Blogs from Sri Lanka, Asia - page 170

We have spent the last month living in a hotel in Unawatuna, just out of Galle City. The Tsunami damaged many of the beach front hotels, but they have been quickly rebuilt, and in many cases the water laps around the door step at high tide. The tourist industry is slowly picking up again, as people come to enjoy surfing, snorkeling/diving over the coral reefs, or lounging on the beach. On the weekends we have had the opportunity to soak up some sun and enjoy this beautiful environment. We have been told that we now have the “Galle look”, which is apparently a tan. We have now shifted into a house in Galle Fort, which is within a few minutes walking distance of Murrays office. Galle Fort is a 16th centuary Dutch Fort, complete with walls, ... read more

We arrived in Sri Lanka 10 months after the Boxing Day Tsunami that claimed 30,000 lives in Sri Lanka alone. Many people are still “missing” and half a million have been displaced. Evidence of the devastation is visible everywhere along the coastline. Many houses are completely or partially destroyed. Remains of fishing boats are strewn up to several kilometers inland and in Hambantota we saw a large ship sitting high and dry about 1 kilometer from the sea. The locals are trying to build a rail-track to get the ship back into the water. North of Hikkaduwa is the sobering scene of the damaged train where over a thousand people lost there lives. Three of the carriages are likely to be left there as a memorial. Immediately after the Tsunami international aid assisted with provision of ... read more

I finished my lectures in Kandy, including my public lecture, which had to be rescheduled because no one showed up the first time. The only people who showed up the second time were students who were forced to come. Once upon a time something like that would have bothered me, but now I just shrug it off. To compensate, the director of the Institute arranged a little party for me at the faculty club, where we could avoid the alcohol ban imposed on Kandy during the week of the Perahera. Third World faculty clubs are my kind of scene: chalky, disillusioned academics slouched over their gin and tonics, bathed in the eerie blue glow of neon lighting, wondering where things went wrong. Even the mosquitoes seem too burned out to bite. I was impressed that both ... read more

Colombo-Kandy Railroad Haiku Rattling through jungles Heads bouncing like souvenir dolls Lost in sad thoughts +++++ I can feel the proximity of the jungle in Kandy. Monkeys scramble across my roof, the bird calls that wake me in the morning sound like auditions for a Tarzan movie, and there are columns of ants streaming across every wall. Even if Buddhists were allowed to use ant traps (and they aren't,) this isn't a problem you solve, it's a problem you learn to live with. In my last entry I asked Asia to swallow me whole. This turned out to be a lesson in being careful what I ask for. Asia is a giant organism, a turbulent flow of people, cows, mangy dogs, rickshaws, and dilapidated buses. It's not enough to go with the flow; I must also ... read more

After spending two and a half weeks in Delhi, describing Colombo as a ‘breath of fresh air’ is the very definition of an understatement …I’d go for a hurricane of rose scented rapture! Walking down Colombo’s main thoroughfare on a Sunday among the early afternoon promenade, dumbstruck by men and women openly holding hands and smiling. After spending the previous half-year amongst a billion of the most sexually repressed people on earth, this was a revelation - it's amazing how such a seemingly small concession to freedom can make people so relaxed and happy - enjoying life and love without guilt. There was a definate feel good factor about the place; the subtleties of which coming directly from Europe I would certainly have missed. But I hadn’t - I’d just arrived from the darkness of Delhi.... ... read more