Looking back, it feels exactly like the start to an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. (Mom and Dad, this is a subtle reminder that I would love to have it on DVR when I get back.) Camera opens on two guys with beers, a handful of empties lying around and something stupid going on. In this case an American guy wearing red and black plaid sunglasses with a yellow shirt and a Scottish guy with a big wide brimmed hat and black sunglasses, both grinning stupidly and cheering loudly while the Sri Lankans go crazy, dancing and waving hundreds of flags. Then the first black screen pops up with “11:45 am” written across it. The second reads “On a Thursday.” And then the show starts.
It was at that point, 11:45 on a Thursday morning, when the fourth round of beers rolled around that I knew I could like cricket despite it being in the words of one Englishman, “Dreadfully boring." The game makes baseball stand out in my memory as an action packed fast paced sporting event that should hold the viewer on the edge of their seat. Here’s cricket through the eyes of an American in 200 words or less: There are two batsmen (batters) that stand in opposing boxes, facing each other and there are two bowlers (pitchers) that throw to the opposing batsmen. Instead of home plate, the batsmen stand next to the wickets, three poles stuck into the ground with a crossbeam. If the bowler hits the wicket with the ball, the batsmen is out, if the batsmen hits the ball four things can happen. If he hits it over the outfield line without bouncing, he gets six points. If he hits it over with a bounce it’s four. If the opposing team catches it, he’s out. If he hits it inside the park he can choose whether or not to run. Running entails the batsmen running to other’s box before the fielders can throw the ball in and hit the wicket. Because the batsmen can choose to run or not to run it means the game is really boring. Like baseball except you swing at every pitch and then choose when to run. That’s pretty much it, the rest matters in the same way foul ball rules matter or the way the inning system works, important but not necessary to know what’s happening on the field.
That was exactly 200 words in case you weren’t counting or got so bored and took so long to read it that you figured I lied and had gone way over.
Back to the match, which held enormous significance to the Sri Lankan people and followers of Cricket in general. It was Murali’s last match. Murali was one of the best bowlers ever and he needed just 8 wickets (outs) to reach 800, a feat which had never before been accomplished. When the match continued on Thursday (it started on Sunday), there were only 2 wickets left in the game, and one was gotten within the opening minuets by Sri Lanka’s other bowler. So you can imagine the tension in the crowd that morning. Bands on opposite sides of the field alternated depending on who was bowling and every time that Murali was up the crowd went wild. This went on from approximately 10:33 when the other pitcher got the wicket (out) until nearly four o’clock that afternoon. This craziness was broken up 2 breaks. The first was for lunch and the second for tea. Literally play stops at 12:00 and the scoreboard reads, “Lunch Day 5” and then again around 3 in the afternoon play stops and it reads, “Tea Day 5.” My best guess is that Cricket came from England.
By the time lunch was over, Murali was still bowling and I had long lost count of which round of beer we were on. As mentioned earlier, I was hanging out for the day with a Scottish fellow – his girlfriend wasn’t feeling well and he needed someone to drink and watch Cricket with and well I was pretty damn tired of lying on a beach all week and need someone to explain Cricket to me. Needless to say the combination of the mutual interests of drinking and sport went well together. I’d met him the night before while waiting to meet two friends at the very luxurious Sun House hotel. It is a small boutique hotel that reeks of the good ol’ British Empire from the moment you step through a nearly invisible door, in a solid concrete wall and into a cobble stone courtyard. Inside the bar, which was decked out in memorabilia from the glory days and pictures of authors who had come to the Galle Literary Festival (ran by the owner), a Beatles album played and half a dozen British ex-patriots sat around making small talk. There were three guys who ran a small hotel north of Galle, a profession which obviously made them far more informed and cultured than the rest of us. They asked very few questions but had answers to everything from the spiciness of certain curries to the likelihood of a Sri Lankan national highway system.
Then there was a lady dressed in a double breasted khaki suit/skirt who claimed to be in fashion when first approached. The suit seriously looked like she was due for a safari with Hemingway in the morning. I’ve never seen anything like what she was wearing except in the movies and I know little about fashion but I can tell you that she had not seen the lower side of a catwalk in sometime, if ever. Over the course of the evening it came out that by fashion she meant sweatshops - a modern day slave master who spent her time examining the factories across the country, and dinning with other keepers of the downfallen Empire, complaining about the lack of civility and the rising of prices by a few pence.
