Fortress of a King

 Dambulla was not the nicest town we had been to in Sri Lanka. It was basically a one road town. And it followed the one road for quite the distance. We were fortunate that we had gotten off when we did because the actual bus station was still a few km away. But the guesthouse was cool, if not particularly quiet with its proximity to the road and the owners knew where everything could be gotten (such as lunch).

We explored part of the town that we had access to fairly quickly. We had rice and curry for lunch at a place where the waitress told us that they only had short eats available. When Nancy asked what everyone within the restaurant was eating (there were a large number of men eating rice and curry at the tables in there), they relented and let us have some rice and curry too. It was quite good, though we found it a bit strange that they did not want to serve us. I think it was probably because they were just about to close up, nothing to do with us being foreigners. We spent the rest of the day in our room doing some laundry and learning what we could about Sigiriya.

Sigiriya was the fortress of the 4^th century patricidal Sinhala king Kayapasa, who moved from the capital of the time, Anuraradhpura, and built it on top of what was concernedly, to us, called a volcanic plug. It is a massive column of rock rising about 200 meters from the surrounding ground. Its thought to have some of the first gravity fed working fountains, powerful enough to shoot water 10 feet into the air. It also had about 200 frescoes painted of the kings concubines and possibly goddesses, all of whom were rather well endowed. There are only 30 or less left though.

Kayapasa is who Clarke based his character Kalidasa off of in the Fountains of Paradise. Kalidasa, though, lived a few centuries earlier (he was a contemporary of the Emperor Hadrian, (Clarke tells us) than Kayapasa and named his fortress demon rock (Yakkagala), not lion rock (Sigiriya). Kayapasa's motives in building Sigiriya and having the frescoes painted are still unknown, in fact, they will probably never be known. Kalidasa's motives were to build a paradise on earth, with all its fountains and beautiful women. Hence the name of Clarke's book. We found most of this out in the Lonely Planet and the next day in the Sigiriya museum.

That night we ordered some fried rice from a place near our guesthouse that was (apparently) run by some young men, who were watching cartoons when they were not serving up some rice or noodles. We got it to go and borrowed some utensils from the guesthouse. The portions were huge and neither of us could finish. And so we had our lunch for Sigiriya.

We attempted to go to bed early that night, but we were not easily allowed this. The noise from the road outside did not subside all night, though it lessened later in the night. So we slept somewhat poorly. We were still us for our 7 AM breakfast that lady of the guesthouse provided for us.

It was a standard good Sri Lankan guesthouse breakfast of toast, eggs, fruit and tea. We ate as quickly as we could and rushed out the door around 7:30 to catch the bus to Sigiriya at 8. Tea sloshed around in our full bellies as we jogged to the bus station, which we found out in irritation was an extra 2 KM from where we thought it was. Still we caught the bus that supposedly was leaving at 8 and waited while it filled itself. It seemed like a pretty small bus for the purpose of bringing people to the top tourist destination in Sri Lanka, but as it was we were the only tourists aboard. Most others, I suppose, were spending more money and staying closer to the site (there were plenty of hotels right beside Sigiriya) or taking private transport. The ride was still crowded, but with Sri Lankas on their way to work or school. The ticket collector let us know when we arrived at Sigiriya.

Even from the bus stop we could see the rock that it was perched on rising above the trees around it, with its odd colour scheme. We thought we could even make out some old walls up there. We had arrived indeed.

We walked through the parking lot and were dismayed to see some large air conditioned tour buses vomiting out tourists as well as several older buses vomiting out school children. We had arrived as early as we possibly could and we had not beaten the packaged tour groups and the school kids. We rushed to buy our tickets and get inside. We also rushed through the old walled gateways into the fountain area and past all the vendors and “tour guides” (we had read that there were a lot of fake tour guides there) and arrived at the stairs that led up to the actual fortress. We decided to look at the fountains later.

From where we stood we could look straight up to the heights of the palace; we could also see a lot of stairs. What we could not see were the frescoes, but we soon found they were in a covered and protected area. We walked up a few sets of stair cases and then we walked along the place known as the “mirror wall” (because the wall was so smooth). At one point along the mirror wall were two long spiral staircases that went up to the covered area that held the Frescoes, but we decided that we would look at them when we came back down. We moved along the mirror wall to a ledge that I shiver to think of in its original form, when it was just bamboo poles keeping you from empty air for a good 50 foot drop. I did not really like how thin the iron that supported us appeared at these vertigo inducing heights either. We moved rather quickly through this area and up some nice and solid stone steps.

We arrived at the plateau in front of what are called the “Lion Steps”. The giant lion paws on either side of the steps gave away why they were called that. The full height of the Lion Steps are lost to history. And if they were made of bamboo, as the holes and channels carved and chiseled in the side of the rocks suggested they were, then its for the best. Unfortunately, they were replaced with, what seemed to me, rather rickety iron ones, that did not really seem to be capable of supporting the weight of all people mounting them. I really did my best to rush up those, but we ended up behind a school group about half way to the top, with a breath taking and dizzying arial view of the land surrounding the South face of the fortress. We counted in Chinese to get our minds off of it. Even Nancy said that these stairs made her a little dizzy. When we got to the top though, it all felt worth it.

The palace and bath areas at the top were immense, though all ruins now, the size of the walls (wall bases anyway) that surrounded made up the buildings at the top suggested a majesty and grandeur that would have been impossible to miss when it was in its prime. There were two huge bath areas in the lower part, I guess it would be the courtyard, while further, easier, stairs lead to where the palace once stood. There were large school groups circling the baths as we looked down on them, so we took our time around it. From the palace heights we could see the world surrounding us in an uninterrupted 360 degree panoramic. It seemed like it would have a been a good strategic way of seeing who was approaching your citadel.

We picked a good spot that looked out towards the mountains and ate our lunch. Joining us for our lunch was a hopeful monkey, who watched our every movement with great interest, raising his eyebrows expectantly every time food appeared in our hand. We ate a guava too and then, more or to get rid of him, as he was coming rather close, we tossed the guava over the edge and he followed enthusiastically, crashing down the trees that hung off the ledge. He was surprisingly quick in returning to us, when we pulled out and ate, as quickly as possible, our cookies. He was suddenly uninterested in us when the last piece of cookie disappeared.

We climbed the last bit of the way to the palace throne room. All that was left of it was the very base of the wall, of what was probably a two story structure. We were relieved to find (well at least I was) that there was no elephant throne that sat at the edge of the rock. In the Fountains of Paradise, Morgan, unafraid of heights, sits on the throne and looks out at Taprobane, and also at his goal, Sri Kanda. Sri Pada is not nearly that close to Sigiriya though.

We sat in the foundations of the palace and tried to imagine what it would have looked like in its prime. Where the king would have sat and what he would have seen if looked out over his kingdom. We saw jungle now, but when it was build it was likely a lot more developed. Or at least became more developed. Kayapasa after all, had many enemies and probably wanted to keep as much power as possible close at hand.

The view of the land also, if one was not already suitably arrogant, would likely make the ruler of it more so looking over his domain. From within the palace “walls” we had a panoramic view of the world around it. And a superior view as well.

We spent a long time enjoying the view and the wind, but we did not enjoy the heat so much and we were forced to head back down by this. We found ourselves enjoying the view a lot less on the downward journey and I think I pretty much ran (cautiously) the last little bit.

My vertigo was still further apparent when we went up the spiral staircase to see the frescoes. We were followed closely by a noisy school group which did not help. Even though the frescoes did look pretty cool, I could not get my mind off all the empty air that was behind us while we were looking at them, how cramped the space was for all of the people coming through and how thin the mesh was that separated us from the previously mentioned empty air was. I stood it as long as possible, but I had to retreat.

It was only when we got back down that we both thought about how different they were from what we had expected. As our expectations had largely come from the Fountains of Paradise, I suppose we should have lowered those expectations. They were a lot smaller than in the book (or at least that we had imagined them) and there were fewer of them. Apparently some had been destroyed by vandals in the 50s and a lot had disappeared due to time. There were only about 30 left of an estimated 300. This was largely the case in the book, but with them seeming smaller, we were slightly disappointed. Rajasignhe had looked at them through his small telescope in the book, after he becomes to old to climb to them. The images that he sees through his eye piece seemed far removed from the ones that we saw.

I suppose I should say that the frescoes are of women believed to be of Kayapasa's court. His concubines most likely and possibly their servants. They all have a few things in common, the most obvious of which is their large exposed breasts (though they are apparently wearing see through shirts). They also tend to have their hands in positions similar to that of a meditating monk or a representation of a hindu god. Their hair is all done in a certain style too, I think.

We returned to a more reasonable height (the ground below Sigiriya) and explored the grounds for a while, looking at the fountains, the caves where monks used to meditate (before and after Kayapasa) and the large(ish) audience chambers, which we wondered about. If Kayapasa wanted to impress people, would it have been more impressive for them to see, but not enter Sigiriya, or to have to climb to its heights to see the king. Perhaps it was only for large audiences.

