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.

Unawatuna Times

Unawatuna was a 20 minute bus ride from Galle, not knowing this, we got up early and hopped on the bus.  The bus dropped us off at an unassuming road with a few tuk tuks gathered around.  After finding out that this was indeed the road we needed to walk down in order to get to the main part of Unawatuna  we set off.  Along the way we were constantly harangued by tuk-tuks drivers as we walked down the 1.5 Km street to our guesthouse.  We did not find this promising.  Nor was the row, upon row of beach front restaurants and guesthouses.  By the time we got to our guesthouse we were not in the greatest of moods, but the room was a welcome comfort.  We lay down for a bit before descending to the dining area for a some breakfast, which was quite a bit cheaper than any breakfast we had seen in Galle.  We ordered coconut pancakes and some tea.  I thought the pancakes were great, but Nancy kept finding ants in her coconut pancake.  There may have been ants in mine too, but inhaled my pancake to no ill effect.  In any event, it was the last time we ordered food at our guesthouse in Unawatuna.  Nancy will later tell you about the place that would have been a better fit for us at a better price too (not to mention better meals), in Unawatuna.

Alright, so my stomach was feeling a little upset after our breakfast, but I didn't let that show as we walked to the Buddhist temple and stupa that was near by.  We were having our doubts about Unawatuna at this point and these were not helped by the fact that the line of guesthouses and restaurants along the beach continued on, all the way to the temple.  Just beyond the temple we saw that they were building a large rocky jetty, presumably to keep prevent as much damage from another tsunami, as was caused in 2004 when Unawatuna was devastated by the infamous tsunami that claimed the lives of thousands in Thailand, Malayasia, Sumatra, India and Sri Lanka.  Though, by my reckoning, which is by no means perfect on this subject, they were building it facing the wrong direction.  Its presence also explained the massive dump trunks that trundled by every now and then loaded with big rocks.  Nancy mentioned that jetties are not very environmentally friendly because they cause more erosion in other places, and sure enough, when we got to the top of the hill where the Stupa was, we noticed a huge tail of dirt drifting out from the jetty and beside it.  I was likely not there before.  Again though, I'm not an expert so, perhaps that is how its supposed to be.  I never seem to have access to the internet when I write these things, so I can never really research and I'm usually to lazy to do so when I do have internet access.

The Stupa itself a was a massive white pillar, though not as large (or as new)  as the Peace Pagoda that I mentioned before and Nancy will write about later.  Just down the way from the Stupa, on the opposite side of where we climbed up, we found something that kept our interest more readily.  There was a large rock outcropping that formed sort of a sloping cliff into the water.  Massive waves were constantly pounding into this rocky hill, sending up showers of spray.  There was even a narrow place between two of these rocky slopes where the waves, when they hit just right, would form a geyser, blasting water up into the air and drenching anyone who happened to be near by.  A few Russian tourist were hit by it while we watched.  We watched the waves continuing to smash into the rocks sending up their misty volumes for a long time and we began to warm up to Unawatuna.

The warming did not last long, at least on Nancy's part.  We walked back along the beach this time and realized just how close the guesthouses and restaurants were to the water.  Very, very close as it turns out.  So close that the waves were lapping against some of the structures.  I mentioned earlier that Unawatuna was devastated by a tsunami less then 10 years ago.  One of the main reasons for so many casualties was that it was so close to the water.  So much for lesson learning.  We had nowhere  to put our towels down that would not get them taken by the waves and would not been in the lap of someone sunbathing on a lounge chair just beyond the tide.  When we did find a likely place an older Russian lady told us that she had seen the waves come up to where we had just lain the towels.  We gave up on that notion and asked her and her husband if they wouldn't mind us just putting our stuff beside them all folded up.  They did not mind.  The waves, even in the bay, were pretty large and we found ourselves being pushed back onto the beach by them upon first getting in.  The giant waves stirred memories of my childhood in Vanuatu.