Finally there was the couple from Saudi Arabia. He Scottish, she South African and both equally happy to be out of Saudi. Who ever thought that sticking a proud Scotchmen in a dry, practically celibate country and then 'force' him to go on vacation every three months on the company's dime was walking the fine line between genius and insanity. Genius because there would otherwise be mass suicides of Scotsmen in the Middle East and insane because it promotes the endless buying of rounds of gin and tonics. It was at the fourth round at the Sun House that he proclaimed, in perfect sobriety, that it was his national duty to make sure everyone had plenty to drink and it was at that point that I lost track of the rounds. Later it came out that he worked for a large international company and was a buyer of stuff that “make things go fast and go boom.” I am about 95% sure that the quote is accurate. Anyways, we decided to meet up in the morning to see the match.
Again, back to the match. Murali's final wicket came after many false alarms and reviews from upstairs - there was no way that they would let him off with anything less than a fair wicket. When he finally got it the stands erupted in a mass of cheering and dancing and soon after the cannons began their salute to the champion. The cannons are a spectacle all their own. Several days before I had watched with three other volunteers from the ramparts of a fort across the street as the workers did their best to fire them and keep their lives in the process. We were several stories up on this fort and most of them exploded not much higher than our heads; a few actually made it high into the sky and just as many barely made it six feet. These would come bouncing down and prompt a frantic scramble for cover from the people in the area. One even landed on the field and one poor soul was prompted to kick it away from the people before it exploded which it did, thirty seconds after his last boot. On this day, such was their fury that the entire field was engulfed in smoke and fuming remnants smoldered on the field. Murali was carried around the pitch on the shoulders of his teammates and everyone went crazy, scuffles broke out later in day at tea time and the by that point the kegs had been tapped and crowd formed waiting for new ones.
The game was not over just yet though as Sri Lanka still needed to bat again to regain the lead and make the victory official. I know this is kind of confusing and as much as I hate to revert again to referencing my least favorite of America's pastimes I will. Murali got his 800 wicket as what we would call the last out in the top of the ninth, but because this is cricket the bottom of the ninth lasts for hours and all you need is 2 runs in basically a 6-5 ballgame. The only reason that this is worth mentioning is because our drunken minds firmly believe that we came seriously close to being injured when the winning run, a 6 pointer sailed through the tent above us and slammed into the ground several yards away, leaving a sizable hole in both the canopy above and ground below. We stuck around just long enough to watch the crowning of Murali, their new national hero by the President and other Cricket dignitaries, then hoofed it back to the tranquil and prestigious Galle Fort Hotel where we unceremoniously jumped into the pool and ordered a round of gin and tonics while a few elder Brits watched with unwavering calmness.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Another Emailed Update For A Friend
Life is good here, but I'm getting a little bored of just sitting on the beach and teaching the lazy monks. So I'm probably gonna cancel my plane flight and start making my way over to Africa soon, heading through India and the who knows where after that. Hopefully I can do it by boat and train.
Still it's been really fun here and I've met a lot of cool people. Spent the end of last week drinking and watching Cricket all day with a guy from scotland and it was real crazy, the parties here on the weekends are also awesome. Like insane discos and when you get hot you just run and jump into the ocean and then go back partying. And the locals we know are really cool too, one volunteer got in a small fight the other night and my friend Sachi 'escorted' us home with his shirt tied around his head and a log he found in one hand to protect us.
The food here is pretty much all curry. I think I had curry maybe five times in my whole life before I came here, seriously five times and well it's gotten old fast. To make up for it though they have amazing teas and the fruit here is awesome, you can walk down the street and get a coconut, cut up open with a straw for about 20 cents and they have this awesome thing called a rambutan which is a giant spikey lychee and it tastes awesome.
Still it's been really fun here and I've met a lot of cool people. Spent the end of last week drinking and watching Cricket all day with a guy from scotland and it was real crazy, the parties here on the weekends are also awesome. Like insane discos and when you get hot you just run and jump into the ocean and then go back partying. And the locals we know are really cool too, one volunteer got in a small fight the other night and my friend Sachi 'escorted' us home with his shirt tied around his head and a log he found in one hand to protect us.
