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Published: November 22nd 2009
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As well as the Temple of the Bhudda's Tooth, which was my planned highlight for the day, I contemplated visiting Sri Lanka's evocatively named Elephant Orphanage. I was very keen to go there - meal times were especially recommended by the American guests I met over breakfast. They ate light, so I assumed they got more pleasure from watching elephants dine. It was not looking easy to get to, however. It would have taken most of the day and involved hiring a taxi for the long journey, so I promised myself another trip one day (hopefully not 19 years later, like my second visit to Sri Lanka took me). Instead I would wander about Kandy and journey again on the mountain-traversing train back to the capital.
Entering the Temple of the Sacred Tooth involved being searched by an armed guard and, more disconcertingly, dodging the rabid-looking monkeys that prowled the high fences around the temple. Outside I had met with the usual tuk tuk drivers imploring me to take a ride, and had an interesting look at Kandy's lake in the daytime. It was full of carp of all sizes. I'm not sure why there were not more birds feasting
on the fish - perhaps carp are not that tasty - for there were so many you could have easily reached in and scooped out a handful yourself if you had wanted to. A tuk tuk driver told me it was a Bhuddist lake, so killing the fish would have been bad news. Although letting their population continue to expand seemed pretty bad for the fish too.
Inside the temple I achieved another aim of visiting Sri Lanka - I was able to observe for a while a live elephant. Not quite a riverful of baby orhpans, but a real live elephant noetheless. This one did not look very well, though. It kept rocking from side to side, facing a brick wall. This may have been perfectly healthy behaviour for the beast, but if it had been one of my clietns I would have been concerned.
To enter the main temple I needed to remove my shoes, which I deposited with the attendant, a little like at a bowling alley. I used the locals' shoe depository instead of the foreigners' one. I wasn't sure of the difference, but I'm sure foreigners are normally expected to pay for having
their footwear watched. Searched again - this time with a pat on the bottom from my guard to see me on my way, just a friendly one I'm sure... The walls and ceilings were beautifully decorated with images of flowers, people and animals, and there were tables and tables of fresh flowers which the pilgrims were bringing in for the Bhudda. There were few non-local tourists, and the atmoshpere was very prayerful and serene. I sat with some of those praying on the floor in front of the inner part of the temple and soaked up the calmness.
Outside was awash with the smoke and smell of incense. Bhudda statues and gold bells were everywhere you could see. I paid my respects to the stuffed remains of Rajah the Tusker, and told myself that when I return to see the orphanage I will come in August, to witness the Festival of the Tooth in all its pomp.
On my way to buy my train ticket I chat with market stall holders, including one young man who wanted to inspire me to "Sieze the day!" and "Make every day count!" Another lad told me he was employed by the
navy as a soccer player, and then insisted on taking me to his brother's clothing store. I did not have anymore room in my pack for anything, but he took me on a tour through the market which I would have otherwise missed so I said I would have a look at the shop. The market was a busy crowded blur of meat, fish, flowers and vegetable stalls, with images, smells and hygiene practices varied in the extreme.
The soccer lad (sorry, I've forgotten his name - let's call him Dave) then helped me on a long but ultimately successful tour of the clothing and fabric section of the market to find an embroided Sri Lankan flag badge for my backpack. I had so far failed to find one for any of the countries I had visited on my trip, which surprised me as I thought they would have been everywhere. In the end we found one at the bottom of a large box in a stall specialising in buttons and zips. I rewarded Dave with a beer in a the Victory Bar - a very local watering hole, where cigarettes are bought singly and beer costs very little.
I leave Dave to go and collect my pack from the guest house, and he asks me for money. I tell him that it would be bad karma to accept any (especially as I had bought him beer and cigarettes) and he slopes off.
I decided to splurge on a seat in the observation car for the return train journey - a splurge that would set me back an extra dollar for the two-and-a-half hour trip. The observation car turned out to be a carriage with the seats facing backwards towards a large dirty window at the rear of the train. I had expected an open-sided car affording great views of the brilliant surroundings, but no. The windows that there were were unopenable and all dirty. Then I saw my allocated seat - on the side of the good views, but halfway along the carriage where there was no window, just a wide section of wall between windows. I complained to the ticket seller and got a second class ticket instead.
This new ticket was facing forward, again on the side of the view, Because of the ambiguous numbering of the seats, I didn't know if my ticket
was next to the window or not. There was someone sitting in that position, so I sat on the aisle. Before we set off there was some confusion as to who was supposed to be sitting where. I was stared at and I checked my ticket again, but then the woman sitting by the window got up and moved seats, allowing me to sit by the window and another man to sit in the seat by the aisle. All a very long tale to say that in the end I got the perfect seat next to an open window from which to view the mountains as we passed. Although it then began to pour heavily with rain, so there was no view at all!
In Colombo I was just in time to buy a third class ticket (40c) to Nagombo, where I was going to spend the night before my early flight to Bangkok the next morning. Inside the train it was a huge squeeze with the commuters, and hot too as the windows were closed to keep the rain out, but everyone is in good spirits - some playing cards across the crowded seats. I met some lovely
tourists who were also getting off in Nagombo, and we ended up having a meal in a local eatery at our destination. At first we were only going to have tea: we asked for black tea with milk, and after quite a while were presenetd with a kind of warm cappucino-style milky/frothy tea drink. The food looked so good we ate curry and breads and drank ginger beer too. Outside it continued to pour.
I relied on a tuk tuk driver to find me a cheap guest house, which he did, while the others went off to their expensive hotel. My place was newish, whitewashed, very basic but with a balcony and a cold-water shower. I booked my tuk tuk to return at 5am, suspended my mosquito net and fell asleep under the rotating ceiling fan, listening to the rain.
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Scott Moncrieff
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The joys of tuk tuk drivers. But I was impressed on your defence of karma against gifts of money: truly inspired. Can you tell me where that is in the Buddhist Scriptures?