When I was a boy of about 4 or 5 I remember (not so clearly anymore) that I used to catch the waves just as they were about to break.  I would roll with the wave, getting tossed head-over heels by them and being deposited on the sandy beach on my back, most of the time.  I do still have vivid memories of my motion as I pinwheeled through the waves.  Ever since, whenever I have seen waves that could toss me around like that, I have tried to recapture the feeling.  Within reason of course.  Now, nearly 25 years on I am a lot more breakable and I contented my self with catching the top of the waves and having them carry me on to the beach head first.  It was still fun.

While I was having fun though, Nancy was having her own, not so fond memories of her own.  She was remembering, on a beach not unlike this in California, she had been caught in an undertow and carried far out into the water.  She managed to get out, evidently, but the experience had shaken her badly.  After not very much time she got out of the water and sat on the beach.  I sailed my way up to her on a wave and found out what was wrong.  She thought that it was too dangerous here and she did not want to do anymore swimming.  Her point was further brought home by the large (but shallow) gash that I had on my foot.  We decided that we would not stay here that long after all.

After returning to the guesthouse and bandaging my foot and resting for a bit, we made our way out again for lunch.  We found a vegetarian Indian food place that looked promising.  I privately noted to myself that, if there was one thing that would warm Nancy to a place it would be good vegetarian food.  And the food here turned out to be very good indeed.  Also eating at the restaurant were two young boys having a bit of a tantrum and their mother (a British woman) and their aunt (a Sri Lanka woman).  Nancy talked to them for a bit while I scanned the books they had to trade here.

My head snapped around when I heard the British woman mention that she was a writer.  Nancy was, in fact, talking to Juliet Coombe an author who had written several books about Sri Lanka and more specifically the Galle area.  There was a tour in Galle that was based specifically on her book "Around the Fort in 80 Lives" (we could not nearly afford to take such a tour).  By the sounds of it, she has been quite successful lately, and judging by the big notebook and 3 ring binder full of pictures that she was carrying, she was working on an Unawatuna book.  She is fluent in Sinhala (which she said was quite handy for interviewing people, but not always so good when you knew what people were saying about you behind the language barrier) and was married to a Sri Lankan man (which one look at her boys would probably have told you).

We caught most of this while we were munching on our astonishingly good meal and she was talking to an older English couple (yes, I guess you could say we were eavesdropping).  That last little piece of eavesdropping we did informed us that she was in the process of becoming a Sri Lankan citizen, which was not an easy thing to do.

Once again, the food was delicious and by the end of her Chai tea, Nancy was saying that, perhaps we could stay a bit longer after all.  While Nancy had her tea, I had some organic coffee in a mini french press.  Sri Lanka is the land of tea, but as a coffee drinker, I need to have at least some decent coffee from time to time.  As it was a french press it brought back another memory, this time of Yellowknife.  Sometime during our first few years in Yellowknife my mother bought a french press to make coffee with.  As I remember, she was pretty excited about it.  But on the very day that she bought it, as it was sitting on the counter, I was doing something near by, I'm not sure what, I was obviously pulling on something though.  I know this because my armed slipped and my elbow hit the brand new french press and knocked it onto the floor, where the glass shattered.  My mom was pretty upset about it, though she did her best to hide the fact from me, but she's not very good at that.  I felt pretty guilty about it.  And, to this day, whenever I see a french press, that same memory always arrives in my mind and feel the need to apologizes to my mom for that misdeed.  So, sorry mom, I'd buy you a new one now, but you have a much better maker of coffee now anyway.

We went back to the beach again and the waves were lesser than before.  And Nancy was fully warmed up to the idea of staying in Unawatuna a bit longer.  As we walked back to the guesthouse, we heard the music that the garbage truck in Taiwan always played (Fur Elise by Beethoven).  We had heard it before and wondered if the  Sri Lankan garbage trucks were also Beethoven fans.  They were not, but, as we saw a few seconds after hearing the music and seeing a bread and pastry truck come around the corner, apparently bread trucks were.

That night we ate at one of the beach front restaurants and Nancy, now a bit more enthusiastic about Unawatuna, insisted that we eat at the table that was directly on the beach.  I said that we might just regret that, and I was proved right after about 5 minutes, when a wave hit our table and soaked our shoes (which to be fair we probably shouldn't have been wearing).  We took them off and continued our meal, which proved to be quite tasty.  I decided that it was probably alright to stay a few more days too.

