Now in Nugegoda

Part of every trip here means staying for a while at Jay’s elder sister and husband’s place.  We came here today by taking an a/c bus from Minuwangoda at about 9:20 am.  We were comfortably here after one transfer and tuk-tuk ride by 11:30 am.

The Colombo / Airport Road is now in a state of permanent rush-hour.  There’s a new expressway being built but private vehicles of all sorts will probably continue to increase at a faster pace than the pavement.  Interestingly in the 1980’s, when I first visited, one could take much of the trip we did yesterday in about 45 minutes.  Now, it can take three hours if trying it in peak hours.  People want to get their own transportation for convenience sake, right?

To prepare for lunch, Lal and I completed a bottle of coconut arrak.  It’s hard liquor but different in that its effects are subtle.  Well, that is until one has a pressing need to find a bed.  After lunch, which the non-drinkers had to eat first as we took a lot of time, I did have a two hour nap.  Upon waking up, I didn’t have a headache.  Other than being a little dehydrated, I was okay.  Drinking this stuff is quite a bit different from whiskey.

We managed one walk to the close roundabout to find an Internet place and will probably re-visit it tomorrow.  It was a slow relaxing evening.

Living Space

We sort of rushed back yesterday for two reasons.  First, there wasn’t much to see in Kalpitiya and also Jay needed to squeeze in a day to see his mother’s sister and that branch of the family.  I stayed at home.  I’m depressed that we are now into our third week here.  We’re only going to be here for twenty-eight days.  I hate thought that half our time here has already finished.

We’ve still got many places to go and things to see.  Tomorrow we’ll head to Jay’s elder sister and husband’s place in Nugegoda for a few nights.  Staying with them puts us much closer to Colombo things.  Directly from there we’ll be heading down with a van and driver to the southern beaches for a day with Jay’s sister-in-law and nieces.  Then after that, beginning from there, just he and I will do a week of our traditional, ‘hit the road’ type of travelling.  This is when set our sights on a fairly close destination, go there by bus, pick a hotel, and travel around the sites in that area for a few days.  I’m hoping Unawatuna will feature in that segment of our trip.

Today has been quite rainy.  We knew that this time of year brings the monsoon to the south west to of the island.  We sort of like it.  A day can be bright and sunny one minute and quite literally turn into a warm torrential downpour seconds later.  A vast amount of rain can fall in a short time and within minutes it’s over.  The earth and vegetation suck up the water and in a scant bit of time it can be hard to tell there had ever been any rain!  This scenario played through several times today.  It has been a hard day to dry clothes on the line.

I caught up on last Sunday’s English newspapers.  News still comes on broadsheet here with a multitude of sections catering to all sorts of interests.  I got stuck in the display-classifieds real estate section.  I know it’s not logical to hunt for an apartment on this trip.  If retirement comes when I’m 55 that will be 2014.  We don’t really need to hold any local property until then.  It’s hard to say where the market will go.  Economic growth for Sri Lanka is forecast at eight percent in the coming years.  To me, real estate already seems excessive but the world slowdown didn’t kill the market here.  Maybe if I wait another three or four years, the market will out-price what I’d like to spend on a winter getaway.  Canada has lots of half year snowbirds.  Spending each November through April on this island would be nice.  I absolutely love it here in the jungle and Jay holds the deed for this cute little place, but I think spending $80,000 on a small apartment near the Mt. Lavinia tourist beaches would be more in keeping with our lifestyle.

My last comments about real estate are these: Sri Lankans have seemed to go bonkers over multi-storey dwellings.  Jay’s brother built on adjoining land here.  Although the place isn’t truly completed, it was started four years ago and is occupied.  We laughed at the monster-sized design.  Climbing stairs seems silly with the sufficient land here.  If you must maximize floor space on a tiny lot, sure, go up.  The house fits into this new fad of two and even three-storey houses.  Jay blames imported Indian soap operas for creating the desire for such over-sized dwellings. 

To me, even traditional Sri Lankan home design is silly.  In a climate where one can practically live outside year round, little is done in the way of imaginative use of outside space.  A single floor U-shaped building around a massive atrium would be the way to go.  Most of life could take place in the inner garden.  There’d be little space lost to hallways.  Doors for many rooms such as the bedrooms could open directly to that area, somewhat like a motel.  I can spend hours thinking of how I’d put a house together but in the end, if I ever own here, it will most probably be several rooms on the fourth to tenth floor of an apartment building.  Hey. that sounds strangely like a description of the place we already own in Canada.  Well, maybe here the view would be of the ocean rather than the Fraser River.

Winning the ‘Battle of the Bus’

Last night I could hear some people from the rest-house’s bar / TV room.  It seemed to close at about 11:00 am and it didn’t take long for staff to ‘clean up’.  We were in bed for quite a few hours but by morning I hadn’t slept too soundly.  The water was different than what we’re used to.  It was a little bit salty tasting and after a shower, I really didn’t feel clean.  I do think I had a little fever that broke last night.  My throat is not nearly as sore as yesterday. I often sneeze and have a little cough but this is nothing much.

We finally got up and packed about 6:30 am.  The rest-house was nearly in the center of town, although that isn’t saying much as that was a small place.  We walked into a Muslim shop for quick eats and tea for breakfast.  Then, we had to wait about 45 minutes for the bus to deliver people to the port and pick us up on the way back to Negombo.  The bus was a little bigger than those we took yesterday.  The seats were a little more comfortable.  The trip back was quicker as it was uninterrupted.  It still took four hours though.  We got on the bus for Minuwangoda directly but it took at least 15 minutes before it was full and actually on its way.

