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blog by Dave & Bronia Buddhism in Sri Lanka is followed by 75%!o(MISSING)f the population and March 12-14 is the Sinhalese Buddhist New Year. We were warned that the country's population swells during the week before and after the New Year as families from abroad come home and people take a week off to celebrate so hotels would be booked and the rates would soar. To avoid the crowds and the expensive hotels we decided to head next to
Ella, a hill station with a cooler climate and reportedly boasting stunning views of the surrounding terrain, located in the centre of the country.
To ensure we had a place to stay during this busy period we pre-booked our hotel. Upon arrival at
The Country Comfort Inn we are disappointed to find that we've been placed in the oldest section of the hotel which has been assigned as the laundry rooms despite paying the 'new wing' prices. Even better our room doesn't lock so we decide to go for a wander to find alternative accomodation. Within half an hour we are re-locating to the
Rawana Holiday Hotel which is a third of the price and has a much better
feel to it.
Due to her hotel bookings we are in a shabby room for the first night after which we moved into the pleasant 'garden rooms' which are spacious clean, and guess what, they have gardens where we can spend our afternoons sitting out on deck chairs and reading. Each night we have fabulous home cooked Sri Lankan curries which is usually a plate of rice with a number of small dishes of cooked meat and vegetables using spices, coconut milk and plenty of chopped chillies.
Rawana Holiday Hotel is run by a family with the wife being the main organiser and with a wonderfully sweet nature but a little on the forgetful and clumsy side being that she burnt one of Dave's shirts with the iron, forgot what our bill was supposed to be and asked us and some of the other travellers to move out early as she'd accidentally overbooked. Still, her sweet nature overruled these slight hitches and she kindly gave us a hand drawn map of the area with walks that we could do.
On one of our first days in
Ella we used the complimentary map to do a small climb
Climbing Little Adam's Peak
Town of Ella - Tea bushes are to the left and right of Dave and are grown amongst large trees so they are somewhat protected from the sun.up a hill called
'Little Adams Peak'. It proves to be pretty straight forward gently climbing through tea plantations to be treated to spectacular views of the valley in which our hotel nestles (see pics). The only incident of note occurred when we started our return walk to the hotel and thought we were being fired on by a sniper or that we were about to stumble into a grouse shoot when we heard loud bangs only to find when we rounded a corner that we were being threatened by nothing more than small boys setting off New Year firecrackers - much to our relief and their amusement.
With that small hike under our belt we decided to try a more challenging trek the next day climbing to
'Ella Rock'. This one looked much more daunting as it is the highest peak around and from wherever you are in the town of
Ella this mountain of a rock dominates the landscape. In British/Canadian weather it would be a breeze but in the hot and humid Sri Lankan weather it is more of a slog so we set the alarm to rise early and beat the heat. The walk took
us along a railway line (see pics) which is fascinating to walk along as it is the main path that many of the Sri Lankan villagers take to walk from town to town as some areas have little or no roads. We passed young school girls, women with shopping, Buddhist monks in their full robes, men in sarongs walking bare foot and talking on mobile phones - it was fascinating. As we walked men kept offering to be our 'Guide' and take us a route to Ella Rock that was distinctly contrary to the map route. After weeks of honing our
'no thank-you' answer to ward off scams we did eventually waver when we started to think that perhaps we'd read our map wrong as the 'guides' were insistently telling us that we were going the wrong way so we decided to concede to the majority.
This alternative route by a 'Guide' proved great, despite our initial wariness as it started very dubiously over some harsh terrain including clambering over the waters at the top of a waterfall. We left our Guide halfway up and after much sweating and scrambling we reached the peak and again were thankful for
Walking the train tracks to climb Ella Rock
Ella Rock is the one in the distance, and not as close or as easy as it looks! having made the effort. We sat on the top of the rock and drank in the simply magnificent views that seemed to go on forever in ever changing shades of green (see pics). We got back to the hotel in the afternoon just as the heavens opened and a monsoon like shower complete with thunder and lightening hit so we spent the rest of the day watching the rain fall on our sheltered terrace.
