Day 2 Catch Up written by Georgie, Faye and Leanne

Day 2 Catch Up

Firstly, we're very sorry for the delay in posting, the Wi-Fi hasn't been great and we've just been so busy with all the amazing activities!!

We began the day at 7:00AM with breakfast ready at 8:00AM. This consisted of waffles, doughnuts, sugar rolls, omelettes, fruit etc. which all went down a treat! After filling our faces, we headed up to our luxury rooms to pack our last few bits together for our continuous journey when we heard Sophia, Stormie and Rachel had found a cheeky monkey sitting on their bed!! That definitely taught us not to keep our balcony doors open!

Our first destination after leaving Thailanka Hotel was the Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic. Before we entered, we were taught about Buddha and the Buddhism Religion and then headed in (with no shoes!!) to the Temple. Wearing no shoes was an interesting experience for the group as our parents have conditioned us not to walk around barefoot due to possible sharp items on the ground, however it was also nice to experience their day to day actions. For us personally, the Temple wasn't anything like we expected - it was much more colourful, loud and busy! In the Temple we saw a religious music performance and various items that meant a lot to Buddhists such as lotus flowers and a special shrine. Afterwards we went into a little museum where we saw King Rajha which is a tusker elephant which they consider to be very sacred.

Later, we went to a tea factory where we took part in a competition to see which group could pluck the most tea leaves, we learnt how the different Sri Lankan teas are made and then even tasted a type of tea called BOPF which could even be used to cure cancer! We were surprised as to how many variations of tea there were and BOPF was a lot sweeter than we thought it would be, but really nice. After that, we hopped back onto the coach and headed off to a jungle of cosmetics!! Here we also had lunch and we had to cross a wobbly bridge high above the ground to get there, which was every exciting!!

The 'cosmetic jungle' was filled with lots of natural products such as hair oil, slimming sets, perfume, skin creams and hair removal cream, which was demonstrated on Jake's leg. We were shown how to make some of the products by the Sri Lankan people. During this not only did we get a massage, but it was using some of the fancy oils; it was lush! We were then taken to the shop where we could buy some of the products and then headed home, all very tired after such a great day!

Georgie, Faye and Leanne xxx