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.