Egg Hoppers

It's a great truism, but it's amazing what a great breakfast can do to turn around an ugly mood.  Granted, few people love food more than me, and this is especially true in regards to breakfast.  I suppose it helps when you never seem to sleep later than 5:30 a.m., so you're uniquely qualified to take advantage of breakfast. What led to this strange digression?  Now that Proust, or at least this round of Proust, is finished, I figured that it was time to get back to the original purpose of this blog: travel stories and pictures.  As we enter the mad rush to get everything ironed out for the upcoming Jordan trip, it's difficult to remember that it was only a year ago that we were doing the same thing to get ready to head out to India and Sri Lanka.  Sadly, I don't think I appreciated Sri Lanka, at least at the beginning, as much as I could have.  While we were in India we suddenly realized that we had a potential visa problem; essentially, we had a single entry India visa but because of the peculiarity of our ticket situation we actually needed a multiple entry visa.  Happily, eventually the esteemed Inder and Rohit from Tiger Paws Adventures solved the problem, but it was all that we thought of for several days as we fretted over the situation. At one point in Sri Lanka I even called Senator Leahy's office back here in Vermont to ask them for guidance/help/leverage in attaining another round of Indian visas (which the excellent Elin from OIE managed to pull off in the middle of a blizzard).  It's bizarre to think about the fact that at one point in the chaos we almost cancelled out on the Sri Lankan part of the trip, mainly because we were afraid we'd get in Sri Lanka and wouldn't be able to leave.  In the end we ended up going because we didn't really have a choice; all the money had already been spent on Sri Lankan hotels and tours, so there was no money to hang out in India anyway (although we devoted time to pursuing that option).  Anyway, the whole point of this was that I, and I suspect Cyndi and I, showed up in Sri Lanka exhausted and apprehensive and fretting over a bunch of seemingly intractable problems, and not, at least initially, prepared to enjoy Sri Lanka.  We had flown out of Mumbai in the middle of the night, adding to the blur.  We landed in Colombo early in the morning and it was already broiling hot, although pretty soon we climbed into higher terrains and it grew comfortably cool.  After climbing onto a lovely, comfortable and glorious air-conditioned bus we drove for an hour or so and then stopped for breakfast.  What I didn't know about Sri Lanka is that they make a killer breakfast, which immediately endeared them to me.  My great discovery were egg hoppers, a magic construction that sort of looks like an inverted Islamic taqiyah, but with a fried egg in it.  Despite my offer of $5 none of the students would plop the egg hopper on their heads.  I guess the point of this whole thing is that I wasn't prepared to enjoy the Sri Lanka part of the trip, which was a pity because I quickly grew to love it there, but a quick egg hopper (OK, three egg hoppers) shook me out of my funk.

Seriously, who knew that Sri Lankans cooked such great breakfasts?

OK, so I might have a problem, as egg hoppers #2 and #3 might tell you.  I desperately need to figure out how to make these things, because I doubt if I'll find a restaurant to make me one here in Vermont. #YankeeHellhole