Home Again from Sri Lanka

I am back in Penang and I now have a new favorite country.  What a wonderful trip I had and I hope that I can go back to Sri Lanka again soon.  There is still the Philippines, Myanmar and the east coast of Malaysia to explore.  Oh, the list goes on and on.
I stayed in Unawatuna as long as possible, leaving there at 2 in the afternoon by bus to Colombo.  In Colombo I changed buses thinking that the bus marked airport would take me there.  At this point I had about the  equivalent of $10 in rupees and I challenged myself not to exchange more money.  When the bus reached the final stop, we were at a big market and there was no airport in sight.  I was lucky to have sat next to a man on the bus who spoke English and he told me not to take a tuk tuk.  I could walk to the airport from where we were.  He even walked me to the airport entrance so I made it to the international airport with about $4 left.  I was glad not to have changed more money.  In the airport my dollars and credit card were welcome.
Usually when I fly I am on standby but the flights from Colombo all were full and I had purchased a confirmed seat on Tiger Air to Singapore leaving at midnight.  I got to Singapore at 6 AM and took a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur.  I took another bus from KL to Butterworth, a ferry from Butterworth to Penang and Rapid Penang (a misnomer) bus from the ferry terminal to my apartment.
 Homecoming was bittersweet since a toilet in my place had sprung a leak and I had to go outside to turn on the water supply until I could get a plumber, and my friend Shah had made other plans  for the evening so I was disappointed not to see him.  I guess my homecoming was actually more bitter than sweet.  But now I have water restored and all is well with Shah so life is good again.

Here are a few images of Sri Lanka that I did not post earlier.  Enjoy.

Elephants on the way home from a hard day of entertaining tourists

Happy family

How incongruous to see cows on the beach, but it is a common sight here where cows are revered by the large Hindu population

Kandy Cigarette????

New friends from England whom I met first in Kandy and later in Unawatuna

Mister Ed

Giant bamboo

You may remember on December 26, 2004, the tsunami which hit Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.  All along the southwest coastline of Sri Lanka are small graveyards for the victims. Many of the graves are empty since the bodies were never recovered.  These are sad reminders of a horrible tragedy.

Paradise Revisited

I returned from KAndy to my previous locale Unawatuna on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka.  It was here that I decided would be an ideal spot to live at some point, so I have come back for a reevaluation

You can have rice and curry and get undertaken in one place if it kills you.   How convenient!

Cricket, the most unfathomable of sports, is big here.  Now Sri Lanka is hosting members of the former British Empire for a Commonwealth World Cricket Championship.  

In a bookstore window I saw a large selection of kiddie books.  These people seriously want to speak English.

Kandy Perahera

Years ago on the Discovery Channel I saw a parade of elephants lit up like Christmas and I resolved that was an event I should witness first hand if possible.  A two hour procession of elephants, torches, half naked dancing men, drums, flutes and the relic Buddha tooth was worth every bit of waiting and effort to get here.  I travel with a pocket size point and shoot camera so I hope you will take a few minutes and google Kandy Perahera to get a glimpse of what I experienced.

I did not try to count how many elephants processed through the city.  I suspect around 50 or 60.

When I was living  in Valdosta I took up clogging and our clogging group, The Thuderbirds, danced down Patterson Street in the Christmas parade.  This group is a far cry from the Thunderbirds.  The torches would occasionally explode coals into the path of the barefooted dancers and they had to deftly avoid stepping on a hot ember or into an elephant pie

This was my second time in Kandy in 10 days.  While there before I gave some money to a family who had just lost a grandmother so the son of the family sat on the sidewalk all day the festival opened to save me a spot to sit and watch the Perahera.  All the other tourists I spoke with went to reserved seating grandstands which costs upwards of $60.  I sat with the locals who had also camped out all day long to save a spot, and enjoyed sharing the snacks they had brought along.  I was not aware of what an eventful time this is is Kandy until I went to a posh restaurant the second night of Perahera and even this fancy spot, like all Kandy, was not serving alcohol for the 10 days of Perahera.  I sure wanted to sip a gin n tonic on the terrace overlooking the city of Kandy but settled for a ginger beer (not really beer).  

Galle and Unawatuna

As you know, I am an experienced traveler and it has been my choice to see almost all the places in the world that I have wanted to visit.  For many reasons, one being a civil war that ended in 2009, I have not made it to Sri Lanka prior to this trip.  I think this is perhaps the place I have searched for all my life.  The weather is balmy, the ocean clean and bountiful, the natives very friendly, the natural herb easily available, the costs reasonable and those are just a few of the things I like.
I am now in the beach village of Unawatuna.  You might find Galle on the map and Una is only 6km away.  It is a bit touristy here but that means English is more common here than in some places, a worthwhile trade off.