We ended up staying in Unawatuna 2 more days, about which, Nancy will be happy to tell you.

Religion and Galle Fort

I want to talk about our time in Galle with this little (or probably not so little) post.  But I also want to talk about something that has sort of been on my mind since a certain part of Snow Crash (which I finished while we were in Galle) or perhaps since being in Negombo, or even earlier, since I listened to a podcast (Hardcore History, by Dan Carlin is the name of the cast) about the Dark Ages.  Also, something that happened just recently.  And probably many more things that are immediately at the forefront of my mind at the moment.  First of all though, a bit about Galle.

Galle is a fort town that was first fortified by the Portuguese, subsequently taken by the Dutch, who built further fortifications and then handed over to the British, who didn't do too much with it.  But while the Dutch and the Portuguese held it, Galle was the premier port in Sri Lanka (the British developed Colombo instead).  Its fortifications, on a little egg shaped jut of land covering a bay, still hold a lot people, as well as old buildings and old places of worship for at least 3 different religions.  It reminded me a lot of Melaka (though I still prefer Melaka to it).

We arrived at Galle around 11 by train and made our way into the fort area where our guesthouse was.  Hotel Weltevreden is in old Dutch building that is heritage listed and also home to the owners (a cheerful Sri Lankan family).  All of the rooms surround a small, but sunlit courtyard and all, from what we could tell, had the distinctive odour of cat pee.  This was alright since we did not intend to spend much time in our room.

The walls of the fort are walkable around the entire area, there was only one part that gave us a bit of concern and that was the little Sri Lankan military outpost that we walked by on our first day, with an armed guard posted.  We walked around them as much as possible though, on that first day.  As we did so, we walked by an old mosque (that was not a place for visitors), saw a Stupa across the water (more on that soon) and hid from the rain in an old Anglican church (where an attendant showed us around).  We drank tea across from an old Dutch hospital that was to be turned into a shopping mall and was being worked on by the army, so the owner of the cafe told us.  We were also dismayed to find how expensive everything was in Galle.  I guess its not cheap to own property there.  Almost all of the food places we ate at were aimed at tourists.  The place we ate at the most was a place called The Indian Hut, whose sign I had initially mocked as we walked past, as it said: "Indian Hut, No Pork, No Beef, No Liquor".  I had thought that this didn't seem like the most winning advertisement; as it was next to the mosque though, I suppose it did make a certain amount of sense, no liquor or pork.  When we looked at the menu and saw the cheapest prices we could find in Galle (and Indian food at that), I reconsidered my mockery.

And that is really all we did in Galle, eat, drink tea and walk around.  In all our walking among the old and red shingled roofs of Galle, I do not really remember the order that we did it all in, so I am going to take a different approach to this entry and talk about a few things in turn starting with that most difficult of subjects (at least to talk about and not insult someone), religion.  Hopefully I can get something coherent out of what I have been thinking about.

(Looks like I didn't.  You can skip this part if you want to read more about our time in Galle)

Snow Crash spends a goodly amount of time dealing with ancient Sumarian legends, specifically the ones surrounding the god Enki.  Enki, and other Sumarian gods, could use magical spells called Namshods.  They were basically a string of words that would alter reality in a variety of ways.  Enki was, as described by Hiro, the main character of Snow Crash, was the first hacker (Hiro is a hacker, of course), a neural-linguistic hacker , or at least the way that he used his Namshod was.  In the book anyway, Enki's Namshod was the origin of the Tower of Babel story, the reason that there are so many different languages in the world.  From the top of his ziggurat, so the story goes, Enki came to the realization that everyone was stuck in something of a rut, they were all doing the same thing, they would always do the same thing unless they were forced to think more, think out side the box so to speak.  Enki's Namshod, blocked the Sumarian language from the minds of the people, essentially erasing it from the world in a single act.  Then everyone was forced to think in different languages, make up new ones and generally "babble on".

