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.