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so you're thinking of coming to sri lanka or you're not really sure what to fully expect this is exactly why we came up north maybe all of the famous Instagram they don't pay me enough for this they really don't baby don't worry whatever it is that you are looking for we're gonna share with you our honest experiences in this wild and colorful country and because we are the budget ears and we specialize in having bigger and better adventures unless money we're doing all of this on less than a thousand dollars each so sit down and relax and join us on this epic journey around sri lanka appetize do is roll that intro food series four was made possible thanks to Sri Lankan Airlines providing convenient and cheap connections to the island book
your flights with Sri Lankan Airlines we're also brought to you by a wonder go the must-have app for any digital Nomad discover destinations workspaces accommodation and much more download it for free from the App Store today after road tripping Sri Lanka for over ten days with our very own tooktook we had seen and experienced some pretty amazing things we've explored the lesser-known areas of north and east and are now making our way through the most touristy areas of Sri Lanka like the last episode where we visited the number-one tourist attraction in Sri Lanka called Sigiriya Rock and reviewed what that experience was really like but in this episode we're gonna leave the cultural triangle
of Sri Lanka with its beautiful temples behind and head downwards south towards the very remote region called the knuckles range Rita from tuk-tuk rental told us about this place and urged us to see it because no tourists whatsoever come to this very remote the beautiful mountain region it's supposed to be very cool but also very hard to get to and find your way around it so thankfully week's a call of a friend named a vendor who agreed to help us out and show us the way for free this all sounded perfect to us because we love a challenge and exploring the off being paths but to make it there we needed to get up early 6 o'clock only the dots to get on the road straight away we only had time to stop for a quick
breakfast by the side of the road and to pick up aravinda in the city of Maithili before getting off the main road and making our way up the little roads into the mountains after another two hours of driving uphill we had made it into the foothills of the knuckles but before heading deeper into the jungle we stopped in one of the last villages final chance we can get some food yes we were beginning to definitely feel that early morning start that we'd gotten so we decided to take a rest and sit around the fire with the locals they served us some really nice tea that was freshly grown from right there and we even got to taste some local snacks like this new and exotic fruit crazy sounds good
Indian Amla starts off extremely sour and then gets slightly sweet up slightly it's like an unripe grape anyway it did wake us up and energize us for the road ahead and we were gonna need it because we could only go at a slow pace since our Zita was fully loaded now with all our baggage and for people to carry up the mountain but our took to handle that and soon we got greeted by some pretty views and we finally realized why this nature reserve is actually called knuckles since the gentle Falls and peaks of the mountains do look a bit similar sometimes to the knuckles of a clenched fist but we kept going up along our way slowly uphill and took extra care in avoiding a steep cliffs just beside road and soon these are the famous sri lankan
tea plantations on the mountain flanks we saw the local women slaving away in the Sun and picking bags full of fresh tea leaves we were all amazed by what we saw here and we took dozens of stops along the way to admire the beautiful surroundings but aravinda wanted to take us up even higher to one of the mountain peaks he told us at these high altitudes live very diverse and unique plants and animals that you cannot find anywhere else in the world he explained a lot to us about this unique ecosystem and he had such a great eye to spotting the plentiful creatures that live up here Wow and this pellets right along feels super funny take but this strange reptile is even more special this is the horned lizard and it
is only found in this very unique ecosystem sadly it is also endangered so we let it be in peace and we continued our hike further up the mountain towards the tower where we were welcomed with the most amazing view you could see all around and we really just took our time and really appreciated the wonder of nature after some time we went back down into another valley below because aravinda had arranged a lunch for us at a local sri lankan family home i'll give you at the village voltmeter villa in the lattice mountain ridge i think you guys
are hungry because we're gonna go into a village house I'm gonna have a authentic Sri Lankan food at the beautiful village house are you hungry guys yes the Sri Lankan hospitality is truly amazing and we were really grateful to be welcomed into this family home where they had cooked a feast for us fool Allah what a spread it was a really typical sri lankan meal plain rice with au which is a mixture of lentils and peas with spices and a vegetable curry of sugar snap peas and green beans all together with a spicy coconut sambal honestly we cannot get enough of it afterwards we chilled out and drank some tea and wandered around the back garden we found these big open rice fields that had great panoramic
views over to the other side of the Knuckles mountains so with our bellies filled aravinda wanted to show us one last thing a beautiful waterfall which was about 40 minutes drive away so he hopped in the tuk-tuk to check it out so we made it to the secluded hidden waterfall the creases drive I've ever done what a workout and obviously when you drive down a 10-kilometer I'm period you thinking well we're gonna have the woeful to ourselves yeah we the opposite there is a film here making a movie that we've been on series to no strangers in India or
maybe we can get a new camera okay hopefully they've finished filming and we actually can therefore swim and so we climbed down the steep rock face unfortunately the film crew had just backed up for today and after an hour we mostly had the place to ourselves and we could now understand why the big film crew chose this very remote film location it truly had something magical we've um so yeah we really enjoyed ourselves a lot at the waterfall but for God we still needed to drive 40 minutes on these crazy roads to get back so we needed to hurry because the last line is fading fast it was getting really dark as we go further through
wow what a rise my shoulders thankfully this sri lankan family took great care of us and they had already arranged for us a place to sleep just up the road at a homestay of a relative's so with everything sorted for us we were able to just get comfortable relax and we decided to even give Sri Lankan TV a try clearly though we didn't understand a single word but not long after the power cut out which happens quite a lot here but nevertheless we enjoyed our dinner with the candlelight and we topped it off with some warm beers which we had stashed under the top hook for emergencies yes and then we went to sleep early all very tired after such an eventful day