The beach at Unawatuna

From the train between Colombo and Galle

The view from my hotel in Unawatuna

I left my hotel in Kandy early in the morning and hired a tuktuk to take me to the train station.  I had yet to take a Sri Lankan train, so this was to be my first experience.  Along the way the tuktuk driver convinced me to go by air con bus to Colombo so I followed his advice, arriving Colombo much earlier than I would have by train.  As usual my first move was to find a place to leave my bag while I explored the city.  I wanted to stay near the train station and all hotels I could find were pretty bad.  I took the least bad, and like I was about to swallow bad medicine, I prepared myself to be as accepting as I could of the situation.  I made it through the night and was happy to wake at 5:30 the following morning to take a train down to the port city of Galle.

I did more research on Galle and luckily found a very satisfactory hotel online.  Sometimes staying in a dump is what I need to make me appreciate the good ones.  Galle was a Dutch colony during the 1600's and then later was overcome by the Brits.  The old city is enclosed by a very thick wall and there are buildings dating back hundreds of years.  

From Galle I explored my way down the coast a few miles to  my present location, Unawatuna.  Here I am in a fine guesthouse with an ocean view and plenty of places to eat, drink, etc.  I rented a scooter and today I will go for a look at rental property.  It seems as if signs are pointing me to life in Sri Lanka.  As usual, I will play it by ear.

I am planning to return to Kandy on Friday.  I mentioned earlier that there is a festival there starting 11August.  For an idea of what I will be seeing look at Kandy Perahera on YouTube.  I don't want to leave my enchanted spot by the Indian Ocean, but I am excited to see the spectacle which awaits.

What Doesn't Kill You...

Does the rice and curry come with embalming fluid?

There are always interesting adaptations of English when translated from the local language.  One confusion I had here in Sri Lanka for the first week was the difference in a restaurant and a hotel.  Somehow in their acceptance of English during the British Empire days, Sri Lanka began using the words for restaurant and hotel to mean exactly the opposite of what I expected.  Now I know I can go to a hotel to have something to  eat and to a restaurant to find a place to sleep.

Another confusion here is the head shake.  Like in India, shaking your head side to side and nodding up and down have opposite meanings.  To agree one twists the head right and left which is a negative in USA.  For example, if I go into a shop and barter a price, when we finally settle on a price, the shop keeper will shake left to right.  Fortunately the smile is my clue that we have agreed on a price.

Kandy Land

I am in the mellifluous ancient city of Kandy in the highlands of Sri Lanka.  This was an early capital of the island nation and it is a sacred city of the Buddhist because a tooth relic from the Buddha is enshrined in the Dalada Maligawa temple here.  Yesterday I joined a huge crowd of mostly foreigners to view one of the thrice daily presentations of the casing which once held the tooth, a procedure so ritualized it reminded me of high mass.  Drums, then flutes, opened the ceremony in which monks and priests processed through the temple entering a bejeweled doorway with rice, flowers, fruits and maces.  I regret not having hired a guide to explain more of what was happening, but I will continue to try and find out more of what was happening. Starting 11 August is the annual Kandy Perahara and then the actual tooth will be paraded through the streets of Kandy for 10 nights with dozens of elephants all dressed to the nines.  I am planning to return to Kandy for the first day or so of the Perahara.
Getting to Kandy from my last stop in the coastal city of Trencomalle was a trip, in every sense of the word.  I took an intercity bus for the 5 hour ride and soon after the bus departed the station we were stopping every few minutes for  more passengers.  Before long the aisle of the bus was filled with standees and more and more standees continued to board turning the bus into a sardine can of travelers.  I was glad to have a seat but it still was an ordeal I will remember as one of the most uncomfortable bus rides I have ever made.   Adding to the mayhem the on board entertainment was blasting Bollywood music from a speaker right above my seat.  I am not complaining.  Experiences like this are the spices of adventure travel.
Speaking of spices, eating curry every meal is getting pretty monotonous and I was glad to find a KFC incongruously located on the main street of Kandy.   The chicken was fingerlickin' good.

Sorry the photo not better centered but I was scared to get too close and he just kept moving

I am traveling with ipad, iphone, laptop, hand phone and camera, all of which need to have batteries charged on a regular basis.   Here is an assortment of the electrical adapters I have to keep my toys up and running.  I miss the days when my back up plan was a spare pair of AA duracells.

In the tea plantation

Don't Forget Your Sense of Humor

When you go to some of the places I have been lately, it is primal to have a sense of humor.  Last night when I was served my dinner the spoon fell off  the plate onto the floor.  The lady who was serving me picked it up, examined both sides, wiped it between her fingers to clean it and stuck it right back into my bowl of rice.  Yes, I ate with it and the food was pretty good.  I had to laugh!

