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Published: December 7th 2012
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Sri Lanka was to be one of the most interesting and beautiful places we visited – a bit of everything rugged coast, mountains, beaches and history. Although the temperature was humid there was some respite with cooler evenings and occasionally some rain which helped. In the evenings when we reached the hills you could say it was almost chilly – very welcome after months of relentless heat.
Sri Lanka is another multi-faith place Buddhist/Muslim/Christian and a few others. The taxi driver from the airport gave a quick overview of some local information...for some unknown reason all the local fisherman were Christian (how apt), he was a Buddhist which is also the main religion. The discussion quickly turned to cricket and to his favourite cricket player – Malinga, this meant very little to me (Tina) at this point in the trip. I grasped tightly onto my copy of The Cricketer, from which I was hoping to glean an insightful comment to share as my own on the various teams I'd be watching over the next few weeks.
Searching for accommodation in Colombo, the capital city, was made all the more difficult by restaurants being called hotels. It was here that
I first noticed the nations's obsession with cream crackers. We would see large banner signs at most food shops over the next few weeks.
The YMCA won out only on price. But, the food in their café was incredibly delicious – jack fruit making a very tasty chicken substitute. A walk out in the local area intoroduced the very hands on approach vendors took to encourage customers to buy something from their stall. Even though it was getting late in the day the shopping streets were still pretty buzzy.
The following morning was an early start for a lovely train journey heading south along the west coast of Sri Lanka. The view out of the window was coastal for most of the way the track only a few metres from the sea. The train arrived in Ahangama after about 4 hours, its a coastal village one that was hit badly by the Tsunami of 2004. From the station a Tuk Tuk drove me - over incredibly bumpy roads and a long cut due to a flooded bridge brought us - to the SOS Sri Lanka Dog Sanctuary where I’d be volunteering for the next week and Mark would
join in a couple of days.
I’d seen the photos on the website but being greeted by over 100 dogs at the gate was quite an experience. They have around 440 dogs on site. Many of the dogs run free whilst some stay in their packs in their own spacious compounds. On arrival there was lots of barking but it was fairly calm. To find out more about the fantastic work they do go to
www.animalsos-sl.com . Sri Lanka has an unbelievable amount of street dogs. The aim of the rescue centre is to reduce suffering, reduce the population through neutering and improve education on animal welfare to improve the quality of life of the dogs in their care. A number of dogs make it on 3 legs or less. A substantial second site has recently been completed with two areas for surgery and a disabled dogs area. Vets and vet nurses volunteer and gain experience following graduation.
Opting not to stay onsite for the first week - possibly a bit noisy with 400 + dogs - I was pleased that the view from the beach side hotel I’d been recommended was rustic and beautiful. The area is
big with surfers but fortunatley it was out of season.
The main tasks at the centre involved cleaning a lot of wee and pooh from the 25 pups in their three large kennels twice a day, washing the dogs and getting the disabled ones out and about in their carts. With Mark deciding to join in volunteering at the animal shelter we were able to get a lot of the day to day tasks done releasing the staff to get on with some one to one therapy work with the disabled dogs. It was pretty smelly, hot, sweaty and dirty work but very rewarding. Thankfully we had a hot shower in our accomodation - as we were to find was a rarity in Sri Lanka. Another treat was the homemade traditional rice and curry lunches that we both enjoyed tucking into. We both felt that despite the hard work this was one of the most rewarding experiences of the trip so far.
On the Wednesday we left a bit early to travel to Hanbantota - its a developing city a couple of hours along the south coast - our trip was to watch the opening match of the
T20 cricket world cup, Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe. Its the hometown of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he thought it would be a good idea to build an airport and the largest cricket ground in Sri Lanka here - and following tradition named the cricket ground after himself.
Arriving at the ground it was chaos. Cars, tuk tuks, minibuses, people, police and soldiers everywhere. We made our way into the ground (buying a ticket for our driver from a policeman on route) and finally got in after a rugby scrum push through hordes of people. The traffic near the stadium and crowds meant that we missed the first couple of overs, but Sri Lanka batted well first up and set Zimbabwe a score that they were never realistically going to reach. Ajantha Mendes made sure of that with world t20 bowling record figures of 6 wickets for 8 runs.
Sri Lanka eventually won by 82 runs and the hosts looked the real deal. The incredible atmosphere of the crowd was something of itself - every run/wicket/dot ball - basically anything, was cheered and danced to by the passionate home supporters. Malinga, Sangakara & Mahela were literally treated and revered
like gods, whatever they did! We arrived home in the early hours of the next morning very tired, but happy we'd plenty more cricket to look forward to in the coming weeks.
After the first week at the rescue centre we took a minivan to Colombo to watch our second match - India vs England, deciding to make a day of it. It rained almost the whole day. We stopped at a Turtle hatchery, as well as a number of eggs waiting to hatch there were a couple of small tanks with injured turtles that had been caught in nets or speared by fishermen. Next up we continued onto the historic old town of Galle enjoyed a curry lunch and a brisk walk around the fort area, fortunately the rain held off. The fort overlooks the famous Galle cricket ground - and this year venue of the womens world T20 tournament group games. The covers were well and truly on. There is a strong Dutch influence on the Island as well as Portuguese, French and English - ceylon tea.
This was fortunately the only time of seeing a snake charmer with his dressed monkey in tow surrounded by
astonished children.
A few hours later we arrived in Colombo, excited about seeing our first England game. The stadium was huge and far more organised than the chaotic previous ground. The atmosphere again was great - not a full house, but plenty of locals were there to supplement the big Indian and small English followings. We quicky learnt that there was no love lost between the Sri Lankans and the Indians, the former supporting England against their arch enemies. The 'banter' was pretty merciless and resulted in a few ejections when it got too fiesty by the soldiers watching from the back of the stands. On the field England bowled pretty well and restricted India to a competitive 170. Unfortunately when it came to batting it all went bady wrong. The batting was too aggressive and big shot after big shot came and went. Several times the ball crossed the rope for 6, but England were losing wickets at regular intervals. The innings completely folded for a paltry 80 runs - Englands worst ever T20 score. Thankfully the win over Afghanistan had already ensured qualification to the super 8 stage of the competition, but we feared the worst for
the future matches.....
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