good morning why me this is probably one of the most beautiful sunrises who's experienced on the strip so far also and at the coldest I just wanted to call us through the mountains I actually woke up from the cold oh yeah I was feeling you know it generators it's been early it's really think it's five o'clock yeah that's why we can see this beautiful sunrise over the body Betty's still sleeping Trump will wake him up you know I think in our commitment or maybe we should wake him up right now to experience this wish they had some coffee ah oh I wish Zika city very well yesterday hey princess we've still got about a 6 o'clock in the morning even earlier think it's just gone six oh six things coming up that way
what a beautiful place do you wake up from the cold zone now work up cousin easily right see you thank you very much have a good day oh you gonna get the bus oh yeah okay quickly you're gonna miss the boat okay bye thank you and while our hosts went off to work we sit quietly and just enjoy the beautiful sunrise while the bus that are further through the valley it took some time for the first sunrays to shine over the mountainside but when it did we were really amazed of just how gorgeous this valley truly is
afterwards the grandmother cooked us a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast which gave us all the strength we needed for one final trek this time up another high peak on the other side of the valley and thankfully Aravind his friend was willing to guide us and so we were able to set off quite early this Trek was going to take us four hours so we had to settle into a steady climb the Trek has begun and along the way we were hoping to see more exotic wildlife let's try and find this guy but the only thing we saw were a lot of spider webs filled with horrific looking spiders but we did see loads of beautiful butterflies come on where you going buddy wait you guys be careful rolling spider webs please look at him go
and we had the lovely company of a trusty dog who guided us all the way up the mountain Wow and about first view of the night uh-huh and where the behind ties his head yeah is where we were yesterday on that big granite are you coming or are you gonna lick your bum let's go come on oh he's back and it was a good thing he was with us
because in the thick forest suddenly giant creatures appeared along the track but the dog played our path and scared the Buffaloes away hey guys we come in peace what's the price water before I know all the way through the jungle and we made it up to this yeah good question how do you think out of here yeah have you guys got tickets for up here cuz uh how about that for a view though
and so it was clear that we had found the water buffalos very own mountain resort complete with a watering hole and incredible views lovely day we just hiked up to the top and we're just coming down and we decided to stop at this beautiful viewpoint yeah one of many pupils yeah the tops my favorite you could we came up and there's this beautiful meadow and the water buffalo just hanging out there and just views for days and we've only seen two other foreign three other foreigners no tourism here well very little tourism this is a really untouched part of Sri Lanka for sure and
we would later up with it soon to go to places like Ella where it's very mountainous but also super popular with backpackers so if you're looking for a really remote located stay and local experience exactly to the nettles region yeah and contact the guys contact aravinda again his instagrams below because if you do want ridiculous like this is like Swiss Alps in the summer it's just stunning like we're walking in everywhere we go and look at the views like and we only did three out of there like many tracks that you can do here there's so many different tracks you can do in this areas yeah and there's a few more waterfalls we haven't seen yeah we could stay for a week easy
happily yeah honestly this is one of the high points of the trip already you really feel my ago at home here what's next we're heading down breakfast cuz we're hungry yeah breakfast yeah teatime yeah we're on a busy schedule need to make our way down out of the mountain rate whoo range which will be crazy right once again yeah and then we're gonna make our way to candy yes I mean it's fine hostel and yeah get on with the next adventure but there's medicals range anything yeah okay so I come to the knuckles range guys yes amazing let's go back downstairs yes let's go so we made a way bend down through the spider infested forest and back to our beloved little seed this for our morning hike had our blood pumping we were going
to need that as you know how to be careful driving for hours now through the steep and very sharp turns of their rough mountain roads once again and after a few hours we had squeeze our way through the valleys back down towards the flat roads leading south towards the city of candy but not without being stopped by the police a couple of times all those police checkpoints and dangerous speeding buses has gotten us tired and hungry but luckily we found the cheapest rising curve of our entire trip only two and a half dollars for three meals and that always cheers as budget tears up and after a very long journey we quickly
found a place to sleep in tamna which is relight the second biggest city so to have a look around the town we went for an evening stroll around this beautiful Lake before it got dark and decided to end the video here so we survived the drive crazy drive up here and we've made it to candy and we checked into our hostel the Sun is setting and decided to come out and start exploring the city which we're loving so far yeah it's amazing but this next level this beautiful lay is like to see in doing handy so we'll save that for the next episode and yeah we really appreciate you watching this episode and we hope that you enjoyed the knock you yeah you really love the knuckles region I think you can tell he was really off the beaten path
which is really the budgeteers and thanks again to our vinda and our local host yes for their hospitality we really appreciate it and if you want to see more about city of candy and what there is to explore here we're gonna show you all of that in the next episode so don't forget to Like subscribe and share and come back next time and hello every day wherever you thanks for watching the budgeteers if you liked this episode please consider giving us a like and subscribe it would really help us out and don't forget to turn that bellow so you never miss an episode if you're planning to go traveling yourself do consider bringing your very own budgeteers t-shirt we have our own online shop with many cool designs as
you've seen in this episode we cannot get enough of the real traditional Sri Lankan curries but what is a local dish you've had and never forgot and really wish to taste again we're curious to know what it is and what country it's from so comment down below and we'll just leave you with this teaser for the next episode in candy so see you next week the Instagram like jump on there I stand on his lap a YouTube channel was arrested today for defacing a Buddha statue but they got 500 likes so that was all that manner
