Sri Lankan diary. Part 1

 

mouse proofing the food

  Lots of advance planning built the anticipation for this special vacation. Jaquetta had the idea of a cousin’s reunion years in advance and, after one false start, announced the celebration of her 80th birthday. She bought tickets for everyone to the Cadell hotel in Sri Lanka. Her birthday falls on the 15th of January meaning the dates of the gathering centered on the children's Christmas school holidays. Thomasina joined Caroline and Dominic who flew from London to Rome to join us for the flight to Colombo. Kuwait Airlines was chosen on price. We booked well in advance, but they rescheduled us twice [I think] which fouled up our other bookings a little bit and reinforced our worries about the reputation of the airline. But that was a minor inconvenience. On the day before their flight from London, someone stole Caroline's bag from the car, luckily missing her passport but getting most of her carefully packed clothing and some of her money.

Isolde to Rome

   After a frantic shopping spree, the three of them flew to Rome where Caroline and Dominic would spend the night in a hotel and Thomasina billeted with her friends Bookie and Izzy at home in Rome. We decided to send Isolde down to Rome by train by herself to join the young girls on the 15th of December. Alex and I spent our last night at home, taking the train down in the morning to meet everyone at the airport. We pre-purchased excellent tickets, but the train came to a dead stop half way there and we found ourselves biting our nails during a 45 minute delay.

  Together we managed the confusion of Roma Termini train station, the airport shuttle, airport check-in and security; excitement and nervousness growing with every minute. Finally, in the air, we all settled down to an easy flight of four hours to Kuwait City soothed with meals and snacks and entertainment very unlike the bare-bones treatment we are used to flying back and forth to London on RyanAir.

in Colombo

   Kuwait City airport gets pretty rough reviews on the internet but I found it just fine. I prefer smaller airports with their shorter walkways and more intimate settings. We did have to pass through a security line but is was short and quick compared to western airports. Although we stuck out as obvious western tourists with our shabby backpacks, drab clothing, and clannish ways, we attracted nothing but polite smiles and courteous behavior. After a remarkably long shuttle out to our next plane we took off again into dark skies. Kuwait is nothing but hot, flat desert. Nothing lives out there except oil wells. It’s entirely featureless. Kuwait City is the only population center and it’s reported to be the hottest city in the world. During the first Gulf War, retreating Iraqi forces set fire to the oil fields causing terrible damage. Huge lakes of oil leaked out onto the flat sand where it partially burned. The remaining tar dried in the sun creating massive acreage of nothing but blacktop. I caught a glimpse of this on the approach, but take-off showed only the glimmering city in clear, desert darkness.

fruit stop on the way to Dambulla

   We landed in Colombo, Sri Lanka,  and emerged into the thick humidity and lovely yellow light of early morning. We had decided earlier to hire a van to take us inland and away from the big city immediately. This was a big push after a long day especially since the roads proved more chaotic than anticipated. The cheery driver, Alan, prepared us, saying that we must share the road with tuk-tuks, bicycles, pedestrians, cows and dogs but that he would do his best. And so he did, rocketing us around with great thrusts, bold passing maneuvers, and emergency brakings serving as constant entertainment. Seatbelts not even mentioned. Alex, who gets seasick on a boogie board, didn’t bat an eye passing around a variety of mashed up food from the bottom of her handbag. To my soft, over-indulged, American sensibilities I thought to myself the towns we passed through looked pretty desperate and I expected our well-reviewed destination to be much more attractive. Despite it all, and all the wild and strange sights, we eventually fell into a silent, dozy state until, two hours later, being suddenly delivered to the most ramshackle, run-down, pathetic ruin of a one-road downtown in the third world. Caroline had booked our first guest house, Tanaya Treats, based on the glowing reviews of Booking.Com (which I can't find any longer). The driver threaded his way through an easily missed gap in the tacky sheet metal, broken wood, and greasy windows of what served as “store fronts” for mysterious enterprises. We eased into a palm-treed construction zone. The boss was overly excited to greet us

the drivers left hand is on a stalk which controls the horn
which he plays constantly

and someone brought out a tray of drinks. The place was thinly populated by slow moving construction workers using crude hand tools somewhat ineffectively. There was no one else staying, but despite that, our room wasn’t ready and we were obliged to stand our sweaty, tired children in the “lobby” amongst the heavy pile of luggage. Then up two flights to a deck in the palm trees and a confusing choice of bedrooms. Dominic and the girls got the one with the bigger bathroom. Caroline and Alex took the other room. Both bathrooms filled with girls bathing and cooling and primping before everyone fell asleep leaving me to stretch out on a wooden luggage rack. Luckily I could find way to my luggage rack with a light I remembered to bring. A policy of hot, utter darkness was quickly enforced since no screens or mosquito nets could be found and we enjoyed our rooms for two days in groping darkness.

at the feet of the Buddha

  Months ago we planned the afternoon's outing to the ancient cave temple there in Dambulla thus fulfilling the demands of our guide book. The guide book neglected to mention how hot, sweaty, dirty and smelly we sensitive westerners would find this center of commercial agriculture. No sidewalks, just a narrow track beaten along between unpleasant concrete boundaries and suicidal traffic. We trudged along for a kilometre or two until the modern, outrageously gaudy golden Buddha appeared. Somehow we dodged the thousands of rupees in entrance fees and, skirting the collosal Buddha, we began our exhausting pilgrimage up to the top of a small rock mountain, dodging persistent peddlars and more pleasant monkeys.