The last bit had me crushed between the window, Jay, and the dozens of people standing in the aisle.  My backpack was on my lap.  I was hot, thirsty, and still coughing a little.  The 40 minute ride seemed more like 40 hours.  We’d come down a quarter of the coastline for about $1.50 but there are times when one gets what one pays for.  I would’ve forked out ten times more for a trip which wasn’t so tiring.

After six glasses of liquids, a great lunch, a shower, the seeming struggle was forgotten.  A few minutes sitting on the kitchen steps watching the birds and squirrels under the canopy of coconut and teak trees erased all the frustration. 

I’m happy to spend this evening at home.

As Far As We Could Spit

If you look at a map of Sri Lanka, about half way up on the western coast you’ll notice a peninsular of land near the city of Putalam.  We are at the very end of the spit of land in a town called Kalpitiya.  We came here primarily just to say we did.   There are only several towns in this country more westerly than we are tonight.

I wouldn’t have expected it to take us quite as long to get here as it did.  We first paid for a 3-wheel to downtown Minuwangoda bus stand from the house.  We could’waited for a Negombo bus to pass by the Kopiwatte Junction, but it’s often better to go the mile downtown as it’s possible to get a better seat before the bus leaves.  There are no limits on the number of passengers that a bus, especially a private one, will take aboard.  Of course, the owner is in it for the money, so they’ll pack people closer than sardines in a can. It also took much longer to get to Negombo than it should have.  This is because another bus zoomed past us, so the driver deliberately crawled along at a snail’s pace to give time for other folks to get to the bus stops along the route.  There was even a police checkpoint near the airport where everybody but the elderly and infirm had to disembark, go through a cursory bag check and get back on the bus.  Needless to say, this procedure took a bit of time too.  We got to the Negombo bus stop in around an hour.

We asked about any direct routes to Puttulam but found there weren’t any running.  We would have to break our trip into two sections by going into Chilaw first.  We did.  We had a cool drink there as existing in this climate can make one frequently thirsty.  I also bought some Strepsils at a pharmacy as I had had a sore throat since morning.  I first thought, I had slept with my mouth open and the ceiling fan had dried me out.  This seemed to be something more.

By the time we got into Puttulam it was a bit after noon.  We ate lunch near the bus station trying to decide what to do.  I imagined guest hotels and room dotting the spit of land some perhaps facing the lagoon and Puttulam while others might be on the ocean side.  We decided it was too early to find a hotel in Puttulam and that we may as well head towards Kalpitiya.  The trip ended up being about 50 km but about two hours.  Like lots of roads not part of the main national network, it was rough, bumpy, and required speeds of less than 30 kph in places.

We sat in the rear of the bus near some Moslem boys heading back to their towns.  One in particular had taken English classes and was anxious to make use of his studies.  His two friends were shyer.  We had a very nice chat and Kiyas had a Olympus camera to show me pictures of his family and friends.  He got off about half way along this section of our trip.  We saw lots of sea salt being dried in big ponds.  We saw coconut plantations.  A lot of the land was also dry.  This is one of the driest places on the island generally receiving rain only in October.

At last, at about 3:15 we arrived at the end of the road.  Kalpitiya is not a tourist destination at all.  It is known for dry fish though.  In fact the bus back we’ll catch tomorrow brings fishermen from Negombo directly to this place.  They take a boat to an island to prepare and dry fish in the sun.  There’s Dutch fort here.  Unfortunately, it’s still an operating military unit for Sri Lanka.  This means it really wasn’t possible to go inside or to take many pictures in the surrounding area.

We found a government Rest House still operating, just barely, in Kalpitiya.  The $7 for the double room was even of questionable value for the condition of the room.  Ma`ny folks might think it less than worthy for a convicted prisoner.  Still, there was plenty of water for a shower and clean sheets.

We just ate Kottu Roti for dinner.  I’m not sure what you’d turn up on an Internet search for that term, but it’s a South Indian mixture of cooked bread, spices, in our case chicken that is mixed and cooked on a grill.  The tell tale sign that it’s being made is the sound of the rapid and mixing of ingredients with the knives on the cooking surface.

We just watched a bit of the final of Little Star, a Sri Lankan singing contest for kids.  It’s only 8:30 but it’s hot here and I have no energy to do anything but go to bed.

For the Sake of Motion

Tomorrow, we plan on going to Puttalam just so we can travel up the west side of the Puttalam Lagoon to a place named Kalpitiya.  It’s been a long while since we’ve slept at a beach.  Somewhere deep inside Jay’s brain there’s a list of places.  Tomorrow we get the opportunity to cross off another from the list.

Today, we also wanted to get out of the house.  Lounging around is too easy and enjoyable.  If we don’t make a conscience effort to experience the variety of things Sri Lanka has to offer, our month of vacation time here can slip by.

We took a short, day trip to Polgahawila, a town in which Jay spent part of his childhood.  His father used to commute 2-hours into Colombo for work each morning and return in the evening.  The city was quiet today but was probably more of a sleepy village back in the late 1960’s / early 1970’s.  It is an important junction for the train and that’s how we went there today.

Well, actually first, we went into town here in a three-wheel because Jay’s dad wanted to pick up all the weekend newspapers. We sort of let him hitch along for the ride.  At the main Minuwangoda bus station we waited for a bus to Veyangoda.  So far that means we paid 80 Rupees to get into town and Rs 23 each for the 14 kilometer bus trip.  Then, we bought tickets on the express train for around Rs 35.  So with the return fares, because we stayed right on the returning airport bus at the junction, we each spent about $1.50 on transportation.

We walked from the Polgahawila station to the neighbourhood where Jay’s family used to live.  We also walked out to the school complex where he went from Grades 6 to 10.  I could see he was curious to see how things had changed.  After all, that was nearly 40 years ago!  There were more houses and roads, he said.

