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Published: February 8th 2018
HE SAID... Today we were travelling south-west from Batticaloa to
Mahiyangana.
We woke at 6am, organised our packs and then wandered around the outer perimeter of our hotel, which jutted out into the Batticaloa lagoon. We watched fishermen in wooden outriggers cast their nets and slowly draw in their catch, while other fishermen walked through the lagoon with smaller nets.
We then headed to breakfast and enjoyed
thosai (thin lacy crepes made of lightly-fermented black lentils and rice / called
dosa in India), fish curry,
sambar (a lentil based vegetable stew),
pol sambol (shredded coconut with onions, chilli and lime), coconut chutney (a thick mixture of ground coconut, tamarind and chilli), toast, jam, juice and tea. The fish curry was excellent (especially with the
thosai), and the
sambar was fiery. The breakfast was impressive, which was a little surprising given the rather ordinary furnishings and atmosphere of the dining area.
We finished packing, checked out of the hotel (Hotel East Lagoon) and drove a short distance into Puliyanthivu, Batticaloa’s old quarter. We walked around Batticaloa Gandhi Park, took a few photos of the Batticaloa Gate and then jumped back into our minibus for a three hour trip to
Mahiyangana.
We drove very slowly along narrow bumpy roads as we made our way through the lowlands. Water buffalo dotted the landscape of rice fields and teak plantations. Every so often we would pass a tiny rural Tamil or Singhalese village, where the dwellings were basic and the lifestyle visibly difficult. This was clearly a very poor region of Sri Lanka.
We drove through thick forests and lush bushland, barely noticing small towns such as Padiyatalawa slip by as we edged closer to Mahiyangana. We arrived in the indigenous Veddah village of Dambana around midday, and our minibus slowed to a crawl as we made our way to the village leader along a bumpy dirt track. A school group arrived around the same time as us, so it wasn’t long before young kids were running rampant through the forest. We walked around the village, met the village leader’s son and continued exploring the village’s crumbling surrounds by foot, including the ceremonial ground. The settlement was overgrown, and there was little sign of effective agronomy. The place subsisted solely on (and for) tourism, and I’m not entirely convinced of the need to maintain environs such as this for purely
touristic reasons. Will there ever come a time – in a cold utilitarian future – when we allow things to slip naturally into history? Perhaps, but so much would be lost. The alternative is to allow communities the opportunity to determine their own fate, rather than be dictated and driven by the currency of tourism.
We wandered the calm and peaceful village for about an hour and a half, with the screams of excited school kids occasionally punctuating the silence. After navigating the local souvenir touts on our way to the car park, we boarded our minibus and headed into the township of Mahiyangana, where we picked up some ginger beer for the remainder of our rum.
Our hotel was a little way out of town, and on the way we dropped into the Mahiyangana Raja Maha Vihara, an ancient Buddhist temple believed to be the site of Buddha’s first visit to Sri Lanka. After 15 minutes in the searing afternoon sun, we could barely manage to walk on the polished stones around the base of the main stupa, so we hastily made our way back to the minibus.
We continued on to our hotel (Mapakada Village)
on the bank of Mapakada Wewa (Mapakada Lake), arriving at 3pm. We checked in to our unexpected lakeside retreat, dropped our packs and headed down to the open air restaurant, where we ordered a serve of chicken fried noodles. A huge plate of steaming chicken fried noodles appeared with a bowl of chilli oil paste, and it was fantastic. Really fantastic! We shared the meal as we looked over the lake, and I couldn’t help but think how relaxing it would be to stay here a few nights. I had a Lion beer and Ren had an amazing lime juice soda with the meal… we were in absolute travel heaven!
As the thunder clouds rolled in we retreated to our room to catch up on our travel writing, and no sooner had we settled inside when the heavens opened. It was a beautiful place to sit and type while thunder exploded and rain poured outside our window.
We headed back into the township of Mahiyangana for dinner around 7pm. Our planned
egg hopper (thin crispy rice flour and coconut crepe cooked in a mini-wok, with an egg in the centre) place was closed, so we headed upstairs at
the nearby Terico Family Restaurant instead. The place was very local, and it looked like it had been fire-damaged in the not-too-distant past. We settled at a large table and ordered freshly made
egg hoppers (after sending back the pre-cooked hoppers we’d seen in the display window on our way in). The last thing we wanted was old cold hoppers! While the place was a bit of a dive, the
egg hoppers were good, as was the
katta sambol (salty chilli and lime paste). We finished our meal and headed back to the tranquillity of Mapakada Village, where we settled at a long table in the outside bar area with some travel companions and a bottle of local rum. We chatted into the night, but with an early start to Kandy the following day, we eventually retired at 11pm.
SHE SAID... We have noticed that we are sleeping in later and later, and we rarely beat the 6am alarm anymore. I think our bodies have finally fully adjusted to Sri Lankan time! There was a mesmerizing early morning view from our hotel room in Batticaloa – dozens of fishermen in small canoes or standing waist deep in
the water, casting their nets into the coconut tree fringed lagoon.
I had really hoped to wake up early enough to go for a walk around the Batticaloa lagoons. However, by the time we stepped outside at 7:30am, it was already stingingly hot. All we could manage was a short circuit of the hotel while hugging the shade of the palm trees lining the footpath. So we gave up on the walk and spent time watching the fishermen from the shade of the hotel garden.