The food here is pretty much all curry. I think I had curry maybe five times in my whole life before I came here, seriously five times and well it's gotten old fast. To make up for it though they have amazing teas and the fruit here is awesome, you can walk down the street and get a coconut, cut up open with a straw for about 20 cents and they have this awesome thing called a rambutan which is a giant spikey lychee and it tastes awesome.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Trip to Trinco
At 4:30 on a Tuesday morning Nicholi (from Denmark), Isabel (from Spain) and I set off from the Galle bus station for a three hour ride up Colombo and the train station there. It would be the first leg of a trip to the opposite end of the island to the town of Trincomale for some snorkeling and then for a night in the cultural capitol of Kandy.
The train station at Columbo is a long low building with several sets of booths that have four ticket windows on each side, one man assigned to each side and half a dozen others sitting in the larger space in between. When we arrived they were having a very animated conversation, one which the tellers would join and leave at their discretion. As we walked up to the window a pedestrian walked up and asked us where we wanted to go, Trincomale we replied and he pointed us towards the right side of the closest booth. We ventured over to inquire about tickets and the next fifteen minuets went something like the following.
"We would like to go to Trincomale."
Quizical look is given by man behind window.
"Trincomale?"
"Ahh." Man leaves and a new guy comes.
"Trincomale?"
"Yes, yes, you go tonight?
"No, Can we go to Trincomale today?"
Thirty seconds of silence, during which three people push up to the window and buy tickets. More silence, followed by yelling to men in the middle and then the answer to the Trincomale question:
"Ahh, Galoya Junction you go to Galoya Junction."
"No, Trincomale?"
"Yes, yes you go to Galoya and then Trinco. Go to other side."
We go to other side, fail miserably at pronouncing Galoya and walk back to the first window and get the guy to write down 'Galoya Junction' on a scrap piece of paper that we would carry for the next twelve hours as only way of communicating our destination.
Back to the second window. Piece of paper is shown. We are pointed back to the first window.
Back to the first window. We are pointed to a ticket reservation office twenty yards away.
Inside the office there is a counter with a large piece of opaque glass and three small windows with a place name written above each. None of them are Galoya or Trincomale or any place we recognize. Opposite the counter was a large board with destinations, times and prices. Trincomale and Galoya are absent from there as well so we went to the first window, showed the paper and we sent to the third. Show paper. Show passport. Give Money. Get tickets, good to go.
I cannot think of a better way to see a country than by train. As the train to Galoya Junction rattled out of Columbo and towards the country side we were witnesses to thousands of snapshots of Sri Lankan life. Uniformed school boys playing cricket with a seat less chair for the posts, women wrapped in sarongs bathing in a river, gorgeous three story houses next to those made of cold gray concrete with tin roofs, a monk watching the train go by and countless more that combined to give a far more vibrant and dynamic view than any other way of getting around. Once in the countryside, everything was varying shades of green, with thick forests suddenly opening to reveal vast expanses of squared of rice paddies and cows lazily munching grass close to the tracks. This went on for hours as we worked our way north, moving out of the southern monsoon area and into more arid land in need of a little more greenery.
The train came to a lurching stop at a small dusty outpost junction with no more than a small station, a few low lying shops and a shrine to the Buddha. I have already forgotten the name, but it was at this stop that after sitting on the tracks for a few minuets, two men got of the engine, unhooked it from our car and set off down the tracks, disappearing from view as the line bent it's way back into the forest. Minute after minute passed, the car grew hotter and hotter and the three of us began to question the idea of taking the train in the first place. Oh, and I forgot to mention that a guide book was one item that we forgot to bring along with us. It would prove detrimental several times down the stretch but really made those hours of waiting awesome as we had no idea where we were. The signs certainly didn't say Galoya, nor did they say Trincomale and well, no one in this town seemed to be going anywhere. The only movement around were the few people walking up and down the sides of the train selling nuts and fruits and yogurts. Isabel had made friends with a small boy and his mother sitting behind us and they passed forward a local desert made of grain, honey and nuts cooked into a golf ball sized blob which helped pass the time until with a series of lurches the train started in the opposite direction. We were on our way again this time with view from the large window at the end of our car of the tracks disappearing behind us.
We made it to Galoya Junction at 4:30, which cold have been 30 minuets late or a 1:30 minuets early depending on who you asked. We said Trincomale a few times at the ticket window and were taken to an aging train which took off soon after. The train to Trincomale rambled through the country side at a lazy 30 kilometers an hour, taking long stops and winding its way through small towns and farmland. Images of flocks of peacocks stalking through unsown rice paddies and monkeys jumping around on town walls flashed past along with dozens of kids staring and waving. A late afternoon shower gave everything that great summer rain smell and we stood in the open side doors of the train as the light dimmed, enjoying the country side and on one occasion lazily brushing a cockroach out the door, it's legs flailing furiously before falling out of view.
