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Published: March 8th 2007
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Unawatuna beach
This picture does not do it justice, but the water is the clearest, bluest, warmest I have ever seen. 13-21 February -- SRI LANKA
I was so excited to see Sri Lanka, said to be the jewel of the Indian Ocean. The country was formerly known as Ceylon and is reputed for its booming tea trade, deep blue precious sapphires and pristine beaches. I got my visa upon arriving in the capital of Columbo. Marc met me at the airport, where we headed directly for a train south to Galle, a Dutch settlement on the coast. Again, found ourselves in THIRD CLASS cattle car situation for the commuter rush from Columbo. A kindly gentleman gave me his seat after about an hour and the train wound its way south, directly next to the coast line. It was easy to see how the Tsunami greatly affected the south coast of Sri Lanka, and yet the rebuliding is still right up against the coast line, in hopes the tourists will come flooding back. The political situation is also quite violent in the north and the east, where the separatist group the LTTE (Sri Lankan Tigers) are fighting for political control. The south is relatively unaffected from politics, however, and we found ourselves in paradise amongst white sand, bright blue crystal clear
water and a hot, clear sun.
After a night in Galle, we moved east to Unawatuna, a picture-card perfect beach with restaurants, temples, guesthouses and an idyllic beach. Didn't do much for a couple of days but swim, walk around and watch sunsets.
We decided to hire a motorcycle and head north into the hill country to see tea plantations and Ude Wallawe, a nature reserve housing hundreds of elephants, peacocks, birds and water buffalows. Left our backpacks in Unawatuna and packed a bag for a few days of bike and rainforests. We thought it would take about 2 hours to head up, but the paved road quickly turned into a bumpy dirt path up and down the hills. Tea plantations spilled below us as we winded our way up the mountains, aching backsides, but charging along. It took us about 5 1/2 hours to reach Ude Wallawe.
I learned to drive the bike up in the hills, next to a tea plantation. I'm actually pretty good -- just had to get used to the clutch. Dad, you'd be proud -- race you on the Harley when I get home. (Don't worry Mom, no new tattoos... yet).
We went to an elephant orphanage the next day to see abandoned baby elephants line up two by two to be fed gallons of milk, play and try to weasle their way in line again for more breakfast. The guys working there can sort out which ones are coming for seconds, but the little guys give it a go anyway -- it's quite cute to watch. We took a jeep safari that afternoon and saw herds of wild elephants and tons of peacocks, monkeys and water buffalo. Our driver tried to brave a huge mud puddle (read: small lake), where we got hopelessly stuck for 2 hours. This gave us the opportunity to walk about a bit in the wild, but overall ended up in Marc getting full of mud (me staying far away from the spinning wheels) and a bigger truck coming out to pull us out. Priceless. Of course, the guys wanted the full fare for the tour, but after some not-so-reasonable on their end bargaining, we got away with a reduced fare.
One thing that is so hard to get used to is the process of doing business in India and Sri Lanka. Money is
Tea plantations, hill country
As we climbed in the mountains, the view just got greener and was filled with monkeys... obviously a powerful tool here as anywhere, but there is no accounting for service really. It's all smiles and chuckles as they hear about your 2 hours stuck in the mud, joke about the mud caking your clothes, but then serenely and genuinely hold out their hands for the full price of the safari... In the end, you realise it's only money, but it also holds a principal that is hard to justify letting go of. I'm trying to learn how to leave as many solutions open while negotiating, but there is also the issue of men not wanting to lose to a woman, so sometimes you're left just wanting to bang your head (or their's) against the nearest elephant...
That being said, it was a beautiful experience to be in the centre of protected animal wildlife. We made our way south after a couple of nights and headed again for the coast. We discovered a huge, empty beach for an afternoon swim and ended up in a place called Lagoon Paridise for the evening. They had a pontoon boat at the hotel to cross to the beach to watch the sunset. A lovely getaway in paridise.
The
following day we headed to the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka, where there is a beautiful white Lighthouse. From here, the water is clear of land straight to Antarctica. Kind of wild to imagine as your feet are in 80 degree F waters on the beach...
Near Dickwella, we headed north a kilmotre to see the largest Buddha in Sri Lanka -- it's 8 stories tall and surrounded by temples decorated by cartoon-book imagery of sins and their consequences in the afterlife. The Hall of Horrors also displays statues of demons and sinners being punished by them to reinforce the importance of living a pure life. Pretty intense imagery...
Back to Unawatuna for a night before taking the plane from Columo back to Mumbai and heading to Northern India. In the rickshaw to the airport, Marc made a snap decision to head back to India and continue travelling with us in Rajastan. What a surprise! More adventures to come...
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