We had to leave the grounds for water as we were very thirsty. We went to the very modest cafe that was outside Sigiriya and got some water. It cost us 3 times what it was worth anywhere else in Sri Lanka and we left wondering whether we had been scammed ever so slightly. There was no price listed anywhere and we simply had to take the very unfriendly counterman's word for it that it was in fact 250 rupee that we should have been paying.

We entered the museum in a sour mood, but it slowly lifted as we saw Sigiriya in its former glory (at least what was reckoned to be its former glory). There was a really neat model of what it probably would have looked like, as well as all of the ground around it. It would have been quite something. We wandered the museum, which was build in a way that let natural air flows through it, for about an hour and a half.

As we took the bus back, we looked through The Lonely Planet to find out where we should go next. That is, we wanted to find out where to go, while not taking too much in the way of buses. We would eventually chose, over dinner, Pollonuwera, and that would lead us to the end of our travelling and more into a vacation.

Monkeying of Kandy

We got off the train in Kandy around 4 on a fortunately not too hot day.  We had studied the map carefully as we pulled into the station and we had a pretty good idea of where we were to go.  We intended to not stop so that no one would feel the need to "help" us for a monetary fee.  So we were able to brush through the hordes upon hordes of tuk-tuk drivers with an ease and confidence that convinced them (presumably) that we knew where we were headed.  We did, more or less.  We walked through the busy center of town, past the clock tower and the nice looking old buildings and all the beggars that were in front of them.  And then we came to the lake.  As we walked along it, pretty much every Sri Lankan person we saw there tried to sell us a room in a guesthouse or a tuk-tuk, or some jewellery or a "very nice tour".  

We also walked by the temple of the Tooth (the tooth of the Buddha purportedly).  We were unsure at the time as to whether we would go there.  It looked pretty impressive, but so did the price of entry.  We would later decide that, as we were going to spend $50 to get us both into Sigiriya, which I will speak of later, the Temple of the Tooth would be a visit for when we had more money to spare.  As it was, there seemed to be a lot of armed guards around the Temple.  I found later that a Tamil Tiger bomb went of there about 10 or 12 years ago and actually damaged the temple a bit.  Security had been tight since then, even though the war is now over.

We came to the Green Woods Guesthouse which was a nice place.  It was on a hill that was away from all bustle of Kandy, with forest behind and overlooking forest and a few houses.  And a lot of playful monkeys in the trees.  We were greeted by a friendly older man, who showed us to our room and told us of a good place to eat.  We took another shower, just because and then we went to the restaurant that he had mentioned.

   This was the History Restaurant and it turned out to be our main highlight in Kandy, besides the guesthouses.  It looked out over the Lake and the lights of Kandy and gave us a clear view of the setting sun, just as we had such a good view of the rising sun that morning.  The food was good, the beer the best prices we had seen in Sri Lanka and it was full of old new paper clippings and photographs from the history of Kandy, going back about 130 years or so.  There were articles about independence from Britain, wars around the world and new developments in Kandy and the wider Sri Lanka/Ceylon.  There were also pictures of British colonial officers (you should have seen the mutton chops!) with village chiefs and whole tribes, or just pictures of village councils.  There was also one article that was called woman's corner and it offered advice on child rearing, cooking, cleaning and other "womanly" arts.  We stuffed ourselves with beer and food, since we had not actually eaten lunch that day.  I had rice and curry and Nancy had BBQ chicken, because she was a little sick of rice and curry.

We returned to the Green Woods and attempted to stay awake a bit longer (it was 7:30), but we really couldn't manage that and we were asleep pretty much the moment our heads hit the pillow.

We slept for about 10 hours, not having had any sleep since 1:30 Am the previous morning.  And the Green Woods was clean and felt safe.  We woke around 7 and sat out on the shared balcony reading and enjoying the waking of the day.  When we were sharing the balcony with too many monkeys though, we thought it best to go back inside.  We ate our breakfast with hopeful monkey faces peaking in through the windows behind us.  And then we checked out of the Green Wood and walked a surprisingly short distance to the Green Villa which was the place that Jayasuria at the Beauty Mount had actually suggested we stay in Kandy.  They were not quite ready to receive us, but they said we could put our bags in our room while we explored Kandy.

We decided to take a walk around Kandy Lake, which we had found out on the train had a pretty horrendous history.  It was man made lake, commissioned by the last Sri Lankan ruler of Kandy.  He was not the nicest person and was deposed by the people in favour of the British taking over in 1810.  One of the not so nice things that he had done was execute the people who were making the lake for him because they wanted a bit more payment.  He had them all buried in the lake and then replaced them with new workers, who finished the job without much complaint.  I'm not sure what happened to them.

After the 15th person offered to sell something or just asked for money we began to time them.  The longest we went without someone accosting us for most of the walk around the lake was one minute and twenty seven seconds.  On our way we were offered all manner of art, tours, clothes and drugs.  One well dressed lady simply asked if we could give her money.  I was reminded at this point of something that Paul Theroux had said about the "Ceylonese" as he called them, on his first trip to Sri Lanka in 1973.  While he was on the train and speaking to people, they would randomly ask him for something (money, clothes, etc).  He said it seemed as it they were not down trodden at the time but were asking for later, just in case.  That seemed to be the only reason why a woman who was clearly wearing new, and expensive, clothes might be asking us for money.  Another man told us that there were tickets to the parade that happened most weeks in Kandy at the fire walking school that he worked at.  He told us that he wasn't trying to sell us anything, but he spent a lot of time telling us about how good this parade show would be.  And kept suggesting we buy tickets.  He was a fire walker, he showed us his feet.  He suggested that we take a look at his school, which, as he had said, sold tickets to this parade.  Apparently the president of Sri Lanka was going to be at the parade (when we asked about this later, at our guesthouse, they were rather confused, since there was no mention of this anywhere).  As well as a monk from Japan, who would preform a blessing with the Tooth.  We could never find the truth of this one.  In any event, when we said that we could not go since we did not have the money for it, our new friend quickly made his fair wells and departed.

We retreated to The History Restaurant to decide what to do.  We hadn't known how long we would stay in Kandy, but after the lake experience we decided that we would be leaving the next day.  We spent a good deal of time looking up how we would get to Sigiriya on their wi-fi and drinking tea from a gigantic tea pot.  We eventually decided that we would take the bus, despite the fact that we did not really want to take another bus, especially given our recent experience on the bus.  So we went back to the Green Villa and enjoyed the nice room that it offered and the excellent meal they cooked up.  I called a guest house in Dambulla a place that was relatively close to Sigiriya (45 minute bus ride) and was happy to find that for once the price listed in the Lonely Planet had not changed.

We ate breakfast at the Green Villa as well and were off shortly after that.  The people at the guesthouse were a little confused as to why we had not seen much of Kandy and I must say we probably didn't give them very convincing reasons.  We arrived at the Kandy bus station after running the gamut of the city and even managed to find a bus without too much trouble.

The bus ride itself did inspire any new confidence in the Sri Lankan bus system as it tore through the winding hill roads.  Nancy had a lot to say about the driver's  abilities after we got off the bus, especially after he started moving while I was in process of getting off the bus and I nearly fell flat on my face on the way out.  All I actually did was smack my knee rather painfully on the doorframe of the bus as he stopped again.  But all was well and we managed to walk the 500 meters to our guesthouse in Dambulla.  It was run by a nice Tamil family and the rooms were quite nice, the only problem was the fact that it was right beside the main road, which did not shut up all night.  Despite the soft beds we did not fall asleep for quite a while that night.  But that's for next time.  We were at the gates, sort of, of Sigiriya.  What Clarke called Yakkagalla in The Fountains of Paradise, the other place besides Sri Pada that we had come to see in Sri Lanka.

The Holy Mountain

The Hatton train station did not put us in a good mood.  A man followed us from the train station trying to convince us that we should take a cab to Dalhousie (the base to climb Sri Pada from).  His quoted price would have cost our daily budget (which is $40).  The bus, which we did take, cost us a dollar, for the both of us.  Our cab friend just happened to work for the guest house that we were to stay at, but that didn't make it anymore likely that we would take his cab.  The bus was fine by us.