Once arriving in Trincomale and accidentally being taken to a USD$180 a night hotel we settled in to somewhere a bit more to our budget, slept and awoke to an ocean that could not be more different from Galle. Instead of a short, steep strip of sand that disappeared into fast breaking waves and choppy water caused by the monsoons, the beach in the north wide and genteelly sloped into perfectly calm, teal blue water. In a few months these descriptions would flip-flop when the monsoons left the south and moved north but for now the ocean was perfect. We hired a guide in the morning and set off for an island some distance off shore, which had a lagoon on one side with a great abundance of fish and on the other side a shallow reef area with sharks. The lagoon was very good for snorkeling albeit there were probably a dozen others swimming around but it was still great. Our guy then took us to the other, deserted side of the island, donned his gear and led us in search of sharks of which we saw several. After snorkeling we returned to shore and set off for Kandy
The buses in these parts can be very memorable. They have their own redeeming qualities such as making you appreciate the limits we put in the west on the number of people that can be crammed into a box of metal and making you realize that no, you're not in Kansas anymore. The first bus we boarded in Trinco to get to Kandy got off to a fine start. It wasn't very crowded and we all got seats next to open windows, making the heat very manageable. Then the music started. When the bus slowed and the roar from the wind and road died down, you could actually hear something akin to a melody with lyrics but otherwise the sounds blaring out of the speakers would give any heavy metal band a run for their money in terms of sheer eardrum busting noise. The 'music' has more in common with a chorus of nail guns blasting into a two-by-four then any musical instrument I know of and bites easily through any attempt by headphones to drown it out. It is earsplitting and constant and never seems to lose it's furious pace as you stretch your head out the window, begging the rushing wind to carry it away.
After the hours of musical molestation I was all to happy for the brief reprieve of being dumped on the side of the road in the town of Dambula, at the start of the afternoon's monsoon rains and without a another bus insight. Luckily before we got to wet another bus pulled up and several locals pointed and repeated, "Kandy" many times so we hurried over to climb aboard. The first thing I noticed about the bus to Kandy was that there was no music - awesome. The second is that there was no room and a crowd already waiting at the door. My second observation turned out to be completely false -there is always room on the bus. We struggled with our bags, bumping and jostling with a dozen others up the back steps and into the center isle where we dropped our bags on the floor and ungracefully kicked them underneath the seats. The bus is set up such that there are two seats the left, three on the right and a struggling, hot mass of humanity on the middle. Arms protrude at odd angles to grasp at the bar running overhead or the seats on either side and it takes a life of it's own as people come and go and the conductor occasionally hops out at a stop and runs to the front in order to make his rounds again to the back, a thick wad of bills in one hand a ticket machine in the other. Each movement of a passenger requires a general shift in the mass of humanity as it adjusts to the new arrangement, spitting out and swallowing people at every stop. It's futile to remain stationary and after a few stops I found myself standing over Isabel's bag, which apparently hadn't made it under a seat while she stood wedged in somewhere up the isle.
It's easy go on about the hassles and difficulties of traveling in a less than perfectly developed country, but there is an element of harmony to people in a less than perfect situation making the best of it and never once uttering a complaint. Toes are stepped on, elbows briefly jabbed into backs and bodies momentarily squashed dis-comfortingly against seats, poles and other bodies all without an ounce of disagreement. A "Sorry" or "Excuse me" need not to be uttered because it is understood that one does not mean to cause you anymore discomfort than necessary and we're all in this together until the next stop, when hopefully a few more people get out than get in and we can all breath a little easier. At one such stop I was able to sit and at the next stop a family got on, the man next to me gave up his seat and down sat a mother and small child. It was rather late by this point and the child had reached her limit, fussing and crying as soon as the mother had settled, trying in vain to fall asleep on the rumbling bus in the middle of the rain storm. The mother held the child across her lap, her thin arm supporting the child’s neck with her head bumping against my arm from time to time until the crying stopped and a small head rested on the crook of my elbow. It weighed heavily at an odd angle, but I dared not move to disrupt the quiet that had come over the back of the bus as we traveled down through the rain soaked land to Kandy.
The train station at Columbo is a long low building with several sets of booths that have four ticket windows on each side, one man assigned to each side and half a dozen others sitting in the larger space in between. When we arrived they were having a very animated conversation, one which the tellers would join and leave at their discretion. As we walked up to the window a pedestrian walked up and asked us where we wanted to go, Trincomale we replied and he pointed us towards the right side of the closest booth. We ventured over to inquire about tickets and the next fifteen minuets went something like the following.
