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Published: February 7th 2006
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ARRIVAL IN SRI LANKA: COLOMBO TO PERADENIYA Between changes in time zones, the date-line, and the disorienting long flights during which you sleep and eat at bizarre intervals, we were all suitably confused when we arrived in Colombo. By local time, it was very late at night, just past midnight. We all staggered around the airport, showing our Passports, waiting out lines, and changing U.S. dollars into rupees. Eventually we were through the maze and looking for our local transport. Several young Sri Lankans took us in hand, grabbed our American-sized suitcases, and shepherded us onto the bus which was to become our portable "home away from home" for the next three weeks.
After more than 24 hours in transit, we still had another two hours or so to ride from Colombo to Peradeniya. Of course it was pitch black out, but we stared out of the bus windows anyway, hoping for any glimpse of the new country. This was our first view of "Roadside Sri Lanka". Throughout the part of the country we toured, there is lush vegetation pretty much everywhere. There are also people, and their houses and stores pretty much everywhere. Villages and cities are just denser areas. Stores line these main streets; they are all small, and shallow, and open to the street, so that you can see all of the available merchandise as you drive slowly by. Some of these were lit with neon tubes of various colors. They were open despite the lateness of the hour. We stopped at one place to buy some bottled water. About the only other thing we could see at night beyond the beams of our headlights were some billboards (in Sinhala and in English), and the numerous roadside shrines. The first ones we saw were essentially a "Buddha in a Big Box"- ornate and brightly lit. Later on we saw the Christian version of these shrines, including one with the Virgin Mary standing on a lotus blossom. In Sri Lanka, the majority of the people are Buddhists, but there are many Hindus, Moslems, and Christians as well. More about religion(s) later. I also visited my first Asian squat toilet, which is a pit in the floor with two pads for your feet. No problem.
It was past 2:00 a.m. when we arrived at the Mahakande Bungalow. This two-story building was once the residence of the manager of a tea plantation. The tea is now gone, as the land now belongs to the University of Peradeniya. The Bungalow is used as a kind of transitory dormitory for students, staff, and various visitors. We would be spending many nights here. One of my few disappointments with Sri Lankan culture is the typical bed I slept in everywhere we went. Narrow. Hard. To my mind, and to my body, a thin pad is not a mattress! The beds were all narrow, apparently so that they would fit under the ubiquitous mosquito nets which are suspended from the ceiling. As the hot nights and light "blankets" do not provide much cover for your body, these nets are really a blessing.
Note: If you are not overly fond of insects, or supporting a thriving ecosystem in your room, either do not travel to the tropics, or stay in one of the expensive Americanized Hotels in the big cities. During our stay, we coexisted with numerous winged and/or multilegged things, from flies and mosquitoes to ants and butterflies, to giant cockroaches. With so much prey around, we also lived with various predators: spiders of various intimidating sizes, tiny geckos, and even a bat or two that flew in looking for (and finding) dinner. Once, a giant black scorpion ran across the porch. As a biologist, I thought that all of this was great! Some of the others in the group were less enthusiastic about the biology. Especially the spiders. Especially inside the house.
SETTLING IN AT MAHAKANDE AND A VISIT TO KANDY Determined to beat jet-lag, and to get into the local time as soon as possible, we all got up for breakfast after only a couple of hours of sleep. We met Siri, a marvelous man who had been hired to cook many of our meals for us. We all loved him, and the food he prepared so lovingly, and so often. Breakfast was followed by tea, which was followed by lunch, which was followed by tea, and so forth.
Sri Lankan food is a real treat. For Bob and I, one of the high-lights of traveling is sampling different cuisines. Australian meat pies and kangaroo steaks. Belizean barbecue. If I had to say what the cuisine in Sri Lanka is like, I would have to say that it most closely resembles Indian food. After all, we are dealing with a lot of rice and various curries. However, having said that, Sri Lankan food is really very little like Indian food. One of the most interesting features to my mind was the combination of totally bland items with totally hot items. The bland items include rice, hoppers, and/or string hoppers. Hoppers are somewhat hard to describe. To call them similar to a thin tortilla doesn't quite make it. And string hoppers are even stranger. They appear as a mass of threads (string!). Think spaghetti. Now form it into a round, flat thing like a pancake. These bland items are then served with a number of curries and sambols of varying taste and intensity. The natives mix all these things with their fingers, as they do not use silverware. Instead they roll balls of mixed rice or hopper, curry, and sambol. These balls are then popped expertly into the mouth. The fingers are washed in a large fingerbowl. We tried eating this way once or twice, to the amusement of our hosts. It takes a lot of practice to do this well- and without laughing.
We had been warned that Sri Lankan food would be too hot for the American palette. We never found this to be the case. For one thing, Siri gradually introduced us to hotter foods, educating our palettes if you will. For another thing, you always control how much hot food you select! Siri educated us in other ways to. One night he gave us a demonstration of how to cook and temper Sri Lankan curry. On another night, he gave me a quick lesson in Buddhist reverence for life. An insect had landed on the table, and without thinking, I lifted my hand to swat it. Quietly, Siri said, "Please don't do that." No lecture, just a simple request.
In the afternoon of our first day, we had our first visit to the town of Kandy. Kandy was the home of the last Sri Lankan kings, and it is still considered to be a special place. Kandy is a lovely place. When you are there, you really know that you are in a foreign land. I enjoyed seeing the Buddhist monks walking around in their brilliant saffron robes, carrying bright yellow umbrellas. I was less happy with the traffic. Crossing the street was always a risky proposition. It was best to wait for a few locals to start, and rapidly join them, looking in all directions at once.
Bob and I wandered around Kandy Lake, past the Temple of the Tooth, and through the store-filled streets of this busy, crowded town. There is a large colony of large fruit bats on the edge of Kandy Lake. We tried to watch them for awhile, but we were totally identifiable as foreigners, which meant that it was very hard to just stroll around and look at things. Many people wanted to interact with us, asking us "Where from?" and other personal questions. Many people here know English, and many more want to learn it. English is the language used in the universities, and many people want to speak English so they can get better jobs, or simply interact more with the world. Not too many people outside of Sri Lanka speak Sinhala! (A beautiful language, with ornate, curving letters). There are signs all over the countryside advertising courses in "magnificent spoken English". So people come up to you on the street, in order to "practice their English". Also to sell you things, or beg for a few rupees. "I have no legs, " said one beggar. He actually did have one leg. We were offered "real moonstone", T-shirts with elephants on them, mangos, and personalized tours to see the Kandy Dancers. When you bargain for a price, the spoken English often improves rapidly, although "No" never seems to mean "No"!
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