One of the basic thrusts of the book is that since then, society has been trying to return to the state that came before Enki's Namshod, that is something static, organized and with everyone basically doing and thinking the same thing.  The book is far more complex than that, but for my purposes hopefully that very brief description of Enki's actions will do.  Perhaps you can already see where this is going given my stated topic.  (On a side note, Snow Crash is one of the pillars of the Cyber Punk genre (or anti-pillar some would say, since it is claimed to mock the genre), moving it beyond everyone copying William Gibson's Neuromancer.  In a recent recent interview I heard with Neal Stephenson (the author of Snow Crash), which is why I picked up Snow Crash, he mentioned that there were companies that took the book's Metaverse idea as their entire business model (it was written in 1992), and that the game "Second Life" was more than partly based off of it).

Of course the institution that was put to best use in keeping the status quo was religion.  In the actual words of Jesus, there is no mention of a church or a pope, or even of priests.  In the teaching of the Buddha, so far as I know, there is no mention of monks, or priests or kings.  Only a statement that you must find your own path (or so I understand).  But, and I suppose this is the rub, people seem to need something to tell them what to do, what to believe.  According to Snow Crash at least, it is different languages that is able to put up a barrier between cultures and prevent them from all becoming a monoculture and it also helps prevent the spread of viral (as Snow Crash puts) neural-linguistic ideas, like that of, say, a missionary religion.  Ideas are like viruses goes the theory (and we should note here that, unlike evolution, it really is only a theory).  This is true for all sorts of ideas, but for the time being lets think mostly of religion.

Now most of the world religions these days are what are called "universal religions".  That is they claim to have all of the answers within their framework and anything outside them is simply untrue.  At least at their most rigid.  Saying this is also an oversimplification but it will do for my purposes.  But what it mostly means it that they try to spread, like a viral infection, something that tries to live in a host without killing it.  After all, religions that are too violent or too extreme, tend to die out.  Quick example, not sure what it was called, but there was a Christian group, in the early days of Christianity, that decided that all sex was evil, therefore no one should have it, ever.  Not surprisingly it did not last very long; they did not win many converts and they had no children to keep it going.  So there is that equilibrium in more ways than one that they have to keep.

Quickly now, I also recently listened to a Hardcore History podcast on the Dark Ages, by Dan Carlin, which talked about, among other things, how people shape their religions to their cultures.  Obviously religions must shape to the dominant culture in order to survive, so despite, in this case, Christianity being essentially a pacifist religion, it shaped itself to the dominant culture, once that culture converted to it.  So Clovis (or Constantine for that matter), a brutal thug, who had most of his family killed (after he became a Christian) and complained later in life of being lonely, became a saint because he converted to the "right" Christianity and was the leader of a dominant group (the Franks).  As Dan Carlin points out in the podcast, Clovis and his ilk also, basically turned Jesus into Thor.

So, what does this have at all to do with Galle, well, I started this so long ago that I'm unsure now, but lets see.  There are 4 of the worlds major religions here, all of them with histories in the country going back a minimum of 500 years, with Christianity being the most recent on the arrivals.  All 4 have holy sites around the country.  The top of Sri Pada, despite having a Buddhist monastery at its summit, is sacred to all 4, as it has either Shiva's, Buddha's or Adam's footprint there (and whoever the footprint belongs too, had some gigantic feet).  Galle has temples, churches, mosques and stupas, tributes to the 4 religions represented in Sri Lanka, it seems to be a place that there is also relative peace between them.  

So we have 4 universalist religions in a small space, coexisting relatively well, so long as they don't bother each other.  But as we walked around Galle I wondered about how well things were shared here and I began to remember still more of what I had heard.  They all hold into Sri Lankan culture in different but similar ways (if you take my meaning).  As I just said, they coexist moderately well so long as they don't step on each others toes.  And Sri Lankans are religious people, whatever faith they adhere to.  According to the Lonely Planet, there is even a bit of bet hedging going on, with people of the different religions wandering into each other sanctuaries from time to time to worship there.  But it seems that not is all so peaceful as it is in Galle.

