Round the World Journal
by Matt Donath
Dec 17. Our Air Lanka flight to Colombo goes off without a hitch. From the airport, we catch a bus into town for 20 rs (1 US$ = 68 Sri Lankan rs). After wandering all around the Pettah and Fort areas, we finally settle in at the YMCA (recommended with caveats to follow). Some days we pay a price for not travelling with guidebooks.
Dec 18. After having our ATM cards refused by many recalcitrant machines we find one at Liberty Plaza that gives us money. Our other big chore of the day is to get a biopsy done on Sybil. She has a lump on her breast that we had checked out in Ahmadabad. Although they didn't see anything suspicious we want to ally any fears with a biopsy.
So, after asking for recommendations (expats in grocery stores) we go to the Nawaloka Hospital. After getting a bit of a runaround, we do get to see a surgeon who performs the biopsy. The surgeon tells us the results will be ready in a week, but he assures us that we have nothing to worry about.
For dinner we eat Kurakkan bread lathered with woodapple jam, washed down with tasty Upcot Brunswick Ceylon tea.
Dec 19. The 138 bus takes us to the excellent National Museum. Their collection includes outstanding art work and some great masks. Incongruously, they have a special exhibit on poisonous plants, complete with live specimens placed at floor level where any toddler could reach them!
Sybil needs a fou-fou fix, so we head over to the air conditioned Don's Cafeacute; (avoid) for lunch. Their food is acceptably over-priced, but they flat out cheat us by charging 10 times the going rate for a lime soda. A lesson to never order anything that doesn't have the price listed on the menu. Sybil very politely suggests to the manager that they post their drink prices. His response: "we don't do that." Probably get most of their revenue by cheating people that way.
A better choice for fou fou food can be found at the Deli Market in the World Trade Center. This place is a bit like Bon Marche (in S'pore and Hong Kong). You bring a card around to different food stations and pay your bill at a register when you leave. We eat a dinner of tasty tandori chicken pizza while watching news blurbs about the Iraq air strikes. Our attention invariably gets diverted to some other tables, where a child's birthday party is in session. A cutesy costumed "Rudy The Bear" dances to Beach Boys music with the kiddies. Later, a decidedly alcoholic Santa distributes presents.
Still later, we migrate to the Taj Restaurant (recommended) for a nightcap ginger beer -- as full of zing as Caribbean versions. Walking home along a dark, nearly deserted street, a man slinks up to us and whispers "grass, hashish, smoking?" We quickly go into our usual routine of loudly shouting: "we don't want any drugs! Aren't drugs illegal here?" He smiles and slithers off.
I thought my fighting days ended with India, but staying at the Y gets me into trouble. A judo competition has been in progress for the past few nights, resulting in disturbance, but not extreme annoyance. Tonight, however, the competitors are noisier at a much later hour and they are camped out around a table directly in front of our door. Even this I could probably ignore, but not my wife's complaints about it.
Unfortunately, my polite pleas for peace fall on deaf ears. Most of these judo competitors are obnoxious teenagers. Some of them suggest we move our room! So, I trudge downstairs and wake up a sleepy YMCA guard, but he has little inclination to do anything about the matter. I finally get him to come upstairs, but I am at a supreme disadvantage because the judo guys can bully him in Sinhalese while I can only badger him in English. A European guy meekly pops his head out of his room to briefly lend support to my cause, but the guard ultimately shrugs his shoulders and says "they are paying guests."
"OK," I say, rather upset at this point, "I'm a paying guest too, so let's make sure everybody's awake!" I start banging my fist on every door on the floor, shouting for people to wake up (I'm certain no one could have been sleeping anyway.) One of the doors I hit swings open to reveal more judo guys. In the midst of my tirade, I start to realize that the judo competition probably fills up almost all of the rooms on this floor. Hmm, maybe it isn't such a hot idea to get them all riled up…
I head downstairs, searching for more help, but come up empty. I see lots of people sleeping in all of the gym recreational areas, but clearly none of them have anything to do with the administration of the Y. In fact, I doubt most of them were even supposed to be sleeping in there.