"We would like to go to Trincomale."
Quizical look is given by man behind window.
"Trincomale?"
"Ahh." Man leaves and a new guy comes.
"Trincomale?"
"Yes, yes, you go tonight?
"No, Can we go to Trincomale today?"
Thirty seconds of silence, during which three people push up to the window and buy tickets. More silence, followed by yelling to men in the middle and then the answer to the Trincomale question:
"Ahh, Galoya Junction you go to Galoya Junction."
"No, Trincomale?"
"Yes, yes you go to Galoya and then Trinco. Go to other side."
We go to other side, fail miserably at pronouncing Galoya and walk back to the first window and get the guy to write down 'Galoya Junction' on a scrap piece of paper that we would carry for the next twelve hours as only way of communicating our destination.
Back to the second window. Piece of paper is shown. We are pointed back to the first window.
Back to the first window. We are pointed to a ticket reservation office twenty yards away.
Inside the office there is a counter with a large piece of opaque glass and three small windows with a place name written above each. None of them are Galoya or Trincomale or any place we recognize. Opposite the counter was a large board with destinations, times and prices. Trincomale and Galoya are absent from there as well so we went to the first window, showed the paper and we sent to the third. Show paper. Show passport. Give Money. Get tickets, good to go.
I cannot think of a better way to see a country than by train. As the train to Galoya Junction rattled out of Columbo and towards the country side we were witnesses to thousands of snapshots of Sri Lankan life. Uniformed school boys playing cricket with a seat less chair for the posts, women wrapped in sarongs bathing in a river, gorgeous three story houses next to those made of cold gray concrete with tin roofs, a monk watching the train go by and countless more that combined to give a far more vibrant and dynamic view than any other way of getting around. Once in the countryside, everything was varying shades of green, with thick forests suddenly opening to reveal vast expanses of squared of rice paddies and cows lazily munching grass close to the tracks. This went on for hours as we worked our way north, moving out of the southern monsoon area and into more arid land in need of a little more greenery.
The train came to a lurching stop at a small dusty outpost junction with no more than a small station, a few low lying shops and a shrine to the Buddha. I have already forgotten the name, but it was at this stop that after sitting on the tracks for a few minuets, two men got of the engine, unhooked it from our car and set off down the tracks, disappearing from view as the line bent it's way back into the forest. Minute after minute passed, the car grew hotter and hotter and the three of us began to question the idea of taking the train in the first place. Oh, and I forgot to mention that a guide book was one item that we forgot to bring along with us. It would prove detrimental several times down the stretch but really made those hours of waiting awesome as we had no idea where we were. The signs certainly didn't say Galoya, nor did they say Trincomale and well, no one in this town seemed to be going anywhere. The only movement around were the few people walking up and down the sides of the train selling nuts and fruits and yogurts. Isabel had made friends with a small boy and his mother sitting behind us and they passed forward a local desert made of grain, honey and nuts cooked into a golf ball sized blob which helped pass the time until with a series of lurches the train started in the opposite direction. We were on our way again this time with view from the large window at the end of our car of the tracks disappearing behind us.
We made it to Galoya Junction at 4:30, which cold have been 30 minuets late or a 1:30 minuets early depending on who you asked. We said Trincomale a few times at the ticket window and were taken to an aging train which took off soon after. The train to Trincomale rambled through the country side at a lazy 30 kilometers an hour, taking long stops and winding its way through small towns and farmland. Images of flocks of peacocks stalking through unsown rice paddies and monkeys jumping around on town walls flashed past along with dozens of kids staring and waving. A late afternoon shower gave everything that great summer rain smell and we stood in the open side doors of the train as the light dimmed, enjoying the country side and on one occasion lazily brushing a cockroach out the door, it's legs flailing furiously before falling out of view.