We stopped at a bakery for a light meal in Veyangoda on the way back. We went at 9:00 am and got back at 3:10 pm.    We must’ve gone only around 100 km in total.  I was ready for a shower though.  I usually take at least two cooling showers a day here.

Let Me Be Misunderstood

The more I write the less able I am to express what it’s like being in Sri Lanka this month.  I am not sure why being able to do so seems so important to me.  It’s sort of like my blog in general, I suppose.  I honestly think my experiences are more profound than those of many others; and that they deserve to be shared.  To be honest, though my eJournal and images ends up being ‘external memory’ where I can go back to recall the name of something or the date of a specific event.  Even with all this said, I still wish I could share exactly what it’s like to be here now.  This might even be of interest to me on a rainy winter day in Vancouver.

Yet, life is all a matter of perspective.  When I mention a simple word, such as dog, you most probably recall a specific one that you owned either now or in the past.  If you never owned a canine, then you will undoubtedly picture something a little more generic.  How can the world agree on anything if we cannot even come to an understanding on the precise meaning of the word, dog?  Which reminds me about something I’ve always been intrigued by: When a a St. Bernard meets a poodle do they really think of each other as the same species?

If a simple word can have so many meanings, then what about a concept such as a perfect day.  Furthermore, how can I explain to you what it is like visiting Jay’s family?  How can I possibly, let you know what it’s like to experience things of which you have no firsthand knowledge?  What about the weather, geography, the taste and variety of the food, or the multitude of physical and emotional differences.  How can I share a culture you’ve not known?  I haven’t a clue how to express daily frustrations and pleasures.  I finally ‘get’ the idea of the saying a picture is worth a thousand words.  Underlying any image, there are far too many details which cannot be examined nor shared.  You will see one thing and I another.  I fear that even words, most certainly these, fail the same test as well.

So, I shall just stay trite and nearly mute on this day of rest between travels around this amazing country. Having a nice time; wish you were here!

A Hindu Temple and Hot Springs

I thought I’d be bothered by going from an air conditioned room to the outside weather.  It was not a problem at all.  Perhaps, if I lived here, I would install a/c in just the bedroom.  It’d provide a place to store papers where they wouldn’t age so quickly too.  We had tea delivered to the room at 6:30 am and were all loaded in the van by 6:45 am.

We first went in search of breakfast but drove through the 15th century Portuguese fort and up the hill to the Thirrukoneswaram Hindu Koval first.  Jay and I had been in Tricomalee during the temporary peace agreement five years ago.  At the time, we also made it to Jaffna, Batticaloa, and Aragam Bay that year.  This time it was nice to bring along Jay’s sisters and Auntie.  There’s a commanding view of the harbour from the hill as well as some impressive cliffs dropping many feet to the ocean.

Just as last time, we also visited Kanniyai Hot Springs.  This time it was much more crowed after having been off limits because of the war in the last few years.  We saw many Sri Lanka Moslems out on our trips as it’s now after the Ramadhan Eid and they have school break this week.  We’ve not looked at the video yet; I hope it came out well.

After that we started to head back to Minuwangoda.  In the past few years, I’d have a hard time counting the number of times I’d been through Habarana Junction.  It seems like a lot of trips take us through that intersection of several important roads.  The last thirty kilometers from Trinco to the junction are being upgraded.  It will probably take years before the whole road is completed but the sooner the better.  A strong connection to wealthy parts of the island are absolutely necessary for normalization.  At the moment the massive deployment of government troops have kept things safe and secure.  We did had to pull over at a checkpoint today.  After we returned home, on the news, we learned that three Tamil ladies had been caught wearing suicide bombs at a checkpoint in a completely different part of the country.  I hope things hold steady and that everybody gets to the task of rebuilding a country which lost more than a quarter of a century of development due to the pervious conflict!

It was so nice pulling into the quiet flora covered driveway of Jay’s home.  We did so at 4:30 pm.

Two Temples

The east coast of this country was nearly lost to the terrorist group, the LTTE.  Money poured into their coffers by Tamil refugees granted immigration to many western countries.  Rather than helping relatives at home, much of the money went into bombs and implements of destruction.  Imagine a functioning army, navy and air force allowed to form and rule in an area nearly a third of the size of one’s country!  Granted the north and east had been left less developed by the Singhalese majority and there were huge political blunders made, but during 25 years of LTTE growth, the development of the north and east came to a complete stand still.  It’s going to take years for those areas to catch up to the rest of the country. 

The LTTE did not stand for a pluralistic society.  In many instances, Moslem Sri Lankans were expelled from their villages.  Normal business relations came to a stop.  The terrorist group controlled major highways in and set up import duties to fund parallel institutions of their own.   Of course in such a situation, tourism came to pretty much a complete halt.

There are two major Buddhist sites that have only recently been safe for pilgrims since the LTTE was defeated this spring.  We took this chance to first visit Somawathie Chaithya from the Polonnaruwa side.  It is deep in a rather isolated part of the island.  It was abandoned for a decade and a half.  Near the Mahaweil River, the is an ancient place of Buddhist worship.  It stems from an era when great reservoirs and monuments were built by great civilizations.  This one in particular is purported to have been built at the request of Queen Somawathie to house a tooth relic brought to Sri Lanka earlier and presented to King Giri Abha. The roads were rough and basic but quite passable.

We continue back out on another route to the road to Harbarana.  Yet, we soon took a very rough route as a shortcut through part of a sanctuary but saw no animals.  We, then, travelled quite a ways on the Tricomallee Road to Kantale.

