SRI LANKA!

Sri Lanka 2016

January 26^th

 

I’m going to blog in much briefer style whilst we are on holiday in Sri Lanka because I want to have the log of what we did, places we visited etc, but we are travelling around a lot and we don’t always have access each night to wifi. So a brief summary of highlights,hopefully.

We left RUHSA at around 9.30 in the posh and comfortable taxi driven by Vijayakumar, whom we’ve encountered for the first time this visit. Two and a half hours to get to the airport, which is brilliant. Vj managed to avoid much of the horror of Chennai traffic which we endured with the RUHSA driver when we arrived. Definitely one to use again! He has a Hannuman hanging from his mirror and that plus his reasonably skilled and un-lunatic driving did the trick. We had long hours to wait even before we were allowed into the airport but there was a decent coffee shop outside and comfortable seating. It’s just a short hop across the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka and we arrived around 5 in the evening, to be greeted with garlands of orchids by Marcus, our driver for the tour, and Pradeep, the tour organiser and associate of Rajesh (last year’s travel man, from Kerala, who organised this tour for us, in association with Pradeep).

Sri Lanka, exactly the same age as  my friend Clare!

From the first Sri Lanka made a very different impression from Chennai/ India. It is so much cleaner and the roads are decent and there is lane discipline! Over the coming days we were to learn a great deal about the history, geography, language, politics etc of this beautiful island, from Marcus, who is a wonderful guide as well as driver. Much has changed since the tsunami in which 33,000 lost their lives. Since Pam and Brian came just before the tsunami much seems to be unrecognisable to them. As in India there has been a huge explosion in car ownership and everywhere, although the roads are good, there is phenomenal traffic congestion, a real problem. 

We spent the night in a boutique hotel by the coast, to the south of Colombo, after we had struggled through rush hour traffic from the airport. Super hotel, wonderful clean hot showers and an electric bidet should we choose to brave it! Run by a Sri Lankan business man with a strong American accent who has clearly lived for a long while in the States. He told us that he runs a charity for children with cancer, in SL, and which also helps tackle the problem of suicide amongst the young, the stats for which he believes to be even more horrific than in India. We ventured out for food and fell eagerly upon a western menu, ie fish and chips. Brian especially is heartily sick of rice and curry, so he was very happy.

January 27^th

Up and out of the hotel by 8 for what was to prove a long drive ahead. We went into Colombo and Marcus showed us various colonial buildings and the independence monument. The whole place looked far cleaner and better kept than anywhere in India and the Morrises again failed to recognise it from their memories of a squalid city.  It took us most of the day to get to Kandy, our next stop, and specifically the Forest Glen hotel. In a congested island it seems that Kandy has the worst problems of all. We couldn’t take long to settle in as we wanted to get to the evening performance of dance and drumming. This turned out to be a wonderful spectacle, with eight or nine different dances and some wonderful music as well. Some male dancers did a fire dance which involved eating fire and running a burning brand up their arms. My favourite from the women was the peacock dance, but I also enjoyed one which had basket spinning and balancing. The whole performance ended with two dancers walking across flaming coals. A super hour’s worth of entertainment. 

Off then to see the temple of the tooth, a World Heritage site in which several relics of the Buddha are to be found, including his tooth, rescued after his body was burned, according to legend. This is a very important place for practising Buddhists and there were very many among the crowds who thronged who were there clearly as believers, not just tourists. An impressive and beautiful site as the sun was setting, by the large lake. The day ended with another very nice meal in a hotel offering western cuisine, up on a roof terrace. As we were eating, a large moon, just waning from full, climbed up from behind the hill opposite- magical!

 The Temple of the Tooth

Lotus flower offerings at the Temple of the Tooth

January 28^th

Another early start as we were off to another World Heritage site some several hours away, at Sigirya and then on to Dambulla cave temples and frescoes. Sigirya  is a huge inselberg mountain which rises out of the plain, a dark reddy colour. At one point it was the stronghold of the king, who put steps all around the rock to climb up in a spiral, and who also installed water pools at the top. At that time it was decorated with hundreds of frescoes of very buxom young women, some of which still remain. We opted out of the climb up huge numbers of steps, what with the intense midday heat and our various bad knees, etc. There is a recently- built museum, donated by the Japanese, which is very informative about the history of the place.

  Sigirya

 

Then on to Dambulla where there are three huge caves housing temples to Buddha and a large number of Buddha statues. To enter the temple area one has to remove shoes and as we hopped over extremely hot stones I was even more in awe of the fire walkers. From here it was back home to Kandy, another drive of at least an hour and a half, so we were well travel-weary by the time we arrived back at Forest Glen. The lovely Sri Lankan meal prepared for us by Indra, the owner, was extremely welcome and rounded off the day wonderfully. She runs a nursery school, attached to the home stay, and has done so for about twenty years, I think. We had a really interesting talk about early years education. She is in a bit of despair because the education authorities, including the teacher-trainers in Sri Lanka appear to have failed to grasp the idea of learning actively through play, even despite her best endeavours to spread the word over the years. 

Two of the Buddha caves at Dambulla