Sri Lankan diary. Part 3

  On the 23rd of December our van driven by Blackie crested the mountain pass crowded with small vegetable farms and we descended a few hundred meters into the old tea station of Nuwarelia [“New wah rail ya,” accent on rail]. The guide books give it a pass, but Blackie drove us through at a stately pace, passed the golf courses, parks, and what must have been a polo or cricket field. He grandly drove us up to the front door of the grand Hotel, waving to the uniformed doorman and on down the road to the somewhat distant train station. Call me a sentimental imperialist dog, a capitalist pig, out of touch with the people, or an insensitive tourist; but I thought this place showed off Sri Lanka at it’s finest value. How I missed this on our itinerary, I don’t know. Here was clear cool air, good living, fresh vegetables, a minimum of awful squalor and a sort of harmonic feel of agreement with the mountain environment. We should have booked a stay here. If I were to do it again, I would. Catching the train here was a good strategy on Blackie’s part, and we could have done it without him had we only known. All too quickly we were through Nuwarelia and onto the not so beautiful train platform

where the intrigue reached it’s peak. Blackie corralled us on one spot, put me in charge of the tourists, took a handful of big denominations and began his bribery. One minute he was part of the gang, cracking jokes with us; the next minute he would vanish and return to introduce me to someone who didn’t speak English. “Wait here for this guy. He will reserve the seats for you, he works for the railroad, I have known him for 25 years [he didn’t look a day over 23], the seats might not be together. He will cost 5000 rupees.”

  The train finally rolled in. There was a great shifting of people. Damned few got off that I could

count. We stayed put. Blackie and his man could be seen shuttling back and forth among the rail cars. Then he reappeared with a shake of the head. No reserved seats. You must stand. Come with me. We raced down the platform, stepped into a car, “No! Not that one.” Back down the train. Another car. People scurrying like sand crabs, leaving us like clods in slow motion with our heavy backpacks. Up step. Cram in. 5000 rupees returned in the scrum, and we found ourselves waving goodbye to Blackie as the train slowly gained speed. Despite his failure, I wished him well and felt he had done his best to the end.

  I can't decide if it was the highlight of the trip, but it did deliver wonderful scenery, winding slowly through the mountains on a fairly high traverse. Local farmers did try to use it. One poor guy sat on the sink. A couple of others brought their collection of hoes, cultivators and sacks of potatoes aboard, tangling the feet of the tourists. We found ourselves across from the counter of the dining car, windows only on one side. The car was crowded. Those who stood at the windows across from the counter held their territory, but sitting on the floor at the two open doors at the end of the car

delivered the most fun, and comfort. The train would pass a little tunnel, emerge on the opposite slope, and the sitters at the door would find their feet hanging over a sick-making precipice. One valuable door seat was occupied by a snoring, tattooed backpacker who tempted me to roll him out on a suitable traverse. The rest of us stood, pitching and weaving, staggered by the ageing track, stooping occasionally for a peak at the countryside. This could be a bus trip in that regard except for one thing. No road. Without a road to deliver customers, there were no roadside vendors with piles of coconuts, stacks of worn-out tires, smudgy cook fires, rusting tractor parts, cheesy Chinese clothing, and empty, rotting vendor shelters soiling the country. The views out of the window looked a lot better. No wonder this train ride is so popular among guidebook writers. And the popularity didn't really hit me until we pulled into Ella, our highly recommended, “quaint” little mountain town. The great press of white faces squeezed out of the train and clogged the platform, everybody dressed in the backpacker uniform, like me, leaving the train luxuriously empty. A local, caught in the crush looked at me and said, “Badulla is better..” Badulla is the final stop, and looking carefully at the map, we missed a nice length of track. I'm haunted by the thought that Blackie had the right idea but the start/stop stations wrong, but I'll never really know.