Before arriving in Sri Lanka, I had heard on the BBC that there was a group of "radical Buddhist monks" agitating the sites of other religions and even causing violent riots.  When I heard of this, I thought that it was utterly ridiculous.  Whoever heard of a radical monk.  Well, as I read on, apparently a lot of people.  I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised, every religion has had (and still has) violent holy folk.  Bishops and Popes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance strapped on armour and led armies into battle.  The founding of Islam led to a militaristic explosion of conquest by religious people.  The man who assassinated Mahatma Gandi was a member of a extremist Hindu movement.  To name a few of many.  I had always thought of Buddhism as a religion that was not supposed to take to extremes, but here in Sri Lanka that is not the case (to be fair it is not the case in a few other countries as well; I'm fairly sure that the like the small groups in these countries, it is also small groups of true agitators here too.  If you are interested in a crazy radical Buddhist sect, with fortunately few followers, research the Japanese Nichiren sect).  As I read on I found out that Sri Lanka has a nationalist Buddhist movement, which is partly the cause of so much tension, especially with the Tamil Hindus of the country.  A monk of this persuasion even assassinated a sitting president of Sri Lanka.  I should also note that this radicalism seems to have only arisen in the 19th century.

It all got me thinking about a more pragmatic look at religion around the world and especially in Sri Lanka.  I remember once thinking that if everyone just believed the same thing then all would be well, but of course adherents of most religions think that, so long as the belief is the same as their own.  In the framework of Snow Crash, religion brings a certain stability, which is good, but it also brings a lack of lateral thinking and creativity, which is not.  If there were no priests, or monks, or mullahs or gurus and people just self identified themselves as a affiliated to one religion without the help of said experts, would the world be a better place?  People would be free to believe what they wanted about their own religion then perhaps they would not feel so threatened by the belief of others.  Instead of a framework, perhaps religions would be an ever expanding bubble?  As nice as that might sound, I'm sure it wouldn't work.  Not yet anyway.  Perhaps its confidence of adherents that is frail, that need to feel certain that they are right and there is no room for doubt, or other thoughts, but there would be many other objections as well.

As to this radical element, one does wonder if it only appears when the core is threatened at least in the country of the radicals.  A defence mechanism.  A thought for another time.  It may be that this is the reason for Sri Lanka's radical Buddhists.

I could go on and on, with various tangents and ideas, but I think I will stop here, simply because I'm certain that I would not have gotten to a point even after 100 pages writing.  So, congratulations if you got this far, sorry for my rambling.  I'm going on to other things now.

(You can start again here)

In a quick little addition to all of this religion talk, a few days later when we were in Unawatuna we made our way to the Stupa (called the Peace Pagoda) we could see across the water from the Fort.  It was big and a clean shiny white.  And immensely peaceful.  Or at least it was, once the school group left.  We circled it, in all its cleanliness, feeling as though our spirit was being pulled up into the giant point and sent to the stars.  I was feeling pretty good, until I started reading the inscriptions on the plaques.  One in particular caught my eye.  It said that the upon the Buddha's birth he pointed to the ground and to heaven, said he was revered in both and that he had come to relieve all the suffering in the world.  I found this to be utterly out of context with Buddhism as I understood it.  I had not understood it too be a messianic religion, which is what it seemed to be suggesting here.  It upset me that it was like that, or this representation was like that anyway.  It made me grouchy for the rest of our time out that day (which was fortunately not very long).  I snarled a bit at Nancy and we walked back to our guesthouse in Unawatuna in silence for a while, before I realized how silly I was being and apologized.

Now for some views from the Indian Hut, which turned out to be a great place to people watch.

As we sat in the Indian Hut (which was on the second floor) we saw a tourist bus arrive and disgorge its passengers, a whole flock of them.  The moment the first tourist set foot on the ground she was descended upon by people selling their wares.  The whole line of them walked past the touts until all that was left was a little girl who was still being bothered by one persist tout, showing her his clothes for sale.  She was apparently not interested.  The touts wandered away dejected, but others caught the tourists up on the wall in smaller groups, which seemed to be more effective.

From the same vantage point we saw a dog that had stolen himself a nice fresh fish.  We watched as he defended his prize from the crows that were constantly circling.  The dog would snarl at two in front of him only to just barely chase the one coming from the side at the fish.  They circled and he ate, growling and threatening when he saw them come to close.  It seemed an epic struggle, that the dog managed to finally win.  Dogs are fast eaters.