Heading to Interior Dumballa and Sirigiya

Sri Lankan kids are so cute and love to have their photo taken by a foreigner, so here are a couple that I thought were worth sharing.

The symbol of Sri Lanka is the lion, but there are elephants everywhere.  Here an elephant is getting a scrub.  Kinda brings back memories of the old car wash days.

A family portrait

I am having some big problems with blogspot today and I hope that they do not persist.  It has taken an hour to get as far as this and I am well past happy hour time.

As I reported I arrived on July 17 and went immediately to Negombo, the coastal town near the airport.  I stayed there for 3 days just to get a little settled and oriented. On the 4th day I woke early to take a bus to the interior of the island, stopping to change buses at Kurunegala and ending up noonish in Dambulla.  I usually resist touts at the bus stop offering to help me find a hotel but I was dozing as we arrived in Dambulla and did not have any sense of where I was in relation to the center, so I accepted a ride from a tut tut who took me to a satisfactory guest house with wifi and a cooling fan.  No air con available, but I am getting used to that.  I had a nap and explored the town on foot, stopping for a beer along the way.  Here I was offered to try gilli gilli, and being up for new experiences I went along.  What I was given was brownish like chewing tobacco, the texture of horse manure and the smell of cloves.  I wanted to see what it was like so I gave it a shot but had to spit the whole wad after a minute.  Sorry, but no more gilli gilli for me.

Dambulla is a small town with a major historic temple.  There was not much to do there but to climb the mountain to view the ancient cave monastery dating from 3C BC.    The caves were painted with images from the life of the Buddha but no photography was permitted.  I had read some travelers comments about the difficulty of the climb to reach the caves, and I was happy when I got there with little exertion.  I guess my hiking in Penang has paid off.  The two boy monks pictured above were there with their mom and I guess she dressed them much like an American mom would dress her children to go to a dude ranch.

From Dambulla I took a short bus ride today to the next town up the road to Sigiriya.  Here is one of the most famous landmarks in this part of the world, the ruins of the ancient capital built on Lion Rock.  Photos of the cave paintings were allowed without flash here as this was a historic, not holy, spot.  Today was a local holiday so the place was really packed with Sri Lankan sight seers.  It seems this was a pleasure center and one poem translated in the museum spoke of "lovely ladies offering exquisite pleasure."  Hmmm.

Today as my bus was leaving Dambulla station, my hotel owner dashed on board and returned to me my charger for ipad.  I was so pleased and grateful for his effort.  I think that Sri Lankan folk are extraordinarily kind.

I usually like to linger in a place longer than one day but I had an offer today that I could not refuse.  I met a French family of 5 who will travel tomorrow by van to the east coast city of Uppuveli which I had sort of picked as my next destination.  Instead of staying here another day I will share van and expenses with them and go tomorrow to the favored beach spot of Sri Lanka.

5000 Words

So here I am

In Sri Lanka.  I have to say it has exceeded my expectations up until now.  I had a pretty bad lunch while I was in town today but I stopped in a bar and had the Sri Lankan equivalent of sukiyaki.  It was pretty good with lots of onions and garbanzo beans.  Also breakfast at hotel this morning was okay, an omelette, delicious mango juice and toast.  Plus tea, of course.  After all, this is Ceylon.

The most interesting factoid I have of Sri Lanka is that this was home to Sinbad the Sailor.  Honestly you can hardly be more my idol than Sinbad unless you are Marco Polo.

I have noticed a lot of Christian churches and cemeteries with crosses which surprises me.  The missionaries must have decided this was a good place to live and went to work here.  There are places that look like Florida in the 50's or 60's.  I went thru one place today that reminded me of Daytona Beach on my high school graduation trip in 1967.  Some of the fishing villages remind me of Fernandina way back when.

I took a few pictures today but have not loaded in computer yet. I stopped for a beer while waiting for my bus to return to hotel and one thing led to another and now I am a bit too stoned to do it.  Haha!  I lost password for wifi connection here at the hotel so I have to walk down to lobby before I can log in my computer.  So photos to follow...

Temple Anniversary

I heard an interesting cacophony of drum, flute and bells from somewhere near my home and went to investigate.  I found the small Hindu temple nearby was beginning to celebrate an anniversary so I videoed a bit.  I will be away for the main event next weekend so that means  I miss the fire walkers.  Turn up the volume and watch the short clip I recorded.

