Month: December 2018

What Sri Lanka was like

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A monumental rock formation rises almost straight up from the heart of Sri Lanka. It’s known as Lion Rock — Sigiriya. Archeologists think humans have been living on and around it for more than 10,000 years, and many believe that in the late 400s (AD), a king named Kasyapa built a garden and palace at the summit after overthrowing and murdering his father. No buildings remain, but the ruins and fortifications are mind-boggling, considering the height and verticality of the site.One small area on top of the formation. How DID the workers get all those bricks up the sheer walls?

Steve and I climbed Sigiriya toward the end of our stay in Sri Lanka, and we spent some time gazing out at the views in every direction. “What strikes me,” Steve commented, “is that the guy who built this had to have been one of the greatest assholes in history.”

I knew he wasn’t thinking of the patricide, but rather the staggering expense and unimaginable suffering it must have cost — all to satisfy this one paranoiac’s miserable thirst for glory and security. We stood there, despising Kasyapa for a moment. Then we went back to enjoying our time up so high.

Visiting Sigiriya was one of the best things we did in Sri Lanka (the island south of India formerly known as Ceylon). The climb up to the top — around 1200 steps — wasn’t as hard as I’d feared. All those stairs were fenced so well the ascent never felt too frightening.We entered the grounds shortly after 7:30 am, when the day was still cool, and the hordes of Chinese tourists had not yet arrived. About halfway up, we shook our heads in wonder at the frescoes painted in one long gallery in the sheer rock face. A parade of women with Barbie bodies — tiny waists and beautiful naked breasts — decorate the wall. (Scholars suppose them to be either heavenly nymphs or a depiction of Kasyapa’s concubines.) A little further on, we passed graffiti dating back to the 6th to 14th centuries. Awestruck visitors scratched the comments, mostly noting how hot the ladies were.Guards stopped us from taking any pictures of the frescoes, but the lion’s paws carved into a plateau near the top are a popular photo op.

Although climbing Sigiriya ranked among our favorite activities in Sri Lanka, it was one of several. I’ve already written about our time in Colombo and Galle Fort and the idyllic southern coast.One of the views from Galle Fort.

After our one-night stay on the beach, we traveled north and stopped along the way at one of the country’s national parks where, to our amazement, we had one of the best game drives of our lives. We counted more than 25 elephants during the two hours our Jeep bounced over the park’s dirt paths. Not just elephants, but crocodiles, wild buffalo and boar, monitor lizards, monkeys, snakes, other mammals, and a host of birds live in the park.Next we traveled to the cool, misty highlands; spent a morning hiking and loving the green-drenched vistas at every turn.Old trains that run over single tracks built by the British colonialists in the early 1800s are a part of the tea-country landscape.

We took a train from Ella through the emerald tea plantations……where Steve proved remarkably adept at picking tea leaves…

and we wound up in the city of Kandy. At a temple complex there, Buddhists revere a fragment of one of the Buddha’s teeth.It’s never shown to the public, but the ardor of the pilgrims is evident.

The final phase of our Sri Lankan journey took us to remnants of the ancient world, not just Sigiriya but also… …the Royal Rock Temple complex in Dambulla, filled with about 150 statues of the Buddha that followers began creating about 2000 years ago.Painted designs and images make it look like the cave ceilings are covered with exquisite Oriental rugs.

The vast spiritual complex at Anuradhapura was founded in the 4th century BC and contains three of the biggest monuments ever built in the ancient world, inferior only to the pyramids at Giza.This one was made from more than 90 million bricks and stood at the center of a monastery complex that once housed 3000 monks.

And nearby grows one of the oldest and most venerated trees in the world — a bodhi tree believed to have been grown from a cutting of the original one in Bodhgaya, India under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment.

We had some bad moments. A couple of dismal hotels depressed us. We inched and lurched through too many hours of awful traffic. We had a heartbreaking experience with the first of two driver/guides we hired. But I had to fight back tears when we said goodbye to the second of the two; our time together was so richly meaningful.

Besides sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of Sri Lanka with us, Omar also took us to the house where he was born and some of his extended family lives today. We stopped at his own home too; chatted with his wife and sister-in-law, met a son and daughter, admired his two-year-old grandson.For most of his life, Omar’s been a driver — of cars and trucks and tuk-tuks — but he also has worked for a number of NGOs, including a journalism team that did some fine reporting toward the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. Belying his sweet, even humble, demeanor, he seemed resourceful and astute to us. He didn’t hide his voracious appetite for breaking news. We talked a lot about the political uproar that’s been roiling Sri Lanka since late October, when the current president shocked everyone by firing the prime minister and replacing him with the strong man who ended the war (in 2009) but at the cost of abysmal human-rights abuses.