 

 Ella, then. Our next goal, The Tunnel Corner Guest House, we found under a low corrugated, verandah roof. The disarmingly smiley host had our rooms ready and served up a nice, complimentary tray of undrinkable tea or coffee on our arrival. Our low room contained two double beds with full, four-posted mosquito nets and no room for luggage and people. The mosquito nets almost touched the ceiling. Once two adults and two teenagers filled the beds, the temperature became unbearable. There might have been a window but I don't remember it; but it's surprising what one is willing to forgive for a place to safely drop a heavy backpack in a hot climate. Next stop, the loo. And then, the Wi-Fi password. After the long train ride, we didn't have a lot of time left for Ella, but we did have the intention of walking to the top of Little Adams peak. And that was great. It was such a relief to get ones feet on the actual ground. Dominic ran to the top in an alarming show of fitness, then he ran back down to us and ran up again. We stood on top just at sunset.  Leaving Ella, we also left the Central Highlands. Our bus rumbled across increasingly flat, hot, and humid open country occasionally relieved by sodden rice paddies or small lakes and clumps of rubber and coconut jungle. Throughout SriLanka I felt frustrated by my poor preparation for the plant life.
    Back in Dambulla, I loved it when Ebony and Teak trees were pointed out. Mango, Jack fruit, Papaya all grew in a jumble and I tried to keep them sorted. Three types of coconut were identified, including the hairy brown ones for eating (remarkably tender and mild compared to the dried out pulp we find in the supermarkets), and a smooth yellow one that locals would try and sell. They would lop the top off and stick in a straw and charge 100 or 200 rupees. My favorite is the pineapple, it's rough skin sliced off and the fruit radially sliced to present big up when held upside down by the leaves. You break off chunks of the spears getting sticky hands. Mangos are sliced longitudinally alongside the big seed giving two “halves” the flesh of which is crisscrossed. Then when the skin is inverted, the fruit is popped up presenting little cubes and the hairy seed with its rim of fruit gets handed to the kids.

      Move. Eat. Sleep. Move. Eat. Sleep. We were becoming nomads and the act of actually living in Sri Lanka seemed to be slipping through my fingers. We walked the length of main street once, then back, then stood in front of a restaurant that had a gadget high in a tree that projected tiny moving colored lights all over the road. There was nothing to learn here, except that mass market tourism is king.

      Next morning up early for a bus to Tissamaharama on the boundary of the Yala national park. At this point we had a gap in our planning. Leaving Italy, we had been unable to connect the tour from the mountains to the coastal resort where we would join the rest of the Cadell clan. In the way, stood national parks featuring wild animal safaris. Blackie told us to go to Yala and to get an old scout to drive us and that's what we did. The day before, Caroline and I made an Airbnb reservation on the fly that looked like a remarkable bargain, and with that as a goal we set off. The host of The Tunnel Corner escorted us to the roadside and waved on a couple of busses until the right one arrived. We'd have to anticipate our jumping off point and hire tuk tuks but we were assured that this was the bus. It was surprisingly empty and we all found seats, but the comfort was short lived. Two or three switchbacks down the gorge we passed a truck on its side, somehow missing the precipitous plunge that some of its cargo experienced. After a couple of stops, I found myself compressed securely by my neighbor for the rest of the two hours across the flat alluvial plane of southern SriLanka.
       Shortly after we turned up in tuk tuks on the outskirts of Tissamaharama, La Safari Inn realized we were staying for cheap. Their listing at AirBnB allowed me to book all six of us for $24. I was put on the phone to the owner and held them to our agreement. Airbnb already had my money but unbeknownst to me, they cancelled our Airbnb reservation. That wasn't very nice. They finally agreed the damage was done and rather than risk a bad review, they let us stay. It would only be fair if we employed their Safari services to terrorize the animals. But they only offered a morning drive and we had already arranged something for the afternoon. The hotel workers were very nice and offered us bicycles to explore the surrounding rice paddies, which I did, and I tipped them nicely.  The rest of us took the Safari which went well, everybody had a great time even spotting one of the famous leopards. That evening we walked a kilometer or two to the outskirts of Tissamaharama where Alex and Caroline chose another dirty little restaurant which the rest of us would never dare enter. And, once again, we enjoyed several helpings of tasty stuff for next to nothing, entertaing the locals while we were at it. We walked back through dark jungle tracks. And next morning, we were on another bus.