We sat on the bus, which was leaving in half an hour, and were harassed a bit more by tuk-tuk and cab drivers, before we made it clear to everyone that we would, in fact, take the bus.  The bus got crowded amazingly quickly just before leaving.  The crowd that piled on were all, so far as we could tell, pilgrims on their way to climb the holy mountain.  So perhaps because it was a bus carrying pilgrims and pilgrimages are supposed to be hard, it was the worst bus ride we've taken on Sri Lankan roads.  Besides the return trip, of course.  The road was a narrow ridge straddling one and apparently our dear bus driver had taken the 2 hour posted time as a challenge that he was certain he could beat.  Or he was under the impression that he was driving a sports car and not a bus.  The bus swerved this way and that on very curve or corner.  The bus would take blind turns at high speeds, with only a honk to warn anything coming the other way on the very narrow road.  A few times we even encountered something coming the other way and the buses breaks were tested mercilessly.  So were our knees as they were slammed into the seat in front of us.  We held on for dear life (and on every right turn I would be smacked by our bags, which were sitting beside me).  Some of the other bus patrons seemed to also object to this ride and they showed their displeasure by puking out the windows.  Fortunately not anywhere close to us.  Still the bus continued to be popular and more people would hop on at every opportunity and by the time we arrived at Dalhousie the bus was even more full than when we had left Hatton.  Sorry, pilgrims.  We arrived at what was apparently the guesthouse stop, but it seemed a bit too cruel to elbow our way through all of the people in aisle with our heavy bags.  The main stop was only 500 meters away anyway.  It would be a lot easier to walk to our guesthouse from there than having to push our way at the present.  

Well, it was easier for everyone who wasn't Sri Lankan.  Unfortunately, as we were the only people who weren't Sri Lankan (or didn't look Sri Lankan) on the bus and the touts and tuk-tuks simply could not grasp that we liked to walk and we already had a room.  We called the guesthouse to get proper directions as we were bombarded by queries about where we were going and how much we wanted to pay for a room.  The guesthouse said that they would send a tuk-tuk.  Nancy said that we didn't want a tuk-tuk, just to walk.  Given that it was only a short distance, one would expect that this was understandable.  We got proper directions and then headed in the proper direction.  We continued to be showered in offers of tuk-tuks, rooms and taxis.  In fact, it seemed like every single guesthouse worker and owner had a room just for us and we were constantly being greeted by the phrase "Sir/madam, you want room?"  By about the 15th time we answered (or ignored in my case) that question we ran into the tuk-tuk that our guesthouse had sent.  In retrospect I guess a tuk-tuk would have been a good way to ignore all that we were walking past, but by this point I was so fed up I refused to take it, even if it was free.  I glued a maniacal grin on my face and walked on (and long after the fact, I do feel a little guilty about how grumpy I was at this point).  Nancy followed in a similar, but more polite state.  We were greeted at the guesthouse by the same man who had tried to pick us up in the tuk-tuk.  He showed us to our "hut" as the Lonely Planet described it.  It was definitely that.  Though, we have certainly stayed in ricketier and more run down places in Laos or Malaysia.  It was actually a pretty good deal, all in all, since the $20 we paid for it got us dinner that night as well as breakfast the following morning. Anyway, it was certainly not a luxurious bed that I flopped down, curled up and wished we were back in Ella, on.

Nancy got up after a while and left me to my sulking while she went and ordered us some lunch.  I got up a bit later, much improved, and joined her.  She had just booked us into a place for the following day at Kandy, unfortunately, we realized shortly after that it was not the place we had intended to be booked into.  Jayasuria had mentioned a place called The Green Villa, owned by his cousin and we had intended to stay there, but we had temporarily lost the note that Jayasuria had given us and Nancy called a place called The Green Woods, because we had remember Green in the name and that was the only one in The Lonely Planet with green in it.  Nancy called the Green Villa booked us there for the night after our stay at the Green Woods not long after we realized the mistake (Nancy didn't want to cancel at The Green Woods because they sounded nice too).  Both places did turn out quite nice though.

The food at White House (our guesthouse in Dalhousie) was excellent.  Apparently all prepared by an older Tamil woman, who we saw wandering from time to time.  We spent a while after our lunch sitting in the restaurant area and absorbing the ambience.  At least, what we could of it.  There was a loud group of French people, around our age (4 couples I think) who also inhabited the restaurant.  They spent most of their time smoking and listening to French music.  They seemed to be having fun though they were kind of annoying.  It was kind of satisfying that we passed most of them wheezing their way up the mountain later that night.

The chatter of the restaurant went on well after the excellent dinner of (but of course) rice and curry that was provided.  We went to our room, that turned out to have pretty paper thin walls around 7:30 and attempted to get some sleep.  We planned to get up at 1:30 Am to start climbing the mountain.  With the wildly varying time frames we were given, 1 and a half hours to 6 hours, we thought that perhaps 4 hours would be a good happy medium.  We had just about fallen to sleep, probably about 8:30, when, in the room next to us, someone went on Skype.  As I said, the walls were paper thin.  In any event, if we had known Spanish we could have eavesdropped on the whole hour long conversation.  We did not go to sleep until after our neighbour had shut up.

Altogether, we were running on very little sleep when we got up at 1:30 to climb up the mountain.  Its not like we had really expected to sleep that much anyway.  We dragged ourselves out of bed and packed our water and some warmer clothes (and valuables, including our computer, since we were not very convinced that the tiny pad lock on our door would offer much protection from a thief in the night), took out our flashlight and stepped outside.

Nancy was not feeling well at the outset, in fact she was feeling lousy.  We had planned poorly around certain biological functions and it probably would have been better to wait.  But Nancy did not want to stay in Dalhousie any longer than absolutely necessary so she decided that she could tough it out.  I shared her opinion of Dalhousie, but I spent the first half of our climb rather worried about her.  She was certain she would be fine though, even if she was a little discomforted.

Dalhousie at night was eerily silent, though there were a few empty shops open with their lights on, hoping to sell to early and ill prepared pilgrims.  We made our way to the entrance and were barked at by a pack of dogs which we had to scare away from the entrance.  There were others on their way up, but there were also some on their way back down already.  The descenders seemed to be largely (actually only) Tamil.  This seemed a little interesting but we have yet to find out why so many Tamils would make the ascent and not be there for the dawn.  They mostly seemed exhausted, though some of the younger (boys mostly) folk were rather chatty.

We took a turn and found ourselves in a more well lit area with a couple of Buddhist monks waiting for us.  They gave us a prayer protection thing that was tied around our wrists and we gave them a small donation in return.  And we carried on up the steps. Sri Pada has an immense amount of steps, we were quoted various numbers from 5 to 22000.  I'm not sure that anyone has actually counted though.  Anyway there are a lot of them.  All the way up these steps, about every 20, are big fluorescent lights on high light posts.  They make pools of light all the way up the mountain.

We were often passed by eager foreigners only to pass them panting later on.  One thing that our weary brains noticed as we walked was the amount of garbage that was strewn about beside, and sometimes on, the steps.  Plastic wrappers and cups, styrofoam and other detritus were our constant companions all the way up.  Apparently people found it quite easy to ignore the many readily available garbage cans all the way up (which were largely empty), as well as the signs that said "please keep this sacred place clean".

After about 30 minutes of climbing we were both drenched in sweat and a little concerned about how much water it was that we would need.  We appeared to be rapidly running out.  After an hour, Nancy was less sure about her ability to make it the whole way to the top.  She was also muttering darkly about the lack of any bathrooms in evidence.  There were also some thoughts about how it was obviously men who designed the whole thing.  She had to stop often to rest and just as we were thinking that maybe we should give it a miss and return at a latter date, a bathroom appeared.  It was even free, which kind of surprised us, since there were so many shops and businesses along the stairway.  After her trip to the bathroom Nancy began to feel better.  After another hour of climbing, she was even certain that we would make it to the top.

Before we got there though, we passed several more businesses and shops selling, among other things, tea, snacks, water, massages and religion.  These last were the most irritating since they were mostly just blaring recordings of chants, prayers, mantras and hymns at an unreasonably high decibel level.  From all four of the major religions that have reason to believe that the peak was sacred and, no doubt, all of their spawned spin offs.  Buddhism, in it myriad forms, was the most represented, of course.  And while I generally like the sound of monks chanting or mantraing, it losses a lot of its appeal when its blasted at you pretty much every 10 minutes.  Mass media and such seemed to us at the time to be the worst (or at least most irritating) thing to happen to religion.  More of this was in evidence on the way down.

Another irritating factor was some of those on their way down.  Most were too tired to really take notice, but the young men amongst them would yell "encouragement", that is to say mock.  We were not very amused by these young hooligans, who seemed to have missed entirely the point of their pilgrimage.  I found myself muttering darkly about how I couldn't wait until they turned the mountain into a space elevator.

Of course, as I've just reread The Fountains of Paradise, I know that they can't since the mountain in the book, Sri Kanda, was a good 3 KM higher than Sri Pada.  So I'm glad we we're climbing that.  Though in the story Morgan takes a gondola to the top in less than an hour, I'm sure we couldn't have afforded that.  Especially since the climb was free.

After about 2 more hours of walking though, we were going along at a good clip, getting used to the stress on our legs and all the other irritants.  Every now and then we would catch a glimpse of the summit lights and they looked very far away.  Sometimes we momentarily would mistake the summit for a couple of stars.  And Nancy was never fooled when I suggested that it looked close, like we were almost there.  But suddenly we really were almost there.