Once arriving in Trincomale and accidentally being taken to a USD$180 a night hotel we settled in to somewhere a bit more to our budget, slept and awoke to an ocean that could not be more different from Galle. Instead of a short, steep strip of sand that disappeared into fast breaking waves and choppy water caused by the monsoons, the beach in the north wide and genteelly sloped into perfectly calm, teal blue water. In a few months these descriptions would flip-flop when the monsoons left the south and moved north but for now the ocean was perfect. We hired a guide in the morning and set off for an island some distance off shore, which had a lagoon on one side with a great abundance of fish and on the other side a shallow reef area with sharks. The lagoon was very good for snorkeling albeit there were probably a dozen others swimming around but it was still great. Our guy then took us to the other, deserted side of the island, donned his gear and led us in search of sharks of which we saw several. After snorkeling we returned to shore and set off for Kandy
The buses in these parts can be very memorable. They have their own redeeming qualities such as making you appreciate the limits we put in the west on the number of people that can be crammed into a box of metal and making you realize that no, you're not in Kansas anymore. The first bus we boarded in Trinco to get to Kandy got off to a fine start. It wasn't very crowded and we all got seats next to open windows, making the heat very manageable. Then the music started. When the bus slowed and the roar from the wind and road died down, you could actually hear something akin to a melody with lyrics but otherwise the sounds blaring out of the speakers would give any heavy metal band a run for their money in terms of sheer eardrum busting noise. The 'music' has more in common with a chorus of nail guns blasting into a two-by-four then any musical instrument I know of and bites easily through any attempt by headphones to drown it out. It is earsplitting and constant and never seems to lose it's furious pace as you stretch your head out the window, begging the rushing wind to carry it away.
After the hours of musical molestation I was all to happy for the brief reprieve of being dumped on the side of the road in the town of Dambula, at the start of the afternoon's monsoon rains and without a another bus insight. Luckily before we got to wet another bus pulled up and several locals pointed and repeated, "Kandy" many times so we hurried over to climb aboard. The first thing I noticed about the bus to Kandy was that there was no music - awesome. The second is that there was no room and a crowd already waiting at the door. My second observation turned out to be completely false -there is always room on the bus. We struggled with our bags, bumping and jostling with a dozen others up the back steps and into the center isle where we dropped our bags on the floor and ungracefully kicked them underneath the seats. The bus is set up such that there are two seats the left, three on the right and a struggling, hot mass of humanity on the middle. Arms protrude at odd angles to grasp at the bar running overhead or the seats on either side and it takes a life of it's own as people come and go and the conductor occasionally hops out at a stop and runs to the front in order to make his rounds again to the back, a thick wad of bills in one hand a ticket machine in the other. Each movement of a passenger requires a general shift in the mass of humanity as it adjusts to the new arrangement, spitting out and swallowing people at every stop. It's futile to remain stationary and after a few stops I found myself standing over Isabel's bag, which apparently hadn't made it under a seat while she stood wedged in somewhere up the isle.
It's easy go on about the hassles and difficulties of traveling in a less than perfectly developed country, but there is an element of harmony to people in a less than perfect situation making the best of it and never once uttering a complaint. Toes are stepped on, elbows briefly jabbed into backs and bodies momentarily squashed dis-comfortingly against seats, poles and other bodies all without an ounce of disagreement. A "Sorry" or "Excuse me" need not to be uttered because it is understood that one does not mean to cause you anymore discomfort than necessary and we're all in this together until the next stop, when hopefully a few more people get out than get in and we can all breath a little easier. At one such stop I was able to sit and at the next stop a family got on, the man next to me gave up his seat and down sat a mother and small child. It was rather late by this point and the child had reached her limit, fussing and crying as soon as the mother had settled, trying in vain to fall asleep on the rumbling bus in the middle of the rain storm. The mother held the child across her lap, her thin arm supporting the child’s neck with her head bumping against my arm from time to time until the crying stopped and a small head rested on the crook of my elbow. It weighed heavily at an odd angle, but I dared not move to disrupt the quiet that had come over the back of the bus as we traveled down through the rain soaked land to Kandy.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Week One In Review
I originally wrote this as an email for a friend of mine, but I think it's a good recap of the day to day stuff that's being going on out here:
Sri Lanka is not at all what I expected but probably better than I could have hoped for. It turns out that the home-stay is actually more like a guest house for volunteers and it’s been awesome, I’ve been meeting so many cool people from all over the world – Denmark, Australia(they’re crazy), Madrid, England, Jersey(the country not the shore) and Ireland for now but people are always coming and going which is fun.
We spent the last week doing tourist stuff like going on a safari (surprisingly cool), seeing a Buddhist/Hindu temple and all that kinda stuff. The area is really neat because in the winter it is somewhat of a tourist spot but there aren’t really any here now but still it’s not like I’m out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a really cool old Dutch fort with a town inside of it that was spared from the tsunami that wiped everything out in 2004 and still mostly looks like it did hundreds of years ago but with really cool places to eat and drink and just walk around.
