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Published: December 11th 2006
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Andy on a Train
This is Andy, on a train. We got sick. We got sick from eating chicken liver pate on the first night Andy arrived in one of the nicest restaurants in Colombo. We didn’t spend much time in places that don’t begin with a U and end in an A and the time we did spend in places that don’t begin with a U and end in an A was pretty much reduced to studying toilet bowls and floor tiles.
There were some exceptional toilet bowls and floor tiles. The ones at Kandalama, the most renowned of Geoffrey Bawa’s hotels and the place I had been looking forward to visiting since before my trip really stood out a treat. He has an eye for bathroom chic like no other.
It is the most amazing place to be sick. It is set into a jungle covered hillside so that the wildlife and fauna actually integrate with the architecture and every room has a glass wall and balcony looking out through vines to the vast Kandalama Lake.
I sat in an empty bath tub, naked, next to a monkey who was eating from a sugar sachet on the other side of the glass. I sat there for
about ten minutes feeling smug and nauseous. It took ten minutes to twig that the sugar sachet was from the refreshments tray in my room which for the last ten minutes was being raided by two other monkeys. I felt quite stupid and chuffed and had fever.
Andy was too ill to swim in the beautiful ‘infinity’ pool which poured over its edge as if into the lake beyond. I was too ill to enjoy the vast buffet breakfast in the glass walled roof top restaurant that was surrounded by playful monkeys and had breathtaking views. So he tells me.
We went to Unawatuna to recover which took around six days and would have been faster had Andy not believed me when I told him that antibiotics don’t work against food poisoning.*
But we finally recovered. And I took the opportunity of the aforementioned surf-off to go up a notch in my surfer babe status and went out the back to the big waves. It was a triumphant day.
And we were invited to a local Big Girl’s party that was not a party for an obese Sri Lankan youth. Shangri La’s top waiter’s sister had
just got her first period, and the whole of Unawatuna were out to celebrate. It was the best party I went to in two months and simultaneously an insight into the traditions of Sri Lankan cultural festivities - lots of booze, huge amounts of rice and curry and booming 90’s Euro Trash.
To top Andy’s visit off (horrendous stomach bug, being thrashed at surfing…) he had a supernatural experience. We were at the Lighthouse (a previously mentioned Bawa hotel) and he felt the presence of Geoffrey. That or some guy who apparently drowned there years ago was trying to push him off the ledge so they could share the same destiny. Either way, I was totally freaked out and Andy became a bit of a celebrity.
It was so good to hang out, and we saw the most epic electric storm ever, and ate three times our normal food intake to make up for all the missed eating opportunities, and Andy, in true form, became immediately popular with all the Shangri La gang. So when he left I felt really sad. And I felt sad that what with the diarrhea and puking and stuff we hadn’t gone to
all the places I’d wanted to visit like the incredible looking sacred Sigiria Rock, and the ancient cave temples of Dambulla, and that the sun had pretty much been eclipsed by grey clouds the entire time. And I hoped he had a good time anyway.
And then it dawned on me that I only had a week left.
So I told Neil, the first and only backpacker I had come across in over two months that we were to visit Yala National Park for two half day safaris so I could be a proper tourist in the little time I had left.
We saw five leopards which considering there are only twenty five in the whole park and that most people don’t see any means we were really lucky. And despite being told, a lot, just how lucky we were I came to the conclusion that I’m not really a safari kind of girl. I didn’t feel that lucky when we were caught in a torrential downpour at the start of the first afternoon. And with the constant cold wind from being sat on an open backed jeep my fingers ended up puckered like I’d been
sat in a cold bath for too long and tingling with the onset of lost sensation. I also found it hard to get enthused when our tracker and jeep driver were screaming at me to take photos of bushes with occasional tales sticking out them. And I kind of felt a bit sheepish because once we’d seen the leopards a few times, the idea of screeching around the jungle, trying to outrace the other seven jeeps to the best spot to maybe catch another glimpse, cameras poised, made me feel more like we were obsessive paparazzi than a wildlife lovers. The leopards were cool though when they were so close we could hear their roars when the jeeps stopped revving their engines.
It seems there’s only so many times I can smile and look excited when a tracker points to a deer and says ‘Spotted Deer’ like we haven’t already seen hundreds, like if he didn’t name it I wouldn’t work out that it is also a ‘Spotted Deer’ because it too is a deer with spots.
But I did really love the white and yellow butterflies that sit on the road in groups and turn into fluttering
A Bloke with a Camera
Oh, and three leopards crossing the road. clouds as you drive through them and momentarily surround you.
And even though I was knackered, and seemingly unexcited by leopards, and had black snot and my face melted into mud when I washed it, I was glad I went because the butterflies were cool and now I can say “I went to Yala National Park when I was in Sri Lanka and saw five leopards.”
So the sun is metaphorically setting on my time in Sri Lanka, I go in a day. And even though I didn’t get to see much outside of Unawatuna, I have come to realize that maybe a beautiful rock and history steeped temples may never have made me as happy as having a singing dancing chef who makes the best tomato soup ever, and a top waiter who is a local celebrity after making a T.V appearance, drumming, and is so friendly he invites you to his sister’s Big Girl party. And where there is the best muesli that isn’t really muesli, and the best group of people who made me feel at home, and made me slap my ass and sing Billy Ray, and do the conga to Euro Trash, and
who swum me out the back and pushed me onto big waves to help me get started, and argue about the ethics of a hypothetical happy potion like it really matters. And of course there were the conversations with my sister that were sometimes long and chatty and sometimes short and moody that I will miss so much. And I hope she is happy.
And so I'm embarking on the next leg of my journey where hopefully I will be less sentimental, and where, hopefully, I can start to find a way of balancing my over-working work ethic from before graduation with my over indulging self indulgence since graduation to find some kind of happy, healthy, and paid medium.
I guess I'll be looking for those damn feet again...
*I am always right, with the exception of when I am wrong.
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