Bucket List

I plan to go to Sri Lanka on Wednesday, 17 July.  I have been fortunate to travel to most of the places in the world that I want to see.  One country which I have yet to visit is Sri Lanka.  I will fly Malaysian Airlines from Penang to Colombo, Sri Lanka  with a change of planes in Kuala Lumpur.  I arrive Colombo at midnight so hope to have a room booked before I arrive.  In the old days I never booked hotels in advance, but now it is becoming more and more my habit. I expect my next blog to be from there

Fast

On Tuesday night,, July 9,   Muslims all over world began the annual observance of a month of fasting called Ramadan.  I occasionally heard about Ramadan when I was living in the US, and when I arrived in Malaysia in August of 2012, I heard snippets about fasting, Ramadan and Hari Raya which was just concluding. Now I am privy to a much more intimate view of Ramadan.  During the month which stretches from new moon to new moon, the followers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, sex, even swallowing saliva, from the morning call to worship at about 6 AM until the evening call at about 7:30 PM.  They  rise early to take some food and liquid which has to sustain them until evening.  I have tried semi-fasting for the past 2 days, but I had breakfast at my normal time around 9-ish and I drank plenty of water all day long which is essential in this heat.  Around 5 in the afternoon hunger sets in and annoys until the  sounds of the muezzin from the nearby mosque at 730- ish  affirm that it is time to open the fast.
All over the island are Ramadan Bazaars which open at 5 in the afternoon and sell food which people buy to take away. The aromas are enticing and the visuals arresting.   To watch so many people, including little children, who have not eaten all day buying food and not nibbling is surprising.  I can not imagine that kind of abstinence in western culture.

Shah holding too much food we bought cuz our eyes were bigger than our stomachs

Penang Heritage Festival

Doorway in one of the old Chinese clan houses.  

Muslim music.  I commented that is sounded uncharacteristically joyous since what I usually hear is the Muslim call to prayer which is monotone and sometimes eerie.

Penang promotes tourism and frescoes like these 2 are eye catching photo ops.  These paintings are all over the island but especially abundant in the downtown historic district which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The festival was held near the Little India district of Georgetown and I usually eat in a vegetarian restaurant when I am in the area.  This platter is called thali.  The veggies are eggplant, lentils, okra and something I can"t identify. There is white rice and sweet rice for dessert and nan, the delicious crispy bread on the right.  Would you believe me if I tell you this all costs $2?

Indian martial arts team and Indian dancers

A cute kid who also was at the festival

Last weekend was the Penang Heritage Festival which honored the Indian, Muslim and Chinese histories of the city.  I questioned why the British culture was not included but got no answers.  There were performances and displays  all over the 1/2 square mile festival area, so there was a lot of walking.   I went by motorbike which made mobility and parking a lot easier than it would have been by auto.  I keep tallying up more points for my motorbike which Mike Strom named "HOG" from a previous blog.  Thanks, Mike, for giving my wheels a great name.

Not Driving Right

I returned from America to Asia in May 2012.  Since then until just a few weeks ago, I had not gotten behind the wheel of a car and when I did it was here in Malaysia, a former member of the British Commonwealth where they still drive, as in England, on the left.  The turn signal is where I expect the wipers to be so I have the bad habit of signaling an upcoming turn by wiping the windshield.  To go to my home I have to drive a narrow twisty turny coastal road with rock cliffs on one side and a precipice into the ocean on the other.  Even if I were driving on the right side it would be a bit hair-raising when meeting a bus or big truck, but when I am on the left I can hardly keep from closing my eyes and cringing.  My friend who owns the car is supportive and wants lets me practice so I hope to feel as comfortable in the car as I do now on my motorbike.  I have learned to view such challenging situations  as another opportunity to adapt to my new environs, but driving on the left just feels wrong.

Bad Air

Recently there were very contentious elections held in Malaysia and as a precaution I set up an account with the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur to be notified of any emergency situation.  There was speculation that foreigners might be advised to leave if certain events unfolded, but fortunately no violence erupted.  However I am now on their mailing list and got the above email this week.

Since my knowledge of the geography of this part of the world was very limited a few years ago and maybe yours is also, let me give you a little information.  Malaysia is a peninsula which extends from Thailand in the north and ends in Singapore, just a short distance from the equator.  The island nation of Indonesia encloses the peninsula on three sides and now is the burning season for the farmers all over Indonesia.  The horrid smoke from the crop fires gently wafts its way and has invaded Malaysia.  Everyone is encouraged to refrain from outdoor activities so my hiking and swimming have come to a halt.  I am very unhappy about that, although the first couple of days seemed like a school holiday.  Now I am ready to get back to it and there is no relief in sight from the smog.

I have recently become aware that my life here in Malaysia is becoming quite routine.  I go to the same places to eat, shop, drink, and it feels so natural.  I still experience thrills several times a week when I discover something new to see, eat, drink, learn.  I am glad to report that I am still amused.