On our first full day in the Colombo area (Mt Lavinia is considered part of Colombo) we were not really sure about what we should do. We did not know how long we were going to be there, though we were pretty sure it would be a goodly amount of time given the size and condition of our room and the great breakfast that was offered. Over breakfast we looked through the Lonely Planet and decided upon the National Museum. I was feeling a lot better than I had in the previous few days, though I was not yet fully attuned with our travel situation. So when Marcus, the manager of The Blue Seas Guesthouse told us that the best way to get to the Museum was by bus, I was a little wary. Marcus, as it turned out was not a fan of Tuk-tuks or taxis and had an incredibly extensive knowledge of the Colombo bus system. He told us the bus we needed to take, the stop we needed to get off at and the price we should pay. He was right on all counts as it turned out, but as we walked towards the bus stop I was not what you might call thrilled about it. Public transit was the sort of thing that the Lonely Planet warned women travelling alone to take cautiously, if they did not want to get groped. As we were looking for the guesthouse on the previous day I had seen the bus stop with mostly men standing at it. The lone woman that was there was standing far outside the shade offered by the bus shelter. She seemed unwilling to stand in it with them. This appearance, of course, could entirely be due to my preconceived notions that I mentioned earlier. She did, I believe, have an umbrella to ward off the sun.
Much to my surprise, the bus ride was not bad at all. We hopped on, paid the amount that Marcus said we should pay and told the guy collecting the fare where we were headed. He told us he would let us know when we were there, which he did. I did look around warily most of the ride (since I was wearing my sunglasses, this hopefully did not seem to obvious) and as soon as a spot opened up beside a local woman I did my best to make sure that Nancy sat in it. All of our bus rides so far have been quite pleasant, actually.
The museum was build by the British in the 1877 and it certainly looks like a colonial structure. It is a large, white two storey building that has an inner courtyard of sorts. It is not air-conditioned, but its built in such a way that it maximizes the breeze (there are also a lot of fans). The place is stock full of history, most of which I hope to talk about, when we are at the places that the artifacts and historical testimonies came from. I'll try to stick to the highlights for now.
At the entrance we were greeted by a large seated Buddha statue. He was serene and impassive as he towered over us in his sitting position. On either side of him was two entryways. Marring somewhat this fabulous entrance was the man up a ladder on the wall to our left, apparently he was fixing something, but when we came in he was talking loudly on his cellphone. So too, a moment later, breaking the spell that had held us, oh so briefly under the Buddha, the Russian tour group that raced past us, apparently in a hurry to see everything. They were already leaving the first exhibit (on Proto and pre history in Sri Lanka) as we entered seconds later.
That aside we enjoyed our time in the Proto and Pre history section. It went right back to the start of life 4 billion years, in a neat spiral evolution chart. It got to the evolution of humanity in the main exhibit and started talking about the possible Proto humans that had lived on Sri Lanka. Modern homo sapiens got here around 32000 years ago, apparently. We were wandering around this exhibit looking at the comparison between a homo sapien and neanderthal skulls when we heard the clumping of many feet. The feet belonged to many a school child, boys first, from shortest to tallest, then the girls in the same pattern. There were about 50 of them and maybe 3 teachers. They marched around the room in about 3 minutes and went back out the door. We were trapped against the wall while they soldiered past. We made mental notes to avoid being in such a situation again. There were a lot of school groups going through the museum on this particular day though.
In the next few sections we learned a lot about Sri Lankan history based on artifacts taken from the ancient capitals and information in English, Sinhala and Tamil. Hopefully when we are in Anuradhadpura (the first centre of power from about 2300 years ago until about 1000 years ago) and Polonnaruwa (for about 200 years after that) we will be able to talk more about them personally. They were largely where the history and the artefacts were focused. Here are some quick little items of interest:
The kings of Anuradhadpura and Polonnaruwa were multitalented, there were some who practiced farming, constantly striving ahead of their time, by creating huge man made reservoirs and irrigation systems (some of which were so complex that it might be hard for people to pull off even today). On of the Polonnaruwa kings is quoted as saying something to the affect of "Let no water get to the ocean without first being used by man."
There is also a famous surgeon king who wrote huge treatise on medical practices of the day (this being over 1500 years ago). In this vein Anuradhadpura had a lot of hospitals during it hey day, as well as special areas for people with disabilities. Before I get too romantic about the bygone days of Sri Lanka, they also had system of free work for the king (slavery) which was a constant fact of life for almost all of their history (it was ended in 1832 by the British). It is, perhaps suspiciously, not mentioned in the museum.