Since the war, Sri Lanka has become a superstar travel destination, but this turn of events was scary. It raised the specter of instability and even violence breaking out again. While Steve and I were tromping around India, tourist bookings all over Sri Lanka were evaporating. The Sri Lankan rupee fell even further than it did earlier in the year — good for us but bad for the Sri Lankans. We sensed gloom, even a touch of desperation, in the almost-empty hotels and restaurants.We saw this demonstration near the Parliament building in Colombo. Omar sounded optimistic; he said he thought the fracas would turn out to be just a rat’s nest of political scheming and ego, rather than a tinder pile that could explode into a conflict in which a lot of people would die. He knows a lot more about Sri Lanka than me; I hope he’s right. The country is packed with more beautiful and interesting areas than other places many times its size. But when thuggish narcissists play games, they can cause a lot of pain for the common folk.Newspapers still appear to be thriving, and people were scanning them anxiously.

Team fish

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Stilt fishermen — guys perched high on poles in the ocean to get a better view of their prey — are one of the most iconic images associated with Sri Lanka. The men look striking, but the only problem is no one actually fishes that way any more. The island’s remaining “stilt fishermen”only scramble up the poles for tourists, then browbeat them into paying for any images they take. “The stilt fishermen nowadays are actors,” one Sri Lankan told us.

But men on Sri Lanka’s southern coastline do continue to fish in an ancient way that’s photogenic. Steve and I stumbled upon them on our walk shortly after dawn yesterday morning. The beach in front of our resort stretched farther than we could see and looked empty….…but we spotted a few fishing boats on the water……and then some guys in the distance, pulling a rope.The channel was too deep for us to wade across, but we found more men pulling hard on another line when we walked back in the direction of our hotel.The work looked strenuous, but sociable.Nothing happened suddenly, but eventually the net attached to the rope emerged from the water.The men were careful in its management.Eventurally the distant boat that had been somehow positioning the net approached the shore.It’s occupants first rowed, then lugged it onto the beach…Then they began to pull on another line that had been staked to a pole in the sand.As the net drew closer and the surf increased, the work could be rough.But the two wings of the team edged ever closer to each other.In the final stages, a host of birds swirled ahead. I felt nervous. What if, after all this work, the net was empty?No worries. As the haul emerged, there was bounty in the strands.The air was filled with the frantic flipping of dying fish.One of the fishermen told us it wasn’t a fantastic catch, but much better than it had been for the past few days. This guy asked if we wanted to go on an evening tour of the lagoon, but we had to decline. We had other fish to fry (metaphorically). I’m posting this now from the misty highland tea country. It’s a little hard to believe we’re in the same country.

A turtle twist

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In this, the final phase of our long South Asian adventure, Steve and I are trying to cram a comprehensive look at Sri Lanka into 11 days. The island is only about the size of Ireland. But it has several distinct aspects that made us to want to cover a lot of ground. Tuesday, our one full day in the capital (Colombo), we walked around enough to feel satisfied. Wednesday we took a train south down the coast to the ancient trading port and current World Heritage Site of Galle. We stayed exclusively within the walls of its 500-year-old fort, a compact area now filled with trendy guesthouses and chic shops and good restaurants. We enjoyed the strolling and the eating — but there’s not much more I can say about it that’s interesting.

Next we wanted to briefly experience Sri Lanka’s legendary tropical beaches, so we hired a driver to take us about 45 miles east along the island’s southern coast. Tonight we’re staying in an unpretentious little resort at the end of a dirt road, deep within a grove of coconut palms. Its crystalline infinity pool overlooks the sand and crashing waves of the Indian Ocean; we swam a bit this afternoon before a downpour drove us inside. We plan to walk along the beach tomorrow morning before checking out and moving on. The beach is beautiful, and we’re thrilled to experience it. But again, what more can I say?

Our single offbeat experience occurred about an hour outside Galle on the way here, when our driver unexpectedly pulled off the road. He asked if we wanted to visit a turtle sanctuary and breeding center that was working to help save the world’s sea turtles. How could we resist? We each paid the $2.80 admission fee plus I popped for an extra $5.80, which the guy in the admissions booth said would allow me to transport a newborn turtle to the surf.

Inside, a friendly local man who volunteers at the center led us around the premises. He explained that when local fishermen find an injured turtle, they bring it to the center and receive a little more money than the animal might fetch in a local seafood market. A veterinarian helps treat whatever can be treated. One animal, for example, had swallowed a plastic bag that made it sick enough that it had lost its shell. But the shell had regrown, and in a few months, the turtle would be returned to the sea, the guide explained.