The stairs became narrower and it was single file, one side up, the other side down.  And it was also a traffic jam.  We found ourselves behind a group of true pilgrims who were slowly making their way to the top.  I say they were true pilgrims because they were all quite a bit older than us and they were also chanting.  What it sounded like was "Why? Why? Why?" followed by "Die! Die! Die".  We rather hoped they were speaking Sinhala and not English.  As we heard mention of the Buddha from time to time we assumed that this was the case.  Since they were moving so slow we dashed past the chanters when there was a lull in the down traffic.  And then we were at the summit.  It had taken us just under 4 hours.

On the summit we found more garbage, teaming masses of people huddled around each other, largely sleeping, a few dour faced monks and, of course, tons of tourists with cameras waiting to catch the first rays of the sun in their lenses.  There was a long line up to see the foot print of the Buddha/Shiva/Adam/St. Thomas (not Aquinas, but the one who was Jesus' brother, either figuratively or literally depending on who you ask), which was in a small hut.  This we skipped.  We did not actually go into any of the structures and we also skipped the ringing of the bell.  The bell was constantly being wrung by the pilgrims (one ring per ascent, so if you've ascended 13 times, you ring 13 times).  That had a big line of course.  The largest line was to the bathroom though.  We sat where no one seemed to be sitting, put something a bit warmer on our rapidly cooling bodies and ate some ginger cookies that we had brought.  We had sat near what appeared to be a drainage pipe and some sand bags but as we ate we noticed a foul smell coming from that direction.  Perhaps they were actually garbage bags and not sand bags.  Anyway when we saw the large rat scurrying among them we stood up and leaned against the railing to look out over the lightening world.  A blue band had appeared in the distance and we knew that dawn was approaching.  But we did not want to stay on the summit any longer.  We had had our fill of it and did not need any more.

We started descending, but stopped in a dark patch between two lamps and looked up transfixed by the star field above us, that was ever so slightly starting to fade.  We continued down a bit further and then stopped to watch the sun rising from behind another mountain and into a cloud bank.  We had missed, but didn't really care so much, the sun rising and appearing to bow to the mountain, as its shadow stretched to the horizon.  But we were also away from the buzzing crowds that were on the top.  We were in silence where we watched and not stunned by hundreds of flash bulbs going off in an attempt to capture the magical moment.  We had our own moments, alone on a few steps, where time seemed to stop as we watched the pillars of light shining up from behind the cloud bank, crowning it in an orange gold, tiger striped with shadow.  Shining there as though the gates of paradise were standing open for a few brief moments, so all could look upon a world floating on light.  In those moments we were struck by the beauty and power of the natural wonder we were witnessing.  We were both reminded of the haunting opening lines of Ursula K LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, which celebrates the power of the world's cycles:

Only in silence the word,

Only in darkness light

Only in dying life,

Bright the hawk's flight,

On the empty sky.

The sky seemed so full and so empty with what we saw before us.

It ended though and after a while of watching the dawn and mist rolling in through the a pass between Sri Pada and yet another mountain, we had to move on in order to be ahead of the traffic coming down.  But we found ourselves elated all the long way down.  Even though we hadn't really seen what we had come to see, we had seen something wonderful.

Only few things marred our descent after that and they did not take (much) away from our elation.  One was, now that the lights were no longer needed, the loud speakers that were on the light poles began blaring.  Blaring what I can only assume was the national religious radio.  This started not long after we began walking again and it was still blaring when reached Dalhousie.  It was our constant companion all the way down, with advertisements and religious chants and possibly the news.  As it was all in Sinhala we really had no idea.

Also, now that the sun had rose, most of the shops that had been closed on our ascent were now open.  We ignored calls of massage, tea and blessings.  One man even offered us good luck as we hurried by.  There were also a few beggars, must of which had a disability of some sort.  Largely they were missing legs, or unable to walk in some way.  In a way we were pretty impressed with their feat of getting so far up the mountain on crutches.  We were feeling pretty charitable and we did have a bit of extra money, so we gave what we could.

An impressive feat was also the people carrying up the loads of food, propane, drinks and other things to all the shops.  We still didn't buy anything from the shops, but we were impressed.  Despite the constant blaring and touting, we were in a pretty good mood when we returned to the White House.  Not even clear evidence of rodent activity in our room (we shouldn't have left the banana there anyway) dampened our spirits.  We had the best showers we are ever likely to have and the complimentary breakfast was pretty good too.  But we still did not want to stay another night, so we packed our things and caught the next bus to Hatton.

It was as bad a bus ride as the one there, but with our spirits buoyed by our climb we did not mind so much.  Nor did we mind the long wait for the train to Kandy.  And we quite enjoyed the train ride itself.  We quite liked the Green Woods Guesthouse where we finally caught up on our sleep too.  Its too bad that Kandy itself was not so enjoyable.

Beautiful Ella

We stayed in Ella for 6 days in all.  Why did we stay in Ella so long?  At least part of it is similar to the reason why we stayed in Mt. Lavinia so long.  The guesthouse we stayed in was fantastic. It was a place called Beauty Mount Tourist Inn and was run by an 80 year old man and his wife (who was pretty close to 80).  The man's name was Jayasurie and I forget what his wife's name was.  She had beautiful eyes though.  Nancy told her this when we first arrived at the guesthouse and she hid her face in a way that reminded me of the way a Taiwanese student might if she was asked a question in class.  She did not talk as much as Jayasurie, but we saw her every time we walked by the reception area and she was always smiling.  We usually saw Jayasurie too and he would inquire about where we were going and give us advice on the best way to get there and how far it was along the train track.

That was the other main thing.  Even if we had not liked the Beauty Mount Tourist Inn so much we would have stayed in Ella to walk along the railway.  Every single day we were in Ella, we spent time walking along the tracks, usually in the early morning, when it wasn't so hot.  Not that Ella got so hot, being higher up than the places we had previously gone in Sri Lanka.  This was also a plus.  During our early morning railway walks we would see children going to school and people off to work.  Most smiled and said hello, the children did so also, but they usually asked for "School Pen".  We did actually have a few coloured pencils that we had bought in Taiwan to give to them.  An idea we got after our experiences in Laos, where the children often asked for money and we would have been happy to give them something to remind them that they should be in school.  As the kids here basically ask for that, I suppose its good that we have them to give.  Otherwise a few people would talk to us, but only as far as they walked along the track, from far to tea plantation or something.  We walked for hours along the railway and the train itself (which always gave ample warning of its arrival) only passed us once or twice a day.  The rail ran high and from it we could look down on valleys and waterfalls and at one point a really cool bridge, called the 9 arches bridge (guess why).  And all around was the grand green of tea.  We ended up taking a lot of pictures in Ella too (you can find those on Nancy's Facebook.  

The railway was peaceful, the scenery was beautiful and the guesthouse was awesome.  I think its safe to say that Ella is my favourite place, thus far, in Sri Lanka.  I get the feeling that it will stay that way too.

It was good from the moment we stepped off the bus.  The bus itself, was not so good, speeding up the winding cliff side roads as it did and passing other buses on blind turns.  We were happy to get off that final bus.  The bus stop was beside The Curd Shop (which was run by Jayasurie's sons; it was actually his first little business in Ella, some 40 years before), and from there we directed across the road and up the stairs to The Beauty Mount Tourist Inn.  Jayasurie greeted us (he had been waiting, since we had called the day before to make reservations) and we signed in and were introduced to his wife and a son who led us up the stairs to our room.  Actually, I should say that it was not a single structure, but several buildings working there way progressively up a hill.  We passed by one large cottage and then were up the hill further to the next level, where our cottage was.  It was a large and spacious room and a bathroom.  Our bed was huge, I could stretch my arms above my head lie across it and still have a bit of room to spare, width wise.  Our porch looked out over the town and, as we found out later, lent us a perfect view of the sun setting behind the mountains.  Yes, we were happy with it.

One of our first orders of business in town was to exchange the last of our money, which we could do in the only bank in town.  This was not the most exciting thing to do, but I have to mention that while we were there, there was guard inside with a large shotgun that he seemed to be trying to hide from us.  He kept turning so that the strap around his shoulder was directed away from us.  It proved pretty hard for him to not show us the shotgun and I noticed that on the shoulder rest, it said, "Property of Bank of Ceylon, Ella Branch".  I'm not sure why I found this so amusing.

On our first night there we sat on our porch and watched Ella valley grow dark, the mist rolling in and the men who were working on the next addition to the Beauty Mount, stop work on the new cottage and put some christmas lights up in the tree in front of us.  We also ate the dinner that Jayasurie had made for his guests.  Most of the times we ate dinner at the Beauty Mount, we ate with other people, only on the last night did we eat alone.  This first night we ate with an Australian couple who were probably a bit older than us.  They had been travelling in India and loving it, but they were unable to get a 5 month visa so they were taking some time in Sri Lanka before going back to India.  I forget the names of pretty much everyone we ate with at the Beauty Mount, except for Bertand (say with a French accent), who we ate with (along with his wife/partner, we were never entirely sure) the next night.  They were obviously French, well actually only he was, she was Brazilian, but she did not speak much English.  They were at least 10 years older than us and only had two weeks in Sri Lanka.  He was a diving instructor/ "explorer"; okay, we guessed this second part but he often referred to his "team" when he talked about travelling for work.  Nancy even practiced a bit of French with them.  The next night we ate with a German surfing couple, who were mostly in Sri Lanka for surfing (and were definitely a few years younger than us), but were taking a quick trip into the hill country, before heading back to the beaches in the South.  They had been to a very unknown part of Sri Lanka, where there was pretty much no tourists, but getting there was very hard to do and we were never clear on exactly how they had found out about it. But it was a national park that they had quite enjoyed.  On another night, we ate with a British woman in her 30's who seemed to be quite the Asia traveller.  She seemed to be the type the could get in and out of any sort of situation, relatively unscathed.  She had gone to the East and said that it was much quieter there.  We are hoping it will be.  After that dinner she was off to the local bar, with another traveller.  She was pretty sure she would be the only woman there though.  We declined the offer to join her.

