INDIA'S TEARDROP

Okay, yes, I got back to The Twilight Kingdom here from two weeks with Sarah in Sri Lanka (aka Serendib, aka Ceylon) last Sunday, complete with cloudless-skies-every-day tan, dust-covered backpack and yet more foreign coins which will follow me to my grave. First chance I've had to sort my thoughts out on the place and put fingers to keyboard at the same time. Photos were taken, but will be placed on here later as a seperate post to compensate for any memory-holes I have. Anyhoo, without further ado.....

The Quick Summary

We arrived in Colombo, spent a full day and 2 nights there, then took a train up into the Hill Country (tea plantation central) to Kandy (Sri Lanka ’s second-biggest city) for 2 nights. We then travelled south to Hatton and onto Delhousie via a maniacally-crammed bus to climb Adam’s Peak at dawn (3 hours up, 3 hours down). After getting back down and resting, we then realized we couldn’t get down to the south coast and Dondra (blue whale take-off point) from Delhousie as planned, so we had to go all the way back north and west out to Colombo, stay the night, then choo-choo it southwards down the west coast to Mirissa. We spent 3 nights on the beach at Mirissa, then had 5 nights a bit further north at Midigama on the west coast's best surf breaks (apparently), then 1 night further north in Hikkaduwa, before finally heading back into Colombo (after a quick visit to Galle for the Dutch fort) the final night before our flights. Two weeks – done.

The Good Bits

- Wandering around Pettah district in Colombo on our first full day in the country. For those of you not terribly au fait with Sri Lanka ’s tourist highlights, Pettah is the big, rough-as-guts, in-your-face, diesel-fumes-n-dust-encrusted market area that lets you know that you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Welcome to the Third World.

- Somehow lucking out with our schedule and finding ourselves in Colombo the same night as the Navam Perahera festival. Every different type of traditional Sri Lankan costume and dance and musical instrument was on display in the parade, as well as phalanxes of serene orange-clad Buddhist monks and dozens of walloping great elephants dressed up in colourful silks and sequins and headdresses, looking for all the world like a posse of teenage girls had been set loose upon them with The Bedazzler. Sydney Mardi Gras, you ain’t got nuttin’, y'hear? After changing our road-side position amongst the teeming throngs of Sri Lankan families a few times, we even managed to blag our way inside the gorgeous big ol’ Gangaramaya Temple while the festival parade was happening and wandered around the complex unhassled in the semi-cool night air, basking in the serenity of the bhodi trees, the fairy lights, the decorations and the sheer shabby beauty of it all.

- Climbing Adam’s Peak , all 2243 metres of it, in the pre-dawn darkness, along with hundreds of other pilgrims, including some who looked old enough to have known Adam personally (and who somehow made it to the top). Literally walking up through the clouds on the steep-as-you-can-handle-final 100 metres. Taking in the view as the sun peeked over the horizon, revealing the other nearby peaks that looked like islands floating in a sea of cotton wool all around us. Stirring stuff.

- Sitting in the sunlight in the lobby of our Delhousie guest house after the climb, sipping tea and watching the ubiquitous Tamil ladies working methodically along the emerald-green rows of tea bushes on the steep hillside directly across the road, swathed in their colorful silk saris. Tourism Marketing Campaign Shot – tick.

- The rolling tea-plantation-covered hills all around us on the train journey back out of the Hill Country to Colombo. I know it's an artificial monoculture landscape but hot-damn, it looks so purrty.

- Mirissa. As in the place itself. An indecently gorgeous part of the planet, probably the prettiest place we saw the entire trip. A small, quiet bay bookended by a picturesque rock promontory wearing a skirt of rock pools and reef at one end (out front of our guest house – yasss) and a rainforest-covered, surf-inducing headland at the other. Leaning coconut palms fringing the beach, white sand, clear blue water, stilt fishermen's poles, reef up to the shore in some spots, beach huts of different levels of sophistication or rustic charm (and not too many, thank Burgundy) - this place looked exactly like the picture you get in your mind when someone says “tropical beach”. Gawwwwwwgeous.

- Snorkelling on the reef in the traditional fishing-boat-lined bay adjoining Mirissa’s main beach and finding ourselves completely surrounded by a solid wall of bait fish in every direction. We played with them for nearly 20 minutes, making them all dart in one direction at the same time. The reef was okay too, if a bit damaged from climate change in parts.

- Staying at Ram’s in Midigama. Ram's is a low-key, low-fuss group of guest houses literally right on the reef break at Midigama and has apparently been in operation since the 60’s. Not even mentioned in the guidebook we had with us, we stumbled upon the place by accident and it became our haven for 6 days, and our base for some interesting day trips. Full of relaxed, friendly, like-minded travelers and surfers, it even drew others staying at nearby guest houses each night with its location, its atmosphere and the food. Ah, the food. Ram and his bro and their crew served up some of the best nosh we had on the entire trip every night in their outdoor covered dining hut and created an uber-friendly, uber-chilled vibe that was just what the doctor ordered. Magic place.

- Learning to surf just down the road from Midigama at Weligama. Finally. Yes, an Aussie learning to surf in Sri Lanka . I have no excuse at this current point in time. Talk amongst yourselves.

- Being covered in serpents at the Ayurvedic Medicine Snake Farm deep in the coastal hinterland behind Midigama (the journey there by bus and tuk-tuk was entertaining enough in itself) and having angry, bitey cobras fresh from the jungle loose on the ground a few meters in front of us. Quality. Sarah was super-brave in getting close-up piccies of me wearing a tree python garland despite her hiss-o-phobia.

