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Published: July 14th 2009
Food on the Emirates flight
Emirates uses triangular containers instead of the conventional rectangular ones...One fine day in May, my mum came back from her weekly Buddhist lecture and asked me whether I was interested to go to Sri Lanka. As a travel-addict, I said "why not?". Sri Lanka is a great travel destination (with plenty of beaches and archeological sites) but not many people go there because of the civil war and the damages caused by the 2004 tsunami. Now that the civil war has just ended and the tsunami is a fading memory, there is no better time than now to visit Sri Lanka (before everyone else realises it and flocks there too).
What makes this trip more interesting is that the trip was organised by Mahakaruna Buddhist Society (where my mum has her weekly Buddhist lectures) to celebrate the Poson full moon dansala (a festival to commemorate the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka). To the Sri Lankans, the Poson dansala is something like Chinese New Year to the Chineses or Christmas to the Westerners... (something that I looked forward to... Haha) Unlike most of my previous trips (where I purely "sightsee"), this trip will be a meaningful one, as we would be offering food and robes to monks, pilgrims, students,
war refugees, etc. According to the brochure, donated items would include...
- 5000 sets of cloth
- Biscuits for 50000 devotees
- 10000 lunch boxes
- 20000 plastic spoons, cups, etc
- 100kg cucumber, tomato, onion
- so on and so on...
(This trip is going to get very very interesting...)
The trip is scheduled to be from 5th Jun to 9th Jun. Since I'm off-shift on 3rd and 4th Jun, my mum and I decided to go to Sri Lanka on 3rd Jun and join the main group on 5th or 6th Jun. We are very lucky to find cheap return tickets from Singapore to Colombo. We paid a budget fare (less than SGD250 per person including taxes) for a world-class airline (Emirates)! However, the timing of the outbound flight was a bit weird. The flight would depart Singapore at 1am (Singapore time/GMT+8) and arrive at Colombo at 2am (Sri Lanka time/GMT+5.5). So, on 2nd Jun (Tuesday), after I finished work at 8:30pm, I went home and had a lightning-quick dinner. Then my mum and I took a cab to Changi Airport with our heavy suitcases (which were stuffed with food and clothings to be offered to the
Sri Lankans).
After a 3.5-hour flight (including a "dinner" at 2am Singapore time), we arrived at Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport at 2am (Sri Lanka time). Immigration was surprisingly quick, and most of the shops in the arrival area stayed open (even though it was 2am). We already booked a room at Colombo City Hotel, so we went to the taxi counter to get a cab. A man approached us and told us that he could get us a cab, but after leading us to his counter, he kept asking us about our travel plans and started introducing his company's tour packages. We were so irritated that we went to another taxi counter. (We were tired and all we wanted was just a cab to the hotel... nothing else...)
Something more interesting (or irritating, I should say) soon followed... Upon our arrival in downtown Colombo (Fort district), we found the road to our hotel blocked by giant barricades and a team of gun-carrying soldiers. According to a soldier, the road was blocked because there would be a military parade during the day. Our cab driver then made a detour and tried to reach our hotel via another road, but
the other road was blocked too. We studied the city map and we were less than 1km away from our hotel, so we decided to walk. The streets were eerily quiet and deserted, and the presence of the military at every road junction made the place feel like a warzone. After a half-hour walk, we finally reached our hotel. Initially, the hotel wanted us to pay the full rate (USD 50) for the first night, but my mum argued that it was already 4:30am and it would be unfair to pay the full rate for half a night. Somemore, we had no idea that the roads were blocked and we had to endure a half-hour walk with all our luggage without any prior notice. In the end, the hotel let us pay half the rate (USD 25).
We slept from 5am to 9am. (We could have slept longer, but we wouldn't want to waste our time on sleeping in a foreign place when we could use the time for sightseeing.) We had our breakfast in the lovely cafe at the top floor of the hotel, where we had a bird's eye view of Colombo and the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately,
photography was forbidden due to security concerns. (The Fort district is still heavily militarised.) During breakfast, the TV was broadcasting the military parade (live) at Galle Face Green (a seaside promenade near the Fort district). The parade was to commemorate the military's victory against the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Tamil separatists group) after decades of war. After a speech from the Sri Lankan president, there was a display of the Sri Lankan military's assets, including tanks, helicopters and fighter jets. It would be a truly joyous event, if not for the inconvenience (that we endured) thanks to the military blocking all the roads to the Fort district / Galle Face Green...