All in all if we had eaten with someone from the Netherlands we would have had dinner with people from every Western country with a lot of people who like to travel.

Our first trek in Ella was up a mountain known as Little Adam's Peak (Little Sri Pada).  It was not too strenuous (certainly not compared to the real Sri Pada) and it offered a better look over the mountains and valleys near by.  We started early on the day after we arrived and were at the top by about 8 in the morning.  The valleys around us were all the emerald green of tea plants.  On our way down we saw several Tamil tea pickers on their way to work in the fields, dressed in colourful clothes with white sack hanging from their heads down their backs for the deposit of tea leaves.  Ella is one of the main tea regions in Sri Lanka and we had a lot of good and, presumable, very fresh tea there.  As we did not bring any money with us on our trip to Little Adam's Peak, we could not take a picture with the Tamil tea pickers or of the handful of tea, that is apparently a very popular picture.  I looked in the Lonely Planet later and found that the Tamil tea pickers (all women) were part of the group known as "Plantation Tamils", who are separate from the other Tamils in Sri Lanka, who have a long and proud history in the North and in the East.  Perhaps when we get to the East I'll do a bit more research on these more established Tamils of Sri Lanka.  The Plantation Tamils, though, were brought in by the British to, you guessed it, work on tea plantations, about 150 years ago.  I suppose I do have to do more research on them too, but as I understand it their standing is not entirely a great one in Sri Lanka and there are possible citizenship problems even after all this time.  I do know that the tea pickers get about $3 (USD) a day.  I'm not sure what their male counterparts, presumably working somewhere else in the tea plantation make.  Even so, they still make about as much as most people in Laos.  That said, I will never complain about the price of tea and I may even cheer an increase in price if it means a bit better wages for the tea pickers.  This is about the only thing that bothered me while we were in Ella.

We took one other non-railway walk, to the Dowa Temple, 6 km from Ella.  The walk was not that enjoyable, certainly not as much as a walk along the railway, but we were constantly aware of the tea growing and even more so of the cars and buses speeding past us.  The temple itself was not much to look at, except for a giant Buddha that was carved into the rock.  We got to the temple and were forced to leave our shoes with a guy would "mind" them (in exchange for a tip), he would not let us just put them in our backpack.  He also seemed annoyed that we chose to stay in the temple for so long, because he kept trying to get us to come back down from the rock we were sitting on.  The rock allowed us a great view of the stone Buddha, and looking up at his serene face, we forgot that the world was there.  We sat there for quite some time and then left, much to the dismay of the other temple minder who wanted us to go inside the temple, where I guess there was more in the way of paintings and stone sculptures, but we had only come for the stone Buddha and did not want to pay the entry fee to that part anyway.  We paid our shoe "minder" and walked back to Ella.  Our peaceful state of mind did not survive the trip, but it did return when we walked back up to our cottage at the Beauty Mount.

Our most ambitious, or so we thought of it at the time, hike while we were in Ella was not really in Ella at all.  The Lonely Planet suggested a hike from the train station after Haputale, a place called Idalgassina, back to Haputale, a town about an hour and a half by train from Ella.  The train ride between Ella and Haputale by train is supposed to be the nicest in Sri Lanka and it did not disappoint.  Tea fields allying down long swoops into valleys and rivers on either side of the train and brightly painted tea factories on distant hills were evidence along the way.  So to were higher mountains and waterfalls.  The only thing marring the ride, from a purely ascetic point of view, was the habitats of the people.  Every town we passed was more ramshackle and dirty than the next and the people who stared up from their work did not look particularly happy.  Haputale was the biggest, dirtiest and dingiest of them all.  We were not fans of the sight that Haputale was as we passed it, but we forgot about it when we arrived in Idalgassina.  It was one of the highest train station in the country and the world seemed to fall away on both sides.  As we were looking out over the valley on one side of the train station a group of men hopped on a non-powered cart that went along the tracks.  Two of them pushed the cart from a standing start and it began to roll down the hill.  They hopped on as it began its roll down.  We met a few of these men walking back along the tracks, oiling and maintaining them during our walk.  They were the only things that marred our walk, which was perfect in every other way.  We walked in silence looking at the beautiful scenery and, a little abashedly, noting its similarity to mountain heights in Canada.  The first railway worker we ran into us asked us if we had a gift for him after we had talked with him for a few minutes and he did not want any food, which was the only gift we were willing to offer.  We did not stop to talk to the workers after that.  And our walk progressed smoothly until we returned to Haputale.

In Haputale we found that the next train would not be arriving for another 2 hours and we were forced to walk out into the town.  I'm not sure what it was that put me in a worse mood than usual, since Haputale was, in its apparent attitude, the usual Sri Lankan town (even if it was largely a Tamil town), with people stopping us every few meters seeing if we wanted to buy fruit, food, drink, guesthouse or take a tuk-tuk somewhere.  We walked for about 5 minutes and stopped to look out over the tracks.  When no less than 3 tuk-tuk drivers approached us in less than a minute to see where we would like to go or tell us they would give a good deal to go to Lipton's Seat (the Lipton of Lipton's Tea fame; its not actually a seat, but a cliff) or a tea factory (all part of the Lipton's Tea family), we gave up and headed back to the train station.  Just before the train station we saw a place serving tea that was out of the way.  We walked down to it and were greeted by a dog that looked like it was possibly rabid, but it wandered off and we felt safe to sit down.  We drank our tea and tried to regain the magic of our walk, to little avail.  Also while we drank our tea, we saw an old man carrying several large items (a few trips of them) down the stairs and when Nancy went in to pay for the tea (it was her turn to pay) she noticed that the man was apparently paid 20 Rupees for his efforts, which is about 15 cents.  In comparison, our tea was 275 Rupees, which is about $2.50.  Perhaps that wasn't his entire earning for the work, we don't know.  Whatever the case, we were happy to hop back on the train to Ella.

We spent more days walking the tracks of Ella, eating curry and curd (yogurt made from buffalo milk) at the curd shop or with Jayasurie.  Writing this almost a week since we left, if kind of wonder why we have bothered to go anywhere else.  But, of course, there is always the off chance that we will find a good combination of guesthouse and place again.  Hasn't happened yet though.

Our next destination was certainly not going to be an easy one, but we hoped it would be a rewarding one.  On our sixth morning in Ella we boarded a train to Hatton and enjoyed the ride past Haputale on our way there.  Hatton was not our destination though, it was a place called Dalhousie, a small town at the base of Sri Pada (otherwise known as Adam's Peak).  That night we would climb it.

Heading Upcountry

A country where everyone acts like they want to be your friend is hell for a non-people person like myself.  Sometimes when you travel, you have bad days.  Well I guess you could say that about anything you do in life, but it is perhaps more affecting when you are in another country.  Sometimes there is an anger within you that you can't really control, that the best thing for you and everyone else, is to be alone or at least with someone who understands what's going on and has the sense to leave you be.  Such times make it difficult to function, especially in another country, where you do not have a place to chill. And in Sri Lanka they do not leave you alone when you would really prefer to not talking.  And they do it in such a polite and friendly manner that it makes you even more irritated that you can't be as irritated as you want to be.  What is also very much annoying is the fact that often this friendliness is the wind up to a sales pitch of some sort.  And it is bloody difficult to tell the difference between genuine friendliness ("Hi, how are you?  Where you from? Welcome to my country.  I have lived here all my life.  I like your country….") and the opening lines of a sales pitch ("Hi, how are you? Where are you from?  Welcome to my country.  I have x, you want buy?  I give you good price.  Or maybe y?  Very nice, right…..").  I would rather be in a place where there was a lot less of that, no matter how interesting some our encounters have been.

I was trying to explain this and more to Nancy (on why I was in a bad mood) when a bunch of cows ran by us followed closely by a man in motor cycle helmet.  Besides the motorcycle helm, he also had a crazy smile and even crazier eyes and he had a large axe raised above his head as he ran by after the cows.  His appearance was made all the more disturbing to us by the fact that his general appearance reminded us strongly of our friend Sarjak (minus the crazy eyes and smile).  We quickly departed the area.