On the map there’s a road Suruwawila.  It would’ve been even better to have taken a direct route but that is a road that is being constructed at present.  As it stands the road we took really wasn’t one.  From Kantale to our destination was 50 kilometers.  Even by bad road standards, we figure it to take about an hour.  It hour took over two.  That means we bounced up and down for an average of less than 25 kph.  It was very tiring.  Knowing that there was another two hours retracting the route was equally depressing.  The return journey didn’t seem that bad at all really.  I guess we’d gotten used to it.  Of course it was getting late by this time.  So, animals were out moving around.  The first occurrence of a peacock out in the wild was exciting early in the day.  After at least a hundred, it was pleasurable if a bit less striking.  Jay has good eyes when travelling.  He noted the elephants on both of the sightings.

Getting from Kantale into Trincomalee was only about 40 KM but it seemed like the better part of forever.  About 4 KM from the city, we stopped at the Oshin Hotel.  The rooms would have been sufficient if a little expensive for the quality, but the manager was rude and seemed uninterested in having us as guests.  We loaded the bags back into the van and continued.

I knew our driver was very tired and he had difficulties seeing in the dark.  Still, we went right into Trincomalee and first made a mistake but checking out the Welcome Hotel.  The name would suggest a rather modest place but it was way up on a hill with five star facilities.  We continued, and asked for advice from military guards.  They mentioned the Villas Hotel.  It took a while to find it, but it ended up being perfect.  The standard rooms ended up being full, but we were willing to pay $35 night for two rooms.  They were quite spectacular with a view of the harbour and were posh, new, and air conditioned.  By the time we got our bags to the room, it was 7:30 pm.  We ate in the hotel too.  We finally got into get at 10:20 pm after two temples and a lot of moving!

Next to a Tank

We’re back in Polannaruwa after five years.  In fact, we’re sitting back at Gajaba Hotel for the night.  I’m offline at the moment or I’d look up a blog entry from the exact day.

There are lots of differences though.  On this trip, we have both of Jay’s sisters and auntie along for the ride.  Unlike the previous time, we also have a driver and van.

We started right at 6:30, well actually 6:35 as the women can never seem to be ready at the exact time.  We retraced our route of last week through Kurenegula.  This time we continued to Dambulla.  This was another place we we’d seen in 2004 but the Golden Temple was built after the others had seen it.  It was worth the stop and age had made it all look less garish.  We didn’t walk up the mountain the the Cave Temple as we couldn’t really spare the time.

We kept on going on back roads to Aukana.  There’s a standing Buddha carved from rock there.  It was quite modern appearing although it had actually been cut from the rock almost 2000 years ago.  There’s not much I’ll touch today that’ll be anything but dust in the amount of time.

We continued here to Polannaruwa.  First, we had a buffet Sri Lankan lunch which is really just serve-yourself rice and curry.  It seems that many restaurants near the highways do this now.

Unbelievably Jay’s sisters had never visited the ruins here.  This was once one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka.  It is part of the so called ‘Cultural Triangle’.  You can search for the name of the town on the Internet should you be interested in learning more.  I had done my homework back five years ago.  I could have liked to have seen it today but didn’t.  We pulled in and the tourist price was now Rs 2875 to enter the archaeological site.  We were only going to spend an hour or so, it didn’t seem worth it for me.  The gals could enter for just the Rs 50 vehicle charge.  I wanted them to go.  Jay and I decided that the $25 saved would nearly buy two hotel rooms and we’d seen all the sites quite extensively last time.  It has been there for more than a thousand years so I don’t expect too much has changed in the last five.  Jay waited with me.  We walked across the highway and actually were still in the ancient ruins.  We walked near Parakranabahu, which is a manmade lake, called a tank, created for purposes of agriculture by an ancient king.  The one we’re near is over 8 miles long!

We came back, drove along a 1940’s re-development of part of the tank’s wall and went to a statue of the king named above.  Just off the tank road is this hotel.  It seems to have slipped a bit since our last stay but our double room is about $12 and the women stayed in a triple for about $6 each.  It seems there’s a big three storey addition half constructed.  So maybe it’ll return to being posher after it’s all done.

We’ll get dinner at a restaurant out by the road.  Then we’ll probably be in bed early so we can again be on the road at 6:30 am tomorrow.

Rain, Reading, and Readiness

Today began darkly.  It was as black as four when it was actually six.  The darkness was escorted by rain.  It was nice to hear on the red, ceramic tiles of the roof.  This is a traditional house of the 1980’s and so teak beams and struts hold the tiles directly.  There is no ceiling in our bedroom and I can look directly up at the underside of the red, six-by-twelve-inch patterns of red.  They’re very far from my head but the sound, even when drops are coming down furiously, is comforting.  It must have been as I stayed at least a half an hour later in bed than has been the norm.

The precipitation wasn’t constant; it’d come in fits and then rest for an undefined period.  It did, however, take up pretty much all of the morning.  The routine of the start of the day was affected for us as well as the creatures around.  No parrots or squirrels awaited the bread crumbs, rice, and peelings at the feeder at their prescribed times this morning.  They did show up belatedly.  Prior to our breakfast of pitu, we drank a concoction of back yard plants sure to cure most maladies.  The antioxidants I’ve had over the course of the past week have surely undone any dietary failings of the last several months.

I continued reading The Jewel Trader of Pegu today.  I was wise enough to load several e-books on my netbook before departing.  My Acer, Adobe Digital Editions, and the BC library system combine to eliminate my need for pages with a spine.  The specific title on my screen fits excellently on a trip such as this.  I nearly always find myself capable of much deeper thought when travelling abroad.  One has to question one’s habits and often even throw away beliefs that act as constraints when visiting other places.