After staring at the endless streams of military vehicles in the TV screen for half an hour, we decided to go out for some real sightseeing. There was still a strong military presence on the streets, with giant barricades and teams of armed soldiers at every junction. Thanks to the road blockages, the streets became a pedestrian's paradise. As we walked around the Fort District, we noticed that many streets still retain their British names, such as York Street, Chatham Street, Church Street, Bristol Street,
Plantation House
Another colonial-style building etc. There were also quite a lot of British colonial architecture, the most famous of which is Cargills Department Store. Everything here felt and looked familiar to me, maybe because of my constant encounter with the British heritage... (I was born in HK, grew up in Singapore, did my student exchange in Canada, worked in the UK for 1.5 years, and travelled to Malaysia, Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Channel Islands, etc...)
From the Fort district we walked to the Fort Railway Station, another classic example of British colonial architecture. At the station, we bought train tickets to Kandy for the next day. We also visited the railway tourism office and encountered a very helpful and friendly staff. (He recommended many interesting itineraries and activities, but we already had our own plans and were unable to "insert" more activities into our itinerary.) Walking out of the station, we were in Pettah district. Unlike the orderly Fort district, the Pettah district was an explosion of energy. The whole district was actually a gigantic outdoor bazaar, with each street belonging to a different trade. The place reminded me of Bangkok's Chatuchak market or Hong Kong's Temple Street market, but it's noisier, dirtier, and
more chaotic. (The chaos was actually quite fascinating... at least to someone like me who is used to clean and tidy markets.)
We walked past the Grand Mosque and took some photos, before heading to Wolvendaal Church - Colombo's oldest church. It was built in 1749 by the Dutch and its Neoclassical facade made an interesting contrast to the surrounding ramshackle houses. In the church, we encountered a helpful janitor, who let us use the church's toilet and brought us for an informative tour of the church. To our surprise, the church's piano came from Singapore!
From Wolvendaal Church, we took a tuk-tuk ride to the National Museum - another fine example of British colonial architecture. Dating from 1877, the National Museum houses a large collection of Sri Lankan artefacts. The museum turned out to be a pleasant escape from the intense afternoon heat. After the museum visit, we walked to the colonial-style Town Hall to take some photos. Then we walked through the pleasant Viharamahadevi Park towards Beira Lake. The area around Beira Lake is home to 2 of Colombo's most interesting Buddhist temples - Gangaramaya temple and Seema Malaka. The former was established during Sri Lanka's
19th century Buddhist revival and its architecture consists of elements from different parts of Asia (e.g. China, India, Japan), while the latter is a modern Zen-style temple situated in the middle of the lake. After visiting both temples, we walked around the lake to Crescat Boulevard - Colombo's smartest shopping mall. We had our dinner at the food court in the basement, and bought some drinks in the adjacent supermarket.
After dinner, my mum contacted our Bhante (Buddhist teacher), who is the organiser of this Poson trip. Our Bhante was planning to go to his house to collect items such as plastic spoons and cups, so he invited us along. First, he brought us to Hotel Continental (where he was staying) and we met some other members of the Poson trip. Then he brought us to the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara - one of the most important Buddhist sites in Colombo. It was claimed that Buddha himself came to this spot to teach. We met the chief monk of the temple, who happened to be our Bhante's friend. The chief monk led us to a room which houses the holy shroud (claimed to be used by Buddha himself during
his bath). This room is normally closed to outsiders. We also visited the other sites within the complex, such as the dagoba which marks the spot where Buddha taught, and a shrine covered with fascinating wall paintings.
From the temple, we went to our Bhante's home to help him sort through the numerous stacks of consumables that would be given away at this year's Poson. Later, our Bhante gave us a lift back our hotel. After a quick shower, I quickly went to sleep, as we had only 4 hours of sleep on the previous night. Our first day in Sri Lanka turned out to be more interesting than we expected...
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non-member comment
Now that the LTTE has been knocked off, the security road blocks have slowly gone away which makes travel that much easier. You get a real sense of calm on everyones face. Nice info.