Ayurvedic & Dirty Colombo

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Ayurvedic is such a big thing in India and Sri Lanka that they have Ayurvedic Hospitals where people check in for a couple of days to get wholesome healing. Patients usually come for arthritis, after chemo, joint pains and all sorts of other stuff. In Malaysia, we only have the spas.

They couldn’t give us all complimentary treatments so we paid for it ourselves. RM50 is quite a steal for an hour massage so we didn’t mind. The massage is quite similar to the normal aromatherapy ones except that they use a heck a lot of ayurvedic oil all over you and oh, we had to consult a doctor before the therapy so that he can suggest what kind of oil or therapy is suitable. The therapist is quite unlike in Malaysia where they are very particular about covering your modesty. Here, its everything off and they just throw a bathrobe over you which doesn’t really cover much, if you know what I mean :P

Doc said that I’m a fire and flame person – my body’s very heaty and thus need a lot of water to cool me down. I now officially have the bragging rights to say I was born hot! Ha!

Ayurvedic Hospital & Spa

We went to the local markets after that which was not what I expected it to be. I thought it was like our Petaling Street or Thailand’s markets but it was mainly for the locals to buy their clothes, shoes and electronic parts. So noisy and dusty! Feet were black when I came back. Didn’t buy much but stopped by a local shop to try their tea. So far so good, no diarrhea or anything. Deep bought more local arrack and ta paued some street food too. Saw a Kelisa there too! Perodua sells Viva here as well.

Colombo markets
Street food

Local arrack shop

Sri Lankan Kelisa!!

Whacked the other bottle of sparking white, Blue Nun (this time without the 22 carat gold flakes), before dinner at Curry Leaf, another restaurant within Hilton’s grounds. Hilton has 10 F&B outlets! This place had a very nice ambience by the pond and they had seafood! Finally tasted the Sri Lankan crabs & damn huge lobsters. Oh, and there was plenty of white wine too.

Huge lobster

A bunch of us decided to take a walk down to the beach where Mazlan said there were some stalls there. The esplanade is major security zone as the parliament was within the vicinity and there were soldiers with AK47s all over the place. We were not allowed to stop or take photographs at all but Deep managed to convince one soldier for a photo. Was so scared that we were gonna get arrested or shot or something. Some soldiers were friendly, some were just grumpy.

Didn’t make it to the stalls as malas walk already. Patah balik to the Hotel for a so called early night as wake up call was at 4.30am. What a bummer but good night in all.