This is why I insist on doing this.  We both live for travel.  I could be richer in belongings but poorer in understanding were I to forgo such copious amounts of vacation time.  The book which I mentioned recounts though letters and missives the travels of a Jewis trader from Venice on a business trip to the far east in the late 1500’s.  I must set aside time to read more historical fiction.  If well written it can help one grasp the true global experiences of another time.  So often our day is taken up with the mundane minute-to-minute concerns.  This causes us to come to understand little of the greater picture of humanity.  Americans, possessing some of the greatest financial assets and technological wherewithal to learn of the world, know little of it.  Stupidity is a forgivable sin; yet to me, ignorance is not.

This brings us to the final R from the title: readiness.  The rain eventually lessened.  The reading could be marked by the passage of dozens of pages.  And finally, readiness is simply a reference to the planning which took place.  I am always happy to come back to Sri Lanka.  Although the island is small there are so many sites to discover.  On every single trip we try to get ready for potential places to visit and things to see.  I can say with confidence that over the last two visits, we’ve covered much more ground than many Sri Lankans ever get a chance to do.  The exact plans come to fruition after our arrival.  Jay likes to bring family to important sites as well.  We generally do that by renting a van and staying at hotels.  On other journeys around, he and I hit public transit and travel with just a single bag each.  These methods have allowed us to go just about as far as there is land in every compass direction.  I think over the next ten days or so, we’ll nearly always be somewhere else or another.  The only firm point is we’re going to be ready at 6:30 am tomorrow to hit the roads heading east.  You can follow the trail in entries during the preceding days.

From an Internet Cafe

Dialog held the key and dropped it.  Now, I am no longer angry that they didn’t have the 3G USB modem available for rental at the airport.  I’m happy just to jot down notes.

Today, we’re going to Minuwangoda town for Sunday Market.  Vendors come from all over selling mostly fruit and vegetables but of course all sorts of things are on sale for the crowds.  Maybe I’ll see if I can send these off via a WiFi connection at an Internet place.  If so, I can simply try this every week.

This is Vacation!

I cannot help but think of what a more natural way of existence this is.  One gets up with the sun and after the birds.  Being so close to the equator the days are always about 12 hours long.  It gets light at 6 am and darkness comes around 6 or 7 pm.

After one gets up, while waiting for tea, it’s nice to step to the outside well to brush and wash rather than using the bathroom.  One needs to wash a shirt or some clothes nearly every day, so why not just wash in a tub as it’s less of a chore than filling the washing machine.  The ground water is warm as is the rain.  I associate showers with cool Vancouver weather, but a rain here is an entirely different situation.  It may be a downpour but it’s seldom cool.  All this water and an abundance of sunshine is what gives the tropics such an explosion of life.

When tea finally is ready, I sit by the back door and watch the feeding station for all types of birds.  Parrots seem the most intelligent of the lot but tend to argue with differing clans.  Somewhat like people, that is.

The morning rushes by quickly just walking around the grounds picking all sorts of leaves that will become a part of lunch.  Or fruits which will be eaten or made into a drink.  I thought things such as cloves simply came in a bottle.  I would be hard pressed to verify exactly what is growing.  The “smell the leaves” test is somewhat helpful though.  Who’d image that a mango leave would smell like cutting into a mango.  This doesn’t exactly work in all cases as the coffee tree leaves hardly have any identifiable fragrance.

If the guys are around, it’s probably time to pull back a few drinks before lunch.  Lunch is leisurely, and the afternoon spent in laughter and gossip.  Oh, and perhaps a nap is in order.

The evening involves skipping around the various channels complaining about various Sri Lankan tele-dramas or reality show-type music contests.  Why does this family spend so much time laughing but folks in the nightly dramas never so much as crack a smile?

Bed can be whenever one is sleepy.  I want to retire NOW (from work … not simply for the night).

The President Has Priority

After spending over 12 hours in bed, I was ready to get up at 6:00 am this morning.  Surprisingly, I really didn’t feel too bad considering how I poisoned my body.

Although we had intended to eat breakfast on the road we had enough time before our 8:00 departure to have something at home.  We started our trip in the rain. I guess there has been quite a dry spell here of late.  It came down in buckets.  We first went to the city of Kurunegala.  Up on a mountain overlooking the city is a very large seated Buddha.  We drove right up to the top even though that probably loses one a bit of merit.  We made a donation to light it for one entire evening in memory of Jay’s mother’s death next month.  That was a little less than $10.

Next, we headed to Ritigama.  It has a cave temple and ancient temple.  Due to Internet research we knew to look for Dutch tiles dating from the beginning of the last century.  The scenes show Dutch life and contain Christian motifs.  One can almost bet that a special place just as the impressive mountain-sized rock would have a religious site.

Last, we returned to Kurunegala on our way to Panduwasnuwara.  For a brief period of time in the 12th century, it was the capital of Sri Lanka.  Unfortunately for us, the President was giving a speech in the area.  As his life is still in danger from foes, he takes impressive security measures.  We could not enter the archaeological site.  When leaving town we were even whisked off the road into an alley way.  The president arrived by helicopter and a motorcade rushed past us.  There were literally thousands of soldiers up and down the road attempting to make sure no assassination attempts were made.

We got home after visiting a final cave temple right in Minuwangoda.  This area is rather flat and finding a rock that big just a few kilometres from the house seemed strange. We pulled into the driveway at about 5:15 pm.  I was so happy to take a shower.

A Long Way Around

When ‘Google Earthing’ Sri Lanka’s western province, I thought it strange that we’d never been around the Negombo Lagoon.  We’d flown over it as it is between the airport and the ocean.  So, we had a driver come to the house at 9:00 am.  We took the family’s 3-wheeler out to Ja Ela and half-way to Colombo.  Then we came back on a coastal road.  I find it hard to believe an area so close to Colombo can be undeveloped.  Ocean-front property could probably be had at a price not astronomical.   In Negombo we stopped for a bit of shopping at No Limit, a clothing store.  The Dialog office there did not have USB modems for rent and so it looks increasingly like I may have to eventually find an Internet cafe with WiFi to get these entries online.