I started teaching English yesterday and it was really really really hard cause they don’t give us any materials or guidance on what to do but today was better as I think I might kinda be getting the hang of it, or maybe not cause I hardly have any idea what I’m doing. We have monks in the morning and then go teach local young kids in the evening. I’m pretty sure the evening class was a complete waste of time cause they are really shy and don’t seem to understand any English but hopefully it gets easier this evening.
What’s been super cool is that we have five hours off in between classes and I’ve been hanging out on this idyllic beach about five mins away with the girl from Madrid and guy from Denmark. Hopefully I can get some pictures up cause I think it’s one of the most perfect looking beaches I’ve ever seen! Tonight the three of us are hiring a bus and going snorkeling up north tomorrow morning, staying at a night or two up there and then taking another overnight ride later in the week to hike up some famous place that is supposed to have amazing views of the sunrise.
Yea it's cool.
Sri Lanka is not at all what I expected but probably better than I could have hoped for. It turns out that the home-stay is actually more like a guest house for volunteers and it’s been awesome, I’ve been meeting so many cool people from all over the world – Denmark, Australia(they’re crazy), Madrid, England, Jersey(the country not the shore) and Ireland for now but people are always coming and going which is fun.
We spent the last week doing tourist stuff like going on a safari (surprisingly cool), seeing a Buddhist/Hindu temple and all that kinda stuff. The area is really neat because in the winter it is somewhat of a tourist spot but there aren’t really any here now but still it’s not like I’m out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a really cool old Dutch fort with a town inside of it that was spared from the tsunami that wiped everything out in 2004 and still mostly looks like it did hundreds of years ago but with really cool places to eat and drink and just walk around.
I started teaching English yesterday and it was really really really hard cause they don’t give us any materials or guidance on what to do but today was better as I think I might kinda be getting the hang of it, or maybe not cause I hardly have any idea what I’m doing. We have monks in the morning and then go teach local young kids in the evening. I’m pretty sure the evening class was a complete waste of time cause they are really shy and don’t seem to understand any English but hopefully it gets easier this evening.
What’s been super cool is that we have five hours off in between classes and I’ve been hanging out on this idyllic beach about five mins away with the girl from Madrid and guy from Denmark. Hopefully I can get some pictures up cause I think it’s one of the most perfect looking beaches I’ve ever seen! Tonight the three of us are hiring a bus and going snorkeling up north tomorrow morning, staying at a night or two up there and then taking another overnight ride later in the week to hike up some famous place that is supposed to have amazing views of the sunrise.
Yea it's cool.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Touristy Things
7/3/2010
We spent several days last week doing a handful of touristy things around the area, not exactly what I signed up for but pretty fun all the same. Myself and the other new volunteers went with our host, Michael and his still yet to be named driver down the coast and made our first stop off at a sea turtle hatchery where they explained how sea turtles live, mate and generally lead awesome lives swimming around the ocean for about a hundred years. They let us hold the smaller one that had just hatched a day before and as you might be able to see from the picture I hope to one day up, they are some mean looking little things and would be great inspiration for alter egos to the Ninja Turtles.
After that we hit up a secluded beach and intended to grab drinks at the beach front bar, supposedly a popular tourist spot during the touristy season. Bu this not being that, the bar was closed while half a dozen guys a few years older than myself stood around and told people it was closed. Judging by their lack of conversation or motivation to take our money and the number of Bob Marley/Marijuana posters hanging around, I’d say they were stoned, possibly quite a daring feat in a country that loudly advertises at the border in bold letters that possession of illegal drugs is punishable by death. My guess is that very few people have met their end because of a joint but it’s probably a great tool for the police to get a couple thousand rupees out of some dumb young punk. Not that I am about to test that.
One thing that every guide book pictures as being classic Sri Lanka are men fishing from stilts stuck into the surf a short way from shore and so of course we had to see that. On this particular day however, the waves were too rough for them to go out and so we went straight from the first beach to a second more mainstream location and grabbed drinks by the surf. When I say that the waves were too rough I don’t mean that they were huge, rather they were numerous and unorganized. Kicked up by storms marking the end of the monsoon season, they broke far off shore on the coral reefs and then had another very short break just a few yards from shore causing a melee of peaks and troughs that made swimming difficult for all but the hardiest of German travelers. Several jumped in to take a quick dip while we watched, beverages in hand, but none of them lasted long and would come tumbling out of a mistimed body surfing attempt trying to look unfazed yet more then likely slightly shaken.