Returning upstairs, I meet the guard on his way down. He says things should be quieter now. Upstairs, I find that most of the judo guys have left. A few of the larger guys remain, probably just in a statement of defiance. A calmer, wiser Matthew would have ignored them. Instead, I ask the largest one where his room is and then threaten to wake him up later. Clearly an empty threat as one wimpy guard would offer little protection against a large group of judo experts! Fortunately, we have no more problems.
Dec 20. Instead of hanging around Colombo for a week, waiting for Sybil's test results, we decide to head down the coast for a beach. Although the Fort Station is easy to manage -- complete with televised track schedules and decorative fish tanks on the platforms -- we manage to board the wrong train. Realizing our error after the train takes off, we risk a dangerous jump from the rapidly accelerating car! Somehow we survive this folly.
I notice one person on the train eating "Muncheeys" (some kind of cookie/cracker) while drinking some "Smak" (a soft drink).
We get off at Hikkaduwa. After our usual sweaty scouting around, we find a charming place called the Trust Inn (09-77409), reasonably priced for the season. A dip in the ocean revives our spirits considerably. Lolling about on the sand for the rest of the day is all we are ambitious for.
I head back to our room while Sybil watches a Communist Party march, whose persuasive tactics include screaming through bullhorns and lobbing firecrackers into people's yards. Wanting some tea, I start to play around with the ancient electric plug in our bathroom. OK, my upcoming foolishness is difficult to explain, but anyone who has traveled in countries with the old three prong outlets knows that you can often stick a pen into the ground and use a two-prong device in it. I've done it dozens of times before.
However, I'd never tried it before with such dubious wiring. Idiotically, while standing barefoot in a puddle on the wet floor, I SERIOUSLY electrocute myself. Have you every seen a cartoon where a character gets shocked, shows you his skeleton for a second and gives off a wailing shriek while smoke pours out of his ears? That's exactly what happened to me. I somehow make it to the bed and pass out. Sybil comes back after awhile and finds me nearly comatose. For days afterwards, I cannot properly manipulate my left hand. It feels like all the nerves in my arm are fried. My fingerprints appear to have melted. My head hurts and the fillings in my teeth ache. I'm very lucky to have survived this folly.
Dec 21. We hadn't planned on coming to Sri Lanka until we chatted with Bito, a Spanish woman we met in Jaisalmer. Bito raved about the place, making it sound hassle-free when compared with India. Today we make sure we get full measure of the laid-back life. We chat with our landlord over a leisurely breakfast. We swim, read, eat tasty fish curry and rotis (Rotty Spot -- recommended), and talk with everyone we meet. The beach touts here are refreshingly low key and not too numerous. Mosquitoes and sand flies aren't too much of a problem. Clean, finely grained sand, palm trees, blue skies and crashing waves provide for a wonderfully relaxing atmosphere.
I remember asking the Buntz's, our Welsh ex-pat friends in S'pore, about Sri Lanka, as they'd previously lived there. "How was it compared to India?" I'd asked, much more interested in India at the time. "Sri Lanka's where you go to escape from India," they'd replied. Prophetic words indeed.
Dec 22-23. Different places seem to attract people from different countries. We met loads of Dutch and people from Belgium in Bali. We saw Israelis all over Nepal, while Khajuraho seems to attract French and Italians. Of course we met other nationalities in these places, but some countries were clearly over-represented. No where is this trend more evident than with the Germans at Hikkaduwa. Every other tourist we meet is German! Many of them seem to bemoan the omnipresence of their countrymen. "All these fucking Germans!" exclaimed one German we chatted with. He hated the idea of traveling to an exotic Asian locale, only to be surrounded by the same people he saw back home.
Someone strongly recommended the Blue Fox Restaurant to us. Were they playing a practical joke? We'll be more honest with you -- avoid! We have better luck at a tiny restaurant across the street from the Sahara Hotel. They just opened, so they don't even have a name yet, let alone a menu! We ask what they have for raw materials and negotiate both the meal and the price.
Sri Lankans have an interesting habit of eating bananas with dry cake. Hmm, not bad, but I think I prefer the addition of their excellent tea.