There was also an old German man, with particular tastes, who ate at the Indian Hut as often as we did.  I overheard him tell the waiter exactly what he wanted done with his fried rice and order a lime juice, then a pepsi that he wanted to come with the rice and not a second sooner.  There seemed to be a bit of an argument over this, I think it was a language barrier issue.  He was yelling for a little bit, the waiters apologizing but he got his pepsi with his rice and not a moment sooner, well after he finished his lemon juice.

Finally, a man and his wife (in a burka) walked into the restaurant and sat down at the table next to us.  I did not hear them speak once, except to order (the man did that), during the entire time they were there.  They sat beside each other as separate as possible staring at the tv.  I wondered if they did not like to speak in public to each other and if so, would they, once they returned to the privacy of home talk about what they had seen in the restaurant and on the tv.  I also remember thinking about a part in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini (of Kite Runner fame).  One of the main characters (Miriam), upon her marriage to a man much older than herself (I think he was 45 and she was 16), she is given a burka by her new husband.  When she is out in Kabul wearing it for the first time, she feels completely safe from the stares of people, like stares bounce off.  The feeling eventually wears off but I wonder if that is how others feels about it.

  So that was Galle for us.  We ate, we watched, I brooded, we drank tea.

On Taprobane

"From Paradise to Taprobane is forty leagues; there may  be heard the sound of the Fountains of Paradise."  -Traditional; reported by Friar Marignolli (AD: 1355).  And also the quote that starts The Fountains of Paradise

A note on the name of this blog and also why we wanted to go to Sri Lanka.  The name Taprobane (with the ee sound at the end) is what Sri Lanka was know as by the Roman Empire in its hey-day.  It is also the name that Arthur C. Clark gave to the island that was 90% Sri Lanka, with some minor geographical quirks (it was on the equator was that main thing), in his book, The Fountains of Paradise.  In the introduction to the book, Clarke wryly notes that the stranger and more outlandish something was, the more likely it was based on reality.  We read The Fountains of Paradise on our last trip in Southeast Asia and even considered going to Sri Lanka after we left Malaysia before settling on Laos.

Clarke, as many people know, lived most of his life in Sri Lanka and was actually given the highest civilian honour by the Sri Lankan government for spreading positivity about the place (he was also knighted by the English government).  Obviously there was something that kept him here besides the scuba diving which was one of his passions.  One thing that we have thought of, since being here ourselves, is that he probably had a pretty good view of the stars here (we certainly do), which I imagine would be a plus for a Science Fiction writer.

In any event, The Fountains of Paradise takes place about 200 years from now in a time of sustained peace (Clarke was an optimistic Sci-fi writer).  He describes places in Taprobane that had exact parallels with Sri Lanka.  When we heard these descriptions we were mightily interested.  The story centres around an old Taprobanian diplomat (Rajasinghe) and an engineer (Vanevar Morgan) trying to make a space elevator on the summit of a mountain called Sri Kanda (or Sri Prada, its name in reality).  It also kind of parallels the activities of Morgan with that of an ancient King of Taprobane named Kalidasa, who build a castle all to himself on a smaller mountain looking at Sri Kanda.  On this mountain he commissioned some of the most fantastic frescos of women and goddesses in the world.  I forget what it was called in the book, but in Sri Lanka this place is called Sigiria and is considered (so we were informed by the people at the Lavinia Art Gallery) to be the 8th wonder of the world.  The admission price is pretty steep (and so are the stairs apparently), but it would sort of be like going to Cambodia and not seeing Ankor Wat.  In the story, Rajasinghe lived beside the Taprobane Sigiria and spent a good deal of time describing it to us.

But the thing that really got us interested was the description of Sri Kanda (that is Sri Pada).  Early in the book Morgan makes his way to the monastery at its summit to catch the dawn.  From the summit he can see the shadow of the mountain slowly appear on the sea of clouds below him as the sun rises.  We plan to walk up Sri Pada to catch such a dawn.  The scene is described beautifully and both of us listened with rapt attention to it.  We hope to be able to write our own description of it.

It was that description that haunted us and was one of the main reasons why we picked Sri Lanka as our destination.

Calling this blog Searching for Taprobane, is kind of like saying we are searching for Clarke's optimistic vision of the future of the country and the world.  While it seems unlikely that we will find a place that is without tension or strife, we have already found glimmers of hope in the places we have been so far, that it is possible to move together into the future with compassion and the willingness to overlook the differences of others.