We were in Tissamaharama, or Tissa for short.  I had an inkling that we wouldn't like Tissa during our bus ride from Matara (which I will get to in a moment).  As we were sitting on that bus (the only light of the journey was the little girl in front of us who kept looking back at us shyly and waving, but at this point she was gone), nearing the end of our ride a man approached us.  I should say, a man got on the bus, shoved his way from the front to the back, rather roughly, and asked us if we had a moment to listen to him.  I had already reason to dislike his actions and I was not about to listen to a sales pitch, so I said, "no."

He did not seem to hear me and started to get his sales stuff out.  I said, "NO!" again, a lot more sharply and then stared grumpily at the seat in front of me.  Nancy said that we already had a safari (which is what he was pitching to us) and he left us alone.  But I still think my second "NO!" helped in that regard.

When we got off the bus we were almost immediately surrounded by touts with similar little folders, that talked variously about guesthouses or safaris or combinations of both.  We rushed past them and did our best to get to a place where we could consult our map in peace.  That turned out to be about 500 meters from the bus stop.  There only a lone tuk-tuk driver asked if we needed help and I asked him what road we were on.  He told us and we got our bearings pretty quickly after that, no ride necessary, sorry, we like to use our feet, unlike, apparently all the other lazy ass foreigners who come here (this last part we kept to ourselves).  Seriously though, if you're not capable of walking 2 km with whatever bags you brought, there is no hope for you as a real traveller.  There, it had to be said.  That's not really fair, most travellers here have a) more money than us (though if we did, we still would not take a tuk-tuk) and b) less time, so they probably don't want to spend it walking from a bus station to a hotel/guesthouse. This non-tuk-tuk attitude got us into a bit of trouble in our previous destination, though.  

That destination was Matara, a place that we only wanted to stay one night, but wished we had not booked ahead in Tissa when we finally got to our guesthouse (in Matara that is).  The getting there was a bit of a problem.  We had decided that we would stop at the book store along the way and pick up The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaanjte if it was there (we had seen it in the previous book store in Negombo).  It was in the Matara one too and we bought that and The Fountain's of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke (our original inspiration for coming to Sri Lanka).  Now we are good for reading material for quite some time and we plan to hang on to Clarke and Ondaantje as mementos of Sri Lanka.

About an hour after this purchase I found myself not wanting any reminders of Sri Lanka at all as we found ourselves hopelessly lost.  We wandered up and down the sprawling streets of Matara looking for for the guesthouse we had reserved a room at, to no avail.  People pointed us one way and then another way, but no one really seemed to know what we were talking about.  We called the guesthouse and the owner found us on his motorcycle and with him came a tuk-tuk.  We reluctantly took it to the guesthouse, which was called Sunhil's Rest.  As it turned out, the map we were using was entirely incorrect in its placement of the guesthouse, which was actually off the scope of the map.  So there, we used a tut-tuk, may it be for the last time.

Our guesthouse was pleasant and large two building family dwelling with guest rooms on the first and second floors of one building and the family's home connected by a bridge from that building on the second floor of the other.  We fell into our bed, turned on the fan and relaxed, only rousing for a beer and lunch.  We also took a walk down to the beach and found it to be quite nice as well, with no tourists.   We then found ourselves regretting the fact that we booked ahead for Tissa the next night.  As it turned out though, this might have been a blessing in disguise.  We had not actually asked how much the meals we were consuming cost (a mistake we shall not make again) and when in came bill time the next day, we found that they were far more expensive than we had expected.  Fortunately we still stayed in budget.

Now back in Tissa, we again found our guesthouse, this one called Traveller's Rest.  After settling in a bit we walked to a man made lake to take a look at the birds there.  Not in the greatest of moods, it should be said.  This is where I started.  After our encounter with the crazy cow herding man we went back to the Traveller's Rest and didn't leave.

The reason that we were in Tissa was to possibly take a safari jeep into Yala National Park.  This hope died though, the moment we saw how much the prices had gone up on this venture.  The cost for one person was our entire daily budget.  So we did not get to go on a safari.  When we're rich and perhaps only if we find out that the money that we would be paying actually went toward helping our friends the animals.  As this was about the only thing to do in Tissa and we were there for two days, we found ourselves at a bit of an impasse.

What we thought was the answer came in form of what the Lonely Planet described as a pilgrimage town near by.  For next time, we will leave pilgrimage towns to the pilgrims.  But you don't learn these lessons unless you actually go to there.

We left the guesthouse at 6 am.  We had little choice in when we woke up, as the safaris left at 5 am and they started preparing to leave at 4:15.  And we just happened to be residing right beside where all this was taking place.  Needless to say, we did not get much sleep in-between 4 and 5 am.  But it allowed us to get up early (at least we thought this was a good thing), and get to the bus station early for a 6am ride to the town.

Our journey did not start on a high note.  As we walked to the station we saw a dead dog lying in the road.  We looked away and walked on hurriedly.  It took an hour to get there and we were crowded in by unhappy children on their way to school.  It was a packed bus and we were happy to hop off of it with all the school kids at the last stop.  We stepped out right at the site that we were aiming to go to, a place that was surrounded by a park fence and that we had to cross a river to get into.

We did not enjoy our brief time within the fence, perhaps because we had come when most Sri Lankans also come.  It was crowded, noisy and surprisingly dirty.  I was reminded immediately of a line from Paul Theroux's "Great Railway Bazaar", that wryly stated, it appeared anyway,  that to the Hindu's the dirtier the water of a temple the more holy it was.  A disturbing shade of brown and green being the most holy.  This pilgrimage site was not just for Hindus, but Buddhists and Muslims as well.  If they all went by the same scheme then it was a pretty holy place.  It seemed very odd though, that people would just toss their garbage on the ground wherever they were in the holy site.  I did notice, later, that there were people cleaning up the garbage around their own temples, but in the moment we both stood aghast at just how much garbage was lying around the place.  We did not enter any of the temples or mosques or shrines, but from the outside we could see garbage piled up in, as without.  We did not enter anything because the moment stepped down from the bridge that spanned the muddy green river, we felt entirely unwelcome.  Perhaps we had forgotten to do something, but knowing temple etiquette (at least so we thought) we had removed our shoes and dressed modestly.  Some people pointed and laughed at as, something I've never really minded for some reason, but most people just stared hostilely as we passed them by.  The only people who talked to us were a few tuk-tuk drivers that were within the site's grounds for some reason (there were some pretty clear signs saying they shouldn't be there).  We did not want a ride.  Though we were pretty happy to get out of the place when we did.  We were not there for more than 20 minutes.

I suppose that going to a place of pilgrimage is not really something we should have been doing, despite the mention of it in the Lonely Planet.  Or maybe we had just come on the wrong day.  Or at the wrong time.  We did not know, but we were happy to leave.  

We were looking for a bus stop when we met an older couple coming the other way.  The man was Sri Lankan and the woman was Irish.  They were in the town on a bit of a vacation.  The man seemed immediately worried for our safety and helped us get to the bus stop as fast as possible.  He even hurried ahead to find a bus for us.  The woman stayed behind and chatted with us.  She seemed to think that it was perhaps a mistake for them to have come to this village, it seemed a bit of a bad spot in her and her partners opinion.  Evidently, with lines like "You'd likely get abducted if you walk down the wrong street here",  they did not much care for the place.  They both exuded a protective sense of caution around us that was actually quite touching and not at all patronizing, though we both later thought that perhaps they were a bit too cautious.  

They did mention a story that we had read in the online Sri Lankan paper recently, which was perhaps why they seemed so concerned.  A British man had been killed at a restaurant during a party is what we had read.  They told us that it had not exactly gone like that.  It was more that he had come to a restaurant and started eating where a group of Sri Lankan men were having party.  He was subsequently attacked and killed by the men having the party, though nobody could tell why.  Sounded pretty grim.  But as we were heading away from the South (where this had happened), we were less concerned about it now.  It happened about a year ago and the reason it was in the paper was because the British Government had sent representatives to investigate further and demand justice (which has yet to be served, apparently).

The man (we never got their names) found us a bus that was leaving right away and we got on it.  They admonished us again to be careful around the area as we got on.  The last thing he said to us though was "I have a son about your age", which might have explained the caution. We stood the whole way back to Tissa and returned to our guesthouse, passing the same dead dog.  This time thought someone had moved it onto the sidewalk.  We had a better view of its crushed skull before we again averted our eyes and walked on.

Helped by breakfast, though, we slowly relaxed.

Later the same day we were eating lunch at a local rice and curry shop when a Sri Lankan man was seated next to us.  He turned out to be a doctor who was working at the local hospital for a bit, as something of a final residency.  When we told him that we were Canadian he told us that he had almost taken a job at the University of Alberta (the University where I got my degree), but his wife could not stand the cold.  One of his best friends was Canadian and worked at the University.  He asked me if I had heard of him, but as he was a doctor and medical professor (and obviously taught nothing in the History department), chances were pretty slim.  He told us a lot about the area.  His home was actually Matara, which was where his wife was currently working (she worked in Paediatrics).  He said the Tissa area was a bit less settled and we said we could tell.  He was a little surprised that we had gone to the pilgrimage town, but not really surprised by our reaction to it.  He and his wife were planning on moving out of Sri Lanka when they could so that their skills could be put to better use (he was more interested in research).  That being said, he told us that Sri Lanka's government health care was improving rapidly and there were some nifty lower tech ways for doctors to get medical information quickly using smart phones (perhaps that's actually a high tech).