In fact during our entire stay we had thunderstorms every afternoon as the heat and humidity built up each day. Interestingly, Sri Lankans consider that the official monsoon season coincides with the Buddhist New Year and it did certainly seem to be the case as we watched every afternoon thunderstorms with the most spectacular lightening as the clouds rolled in to cover the town and the surrounding hills.
The Sinhalese Buddhist New Year was quite an event; the day started with an onslaught of firecrackers at 6:24, 7:24 and 8:24 (these times are chosen by astrologists as being the most auspicious for 2006) - just to make sure we were awake I think. All of us guests (about 10 of us) were asked the
Sri Lankan girls walking the train line
As we walked to Ella Rock we passed Sri Lankan villagers who walk the train line to get from town to town. night before to join the hotel owner and her family at 8:24am for the ceremonial lighting of the Buddhist oil lamp which we all took turns in doing (see pic) to bring in the new year.
In the hotel restaurant a traditional New Years feast of local foods had been laid out, the cooking and preparation of which had begun at 4am that morning and had been completed and garnished in accordance with the specific astrological times to promote good luck for the coming year. The food was interesting if not exactly delicious. With plates piled high of various pasties, jellies, curries and other indescribable morsels we sampled savoury things that looked sweet and sweet things that looked savoury.
Like Christmas day in the UK, Canada etc everything was closed and there was no transport in and out of the town so we spent the day reading books, playing cards, relaxing and getting to know the other guests in the hotel: Claudia & Michiel (Dutch), Peyo & Virginie (French) and Timo & Utte (German). As luck would have it we discovered that Claudia, Michiel, Timo and Utte were all wanting to go south to the coast next so
we all agreed to share the cost of a taxi with our new friends. Peyo and Virginie were heading in another direction so we exchanged email addresses and promised to meet again somewhere someday.
The next morning the six of us left for
Galle on the coast, or so we thought. They say that the best travel stories come out of mishaps and hardships and this once again proved to be the case when our taxi driver refused to drop us off at Galle for the money his boss was paying him and would only take us as far as
Mirissa train station (a coastal beach town some 30km east of Galle) which would mean a further 2hrs on the train to reach
Galle. After an unsuccessful argument over the phone with 'Mr Boss' where the boss lied and denied ever having promised to take us to
Galle we were forced to admit defeat and be dropped off at
Mirissa train station. We attempted one last battle as we refused to pay the full driver the full payment as he hadn't taken us the whole way but with tempers rising and his threats to call the tourist police we
View from the top of Ella Rock
The town of Ella where we hiked from in the distance below. all gave up and paid him the fare feeling thoroughly frustrated at having once again been fooled.
At
Unawatuna, the stop before
Galle Timo, Utte and ourselves disembarked whilst Claudia and Micheil continued to
Galle.
Unawatuna is a fabulous little seaside town set in a crescent beach and when we arrived it was still jam-packed with new year revellers so we struggled to find a room but eventually found a fantastic beach front hotel with balcony called
Hotel Dhammika. In
Unawatuna we bumped into an English guy Steve and a Canadian gal Suzanne whom we had first made a passing acquaintance with in
Jaisalmer, Rajistan - India during our first week !!! Incredible !!
The next week was spent in sheer relaxation, enjoying the beach, the crystal blue sea and each night we dined with various friends we'd met in previous parts of Sri Lanka who had gravitated to
Unawatuna and
Galle to spend some time. These included Carmel & Andrew from Australia (see pic & previous blog), Virginie & Peyo from France, Suzanne & Steve, Claudia & Michiel and Timo & Utte. It was a thoroughly social week and we had a wonderful time.
A couple
of days were spent reading, confined to quarters as the monsoon loomed again, but this is apparently normal at this time of year. One day we decided to take a day trip to
Galle - about 10 minutes away, and this was a great place to visit as it is full of Dutch colonial history to explore.
The main part of the tourist centre is a large Dutch fort that encircles many hotels, restaurants, museums, houses and the police and army headquarters. The fort withstood the Tsunami wave and protected the buildings within and it was a lovely historic and relaxing place to spend time, but on the short journey to the fort the damage left by the tsunami was all too evident.
Galle town was particularly badly affected with many demolished buildings and homes. Refugee tents still line the roads and our stay on the south coast where we saw first hand the damage that was done, along with the stories and photographs of the locals served as a sobering reminder of the disaster which affected much of the Sri Lankan coastline that Boxing Day 2004.
