in Sri Lanka. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the tea plantations that seem to be endless to my eyes account for just 4% of the land mass of Sri Lanka. I then got more curious - turns out that tea only counts for 2% of GDP but totals in at 15% of exports. It might be 15% of Sri Lankan exports but it accounts for up to 23% of the world tea market (ranking number one or two - Kenya is a close competitor).

As we drove through the tea country and I watched women working in fields to pick the tips off the plants, often on hillsides that I couldn't even imagine balancing on; I was struck by just how labor intensive this crop is. Employing over a million people, the tea sector employs at least 5% of the country's population. Many of those the men that care for the plants and spray pesticides from a container on their back and the women who strap a bag onto the back to place tea leaves in before accumulating them in a wicker basket earning around 500 rupees a day (according to our driver), approximately $3.80. And yet the smiles on their faces are big. They chat as they go. They leave their houses in the early morning to walk to the current field they are working on, taking a break mid morning for breakfast. They lay a wooden stick on top of already picked plants as a guide for how far down to pick the next ones. They take a break for lunch. They pick all afternoon. Then they get up and do it all over again the next day. Think about that the next time you drink a cup of Ceylon tea.

A new year's resolution

The start of the new year has been a bit crazy for me - travel will often do that. I've only got a three hour turn around time before I have to head back to the airport for my flight to Sri Lanka, but I thought I'd just share with you a project that my best friend and I are doing. Our new year's resolution is to take a photo a day (based off of themes we picked while I was home for Christmas) and to post our photos side by side on a weekly basis. So, if you would enjoy a look at the differences that 8,343 miles bring to our pictures you might want to check out our blog. (You can get new posts delivered to your inbox by submitting your e-mail in the box that says "follow by email" and then following up to verify you really want to receive them).