After we finished lunch he offered to take us to his favourite place in Tissa for bird watching.  He drove us to a man made lake, where there were a lot birds, he even lent us his binoculars so that we could see them better.  He told us though, that the best time for bird watching was in the early morning.  We noted the place and said that we would ride to it in the morning on the bikes provided by our guesthouse.  He could not stay too long as he had to get to a private practice that he did on top of the hospital work.  It sounds like, from what he said, Sri Lankan doctors are very busy.  On the way home we passed a bunch of Sri Lankan people swimming in one of the man made lakes.  The doctor shook his head at this and mentioned that there were many crocodiles in that lake and that everyone knew about them.  He did not understand why people still swam there.  He dropped us off at our guesthouse and we exchanged Facebook information.  Our day was turning out to be better than its dismal beginnings seemed to indicate.

We watched swarms of bats pouring through the sky as it darkened from our guesthouse and chatted with a younger British guy, who said he liked how friendly people in Sri Lanka were.  I did not argue, he seemed a more gregarious type.  We also had what is advertised as a Sri Lankan breakfast but was fine for dinner too.  The tea was also good.

In the morning we took the bikes to the lake again and looked at the birds.  It would have been more enjoyable but the bike that Nancy had, kept losing one of of its pedals.  While we were there four young men approached us and talked to us for a little bit.  I don't really remember much of what they said, but I do recall them telling a Sri Lankan version of Aesop's The Bear and The Travellers (where one traveller is good at climbing and his friend isn't and when the see a bear he runs up a tree leaving his friend to play dead; the friend on the ground realizes that perhaps this tree climbing friend is not such a good example of friendship, even though neither of them get eaten by the bear).  This conversation came about because we were talking about bears in the national park and Sri Lanka in general (I did not realize that Sri Lanka had sloth bears; yikes!).

We returned to the guesthouse and dashed off to the bus stop, stuffing the last of our toast from breakfast into our mouths as we did so.  We ended up taking 3 separate buses to our next destination, Ella, all the while we were told that yes, this bus does go to Ella, only to be told at another station that we transfer here.  We arrived in Ella at last, after a hair raising final few turns.  We got off in front of the Curd Shop, which happened to be owned by the son of the owner of the guesthouse we had booked in at.  The place was called Beauty Mount Hotel a place we were to stay for a very long time (relatively speaking).

On The Fountains of Paradise

"I have a problem my dear," he continued. "You have watched all the invaders of Taprobane come and go, since Kalidasa's time. You have seen the jungle flow like a tide around Yakkagala, and then retreat before the axe and the plough. But nothing has really changed in all those years. Nature has been kind to little Taprobane, and so has History; it has left her alone…

"Now the centuries of quiet may be drawing to a close. Our land may become the centre of the world-of many worlds. The green mountain you have watched so long, there in the south, may be the key to the universe. If that is so, the Taprobane we knew and loved will cease to exist" (Fountain of Paradise. Arthur. C. Clark)

There is something almost magical when reading this book and travelling in the place that it took place in. Though fiction, a lot of it is based off of fact, and a vision of Sri Lanka by a man who loved it. Its as if part of his soul is printed in the landscape, the history and the people. 

In the lines above, the main character, Rajasinge, is talking to the painted goddesses on the face of the rock. The surviving paintings can be found in a place called Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. They have become the 9th wonder of the world. They are images painted on stone, very large and in much detail. They look out onto the fountains that were created by the king, who at the time was also a tyrant, but had a vision of paradise in which he wanted to live and create for himself. The remains of this vision, and the works of artists and architectural geniuses two thousand years ago can be found in Sigiriya.

But Kevin and I are almost afraid to go and see. We are afraid that it has also become so touritified that all the magic and splendour has been drained from being over priced, over advertised, over visioned as a place to get the tourists money.

The Sri Lanka that Clark knew is still here. We see it. We see the beauty in the way the warm scented air touches or skin. We feel the kindness and generosity of the people that smile at us in warm ways, offer us most exist food with pride and sharing. We see the way the light played with the landscape, colouring it like an artist, enriching our imaginations. Or even just the simple time taken to drink a cup of tea and feel the calm of where we sit.

But reading this book has also made me very sad and talking about it with Kevin shows how much he feels the same. Its as if Clark was a beloved person in our life. We can feel what he felt by being here. But its heartbreaking because of all the huge changes that are taking place in so fast a time. Just by seeing how tourism works, how any thing that is beautiful or splendourous is milked out down to the bone. Guesthouses are popping up every month. Their construction everywhere we have been. A hotel resort is being constructed right next to our lovely Beauty Mount Guesthouse. The owner, 80 years old, was here when it was all Jungle and the only guesthouse was just next door, that costs a whole 2 rupees and 50 cents. He found this very funny, considering now, some places can cost more than 10,000!

In the story the Fountains of Paradise, a scientist wants to build a space elevator, and the only place possible for it to be build is Taprobane. Here presents the problem, because the quiet jewel Sri Lanka was left protected in the garden of Eden. But this new discovery, "a dream-or nightmare" is hard to dismiss and hard to accept. Clark was an optimist when it came to technology, as Kevin tells me, and I am beginning to see why.

But with technology comes big changes, and here is the paradox, the will to keep the past sacred and preserved verses the changing of tides and the discovery and creation of new things. But it is not simple to just dismiss the past. There are beautifies it holds, mysteries, secrets, stories, energies, dreams, all put into it. Can we just erase it, or turn these secret places into tourist schemes. What about the solitary discovery of them, the gentle unfolding of their secret. These sensitive discoveries and needs seem to be being forgotten. The privacy of pilgrimage, the ceremony of life, cannot be captured in a few shots from a camera, or guided by competing salesmen who want to guide you. 

It seems like something else threatens this quietness that was Taprobane, though not a space elevator, but perhaps something much less optimistic, a greed for money. I do not want to admit this, and I know that every place holds its beauty, but it does get harder to find. But thanks to people like Clark, we are offered glimpses of a beautiful country that is touching in so many ways. And though big changes are coming, its history cannot be erased. Thank you Clark for being such a great man and such a positive, sensitive thinker. 

Every engineer and scientist should read this book, so that they can marvel at the wonders of technology but also the wonders of the past and the old ways.

Train to Matara

We ate our second time breakfast at Unawatuna Bay Hotel, we took a morning walk along the tiny palm fringed road. When we got to the Hotel, Lisa the boxer, greeted us with a demanding "pet me" look. After many pets she decided to sit on my foot Her lower jaw protruding in a growl look which was anything but that. We made our way inside the quiet hall, that had huge tables and plastic chairs. It was plain, white walks and a few pictures advertizing Sri Lanka with some great Sinhala music in the background (Kevin wasn't too much a fan).

Sri Lankan music sounds like Indian romantic music with a lot of soft warbling and romantic melodies that get you dreaming before you catch yourself doing it. Sandar, the man who offered us the fish, gave me a CD cover that showed pictures of the musicians who were mostly from Colombo he said.

The night before, we ate dinner there as well. The other people in the hall were a large group of Japanese tourist, and since it was their last night, a feast of grilled fish was being served. We didn't order the fish, but, after talking to the men who worked there, they offered us some, which we learned was barracuda. The Japanese girls laughed at Lisa and pocked her nose. After asking me where I was from and such, they said, "I like your hair" and then "you have a nice voice". Japanese and Taiwanese alike have some interesting complements, it wouldn't surprise me if they said something random like "I like you toes".

Before we left, as I was paying, a drunken man approached Kevin. I am nervous of drunk men in the morning so I went and stood next to Kevin. I didn't like how close he was. Tucked under his arm was a bottle of hard liquor and in his right hand a glass of the stuff. Kevin was calm, he said, ""Nice shirt", it was a shirt of Alexander the Great. At first it sounded like he was saying Macedonia, with a thick Russian accent that had more emphases with a drunken tongue. But eventually we figured out that what he was saying was "my name". When Sandar approached us, the Russian man put his arm around him and said loudly, "my good friend". The man seemed okay after all, I was just on my guard, even foreigners can be dangerous in foreign countries, sometimes more so. Kevin said bye and made his way out, not wanting to extend the conversation further. I followed him and said bye to the man. He said, seeing Kevin leaving, "Sorry for offence." He seemed a bit ashamed of his morning drunkenness, I said it was okay because it was the holiday and he took this as a great excuse. I asked Kevin if he was an alcoholic, he said that probably 80% of Russians are. From a Western perspective that would be unacceptable, from a Russian viewpoint its probably expected.

