All starts with a temple
Decoration of a Doorway
The only painting remained after hundreds of years
Rest become ruins
Nevertheless, carve are still lively
Nobody is able to read Sanskrit now
Pillars still stand tall
Wild lives are abundant
Including the mighty giants
Sky lies wider than it is in Singapore
As anywhere, God, in this case Buddha, does not help any poor unless they help themselves
Another form of deity manifesto.
Sun went to rest
Kids always smile
Here a travelogue about Sri Lankait goes. A bit too long. Read it if you like to.
1
My relentless soul began to unrest, and it absolutely refused to get stuck in SG any longer. I faithfully followed my soul, and planned to unfold whatever journey my passport and bank account were entitled to. Consequently, 5 am in the morning, I walked out of my den, happened to catch a limousine, and reached Changi Airport.
After getting Freakonomics paperback in Times bookshop in terminal one to read along the way, I embarked without a single look back at the too-familiar Singapore, and in the next 10 days, I would have not seen a single Chinese, unless I use a mirror. (I did see a Chinese like face in the whole journey, but that face turns to belong to a Korean).
Sri Lankan Airline is absolutely modern, and I found time management was hard for me to split 5 hours among movies, dramas, comedies, games, lonely planet (I had not done any homework yet), and sleep (I was deadly sleepy, because to go to bed at 5am happens more frequently than to wake up at 5am to me).
The customs released me in 5 seconds to import me to massive numbers of taxi drivers, touts, and people with whatever interest in me. On the other hand, I was figuring hard to implement the itinerary I conceived 2 hours ago.
2
Immense Heat immersed me once I left the lounge of airport, and my first part of itinerary, going from airport to Kandy via a local intersection failed. Everyone said I had to catch a bus to Columbo to get another bus to Kandy. I had to believe it after consulting almost a dozen of locals (taxi drivers, bus drivers, police, soldiers, and ticketing).
It was a horrible mistake. The 34 km ride from Airport to Colombo by Air Conditioned bus took me 2.5 hours. I took almost another hour to find out where to take the Air-conditioned inter-city express to Kandy, and that bus took me 5 hours, though LP says 3 hours. By the time I reached Kandy, the day started getting dark. But I met a wonderful muslim young man on the bus, and an experienced German traveller in Kandy, who shared with me about the guesthouse he lived in, and I happily accepted, and settled down.
Kandy is a lovely down to be waked up with. I started at 6am next morning to find an amazing variety of wild lives enjoying the morning around/in/over the lake of Kandy.
People were warm, and many greeted me or approached me. I had to explain a little bit more since I was the first Chinese they had ever met.
Town started to get really quite after 7pm, and I had no way but to resort to my Freakonomics book. I finished half of it in one night, and got worried about the need to get a new book.
3
I shall continue writing about Sri Lanka, before my tendency to procrastinate overwhelms.
I had circled around the Kandy Lake and the temple for several times in 1 day and 2 nights, and my soul urged me to hit the road and explore other places, so I woke up at 6am to catch a train to the hill country. LP said the train departed at 0855, and guesthouse owner said it was earlier at 0830, anyway, I managed to get to the train station, bought a ticket, and stand on the platform by 0820, only to find the train had left at 0810.
How could the ticketing sell me a ticket at 0815 to me, when the train had left at 0810? The train master refunded me as that had been happening usually.
I had to change the plan going to hill country, since I supposed a bus going into the hills could be bumpy, so I boarded another bus heading north towards the cultural triangle.
I will not talk about transportation issues any more; though it has bothered me all the time there, it should not bother my travelogue and the readers of it.
I reached Sigiriya, amazed at how much can be done when a king has a great fear. The attraction is a ruin of a palace built entirely on a single big rock. I climbed up and down twice. I left for the nearby village to take a bus back. It was 4pm, and I only had some yogurt in the morning. I was trying extremely hard not to have dirty food, but I had to have some food at this time. I visited several restaurants, had a look at the kitchens, and decided to eat in a Muslim restaurant. It was the cleanest I can found there, having a net covering its dishes from flies. The flies in the kitchens are just rampant, even in this cleanest restaurant. To give you an idea how bad the situation was: the owner said whether I wanted rice and curry, I said I needed to have a look. He pointed to a pot ware, in which I saw some black stuff. I did not know what that was. He found my confusion, and waved at the pot. Suddenly the black stuff turned white. It was a pot of rice with a layer of flies on top of it - the flies were as dense as rice was. And they perfectly covered the beige. Whatever, this was the cleanest place to eat, but I have to give up rice and curry to have a plate of omelets.
Somehow, food in Sri Lanka, served several hours after cooked, handled by unwashed hands, packed by read newspapers, and shared by flies, seldom causes diarrhea.
Having something in my stomach, and keeping my finger crossed, I took another 3 buses to get to Polonnaruwa, to begin my guesthouse searching and mosquito combating.
Traveling in Sri Lanka showed the fundamental properties of Life – struggle and compromise more apparently. Life is still a struggle in Singapore, but in an elusive subtlety that at least one needs some thoughts and reflections to apprehend from routines of Singapore lives. In Sri Lanka, if one does not evaluate places to stay well, he could end up with a sleepless night feeding mosquitoes with his own flesh. I like the constant problems, proneness towards disorder, and my desires, struggles, negotiations, and compromises in such a manifestative manner. It was a display of extropy against entropy.