The smiles of the train

"Old wars, bravely fought; but usually little more has been at stake other than the honour

 and local glory of one particular prince. The fortifications were now useless, the palace empty. One dark, dusty room had old photographs and remnants of Victorian bric-a-brac.  The small formal garden in the courtyard was in decay; and the mechanical, decorative nineteenth-century Bundi murals around the courtyard had faded to blues and yellows and greens. In the inner rooms, hidden from the sun, brighter colours survived, and some panels were exquisite. But it all awaited ruin. The monsoon damp was rotting away plaster; water dripped through green-black cracks in underground arches; and the sharp smell of bat dung was everywhere.

All vitality had been sucked up into that palace on the hill; and now vitality had gone out of Bundi." A Wounded Civilizatiton by V.S. Naipaul. 

The ride from Mount Lavinia to Galle along the west coast of Sri Lanka, on a dark second-class train, seemed to show a "wounded" window into Sri Lanka. The station itself seemed subject to long decay. Spray painted iron columns made to look silver holding up old tin sheet roofs. Thick wooden benches, dark brown and heavy, from real hardwood, maybe one 50 years old or more. The sign to the mens lavatory "gents" to the right of the waiting platform, was clearly marked, the woman's unnoticeable. Inside the woman's bathroom there were two stalls with doors, squat toilet flushed with a bucket. The other 'stalls' had no doors, just holes in the ground divided by boards next to the open door. These bathrooms didn't promote privacy in a 'modest' country. However, the girls bathroom was much cleaner than the mens, Kevin said he could wait to use it. Maybe this is because there are hardly any woman to be seen in the train station. Among the many, the woman could be counted, maybe one or two. 

Behind a peached coloured solid wall that blocks the view to the ocean, grow luscious papaya trees, full with fruit (I think they are papayas). Men sit along the wall on long benches, each on "his own island". Among the occasional chatter the sound of modern Western music can be heard, the Twilight theme song was among them. An occasional crackly announcement in Sinhala, not Tamil or English, was announced, usually indicating the arrival of a train. Black crows, cawing in the background, and the occasional tiny bird.  A few flowers were plants with small attempts to beautify the waiting platform. The train felt as if it was on the cusp of abandonment yet it was in full use. 

In the background the occasional crash of the surf could be found but its breeze was unfelt. The smell of toilet and smoke wafted in our direction from time to time, and I noticed no garbage on the platform. 

Most of the people looked very respectable and clean shaven, but they didn't seem friendly. Everyone was solitary, perhaps anticipating the long day ahead with a tired dread. 

Occasionally a really poor looking man in his sarong and bare feet would go into the bathroom to get some water, perhaps this is where he got his daily washing done. He seemed to linger between the tracks beside a building in the shade. I wonder how me made money or found food. 

The people seem tired, self-contained sitting on the benches in their business clothes and black shoes. I wonder if they feel hot in them. 

The local trains into Colombo pass us over-loaded with people. Men hang out of the doors, stand on the foot boards used to enter the train, some holding onto the bars, other just the window frames. When the trian stops at the station, they get down to take a break, shaking their hands and arms. When the train is about to leave, they get back into their positions and ride off at a fast pace. The train is not steady, they rock and bounce, and I wonder how they manage to hold on, if their hands get sweaty.  The muslim man we talked to with his wives, they may have been his wives, said "It takes a strong mind". It really must. Though it is certain no woman could do that, because she would be in such close proximity to the men, which is why it is so easy to be groped on these trains. 

These crowded trains are only 6 or 7 cars long, Kevin and I couldn't understand why they couldn't extend them during rush hour. After 8 o'clock, the trains were literally empty and those seemed longer than the other ones.  

I noticed a sign as the trains passed it said, "travelling on foot stand is a punishable offence", if the cops came out around rush hour they'd certainly have a tough time getting all those people rounded up. But really, if they miss the train maybe they lose their jobs. Its times like these that I realize just how fortunate we are in Canada. We complain about local transport, but really, its first class compared to this. 