He reached into one of the watery pens, pulled out a young green turtle, and let Steve and me and two young Australians hold it.The volunteer guide introduced us to three of the other four sea turtle species that come to this part of the world to breed.We inspected the hatchery, where the center staff buries turtle eggs that have been dug up by locals and brought to them for protection against predators such as dogs and mongooses.I felt thrilled to see these amazing animals up so close. Finally the guide placed a newborn, hatched that very morning, into my palm. Black in color, and vigorously paddling the air, it felt strong enough to escape from my hand.So Steve and I hastened down to the surf. I placed him on the sand and we both held our breath, watching wave after wave come close but fall just short of reaching him. Then the incoming seawater swirled close enough, and the newborn paddled frantically.A minute later, he was out of sight.

We felt exhilarated. What a brilliant free-market approach to saving this species! Pay local folks who might otherwise destroy them to bring them to a refuge dedicated to getting them back into the sea. We gave the guide a good tip, gladdened by the thought that our visit was making the world a little safer for sea turtles.

Back in the car, driving south again, I checked my Lonely Planet Sri Lanka guide for more turtle information. Sure enough, on page 99, I found a sidebar on “Hatching Turtles” which described the operation we had just seen and others on the coast around Bentota and Kosgoda. “But the reality is that the turtle hatcheries might be doing more harm than good,” the book went on. Putting the newborns in a tank “for even a very short time” deprives them of some of their eggs’ yolk that can give them for energy for their first hours in the sea. Moreover, female sea turtles like to return to the exact spot where they hatched to lay their own eggs. If they’re born in captivity, they won’t get a ‘magnetic memory’ of their beach of birth and thus are thought by some turtle experts to be unable to return to shore to propagate their species.

I felt deflated. The rescue/hatchery concept seemed to make so much sense. The turtles were so cute! It was irresistible to see and hold them. And here Lonely Planet was telling me Steve and I might have actually made the world a worse place for sea turtles by patronizing the place? That I might have condemned that valiant little baby to an unnecessary death?

It’s complicated being a well-intentioned tourist in the 21st Century. There are so many ways to get things wrong. It’s enough to make you want to go to an isolated beach and lie down on the warm sand and just not think — or write — about anything.

Culture shocked

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Landing Monday afternoon at the airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I got the biggest dose of culture shock I have ever experienced. Emerging from the jetway into the terminal, my ears were filled with…. Christmas music! And there were plenty of Christmas decorations too.Like this.And this.

I’ve spent my adult life living in San Diego, where carolers dress in shorts and t-shirts, and folks string colored lights from their palm trees. So I’m used to celebrating the holiday in balmy weather. What was so strange Monday was suddenly being plunged into the Christmas Season after seeing not one hint of the approaching holiday anywhere in India (unless you count the Black Friday emails in my in-box.) This even though 19% of the population of Kerala (in India) is Christian. We stayed just a few blocks from the Cochin Fort’s Catholic basilica but saw not one wreath nor Christmas bulb there.

Sri Lanka has half the percentage of Christians Kerala has. Yet here we were, waiting for our suitcases while listening to The First Noel and Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem! This wasn’t just some show of airport internationalism. Once in the city, more signs of the holiday abounded:

When I expressed my surprise to one of the staffers at our Colombo hotel, he beamed and declared that Sri Lanka’s residents love to celebrate everyone’s holidays. Christians and Muslims put up Hindu garlands routinely, he said.

That was nice to hear. The savage 25-year-long war that ripped this country apart and killed 100,000 people had strong religious elements (Buddhist v. Hindu). It ended less than 10 years ago, with real reconciliation only dating back about three years. And even though Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) has been booming since then, political turmoil broke out just recently. In the past three days, we’ve seen a few signs of what’s playing out: demonstrators assembled Tuesday near the Parliament building in Colombo; some front-page headlines.

What we’ve seen more of, however, is orderly streets and serene landscapes. I’m already kind of used to the holiday decorations.But after India, I suspect we’ll continue to feel shocked by the peace and quiet right up to the minute we depart for home, eight days from now.I’m posting this from Galle, about two hours south of Colombo. We’re staying just a few blocks from this seascape. Clean water, clean air, uncrowded — that’s shocking!

The 2 blind San Diegans and the elephant

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Throughout the seven weeks we traveled in India, I thought more than once about the parable of the blind men and the elephant. It recounts what happened when a group of blind men investigated the strange new creature they had heard about. Each man touched a different part of the beast, and each formed a clear idea of what it must look like. The guy who felt the trunk said the elephant was like a snake. The one who touched its side said that was nonsense; elephants instead resembled walls. The man who stroked its ear concluded they’re like fans, and so on. Each was so convinced the others were wrong they eventually came to blows.

Before we left San Diego, I knew India was big and complicated. But our hands-on experiences were humbling. I blogged about our hellish midnight arrival in Kolkata where the line for prepaid taxis moved so slowly it took us more than an hour to reach the head of it. I could have (blindly) concluded we should never take another Indian prepaid taxi. But we did — at least a half-dozen times over the weeks that followed, including another time in Kolkata. On all those subsequent occasions, the service was fast and safe and cheap.