Upon leaving the bar though, we did see a handful of guys on the stilts in a different cove and pulled over to take a look. We walked down a dirt path between four or five houses homes to a rocky outcropping from which we could see the fishermen. On these rocks were about ten locals also watching and a few young dogs who came up and greeted us (significant because older dogs in these parts just ignore you). When we climbed up besides the locals and took a few pictures, they asked us for money in exchange the picture taking. This was some first class bullshit but luckily I didn’t have any with me and showed them my empty pockets so they left me alone. The rest were not so lucky and they kept asking the girls for money and began getting a little too adamant that we give them something for the privilege of taking the fisherman’s picture while they themselves were either too lazy or scared to go out in the heavy surf. There were plenty of empty stilts in the water and certainly no lack of fish as evident from the well stocked fishmongers in every town we stopped at. They persisted to ask us for money as we climbed down the rocks, their case not being helped by two young dogs who had taken to entertaining themselves by nipping at several of the girl’s sandal straps. They continued to follow and glare at us all the way back to bus, demanding their supposed fair share for the right to photograph the workers but as Michael assured everyone later, we were perfectly safe because no matter what, the police would always take the side of the tourist in an altercation with a local.
We spent several days last week doing a handful of touristy things around the area, not exactly what I signed up for but pretty fun all the same. Myself and the other new volunteers went with our host, Michael and his still yet to be named driver down the coast and made our first stop off at a sea turtle hatchery where they explained how sea turtles live, mate and generally lead awesome lives swimming around the ocean for about a hundred years. They let us hold the smaller one that had just hatched a day before and as you might be able to see from the picture I hope to one day up, they are some mean looking little things and would be great inspiration for alter egos to the Ninja Turtles.
After that we hit up a secluded beach and intended to grab drinks at the beach front bar, supposedly a popular tourist spot during the touristy season. Bu this not being that, the bar was closed while half a dozen guys a few years older than myself stood around and told people it was closed. Judging by their lack of conversation or motivation to take our money and the number of Bob Marley/Marijuana posters hanging around, I’d say they were stoned, possibly quite a daring feat in a country that loudly advertises at the border in bold letters that possession of illegal drugs is punishable by death. My guess is that very few people have met their end because of a joint but it’s probably a great tool for the police to get a couple thousand rupees out of some dumb young punk. Not that I am about to test that.
One thing that every guide book pictures as being classic Sri Lanka are men fishing from stilts stuck into the surf a short way from shore and so of course we had to see that. On this particular day however, the waves were too rough for them to go out and so we went straight from the first beach to a second more mainstream location and grabbed drinks by the surf. When I say that the waves were too rough I don’t mean that they were huge, rather they were numerous and unorganized. Kicked up by storms marking the end of the monsoon season, they broke far off shore on the coral reefs and then had another very short break just a few yards from shore causing a melee of peaks and troughs that made swimming difficult for all but the hardiest of German travelers. Several jumped in to take a quick dip while we watched, beverages in hand, but none of them lasted long and would come tumbling out of a mistimed body surfing attempt trying to look unfazed yet more then likely slightly shaken.
Upon leaving the bar though, we did see a handful of guys on the stilts in a different cove and pulled over to take a look. We walked down a dirt path between four or five houses homes to a rocky outcropping from which we could see the fishermen. On these rocks were about ten locals also watching and a few young dogs who came up and greeted us (significant because older dogs in these parts just ignore you). When we climbed up besides the locals and took a few pictures, they asked us for money in exchange the picture taking. This was some first class bullshit but luckily I didn’t have any with me and showed them my empty pockets so they left me alone. The rest were not so lucky and they kept asking the girls for money and began getting a little too adamant that we give them something for the privilege of taking the fisherman’s picture while they themselves were either too lazy or scared to go out in the heavy surf. There were plenty of empty stilts in the water and certainly no lack of fish as evident from the well stocked fishmongers in every town we stopped at. They persisted to ask us for money as we climbed down the rocks, their case not being helped by two young dogs who had taken to entertaining themselves by nipping at several of the girl’s sandal straps. They continued to follow and glare at us all the way back to bus, demanding their supposed fair share for the right to photograph the workers but as Michael assured everyone later, we were perfectly safe because no matter what, the police would always take the side of the tourist in an altercation with a local.
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