So we sat and observed, we had missed our first train and didn't want to risk running up the stairs as it moved by, we found out too late that it was our train. Besides it was so crowded. 

As we waited a man arrived followed by three woman in burkas. All three woman sat on one bench and the man sat alone on the other. He was an older man with a shoulder length beard. When we talked to him, I noticed he had chestnut brown eyes. Hit bottom teeth were missing except for a few that protruded up, a bit like fangs. He was friendly and had a warm smile. Kevin said he seemed kind of lonely. The woman talked to each other as he looked out for them. I don't think having three wives would be easy. I guess that the price you pay for polygamy. One woman can be bossy enough, but put women together that bossiness magnifies. The men deserve it thought, and really if she is only given a burka to express herself, I think she has every right to put her foot down in some way. To be fair though, maybe these woman were not his wives, still they may have followed him but they still seemed in charge. 

The man said he was a sports teacher in a high school and lived in Galle. He was visiting his daughter in Mount Lavinia. He asked us the usual questions, but he was kindhearted and not what I expected him to be when I first saw him.

We waited an hour for the next one, we could only get second class tickets, but we luckily found a seat.  

The train rides scenery was not really scenery, but a glimpse into the life of lower classed Sri Lankans. Their homes are shanty towns, constructed from bits of material, tin, wood, plastic, and any kind of scrap. Decorations were posters pasted on doors. Some yards were well swept, the occasional 'home' was littered with garbage, but most seemed as well maintained as such homes could allow. Woman could be seen sweeping the dust paths to appear more flat. They had already hung up laundry, perhaps yesterdays laundry. The coast line was sometimes empty and sometimes blocked by the shacks that seemed to grow along the train track. The smell of smoke was strong even in the train next to the coast line. Palm grew up high above, providing some shade. The shacks seemed to line the entire ride to Galle, occasionally some middle class homes with yards and gates among tall trees were dominant, but less so than the towns that seem to have no boarders. 

Christian grave yards with no trees, cows in 'pastures that seemed like empty parking lots with grass instead of concrete.

The train ride itself was bumpy, like "horse-back riding". Sometimes it went up and down and sideways simultaneously, shaking me into a motion sickness and giving me a headache by the end of the trip. Thank heavens we had seats thought. 

A man in a light beige uniform, with some medals and a crest that said "Railways protection Force" looked at our tickets and said good morning. He had a mustasch like many middle aged Sri Lankans in official costumes seem to have.  Like the president of Sri Lanka has in all the pictures we see of him in public places.

A man kept walking back and forth eying this and that, Kevin and I kept alert and I remembered the pepper spray in my purse. I am paranoid, but its a comfort knowing its there and it eases me in certain situations. Another man, who smelt strongly of cigarets, talked to us a little too much in our personal space. I felt uncomfortable, but we made friendly conversation and he eventually moved on.  

When we arrived at Galle train station we noticed many tourists. The highlight in the station for me was the old clock that hung near the platform. It looked like an old british railway clock, the ones you see in movies glowing yellow on a dark rainy day. The clock, like many clocks here, wasn't working, but it spoke of time and age.

As we exited a really aggressive three wheel driver approached us. We told him we wanted to walk, this made him angry, but we eventually got away, escaping up the stairs to a grocery where we bought water and cookies.

To end this segment I just wanted to comment on the quote I made above. Naipaul is talking about India, but in many ways it seems like he could also be speaking for Sri Lanka. The past indeed does seem rich, maybe though, it is the colonial past that I can see aging in buildings. I don't know what the past for Sri Lankans would be, but I imagine these foreign influences played a rich part in their lives as well as a negative one.

Their ancient history seems very important to them, or so they say. An old civilization rich with invention and splendour. It seems though, that this too is history, and the faces of the people, at least those going to work in Colombo or in the shanty towns, seem empty and withdrawn. Perhaps not as bad as "nothing beyond food-- and survival- have as yet become an object of ambition", but traces of this seem to show. Or perhaps I cannot see it. Indeed, some people, like the muslim man, did seem withdrawn, but when he address us, his smile was animated. Though, behind the Sri Lanka smile, there does seem to be this unspoken tension, maybe a sadness, that the smile does its best to camouflage.