Lal and elder sister were already at the house by the time we got here, close to 2:00.  A bottle plus put in in bed about three hours later.  Silly me.  Obviously, I am writing this the following day.

A Slow Paced Routine

I am so in the groove already.  I don’t know if you know the first of the Palm Pre TV advertisements, but life is just going with the flow like she so eerily tried to explain. I have that feeling increasingly.  It comes from being satisfied with the minutia of life, I guess.


A bit earlier today I had a mug of the fruit which are called wood apples in English here.  I was thinking how totally inadequate words are for some tasks. I not be able to describe the taste of that cup of juice in any way that’d make it familiar to you.  Yet, its taste was extremely distinctive and I’d know it in a minute if blindfolded.  So, being able to describe how incredibly happy I am here would be similar.  I feel so me here.  This is rather strange as I stick out like a sore thumb when in a crowd with my blond hair and genetically Northern European pink skin.  Still, this place makes me feel most at home.

If all the time spend on the island were all added together it’d probably only come to a year or so.  This feeling of being is quite strange considering I don’t speak a local language, am not aware of millennia of its history, and don’t even know how to correctly pronounce many geographical features.

Still as soon as I’m back, I get hit with a serenity that is rare.  Of course this is due to many factors such as being on vacation, a relaxing environment and a welcoming family with which to stay.

Day 2 - “Normal, Already?”

Today seemed a bit more normal after slowly learning to operate in this time zone.  Each time, I have to re-learn how seriously crossing the International Date Line can mess one up.  Flying west over many time zones seems much more difficult than when going the opposite direction.

Anyway getting into a regular routine helped too.  Night jumps to day here about a quarter to six.  It works the opposite in the evening.  There’s little pretence of dusk, it goes from sunny to dark very quickly.

There wasn’t a whole lot we had to do today, other than the necessities of eating, napping, and bathing.  We did go into Minuwangoda.  The local Lal drove our tuk-tuk.  We picked up things at the supermarket.  We also found one of those little big pin to N. American type electrical adapters.  We ended up not needing any for either the DVD player nor the digital picture frame.  In both cases the power strip and wall plug too the small type on those items brought here.

I am so happy with the food.  I guess I’ve always been as I noticed that the photos in the frame of our 2004 and 2006 trips here surely included a lot of food photos.  I was just about to mention the spicy prawn curry we just had with dinner, but Jay just brought in a bowl of fruit ice cream on a bed of freshly cut papaya.  How can one argue with that?

Asia Ain’t So Big

Today started just about as we were starting our decent.  By that time, I had already had at least three glasses of white wine on the Cathay Pacific flight.  I was feeling thankful of how small the world really is, despite the seemingly unending hours getting to that point.  Somehow flying across that section of the Indian ocean I felt invincible.  “All it takes is money, honey.  And then the world’s your oyster,” I kept thinking.  I live in a fairly eco-friendly way most generally.  So, I feel no guilt in my substantial carbon-footprint due to being in the air so much.

The Cathay Pacific flight landed on time at 12:15 am.  We didn’t manage to get to Jay’s home until about 2:15 though.  We breezed through duty-free with a bottle of Scotch and bourbon for Jay’s dad.  Coming through immigration took at least a half hour though.  Why is it that we always seem to choose the slowest line in all situations?  It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re checking out at the grocery store or waiting in queue for a 30-day visa!

The thing that also made us slow was cashing a few traveller’s cheques, arranging for an airport taxi, and most importantly, waiting for the Dialog guy to finish a tea break.  Eventually he returned but of course, contrary to all company emails from last week, did NOT have a rental USB G3 Internet modem.  He was like totally surprised and had not been prepared for my arrival although I had been assured by the customer reps.  I don’t know when I will actually have the opportunity to upload these entries to my blog and Facebook, but I’ll keep writing every single day.

The ride back on the deserted roads was very quick, almost too quick to be safe.  Everybody had stayed up and even though finding the way in the dark, were waiting to help us with the luggage.  We didn’t spend a long time talking but got right to bed.

Four or five hours later, we got up for the day.  The first day is almost totally a write-off.  I wondered if the night in Bangkok would make things easier.  They may have but the half bottle of arak before lunch didn’t help to make anything clearer.

We’re going to bed in a few minutes.  I am having a terrifically hard time keeping my eyes open watching TV.

One Night in Bangkok

Yeah, I’m old enough to have visited this city in the past when that song was playing on the radio here.  Actually, we didn’t get into town at all.  But the beds in the Novotel Bangkok Airport Hotel are excellent.  This is pretty posh accommodation compared our usual standards.  I’m so thankful that it came as a free voucher with our tickets.  I’m even more thankful that they allowed us to stay until our departure time.  We will check out at about 7:00 pm.

We were surprised that we had to go through immigration to get to the hotel, for some reason, we’d assumed it was in the airport building itself.  There was certainly a lot of business for the agents although our flight from Tokyo arrived after 11:00 pm.  After the shuttle dropped us off, we were so dog tired we slept fitfully through until 9:00 am.  We got up, forwent the expensive buffet breakfast downstairs and, instead, discovered the way to walk through the parking garage.  It takes less than 10 minutes.  We had intended on taking a shuttle bus into Bangkok but waited for nearly an hour for the A1 for Salom Road.  It didn’t come and then it started to rain.  The gals manning the outside sales office were fairly preoccupied with everything except work but did manage to give us our money back.  Although we had been on the tarmac we’d never bee in the Swamiboomee airport.  We ate in a little food court on the ground floor of the airport.  It must’ve been the cheapest place in the airport as we saw all the flight staff also grabbing food there.  We went back into the hotel and again somewhat accidently slept until 5:30 pm.  Gads, will I ever be able to catch up with the time on this side of the Pacific?