Dec 24. We decide to spice up our lazy lifestyle by going snorkeling. While the coral here was once among the very best in Asia, it is since been badly damaged by glass-bottom boats and collectors for aquariums. Still, we spot an impressive array of colorful fish and even chase after a very large octopus.
Before setting out, the beach touts warned us about currents and undertow, claiming we needed a boat to get out to the coral. We dismiss their advice as biased, but learn that for once it contains some truth. The current from the tide tires us during a long swim out to the reef. All would still be well with perfect equipment, but the top of my blowpipe breaks just when we are furthest from shore. I start to head back, holding the remnants of my breathing apparatus above the choppy waves with one hand. Whack! A huge wave sneaks up on me, knocking the breathing pipe out of my mouth. The tricky current sweeps it away while I try to rid my lungs of water. I call for Sybil and we search for my pipe amid a dense patch of seaweed. No use -- it's gone.
Now I'm in a bit of a fix because we're rather far from shore and I'm not much of a swimmer. Fortunately, it doesn't take me too long to get into spots where the water is shallow enough for me to rest a bit. However, these shallow spots turn out to be hazardous, as I wind up cutting myself on some coral. I do manage to eventually make it back to shore just before I cut myself to ribbons.
OK, enough excitement -- back to our dolce far niete existence! We lay on the sand and go for a sunset swim. Strolling along the beach, enjoying the purple-orange afterglow light in the miraculous sky above the Indian Ocean, I very much appreciate the unique charm of this X-mas Eve.
Dec 25. Still playing beach bums during the day. For dinner, we join Robert, a resourceful (after our own hearts) Hungarian Yugoslav who managed to sneak his way into Canadian citizenship. We eat at the German owned Blue Note and the Christmas fare is typically Teutonic. We have more meat during this one meal than during our entire stay in Indian and Nepal -- no exaggeration! The beer is good though and very cheap.
Normally, tourists outnumber the locals at Narigama Beach, but not on X-mas day! A parade of locals stroll up and down the beach, reclaiming their land. Kids light firecrackers, play cricket (different game on sand), and swim. People dance in the evening, firework rockets fly dangerously down the beach, and everyone seems festive.
Dec 26. Another lazy day of sleeping late, reading trashy novels, eating fish at the newly opened Chill-Out and rice at Rita's (both recommended). A brief shower adds some color to the sky, but ends in time for our sunset swim. During a long walk along the beach, we watch fishermen chant as they haul in their gigantic nets.
"I could stay here the entire time," says Sybil. "I don't even care if we get to see any cultural bullshit sites. If only we got a bit more exercise, everything would be perfect… Going on a regime, getting buff."
"What about the busy road?" I ask. Hikkaduwa is cursed with noisy traffic running though its center.
"When you stay by the beach you don't hear it," she replies.
"I would like to see a bit of the interior," I say, although I am starting to see her point. After traveling for a bit, a beautiful place where you can be healthy and relatively hassle-free becomes more enticing than experience collecting. And yet, I'm just about ready to leave this El Dorado. Perhaps we'll go and return.
Dec 27. A longer excursion south reveals some trouble in paradise. Trash spills out from slum dwellings in a fishing village. Nasty children hurl rocks at us or demand money. Even after returning north to our refuge, a sneaky kid pinches Sybil's bottom while she's bodysurfing. Still, these are relatively mild compared to other places we've seen. We had no delusions of perfection coming in.
Dec 28. Rainy weather leads us into a fortuitous meeting with an unusual German bodyguard named Harold. His dangerous profession, combined with a tumultuous past wherein both his father and his mentor were killed in espionage activities, sometimes renders Harold into an obscure other worldliness. I'm reminded a bit of Martin Sheen at the beginning of "Apocalypse Now". His generosity quickly wins us over though. He has plans to do one last job in Damascus and Beirut before opening up a restaurant in the Azores. Sounds like a plan to me.
Dec 29. Feeling a bit under the weather on this drizzly day. Tomorrow we return to Colombo to get the results of Sybil's biopsy.