Another nice thing about the place from a pragmatic standpoint was the cafeteria, which was cheap and delicious. After we had wandered around the museum for over 2 hours we were pretty hungry. As we sat down to eat, the window beside us filled with smiling children's faces. This was a different school group from the one we had seen earlier and was mostly girls. They asked our names, if we could buy them ice cream or pop, give them money, candy, pencils, our hats, our sunglasses. Constantly (though one told Nancy that she was very beautiful and did not ask for anything). The older students from their school stood a bit back from them and looked on indifferently. When they left and just as our food arrived Nancy pulled out our hand sanitizer, one of the girls saw this and ran back and asked for that. Nancy put a dollop in the girl's hand and she ran back to her classmate triumphantly. Another tourist who had sat down about the same time we did, a little shaken by the onslaught that he had just witnesses, asked us if that was normal here. We told him that we were unsure. After the next few hours, we figured that it probably was.
The tourist was a guy named Sam, who was from Australia, though his mother was Filipino (he had just been visiting the Philippines, which he said was great), and if I remember correctly he grew up in Bali. He was a financial lawyer on his way to a job in England (which hoped would not be too long). We had a good chat with him before he headed to the museum (he had just arrived).
We ran into the same children again while we were looking around the section on the colonial era (none of which I remember, though there were a lot of old coins). In the presence of their teachers they gave us high fives, along with all of their classmate (who had all learned our names in the intervening half hour). After this large class left the area, we made our way to the next section, though we didn't get very far before we ran into another class. This one was Muslim (the other class was from a Christian school it think; pretty sure it was called Saint something). We perhaps could have told this without the tell tale head ware by the way the boys surrounded me and the girls surrounded Nancy. The boys told me their names and the names of their friends (Precious Boy was one of the names), then they did a little dance and sang a song in Sinhala, they all jumped around though the one that appeared to be their leader was the most vigorous. They then asked for money. They did the song and dance all over again when I asked them if that was the name of one of their friends too. I asked the same question, saying "Money" a bit too loudly this time and their teacher's head snapped over in our direction, and, from where he was standing a few feet away, ordered the boys to get moving. They danced away. Nancy told me that the girls were more respectful and a lot more calm. One of the youngest kissed her hand and asked her if she was Iranian, after she said "Salam malelehkem" to them.
We also went to the National Museum of Natural History, which had a very neglected look. The people at the door were apparently very bored and they asked us where it was that we had bought our hats (Taiwanese fisherman hats). We told them and one of them put Nancy's on did his impression of Chinese - "Ching Ching Chong Chang" while doing the Indian head bob.
We did not intend to spend much time there after we saw a few of the exhibits, but one of the gate people cornered us and talked to us for a while. We had a hard time disengaging from him and before we finished talking to him we learned that turtle eggs taste great (but don't worry, he doesn't eat them anymore, that would be bad…), where he lived, how long this museum had been around (30 years), how long he had worked there (13 years, though not only in this one), what the retiring age of people working for the Sri Lankan government was (55, though the pension was great), how old he was (53, two more year until retirement!) and that his wife grew durian. He also insisted, very strongly, that we visit him if we were ever in his area, which was just outside Colombo. He continued to insist that as we left and after we exchanged numbers. He has also called once to insist. We will probably not be visiting.
The thing I noticed the most about him was the way that, while he was insisting we visit him and his wife, he spent an intense amount of time staring at Nancy and not very often in the appreciative way that I mentioned earlier. At least I think I noticed this, as I mentioned previously, I was expecting to see it. Whatever the case may be, it put me into a foul mood for the ride on the bus home. Which was fine, except for the end of it, which was entirely our faults.
There is one image that I remember rather clearly from ride home which I will try to share now. As we stopped at a stop light, I looked out the window and saw a man standing in middle of the road. He did not look like a traffic cop in his dusty sarong and dirty shirt. It soon became obvious that he was a beggar. When a motorcycle stopped at light, by him he took the arm of the driver imploringly. He was shaken off, though not roughly and the motorcycle moved a bit ahead. The next motorcyclist was the same. As the bus drove off I noticed that the beggar, standing in the middle of the road on a very hot day was wearing no shoes. I did not know what to think of this, but it did not improve my mood.
We got off at what turned out to be the right stop, but we thought it was the wrong stop. With this thought in mind, we walked further down Galle Rd. (the main road in Colombo) until we stopped to eat as we were hungry and slightly worried about where we were. The place we stopped to eat was (of course!) a curry place, but it was as ever a delicious curry place. And the people there were all very friendly. The one young man who served us tried to teach us a bit of Sinhala, though his english was not really that good (he spelled wife "yif"). The boss came over to see how we were doing, the cook came by too. The young man stared at us, well mostly Nancy (but it was that appreciative stare that I seem to be now fond of mentioning), while we were eating. They also gave very concise directions on how to get back to our guesthouse. It put me in a much better mood and we walked back happy and full.
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