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Published: February 8th 2006
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THROUGH RATNAPURA TO SINHARAJAH Morning found us loading our gear, and facing another long bus ride. Siri met us with a box breakfast, and we bid him a fond farewell. No mango ice cream in the boxes though. Shame. I suppose it would have melted.
Our first target destination was Ratnapura, which is one of many gem mining areas in Sri Lanka. We had hoped to "observe gem mining" at Ratnapura, but the recent rains ("NOT the monsoon!" the gem-cutters said) had transformed the open pit mine into an open pit filled with water. Basically, a large puddle. So we skipped the mine part of our tour. We certainly got to see everything else though. We saw the gem testing equipment, and were allowed to fiddle with it. We saw the trainee gem cutters, who were working on quartz with the same intense concentration as if it had been pure diamond. Of course, all of their bosses were in the room, along with our class. We stared over their shoulders and I contemplated what life would be like if that were my job, and I were to live here the rest of my life. One of the owners must
have read my thoughts! He offered me a job as a trainee gem cutter!
After being offered a real deal on some real fake gems from street venders who approached our bus like a pack of hungry wolves, we were back on the bus for the long road to Sinharajah (Sinha = Lion; Rajah = King). We did not expect to see lions or kings, but we did expect a pristine rain forest. And we were not disappointed. Some people in the group were not too pleased with the prospect of discovering poisonous snakes up close and personal or being devoured by leeches. Just for the record, no one saw a snake of any kind, but everyone was besieged by leeches. The local guides just went barefoot (sort of- they wore sandals, but no socks) and put soap on their skin so the leeches would slide off. My guide still spent some time casually flicking away leeches. No big deal. Jon spent some quality time teasing the leeches. He'd hold his hand near one, and the poor creature would s-t-r-e-t-c-h out to reach him as he pulled his hand away.
But it was the birds that I was
most aware of. The most sought-after bird at Sinharajah is the Sri Lankan Blue Magpie, an extremely colorful relative of the crow. There is a local ecolodge called the Blue Magpie, which caters to birders who fly to Sri Lanka to see this rarity. This bird is endemic to Sri Lanka, and has a very small range even here, being limited to pristine rain forests, most of which have been destroyed in Sri Lanka, just as they have been everywhere else in the world. Well, to make a long story short, we saw them! A flock of three, very, very close. Well, it was cheating a bit, as we saw them visiting a feeding bowl at the Research Station we were visiting. But they were wild ones! Yes!
The other thing at Sinharajah that I loved were the Pitcher Plants. I knew that there was one species of Nepenthys in Sri Lanka, and I had hoped that I might see one, if I was lucky. Well, they are all over Sinharajah, and they are easy to see. They even grow on the road cuts, and on the sides of trails. And the garbage cans by the lodge are replicas of their pitchers! If you don't know about pitcher plants, they are carnivorous plants with specialized leaves that are formed into literal pitchers which hold a watery liquid with a few digestive enzymes thrown in. Insects that get caught, get digested. Eaten. Yum. I also noted that there were plenty of insects that had the sense to avoid these deadly plants. Many of these hung out in my bedroom. In fact, there were so many insects here that a bat flew in one window, through the room, and out again- apparently part of its regular patrol.
One more bird treat. Late afternoon, close to sunset: a pair of Flameback Woodpeckers in a tree by the lodge. They were huge and brilliant red- memorable and noisy. Another image engraved on my brain.
After dark, the American and Sri Lankan teachers in the group ended up on the porch overlooking the river. We sat and discussed the problems and concerns of teachers and the agonies and ecstasies of interacting with students. I had to reflect that in a world so far away from my own, in a culture so different, with an educational system derived from the colonial British, somehow all of the problems, and pains, and joys were the same.
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