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.