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Published: October 16th 2006
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Stick Fishermen Pretending to Fish with Sticks.
This is an emblematic image of Sri Lankan culture (i.e it's on the front of the Rough Guide!) We were invited to meet the fishermen by a guy from Helen's village, which was cool because it made it vaguely less voyeuristic, as we had a chat with them, and gave them some bananas to snack on. It was a pretty sad situation because an oil spill 2 months ago has killed off the fish, and the fishermen now rely solely on tourists paying to take photos of them pretending to be fishing. So we gave them some money, and hopefully the fish should start coming back... Phew, I've finally left Unawatuna. That place really sucks you in, and just doesn't spit you out. I ended up staying in that crazy room for over a week. But seeing as it took the owner 5 years before he decided it was time to see the rest of Sri Lanka, I reckon I did quite well leaving when I did. Thankfully now I'm on my way to Kandy, the capital of the hill country, to see a man about a dog (a woman about a job) thus avoiding staying in Unawatuna for my entire trip...
This week has gone really fast and it feels like loads has happened. It hasn't really. But the pace of life there is so slow drinking an Arak with sprite feels like an accomplishment. So yeah, I've been accomplishing a lot. Shangri La (the place I was staying) turned out to be quite a social haven... Most of the people there work for NGOs and have been there for months, thereby knowing what there is to do, where to do it, and the locals to do it with. So, an evening hasn't gone by when I haven't had a drink on the verandah with
Me and Sunadi
Sunadi is the little sister of the surf shop dude, and has just started to learn to surf, which is really cool, cos she's like the only Sri Lankan surfer babe, or at least the only one I've met! a bunch of people. Though, on the flip side, I have had a few moments during the week when I've been at a loss for something other than lying on the beach reading my book, to do - damn people who have jobs! You guys back at home will probably want to kick me, but it really had me pretty restless... it seems I find relaxing pretty stressfull!
Other (non-Arak related) accomplishments have included: sustaining surfing and wake boarding injuries, and surviving both a tropical disease and a close call with a scorpion....
I've been surfing a few times now a bit further along the coast, at a place called Welligama. It's slightly less attractive than Unawatuna, but the waves break over sand rather than reef, which means you avoid gettting cut up. Which is always a pro. Talking of which, it's been taking me a little longer to get to the semi-pro level I had hoped for, although this is partly due to my sporting injuries. What with using a board that was covered in lumps of gritty wax, and my amateur method of getting up, my knees have ended up similarly filled with grit, and covered
Surf Boards on Tuk Tuks
That is Santa preparing our transport to Welligama. The journey there is one of my favourite parts of the surf trips, although it's sobering to see the hundreds of skeleton houses, and gravestones of Tsunami victims along the sides of the beach road. in lumps. And I have a pretty substantial graze on my side from being dumped. But, this is the sacrifice I'm willing to make in the name of my future career, and what's more, things are looking up now I've found my perfect board - a huge red 'soft top' life raft. I even did this really cool manouevre on it - I caught a wave and was heading into the beach, and a wave that had bounced off the sandbank started heading back out towards me... So I did a jump. Cool, huh. O.K, so technically I didn't have a choice, but still...
Yeah, so to add to my injuries, I went on a wake boarding outing yesterday. This morning it hurt pouring tea out of a tea pot. And I didn't actually manage to stay up. I didn't officially get up. But, I was so close... Not that it mattered at all, it was such a cool experience... The guy who ran the guest house we surfed in front of took us to his home on the banks of a river that was so unspoilt it felt like we were stepping back in time to a prehistoric
Before Photo
Luckily there isn't an after photo. era; the water was murky brown, there were monkeys leaping through the palms and flocks of parrots flying overhead. He then attached a new motor to the back of a dilapidated boat, and we took it in turns trying to wake board, all the while a guy was bailing out water. Some local surfer dudes were there and were incredible; they used their surfboards instead of the wake board which involved holding the rope in their teeth to get up. So yeah, all in all it was great. And I have a blueish purple finger, and can't bend down or walk normally, to prove it.
However, this week has not all been about fun and games... Helen, a girl living at Shangri La during the weekends, brought a tropical disease back from the rural village she works at during the week. The whole village was sick... And soon so was Shangri La. The disease itself had me in bed, incapacitated for two days, and I'm still feeling the after effects now. In severity it was comparable to the debilitating British 'man-cold', and symptons were, indeed, similiar. In a way it was a relief, what with being surrounded by snotty
Another Sunset
O.K so I couldn't resist including a sunset picture...but this place is kind of special...I've been up to this view point a fair few times because it's by a beautiful white domed temple, and some local guys play bongos, and there's too much sea and sky to take in, and all of a sudden thousands of bats come out from the rocks and fly around your head, and fire flys decorate the path back down. tissues, my usual environment in England, and getting to spend guilt-free non-productive time. (Yes, I know it's kinda wierd that I need to get ill in order to relax properly!)
Needless to say, I found my feet eventually. And yes, they were in the expected location. However, what with trying to find my (more elusive) sea feet, along with the disease-induced delirium, arak-induced stumbling, and scorpion-induced fear, it's the ground under foot that's been some what evasive. Nevertheless, I'm heading onwards and upwards, literally. And you never know, I might even find myself in the hills...now that will be scary...
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Ash (Steevo) Waite
non-member comment
Good on ya sport
Trust you to get sucks and spit into the first paragraph! Good to see you've got yourself a change of scenery, but sorry to hear about the tropical disease, hope you've got over it now. Reading the updates is really inspiring, keep it up. I've been working really hard in my job, just so I can avoid boring things like lying on a beach all day!