- The Buddhist temple we saw the same day, with Sri Lanka's biggest statue of Buddha, a stunningly-detailed temple containing both seated and reclining Buddha statues and one of the most unusual temple guides I've ever had (the poor guy was enthusiastic about pointing out all the different scenes in the murals he took us past, but could only say one word. We tipped big). We each got a Buddhist blessing of some kind as we gazed into the inside of the giant Buddha's head through a small decorated glass window (a pretty weird concept when you think about it) and tried to capture the fantabulous inside of the temple on camera.

- Lazing on the beach at Unuwatuna on a day trip from Midigama. Almost as pretty as Mirissa (the plethora of sunburnt / Max Tan tourists and densely-packed beach restaurants knocked it down the list) and it was the first time we really got down to imitating seals. Only with umbrella-garnished beverages and less blubber and whiskers.

- Little tubs of cashew and honey ice cream. Yarrrrm. And our first taste of aluva (rice flour, treacle and cashew-nut fudge), when we stumbled across it by accident.

The Rubbish Bits

- Getting around in Sri Lanka . Sweet jesus it was a chore. Prime example: two separate train journeys that were supposed to take about 2.5 or 3 hours both ended up being in the 6-7 hour range, effectively rubbing out two days of a 14-day trip. We knew to expect delays, it's a developing country - but 7 hours?? And if I ever meet either of those two train drivers, I’m going to stick those train horns so far up them they’ll be able to talk to their friends across town without using the phone. They were like bored infants, blasting those goddam things every 30 seconds, without fail. Sometimes a quick blast, sometimes a 20-second conversation-stopper. I swear the US military used those things as psychological warfare weapons on the Taliban. Guess who had the carriage right behind the engine on both journeys? Ahh, the good times rolled.

- Colombo’s Mountain o’ Rubbish. You think I’m using the word “mountain” as an exaggerated descriptive term, don’t you? Uhhhhh no. It’s actually a mountain. Of rubbish. It’s bigger than Mount Gravatt. There are gigantic cranes on top shuffling rubbish around that look like toys. Flying in I had actually assumed it was a real mountain. Seems like they never figured out how to dig holes, or something. Needless to say, staring at it as we drove into Colombo from the airport at sunset, with it’s crummy mass backlit by a smokey orange glow, it looked like one of those post-Apocalyptic scenes from movies like Terminator. Weirdly fascinating in a godawful kind of way.

- The cultural dance extravaganza we went to in Kandy. Deeply shite. So bad we were stifling laughter after 5 minutes. The tourist off to our far left who’d brought in his massive spot-a-hummingbird-on-the-horizon camera kit to capture the magic looked like he was going to cry. I tried to get into it, I really did, but the fifth drummer from the left who had no idea what all the others were playing kept making me aware of the two female dancers who were serenely keeping a full beat behind the others throughout the entire way performance. Agonising. Hoped the hot coals they laid out in a floor pit at the end were for roasting these musical shysters for the crimes they’d just inflicted upon us, but no, it was just a firewalking display-cum-moneygrab. The b*stards.

- The food. Yes, I was numbly shocked too. Sri Lanka. Average Food. Doesn't sound right. But there you go. Most of what we came across seemed same-same-but-different. Hot curry. Bland rice. Fried rice variations. Omelettes. Fried savoury parcels. That was about it. Until we got to the south (mmmmmmm, fresh seafood), I was genuinely in danger of craving the Golden Arches or something similar. G'uhh. Oh that just reminded me. We did see Pizza Hut knockoffs in Galle called.... Indian Hut. Curry pizza, anyone? You wouldn’t have been able to lure me into one of those bad boys even with the promise my meal would be served up on Beyonce Knowles in her birthday suit.

- Galle itself. It’s a big-ish city. With an Old City section within a large Dutch fort wall. And average architectural highlights (colonial-slash-Mediterranean my giblets). It’s doorknob-melting hot. Bored teenagers offer to jump off the fort wall into the ocean below for money. Overall, bum-clenchingly underwhelming. Don’t waste your time. We did so you don't have to. Show the love.

The Unusual / Interesting Bits

- The Tamil Tigers put two suicide planes into the Air Force Base in Colombo just before we got back there for the final night - we only heard about it on the telly after dinner. Strangely enough, our hotel in the Fort District (home to all the important government buildings and the port, and therefore the most heavily-guarded area outside of the northern frontlines) was barely guarded when we rocked up.

- Everywhere you go in Sri Lanka there are huge billboards with dudes dressed as bad-*ss Rambo military types, complete with camo gear, bandanas, M-60's, RPG rockets strapped to their backs and enough belts of machine gun bullets draped over their person to give Chuck Norris a big rubbery one. Despite the urban militia / terrorist training camp look, these are (you guessed it) recruitment posters for the Sri Lankan military, the country's biggest employer.

- All the road signs on the coast give the height of each town above sea level. And we only found out our second last night in the country that there had been a mini-tsunami there a few weeks prior. Didn't cause much damage but I'm pretty sure the locals would've been dumping their curry at the sight of the tide oozing away, that's for sure.

So that was Sri Lanka in a nutshell. There were lots more little tidbits I could report on but I think I'll let the photies tell the story when I get them on here.

Hope this finds you all well.