After a month of traveling in India, I wrote about how we had not once found anything resembling a modern grocery store. But then we went south, and in Kerala we found plenty of them.

Our final destination, the state of Kerala hugs the far southwestern coast of the subcontinent. Traveling to Kerala from Kodagu (the relatively isolated mountain district where we had our elephantine adventures) wasn’t simple. Interminable buses make the trip, but no trains. In order to fly, we would have had to drive east for at least four hours back to Bangalore and then fly west again. Finally, the simplest solution was to hire a car and driver. The ride would cost $157 and take about 10 hours, we were warned. Frankly, I didn’t believe it. How could it take 10 hours to go less than 220 miles?

We learned. Potholed two-lane roads in the mountains made the going slow at first. The flow would improve for a stretch, and our hopes would rise. Maybe the worst was over? But as we approached the coastal road south, we moved even more slowly. Traffic wasn’t as bad as what we saw in so much of the north, but the streets were narrow, and the constant flow of buses, taxis, tuk-tuks, bicyclists, animals, and pedestrians through them forced our driver to jam on the brakes almost constantly or at best creep along. I hunkered down in a back seat, trying to lose myself in blogging, but the twisty roads drove Steve up to the front seat. There all he could do was observe hour upon hour of our slog forward. In the end, it didn’t take 10 hours to reach Cochin. It took almost 11.

We stumbled out of the taxi, cranky and fed up with India. It felt irredeemable — until the next morning, when Peter Panathara took us on his “silent tour” of the local backwaters. Much of the coast of Kerala is broken up into a complex network of waterways. One of the big tourist activities here is to cruise them. Some folks rent houseboats and spend one or more nights sleeping on them, but day trips also are popular. I only read about Peter’s tour a few days before we headed for Cochin. He had an opening, a stroke of immense good luck for us, because he turned out to be one of the best guides imaginable.

In the 7 hours we spent together, we learned that before starting his tour business, Peter had worked for more than 20 years as an investigative reporter for one of Cochin’s daily newspapers, primarily covering crime and corruption. His knowledge of the region felt encyclopedic; his pride in Kerala palpable. The state towers over the rest of India in countless way, including average lifespan (at least 10 years longer); literacy and access to modern plumbing (100%), population growth (declining, rather than continuing to skyrocket), religious tolerance, and environmental consciousness. Cochin’s spiffy new airport is powered by a huge field of solar panels, the first we saw anywhere on the subcontinent. The state has already largely recovered from the devastating monsoon flooding and landslides that struck in August, the worst in a century, with a valor and vigor that would make a great action film.

Once we reached our embarkation point (about an hour outside the city), the experience grew even more magical.One bad thing about Kerala is its heat and humidity, but in Peter’s big canoe, propelled by a local villager armed with a long pole, a light breeze cooled us. Crossing a broad channel, we sheltered under a big umbrella……then slipped under a low gate……into a series of narrow canals shaded by coconut palms, mahogany, and other huge tropical trees.For a long time, Peter stopped talking, and we glided through the passages hearing only the birdsong and the swish of the water moving over the hull.

We stopped a few times, first to gather coconuts from one of the trees……drink their water…and taste their custardy insides.We continued on to a tiny island and met the man who first settled it and now lives there with his relatives and a few other families.We ate a delicious lunch prepared by two of the women in the family……and learned how to spin twine out of coconut fiber.That’s Peter. By the time we got back to our hotel, he felt like an old friend.

For me, it was probably the best single day of the whole 7 weeks. The next day, our last in India, couldn’t top it, but we still had a pleasant time strolling past the fishermen working just a few blocks from our hotelThe heart of old Cochin is 500 years old, and you can sense that.

That night, we had the strangest theatrical experience of our lives. One of Kerala’s traditional art forms is kathakali, in which actors and musicians present dramatizations of passages from the great Hindu holy books. In their classical form, these performances can last from 6 to 10 hours. However, visitors sample a vastly shortened form. It starts with watching the actors apply their makeup.Here’s what the stage looked like when we walked in.The make-up application had just begun.It continued over the course of the next hour.Then we listened to a short lecture about the performance elements. Actors don’t speak but rather communicate meaning with highly stylized hand signs, facial expressions (like this one. I think it was revulsion)…and eye movements. Kathalkali actors must train their eyeballs like athletes. I’ve never seen such amazing control over that body organ.

After the lecture, we watched a 30-minute excerpt.

When we emerged onto the street, Steve said, “We’ll, I’m certainly glad I came with you. If you told me about it, I would have thought you took some really heavy drugs.” We agreed it made kabuki theater seem as banal as a network sitcom. I cannot explain it any further than that, except to suggest it felt like we had touched yet another very weird part of the elephant.