Shopkeepers we spoke to had lost family members and their livelihoods,
a tuk-tuk driver we met lost friends, our hotel owner sustained injuries that put him in hospital. We heard stories about people clinging to coconut palms as the waves rushed in and tourist leaning over balconies to help grab people that were being washed away in the waves.
But slowly the towns along the coast have rebuilt themselves and businesses that were washed away have been restarted. One of these was a dive centre (see pic) right on the
Unawatuna beach front. We decided to take our first scuba dive of our trip here. There were a multitude of spectacular fish and corals, although here there was still much damage to the reef left by the tsunami. In fact our dive instructor for the day had lost his father and elder brother to the wave, a shrine to them with their pictures hangs in the shop.
Not too far inland from
Galle is a huge patch of rain forest called
Sinharaja National Reserve reputed to have 87%!h(MISSING)umidity and we decided that we'd like to see some of the tropical flora and fauna of Sri Lanka so we booked a safari. We started at 05:00 in the morning
and did wonder what we'd let ourselves in for but when we arrived at the park by about 08:00 our decision was fully vindicated by the awesome sight of a huge rain forest swathed in mist.
We were dropped off about a mile outside the forest and trekked towards the official entrance. Upon arrival we met our dubious looking guide - the ticket office was closed and we were ultra suspicious. This 'guide' had on shorts sandals and a t-shirt whilst we had every inch of skin covered and our trousers tucked into our socks. We'd been warned about leeches and creepy-crawlies climbing on board. It wasn't long before we'd attracted a few of these blood-suckers and so the safari turned into leech watch as we checked our feet every few steps.
The walk was actually beautiful and as it turned out we saw loads of creatures from huge spiders, various lizards and snakes, to monkeys, birds and fish (see pics). When we emerged at 13:00, picking off the last remaining leeches clinging to our legs and drenched in our own sweat, we felt that it had been a great experience.
A visit to Sri Lanka wouldn't
be complete without a visit to its capital,
Colombo so early one morning we caught a train from
Galle station along a four hour coastal track. Generally, it was a very comfortable and scenic journey despite the snail's pace of the train and it allowed us one again to see the phenomenal devastation that the Tsunami caused along the entire coast. If you remember seeing TV footage of the train being knocked off the tracks, it was this same stretch of coastline along which we travelled. The actual battered train carriage from that day still rests on a siding through one of the stations we passed.
Columbo, despite our apprehensions, was a lovely clean and vibrant city brimming with character, especially so at our guest house which was again a private home. The rather eccentric old lady of the house provided us with some advice about what to see and do and so we first visited the
Galle Face Hotel for "high tea". The place was an immensely posh old British colonial building catering for the very wealthy and famous, so we really did feel like impostors as we supped our tea and enjoyed our cake.
The decadence
of the day continued on to dinner when we turned up at the
Gallery Café - a boutique eatery that would have been better placed in Covent Garden. The food was immaculate and we felt that day we'd spoilt ourselves nicely.
Before we left Sri Lanka the following morning, we hailed a tuk-tuk to take us on a whistle-stop tour of the
Colombo. Bronia was delighted that the tour featured a modern shopping mall and in fact we spent a couple of hours there wandering around.
Unfortunately as we made our way to the airport, a darker side to this magical country showed its face once again. Moments after we had cleared the centre of town, a female Tamil sympathiser attempted to assassinate the head of the Sinhalese military with a suicide bombing. This was the fourth bomb in the three weeks we had been in the country. The target survived but a dozen or so others were tragically killed and many more were injured. In fact our flight out of Sri Lanka was delayed by an hour or so as we sat in the airport waiting room and watched fighter jets take off to head immediately north
to retaliate against the Tamils. This act sadly seems to have been the final straw which may plunge Sri Lanka toward civil war.
Sri Lanka has been a country which we have enjoyed enormously and we would recommend anyone to visit it but sadly it continues to have religious and cultural divisions which are unfortunately manifesting themselves in violence which threatens to break up a country still reeling from the effects of the Tsunami.
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Ann Hulbert
non-member comment
Thanks
I feel like I am travelling with you both. Do enjoy - send more!! See you in Vancouver.