At the Galle train station, on a Saturday morning, the atmosphere was very different from a working week. There were families eating ice cream, children sat on benches letting their feet dangle as they looked around in a restless, ready to do something way.  All the children were well dressed, the girls with pig tails and the boys with nice sneakers. Woman in their saris passed us with long black braids up to their knees. Men sat with their wives, woman talked to each other in twos and threes. Some of the older woman walked by with a stern expression on their faces, serious and skeptical, the ones in charge. 

We got on the train, and got to sit. Kevin read for a while as I looked out the window, my head out, feeling the wind on my arms and face. I looked to my left and right and could see brown arms and heads pocked out the window, all enjoying the breeze and the passing scenery. One man stuck his hand out and let the wind move it. People here seem to love the outdoors, as if the sky was their ceiling. What was  and they didn't cover their skins from the sun. 

The scenery was a mixture of life amongst palms. I saw a sign that said "Koggala Free Trade Zone", an abandoned bus with a picture of a woman's eyes looking out from behind it into a deserted car park.There were many red terracotta tiled roofs with orange, peach, blue and white washed walls. Some had stone gates around them, they looked earthy amongst the palms, their colours brought out by the green and blue sky. One home was left to disintegrate over time, it appeared abandoned, and stood in a shadow, promising that it had once been a beautiful home full of colour and life. Some apartment complexes were half-built. One had no door or balcony frame on the second floor. It was entirely made of concrete and a shaggy dog sat on this balcony, looking out at the train, a few meters format he tracks.

Sadly there was evidence that those ugly tin roofs that rusted into an ugly brown red seemed to be replacing the terracotta shingles. They took away the dignity of the place. Even old, shabbier homes, held some beauty from the colour of their roofs. 

We passed various people, a boy with a violin on his back, the woman sweeping around their houses, some tuk-tuks parked in their parking space at home, a man crossing a shallow river with his dog, an old woman in a old white dress gone grey. Some woman peeked out from behind doors, their homes not more than a shack, they were not younger than 70. We passed a few randomly placed tomb stones among palms, a woman brushing her hair, a man manually lifting the train gate to let the cars pass after the train, old meter wide wells with buckets. We smelled different wafts of curry, flowers, sewage, dust and smoke, sometimes distinguishable sometimes not.

We stopped at a station where one loud boy, bossed a group of other boys around, he was carrying a cricket bat. He was organizing teams. One boy sat in a tree, older than the others. Their bikes were thrown down by the tree. One boy proudly tossed an empty bottle in a manly little way. I would not want to teach these boys!

We passed small, sleepy stations, their name signs shaded by frangipani trees. We passed dogs guarding entrances to open doored houses. We passed a school, where I saw children at desks, all in white, sitting closely together, under an iron roofed building that was surrounded by tuk-tuks and waiting parents. I guess it would soon be lunch.

The train ride was over soon, and regrettably we disembarked the train in Matarra. It always feels like stepping into a stormy sea whenever we enter a new town. You never really know what to expect here.

Scenes from Unawatuna

We are sitting on the Village Inn balcony in front of our room. It is mid-afternoon and after the noon downpour it is sticky and hot. We feel the sweat dribbling down our body and try to keep hydrated. There are birds, tiny bright yellow ones, shy soft green ones with budgie beaks, tiny black and white ones with a half mow hawk hairdos, and many other kinds that we can only in the various sounds they make. Monkeys are seen jumping from the high palm leaves, flying for a moment before they cling to the fern like fronds of the palm. They travel in families, some are black with silver white bums and long tails. The others are the long tailed macaques like the ones we saw in Malaysia. There are many buggy sounds too. Everything feels damp and warm, like everything is living in soggy air that is heavy with damp. 

Up, high in palms are bunches of coconuts. The method of getting them down, I was told, was using a device that a hired man will strap to his feet which he will use to help him climb all the way to the top, at least 30-40 feet up.

At this moment the playful chipmunks climb along the power lines, moving their tails back and forth using it like we'd use our arms to balance. Sometimes they scamper about the roof chasing each other. 

Also, in the background we can hear the occasional grind and stomp of the big rocks that trucks are hauling and dumping out in the sea to create a jetty. I think there is a problem with erosion since so many guesthouses and restaurants are built right on the sands and the tides come all the way up to their steps. Some are abandoned, perhaps from the tsunami or the erosion from the high tides. Either way, after the tsunami, it seems people have been building closer to the surf and there is no room to even lay out a towel since the space that may have been is taken up by the lawn chairs of various restaurants. Its a tourist based town, and the guesthouses keep being built. A restaurant/ art gallery just opened up next door to us. Construction is taking place wherever we walk.

Food is pricy here. We never thought the price of food would be an issue for us, but in these tourist towns, prices are six times higher than they would be in any town.

Along the muddy road tuk-tuks line the way, its drivers are chatting with friends, reading a newspaper, or just sitting and waiting. Some say hi, or "nice hat miss" or "good morning sir, you want tuk-tuk?". Some eagerly sit up hoping to make some bucks, others seem more defiant of our expressing a will to walk, some just say "hello".

Today we ate breakfast at the Unawatuna Hotel, a place we found on our walk along the dirt road through more local homes. The food is great, the ambience is quiet, and the prices are some of the best in town. We ate a breakfast of eggs, buttered toast with jam, some pineapple, and a large pot of tea with heated milk (Kevin didn't have any milk except for the first time we had tea hear, to replay some of his childhood).

After our breakfast the man asked us what our plans were and if we had been to Jungle beach, we said no. Previously, a man had told us that you could only get there by boat and that it was dangerous to go on foot. It sounded very exotic. However, the man at the restaurant said it was easy to get there, just go right at the junction on the road from our guesthouse. He said it was up and down a hill, about 1 km of hiking. We thanked him and went to get our bathing suits on and marched on, in search of this famed Jungle beach. We walked, turned right at the junction, and walked up hill. Then we saw a sign that said jungle beach, the road turned into a hiking trail throughout lush palms and low lying vegetation. The night before we had seen a black snake in the water, it was small, but it was a snake none the less. We were wary as we walked, hoping not to come across an angry cobra.

We climbed down some rocks and after a wrong turn that brought us to a bay full of giant rocks, we continued down the other path and finally found the beach. Atop the hill was a high white stupa. We went for a swim, but the beach was full of people and hardly seemed isolated or jungly. The water was calm for swimming, but there was no coral only a few fragments of it with a school of tiny rainbow fish and the occasional angel fish.

We swam and then made our way up to the stupa that was called the "peace pagoda". Kevin kept saying "its a stupa, stupid" and that how I remembered the difference. But this sign made us both confused and we will look up the difference as soon as we get internet. 

The pagoda was painted entirely in white. it had peach coloured tiles and two levels. It is round with creases in its dome like those you can make with your finger on a potters wheel. There was a groups of school children all giggling, and we all hid together under one of the giant creases as a large downpour came down from the partly cloudy sky. Kevin stood in the rain to "wash his clothes" while I stood under the potters crease enjoying the coolness of the air. It is such a refreshing feeling to feel the rain on a hot day, cool and clear. It dribbled down the white surface of the stupa and droplets fell from the creases onto the wet tile. The school children sploshed their feet throughout the tiny sheet of water. We did the same, feeling the soft cool tiles on our hot feet.

We looked up at the tip of the stupa. It is round and a giant. It seemed sacred, clean and peaceful. The tip of the stupa pointed up into the sky, like a satellite, attempting to contact  a place in the universe. 

The children had left, their dark skins bright against the white sacred wall. But they were anything but solemn, they laughed and teased each other the entire time.

Kevin got upset when he saw a plaque that said that the buddha was meant to bring everyone to peace. He was upset because it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of Buddhism, which is to follow your own path to enlightenment. I will let him write his thoughts on this matter.

I too felt a bit sad as we left, but it was mixed with peace from the purity and calmness of the place. But life seemed to be in such contrast with this place and it is this contrast that made we feel sad.

Kevin got upset with me when I wanted to find the herb garden after seeing the HIndu monkey god (of Ramyana fame) called Hanuman, who was said to have dropped some herbs in this area. His statue stood under a scented tree with yellow flowers, many of its petals lay on the rocks, scattering yellow scented dots on its surface. The statue had a long herbed necklace the went down to his knees. The monkey looked almost like a Buddha. 

I got angry at Kevin for not being interested and we walked apart for a bit of time. Finally we talked it over, I apologized for wanting to go on and not seeing how Kevin felt. Kevin apologized for being upset. Its funny how we stay angry at each other for so long, stubborn to speak to one another, and then resolve it almost instantly once we listen to each others feelings. We walked the rest of the way home together. I washed some clothes and Kevin wrung them out. After we hung them up, we went for some lunch, eating rotti, fried rice, and curry. Now we are sitting on our balcony and enjoying the light breeze that has just made its way to us. Hopefully it will last. I think I'm going to order some teas for us to sip as we look out at the steamy garden of palms.