  Over the course of the next few weeks, we would grow accustomed to the shocking appearance of everything and warm to the people. Once past all the flim-flam and face to face with the icons, I began to theorize that this calm and content religion helped encourage similar characteristics in the society. The Buddha statues wear Mona Lisa smiles and the greetings we would meet on the street would mirror this. I  tended to guard my girls, my rucksack, my wallet, and passport like an Italian in Naples; but at no time did I ever feel at risk, even when pressed hard in public buses or markets. Leaving a bus once after paying a fare, a man tapped me and handed back a credit card that had fallen out of my wallet. Always helpful. Never stern or confrontational.

 Alex and Caroline are experienced Asian travelers, visiting both Viet Nam and India and more. Following their leadership, we drank only bottled water and rarely, local beer (which cost a lot, being frowned on by true Buddhists). That evening the girls and I followed Alex and Caroline who followed their noses into a dirty doorway. There stood a sweaty guy creating a deafening racket with two cleavers against a steel grill. This “kottu” we eventually chewed on and I guessed it was a chopped up mix of cabbage, flour tortillas and chili. I brought from Italy our standard illness: a combination of feverish headache and mild tummy ache. Neither the long travel not the curried tortilla flour helped my troubles. Neither did napping on wooden slats. In fact none of this enlightened deprivation was doing much for me and I wasn't unhappy to get out of Dambulla the next day and head for a cycle around the vast ruins of Pollonaruwa.

  Wikipedia describes the world heritage site of the Kingdom of Pollonaruwa as the second most ancient of Sri Lanka’s kingdoms dating from 10-something AD. It’s a city spread over what feels like square miles of flatish thin jungle with the odd rock, ruin, and temple sticking up. A couple varieties of monkeys run the place along with a collection of birds. It’s so big that tour busses take loads of people from site to site but the most fun is to rent a bicycle and roam around. Among the attractions is an enormous man-made lake that is still serves to irrigate the local rice paddies. One may cycle the length of the lake to view a special sculpture and this we did, getting caught in a torential monsoon-style downpour. Experienced cyclists among us ducked for cover, but others soldiered on enjoying the cooling rain, spitting the party in two. We particularly enjoyed the museum [during the rain] which demonstrated the incorporation of hinduism into the older buddhist temples. There pranced Vishnu, Ganesh etc. around the outer shines while the sublime Buddha sat in quite contemplation within the center of whatever temple we were gazing at. The day remains a highlight of the vacation.

tourists on bus

   Another night overlooking the construction zone and another night listening to clattering “kottu” and we were packed and standing by in the street the next morning, waiting for a bus with six empty seats. Off to Kandy we were, and a first look at the mountainous region of central SriLanka. And a lovely sight it is, but not from public bus windows. The hot, crowded, sweaty buses with the ridiculous frayed curtains flapping in the open windows and the persistent back beat of popular music playing loudly over the roar of the mechanics. What an impact on the senses! And who knows where we get off? No idea. The seats are for women, children and elderly which describes pretty much everyone on the buses. The young men all own either tuk-tuks [which can earn you money] or motor scooters or small motor cycles. I was pleased to see Isolde and Thomasina engaging locals in conversaton on the buses and I didn’t pay much attention to the old grannies who warned us of all the letcherous males. Nobody really smelled bad [except me] and I quickly got used to the crowding. A two hour bus ride might cost 150 rupees per person [.75 pence, sterling]. Several bus lines serve the need. The oldest and most primitive are the ”government” buses, identified by their boxy, red look and noisy mechanics. Seats are thin as well as narrow. They are obliged to stop often and seem to stop wherever the passengers wish, often just slowing to allow someone to hop on or off. Blue buses are run by private companies and are often busily decorated, sometimes sporting loud sound systems. There are lots of buses, they are cheap, and they are all packed and heavily used; smelly, smoky, noisy and uncomfortable, their popularity testifies to how effective public transportation can be. We used them all the time and, despite being squeezed longer and more tightly than ever before, I grew oddly fond of them, as long as I had my earplugs. Of course, I had neglected to use the internet connection at the last “hotel” to get the phone number or address of our next bed and breakfast. This one was my responsibility and I had reserved it from Italy using AirBnB. Ameelia Guest House sat on top of a mountain looking away from the city of Kandy into the mountain ranges. It was a few minutes from town by tuk-tuk but where we got off the bus and how we contacted the host became a growing concern the closer we got to the town. By dumb luck, Alex sat next to young Australians who had a mobile internet connection. We followed them off the bus, lost in a new, crowded city. Using their phone, we called our new host and got meeting instructions. There we were, standing in the shade of the central clock tower in the middle of a busy roundabout, anchored by our luggage, providing the local traffic with a new novelty. Out of the blur, an out stretched hand, a smiling face approached, gathered us up and got us on another bus to a couple of tuk tuks and in a few minutes we were out of the city, standing on his veranda under a mango tree, enjoying a huge view.