The hotel breakfast had limited choices, but what they had was surprisingly good. I had
string hoppers (steamed vermicelli-like rice noodles) and pillowy
idlis (steamed cakes made from fermented black lentils and rice), with a soupy
sambar (a lentil based vegetable stew) that was tasty but too spicy for my breakfast palate,
pol sambol (shredded coconut with onions, chilli and lime), coconut chutney (a thick mixture of ground coconut, tamarind and chilli) and one of the best fish curries I've ever had. It was seriously delicious. I never thought I’d be able to stomach fish curry for breakfast, but the fish was mildly flavoured and sitting in a luscious silky dark sauce.
After breakfast we started our journey to
Mahiyangana at 9am. We stopped briefly at the Batticaloa Gandhi Park in the town centre, with its mini decorative Batticaloa Gate at the water’s edge.
We left the Batticaloa lagoons behind and started driving through kilometres upon kilometres of fallow paddy fields, full of grazing cows and buffalo. We then entered a landscape of dry flat shrub land, and the occasional teak wood plantation. It was a very impoverished area, and probably the most basic road we’d driven on since arriving in the country. And for the first time on this trip, we saw women carrying pots of water on the side of the road.
At some point we crossed from the east coast Tamil area, into the Sinhalese area of the central province. The main reason we’d visited this area was to visit an indigenous village nearby. The original people of Sri Lanka are the Veddahs, who are thought to have been living on the island for about 18,000 years. As is sadly the case with indigenous communities the world over, they’ve faced many discriminations and injustices, and only a few hundred pure blooded Veddahs now remain.
We eventually
arrived at a Veddah village in Dambana. The Veddahs speak their own language, but they learn Sinhala in schools and can communicate enough to deal with school groups and tourists. Our minibus was met by three guys from the local community who were all vying to guide us through the community. Bala (our group leader) already knew a young boy who had turned up, so he got the gig. There were two school buses already there, but thankfully they were at the end of their visit, and it was soon our turn to enter a mud hut and meet the tribal leader’s oldest son, Uruvarige Gunabandila Aththo.
Bala explained a few fundamentals of their way of life, and then asked us to greet Gunabandila in the traditional way by saying ‘honthamai’ while clasping both of his hands in ours. It meant ‘all is well’, and it was important that it be said with conviction and feeling. His father, Chief Uruvarige Vannila Aththo, was very old and sitting in the next hut husking corn with his wife. He was the village leader as well as the current Veddah leader of Sri Lanka.
The Veddahs used to be a forest
dwelling hunter-gatherer society, but have been forced into living in villages and integrating into mainstream society. They've turned to farming and tourism as sources of income, and their children are bused out to be schooled in a Sinhala curriculum in Mahiyangana.
After our meet and greet, we walked through the village, past the education centre and into their small farming plots. We saw a small clearing where they hold ceremonies to ask the gods for rain, and then entered a clearing they use for tribal meetings. The clearing had two tall tree huts at each end which they use to watch out for elephants (who can be a threat to their corn crops and mud huts).
I was sad that the Veddahs weren’t as self-sufficient as they used to be, and I was even sadder that they seemed to be passive players in the lifestyle being imposed on them… reduced to role playing their own cultural identity for the benefit of tourists. I know that change is inevitable in any culture, but whatever changes the Veddah communities face, I hope they can steer their own path into the future. Regardless of the reservations I had about the way
tourism encouraged the caricaturisation of their society, I was happy that we got to financially support them in some small way.
We eventually drove into Mahiyangana, a dusty sprawling place with little charm. We stopped at its main claim to fame – the ancient Mahiyangana Raja Maha Vihara Dagoba. A long shady walkway lined with small shops led to the entrance of the imposing white plastered dagoba. Legend has it that on Buddha’s first visit to Sri Lanka (after he gained enlightenment), he preached here. I would have loved to spend more time walking around the dagoba, but we had to leave our shoes at the entrance, and the exposed stone floor was red hot. All we could manage was admire the dagoba from the shade of an old bodhi tree, only venturing closer for a few minutes at a time to take a couple of photos before scurrying back to the shade again.
While the Mahiyangana town centre was much bigger than I had expected, food options were still very minimal. We visited a small supermarket to stock up on snacks and drinks, but neither of us liked the look of a bakery we walked into, so
we decided to have a late lunch at our hotel. And we were so glad we did.
Mapakada Village was a beautiful hotel in a lovely setting on a quiet lake. We were starving by now, so we dropped our bags in our room and hurried back downstairs to the restaurant. The restaurant was open to the garden and lake, and we enjoyed the view as much as we enjoyed our plate of chicken fried noodles! The noodles came with a delicious chilli oil paste and good old fashioned tomato sauce. Have I mentioned that we have really embraced the concept of ‘Sri Lankan Chinese’ food? It’s a whole different thing to real Chinese food or Sri Lankan food! And my fresh lime juice was also superb.
Our room was very modern and comfortable, and while I tried to have an afternoon nap, the heavens opened and a big thunderstorm blew through town. The thunder claps were so close and loud, it shook our entire room.
We regrouped to head out for dinner in town, which turned out to be a bad idea. Not many places were open and the
egg hoppers (thin crispy rice flour and
coconut crepes cooked in a mini-wok, with an egg in the centre) we ended up having at Terico Family Restaurant were only just ok. We should have stayed in the comfort of our hotel, where we knew the food was brilliant. Oh well, you live and learn.
Back at the hotel, we gathered on the open deck that overhung the lake and had a few drinks and laughs with the group. The most perfect way to spend a balmy night in such a picturesque setting.
Next we travel west, back to Kandy in the centre of the island.
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Travelphilosophy
Marco
Sri Lanka
Hi Ren, you really love to keep the memory of the food you eat with your lovely pictures. Keep well bye.