Our three hour flight departs from here at 10:25 pm.  It’s hard to believe we will be winging our way over the island and into Colombo in such a short time from now.

What Happened to Saturday?

*** Automated Entry ***

I figure I might be able to blog at our hotel at the Bangkok airport but that will be on Sunday. As we've crossed the date line, I don't really think I will have much of any Saturday today. Hopefully, I'm safely over the Pacific at the moment and Japanese Airlines has been keeping us comfortable and well fed.

Getting to Colombo

The Pacific Ocean is big. It's really, really big. I have a National Geographic globe here in this room. I just tried to hold it in such a way as to not see any large landmass. If one positions oneself directly above Kiribati and puts one's nose fairly close to the surface, it is possible to only catch edges of Baha California and New Zealand / Australia. We've all heard that the surface of our planet is mostly water, but imagine that! I think we've all been subtly brainwashed by ubiquitous Mercator projections.


Anyway, we got up this morning a little later than on a workday. It actually feels quite good not having to leave for a trip in total darkness as is usually the case. We have to be at the airport for a 3:15 pm departure. We're taking Japanese Airlines, so we first spend 9 hours and 50 minutes getting to Tokyo. Then we must wait two hours for a connection to Bangkok. That flight is another 6 hours and 35 minutes. We get into Thailand at about quarter to midnight local time and fortunately the airline provides free airport accommodation. Even if we can manage to stay in the hotel til noon, there's still a further wait as our final flight into Colombo doesn't leave until 10:30 at night. The final segment is only 3 hours and 15 minutes putting us on the island at about quarter past midnight. We leave today; we will arrive on Monday.

One of the Seven Deadly Sins

I love food. I love a variety of food. There is not a single food, with the exception of liver, that I won't eat. I'm sure if liver were cooked right, it'd be fine as well. After all, as Jay says, people will eat cardboard if it's fried. It's really unfortunate that I seldom get a chance to eat things make crispy in hot oil anymore. Of the seven deadly sins the one that beckons most is gluttony. It's no wonder then, why it's taken me such a long time to shed 35 lbs and why I'm finding it next to impossible to lose the final 20.

Ah, but it'll soon be vacation. That is a time when calories and carbohydrates don't count. A break is like a free pass, isn't it? I love traditional Sri Lankan food. It's not impossible to buy the necessary ingredients here in Vancouver but one has to go a little out of the way. I love the fact that there are fruits I'd never seen before going there. In fact, coconuts and woodapples grow right in the backyard.


The photo above shows an egg hopper (appa). Hoppers are usually made of rice flour and coconut milk and cooked in a special wok-type pan. They should have crispy sides but a thicker bottom. Hoppers can be eaten for breakfast or lunch. The one above was made by auntie at Jay's house and contains an egg. They are eaten with one's hands and can be used to scoop a bit of spicy red onion paste as seen in the side bowl.

Like .. I Can't Believe It

"OMG, like, I had nothing to do today and I thought, well, like, how should I spend it. It was so dreary and dark and it was raining, raining, raining. I was, like, pretty positive I didn't want to drive anywhere. So, I totally took out a Translink ticket, and got on a SkyTrain. I really just had to, like, go to the mall. And it was, like, so totally awesome."

---

It's true even though I don't often talk, much less write, like that. It was a bit out of character but I really did have the feeling I should get out and do something. Fortunately, my building is attached to the SkyTrain at Columbia Street Station. I didn't have to find an umbrella as I can leave my apartment and go right into the Metrotown Mall without walking outside. I generally laugh at the young, mostly Asian, youth who flock to Metrotown. I mean when the weather is perfect people should be out hiking the North Shore mountains, or walking around the Stanley Park Seawall. Really, to me the very definition of 'needing to get a life' is when the best one can occupy themselves with is mall shopping.

Today though, it was just want I needed. I strolled slowly around but didn't find a thing to buy. I don't know what has happened but I couldn't even find anything that interested me at Future Shop, the electronics retailer. Maybe from now on I won't be so hard on mall rats.

The Cat Nearly Got It

Okay, I'm sure that even the literary greats occasionally had writer's block too.


1:10 minutes of absolutely nothing on YouTube

Labouring Not

I didn't work at all in August, nor do I expect to be in a classroom until nearly November. That still doesn't mean I did not appreciate today. Jay and I figured we'd do a dry run for our departure from YVR on Friday afternoon.

It's not quite a silly as it sounds. We'd not yet taken the brand-new SkyTrain line from downtown Vancouver out to the International Airport. We usually take transit when flying from YVR. We've always taken Bus #100 from New Westminster directly to the airport. Of course now that the new Canada Line is running all bus routes have changed to match up to new stations. We wanted to see how long it'd take to get on at our building, go to downtown on our line and then switch over and take a new train right to the departures terminal. The result was a leisurely one hour and fifteen minutes.


Returning, we got off at the Marine Drive station and waiting for the changed #100 bus. When going west it now lets off passengers at the station and continues to do the Marpole Loop. When at the station for the second time, it begins it's journey west back to 22nd Station. We caught that and got back in under an hour in total.

As we will be flying at 3:15 in the afternoon on Friday, most likely we'll forgo trying to save time and take the purely SkyTrain method as it seemed more relaxing. Doing it that way would also mean hauling three 50 lbs bags one less time.

Broadband and Beli Fruit

My netbook fits in the side pocket of my carry-on bag. I love my little Acer much more than my previous laptop. Its main drawback is a shiny black surface which acts as a fingerprint magnet. I had no idea I have such sweaty finger tips but the cursor pad is always quite yucky. Regardless, the tiny computer will be along on the month in Sri Lanka where, undoubtedly, my fingers will be sweatier.

