This is a kind of a journal of my travels thru Sri Lanka..October 2010
This transcript is not edited. You may read thru some spelling an grammatical errors. Please excuse me for this. I don’t particularly like editing. It just takes up so much time and then. I get lost in that process and the whole thing changes> So please bear with with me. I will edit it sometime later..and post some pictures..my connection at this Tissamaharama hotel is quite slow...Oh well at least I am online right? LOL
Colombo to Tissamaharama… the drive was such a visual delight for a person who grew up in Sri Lanka! I usually sleep if someone else is driving. I would not allow myself to fall asleep in case I missed something! We left Malabe at 7:30 am as we just passed Horana, we stopped roadside and had breakfast by paddy fields and rubber plantations. Which is about an hour and half out of the metropolitan Colombo. We had left the traffic, dust and crowds and we were in this to this idyllic place... I immediately fell in love with my surroundings and my particular time and place in the universe.. It only got better..thoroughout the day!…We drove thru Horana along the Kalu Ganga (it just doesn’t sound the same if I said Kalu River) LOL and joined up with Galle Road trafficjust before the Kalutara bridge.It was just as I remembered. It but just a bit more developed.. Went thru Bentota, Hikkaduwa and stopped to take care of some business and had lunch with a family who lost a brother in the Tsunami at Gintota just outside Galle. All along the A2 , there arestill are homes and businesses which look like that they have been in a war zone.. Deserted and in shambles. Side by side with newly built and remodeled houses and business. People are milling about in the towns of Beruwala, Bentota and all along which just goes to show the resilience of regular Sri Lankans. There are more flourishing and more prosperous stores, restaurants and Hotels along this stretch then any other place in I have seen. Its Sri Lanka’s Gold Coast our tourist haven. However the Indian ocean on my right was a bit choppy and angry looking..Not a day for Saturday morning swim for sure..
Went thru Galle town around noon. Stopped briefly to change some USD with a merchant and talked about how his shop was totally destroyed and how he just barely escaped death by running to nearby hillock that fateful day.. Remember the video footage we saw repeatedly on CNN of the Galle Bus Station inundated by the Indian Ocean flooding into the town and virtually washing everything out sea. They say at the 9 am flood came as a total surprise. But the people who returned to survey the damage got caught in 12 noon backwash. People talk about that day. Almost everyone lost someone they knew that day.
Matara town is all modern and looks like any seaside town of any industrialized nation in the world! Galle Road becomes this smooth, modern two lane highway all the way from there on south. Of course its winds along the coast, and you have to share the road with has miscellaneous slow moving bicyclists, pedestrians, three wheelers on coming traffic passing each other stray dogs lounging on the road and crowed small towns along the way. The highway in has a code that is very unique. If you have driven in island before you get the code back after the first week and you are good to go. But you have to have your wits about you at all times. It is much better if you have a driver. It eases the pressure.. Oh there are cops all along the highway, every few kilometers actively looking for traffic infringements. I was wondering why so.. I was advised that it is because the cop who writes a ticket gets 15% of the fine.. If a guy writes 5 tickets a day..That about twice at his salary !!. No wonder they are all gung ho.. Hey don’t speed or drive drunk. You will have a big ass mess on your hands.. Its all good.
Right about Tangalle the ocean started to look bit less angry and sun shone bright and the beach started to look beautiful. White sands and little secluded bays. I saw Kyaks and surf board rental places along the highway.
Hambantota was a hive of construction activity. I thought all the heavy construction equipment in the whole country must be out here! pretty awesome site. It looked like Dubai. The Chinese and Japanese are building roads and a harbor out there. The are some huge wind turbines and if you have not been in Sri Lanka for a while you would hardly recognize the place as being in Sri Lanka. Who ever was the architect of the is development project. My hat is off to those who had the foresight to get this project going..This place is going to be the next hub of development in our part of the world trust me folks. Invest in Hambantota, I can’t see a downside here at all. It is set for unprecedented growth. We went thru the Tissamaharama and on to Kataragama. Now if you have never been to Kataragama, you should go there at least once just because! It is such a interesting mix of Hindu and Buddhist worship. They are feed each other.. We arrived there just outside the temple grounds which is bustling little town. Just like Jerusalem or any other popular pilgrimage site in the world. You cross the Menik Ganga thru a footbridge and enter the grounds of the Hindu Kovil at around 5pm. Walked thru the grounds to the Kiri Verhera. Now here the special brand of Sri Lankan Buddhissm takes effect. There is a chant played on the public address system and most people are dressed in white and they offer flowers and other offerings and are either praying, meditating and milling about in total harmony, very serene…I made a mentioned to my driver/companion that this is the real Sinhalese culture, people are very peaceful until were are upset by fiery politicians and others who s see opportunity to manipulate the ……..of a simple living nation who are generous and hospitable to all.
Made our way back to the Kovil and was in line I saw this amazing scene. I was right in front of the Visnu Kovl when this juvenile elephant was escorted in by his handlers.. the Elephant walked up to foot of the kovil and went down on all fours and paid homage to the temple got up and walked away to the exit... I did not see any sign or gesture from his handlers. Amazing thing it was! I took a picture of this on my blackberry, the elephant looks like a dark blob on the ground as it was just getting dark. We stood in line at under the Bo tree with its special rustling sound in the wind at the main kovil and right at 6pm there was ringing of the temple bells and great anticipation was in the air.. We went thru the motions and prayed homage and made or offerings without the fruit offerings as the delivery guys we had arranged outside were not in sight.. Once we stepped out side the temple they we outside and they advised us they are not allowed to come inside the temple and that we were to meet them outside.. We all talked for sometime and typical Sinhalese fashion came up with a solution as we were not about go stand in line again. However we had the option of offering our fruit baskets at the small Kataragama Kovil to the side of the main kovil and there we would get a special one on one blessing from the abbot. That is what we did. We go back carrying this heavy tray of fruits with more offerings and the abbot takes it and asks me what I am here for. I said it was on behalf of a friend who is losing his sight.. He chants and rubs ash on my forhead and we get back the tray of fruit in which all the fruit we offered is now cut in half.. We exit the temple and eat some of the fruit. The watermelon pieces were delicious. We leave compound and over back over the walkway over Manik Ganga and throw down some pieces of fruit to the fish in the river! Settle our bill the with fruit vendor and head back to Tissamaharama. We check into this small motel and after showering I am sitting here writing this in the lobby sipping a Carlsberg. The time is 10:15pm there is a cool breeze coming off the Tissa Tank and a half moon which is peeking thru the coconut trees ouside. The moonlight reflects off the coconut leaves. Just awesome It does not get any better than this. And that is a fact.
Tomorrow I head to Mahiyangana and then Dambana to see my friends the ancient forest dwellers (Vedda tribes) who are anthropologically closer to the Australian aboriginals than anyone in Sri Lanka. More on than later. Mosquitoes are getting a bit active now…LOL..