I had always continued to blog during my trips but just uploaded upon return. The seemingly interrupted entries came in a batch after getting home. It worked and making daily entries has proven to be an excellent way of checking particulars about the 2004 and 2006 trips. This time, however, it might be time to try something different.

Sri Lanka has a number of competing mobile phone companies. Two of the major players have retail stores right at the arrival and departure sections of the International Airport. I got back very quick emails from both Mobitel and Dialog. I am most pleased with Dialog as they will rent a 3G USB key modem for the four weeks we're there. The pricing for service is fairly reasonable.

Imagine having true 3G broadband service from competing companies! That's something that can't even be said for the Metro-Vancouver area at the present moment. I do think GSM networks are soon coming online here to meet the demand for the 2010 Winter Olympics games which take place in five short months. The advanced technologies already in Sri Lanka may mean that I can update my Facebook status from most all of the locations where we'll be spending time.

Critters in My Building

At about 1:30 this afternoon, we had already eaten lunch and were just puttering around the apartment. Our building's fire alarm started ringing. It ended up being a false alarm but we evacuated as residents are supposed to. We waited with lots of residents down in front of the building for the fire trucks to arrive. The firemen checked the control panel, went to the correct location to ensure all was all right, and then unlocked the elevators and allowed everyone to return to their apartments.

While waiting, I talked with a new neighbour. He was cuddling a small, furry creature in his arms. It was cool and the animal was buried against his jacket, but still shaking. I had to ask what it was. He told me and spelled it too. I guess there are quite a few North Americans who keep a Fennec Fox as a pet. I really had never heard of them before but learned a lot in a Wikipedia article. They are undeniably cute. How does one keep a pet which can't be house-trained in an apartment though?


See YouTube Video Copied from Local TV News
There was a real fire in our building once. I blogged about it soon after it happened on November 21, 2005. It was at that time I became aware of how safe living in a concrete building is. The inferno affected only one suite. The hallways on that floor did need new paint and carpet but only the folks in that apartment lost any possessions.

Extra Brain Storage

I used to be very scared. I feared trying to mash-up anything on the web for I doubted the longevity of data not held directly by me. Now, a whole cloud-computing scenario has taken over software development.

At the start of the day, I was again looking at smartphones. Did you see my earlier embedded videos on Facebook? Now, not only Windows Mobile but even the iPhone 3Gs look a little tired in how they implement data. Both are still very application-centric while brand new smartphones running Palm's new webOS or Google's Android take a different approach. The data is more the focus and the means to get at it more a type of unification. This makes a lot of sense on a mobile phone. For example, if the person is made the 'center', then all the ways to contact them can be shown: phone, Facebook, Twitter, and SMS. Automate it all so that a person's changed Facebook photo or GMail address will automatically update the contact information on everybody's phones. How many times have you copied a set of phone numbers from an old phone to a new cell? It just seems so silly. It's much better and more productive to have all that data reside elsewhere.

Just a few seconds ago I signed up at Evernote.com. I'm beginning to see how stuff stored 'out there' is perferable to me having several conflicting asynchronous copies in different devices. Here's a dumbed down introduction to the concept of Evernote.


Evernote to the Rescue - YouTube

Being Framed

Nowadays, telling things can be done with text, still photographs, or video clips. Unfortunately, I find the last in the list a bit too non-intuitive and time-consuming. You may find a few personal YouTube files embedded here hidden amongst some other clips. It's generally not my way of saying something though.

This blog started out six years ago as text and pictures. Few, if any of my entries ever reach a traditional size of say, 500 words. I guess I often keep my chatter to a minimum and add a photograph as an accompanyment. It's not as if I don't have anything to say. I never let being ignorant on a subject keep me from discussing it, sometimes even in great detail!

There are times, however, when pictures alone can suffice. At this very moment, I am downloading thousands of photos using FlickrEdit. My online photos are the backup of some the best I've taken. Strangely, all the originals sit intact on an external drive too. Now, I'm trying to fill up a couple of SD cards with images for two, digital photo frames. We're bringing several to Sri Lanka as gifts. Even 2GB cards hold thousands of images. I've got quite a few directories to include. Even some old scans will make it into the mix.

Surely, all the photos below will be included. They are the two most recent trips to Sri Lanka. The top set includes photos from our trip in 2004 and the other from 2006. These sets have probably shown up on my blog in the past, but perhaps never at the same time. As well as family, there are lots of pictures from all around the island. After you click to start a set, don't forget to enlarge to full screen. When viewing in this mode, you may also wish to click the Show Info option to see a brief description.


A Visit to Sri Lanka, Fall 2004 (320 Pictures)


Sri Lanka / Hong Kong 2006 (475 Pictures)

I'm So Damned Stubborn, Aren't I?

I was having a hard time thinking of a daily topic for today's blog entry. Then, it hit me! I missed even mentioning that yesterday my eJournal and images turned ...


That's an entry every single day for about 2192 days.

Fly Me to the Moon

Although you can't tell by the title, I'm thinking about the opposite side of the decade from the lunar landing. I can't really say why I've been so keen to listen to these songs, many of which pre-date my time on earth; however, I've been recently fascinated with the Vegas's Sin City era and the entertainment prowess of the Rat Pack.


I also added a bit of local boy, Michael Bublé, to update the sound a bit. In this case I've been trying to teach Pandora to keep my station's selections primarly of the male crooner type. Take a listen by clicking the graphic above. If you don't have a free account, take the time to sign up. (If you are not in the US, send me a note and I can give you ways to get access.) Using Pandora had changed my whole concept of music.