4
A recycled Japanese bus took me back to Dambulla, I quickly reoriented myself, and catched a bus to Polonnaruwa. The bus took many rests, and day got dark once the bus reached its destination. I spent some time to figure out I was actually deposited at a place called Kotawela 7 km southeast of Polonnaruwa, but I had problem finding a person that speaks English to tell me which bus can lead me to Polonnaruwa. Somehow, with three nice referrals' aid, I got the right bus.
About 7pm, I was in the town of one of the ancient capitals - Polonnaruwa. I followed LP to try one of its recommended choices for eat and stay. It was a huge disappointment. The room was dark, dirty, and expensive. I did not order the food, but a glance of on the menu found out any main course cost 3 dollar or more. I stuffed some rice and curry somewhere, and headed out of old town for a night stay.
Exhausted, I still could not go asleep. The fight with mosquitoes just started, and they got better part of me more than 3 times in the midnight. I, tried with my best, just could not figure out where is a rip in my mosquito net.
Sun rose, and mosquitoes stopped entangling with me. It is time for my cycling around the ancient city. I tried three bicycles, but none was proper working. I mended it myself -centering the handlebar and seat, readjusting the brakes, and reinforcing the basket. I did not enjoy mechanics so much as to do it myself, but Sri Lankan just did not think the problems I pointed out were problems. When some parts deviate or do not work as well as before, people rather adapt to it than fix it. Sri Lankan are definitely not engineers. They adapt whatever condition nature/god gives.
Bycicle was uncomfortable, but the morning ride, in a road with trees and ruins juxtaposing each other midst green grasses, was just wonderful. Wild lives are abundant. A zoologist, who was observing monkeys in the field, was very knowledgeable about the general level of English spoken by Chinese and Oversee Chinese and was very curious why I could speak English fluently. I was not able to answer, but I shared some laughs with him. There were few other travelers. I only saw 6 visitors the whole morning, and I made a friend with one of them, a German chemist, who later asked me whether I wanted to join him together to go Safari. I agreed, and we set off at noon en route a village to Kandulla National Park.
5
It was a nice ride as the 4WD drove along a rugged road along a river to the national park. I enjoyed the wild spirit and various birds in the late afternoon. There were manifold reasons I was happy, and everything cheered me. What a day!
There were about 50 elephants at the time in the park, and they went to the lake to drink every evening. That was where we were about to encounter the monsters. It was a peaceful lake with ripples reflecting either clouds or the light blue sky. Surrounds were grasslands and herds of tame buffalos. I had rarely seen flat grassland, and never grassland with cranes, buffalos and various birds aplenty, and my mind instantly related it to the great lakes/rivers in Africa that I watched in programs of National Geographic / Discovery. However, it lacked the complementary ferocious predators to manifest the ruthless survivals of Savanna.
Our knowledgeable guide quickly identified the location of elephants. We drove towards it and stopped with a distance of about 5m. If an elephant comes closer to us, we have to recede, but wild elephants here had been used to the presence of humans in 4WD, so they did nothing but the sole thing they would do all day long - eating. The great mammals migrates to this grassland in dry season every year, and when the rain season comes, the lake swallows the grassland, and elephants move to higher altitude inland.
Looking at the elephants and other creatures, in a background of picturesque lakes, sky, clouds, and grasses, as time went by, was alluring, but we got to leave before sunset.
I also found two birds (dunno the name) that looked like species of birds from Papua New Guinea. They were migrating, and were rare in Sri Lanka, too.
Returned to the village and sorted out a guesthouse to stay, I had to say goodbye to my fellow German Traveler Oliver, a nice companion with abundant experience of traveling, who schemed a travel route that was almost completely reverse of mine. He had never been to China, and I had never been to Deutschland. No doubt we want to visit each other's homeland, and time will tell when that is going to happen.
Tomorrow morning, it is the last point of Cultural Triangle- Anuradapura.
6
A gorgeous view by a bank of the lake totally intoxicated and relaxed my morning action, and made me set off for Anuradhapura until in the late morning.
I took a bus to reach a bus station to aboard another bus. I was still in a very good mood while waiting the bus and I accepted an approach from a seemingly nice guy. Knowing he was going to Anuradapura, I offered him to sit besides me, but in the next 5 hours, he became my nightmare. He would lean towards me (possibly a mean to show affinity), tried to circle his arm around me as we sat side by side (possibly another move to show friendship, and drank my bottle of water without asking (possibly to show the closeness/brotherhood). I made apparent objection, but he persisted trying to make friends with me, asking for phone number, asking me to call him, asking me to snail mail him and etc. You could reject him ten times straight, but that would not stop him from trying again. Unfortunately, I got no way to get rid of him in a crowded bus. It was just another guy who fancy too much about making a foreign friend.
Once settled down in Anuradhapura, I started to look for a Tuk-tuk driver for a tour next morning. It was hard to find a nice one, and I returned guesthouse with a bottle of Arrack. I finished half a bottle of it with 2 bottles of Sprit, and completed Freakonomics.
I woke up at 6am, and went out for tuk-tuk searching again, and the first driver happened to be a very nice one. I happily started my tour. Pagodas, monasteries and ruins, full of historical sense, standing years after years motionlessly, saw me coming and leaving, just as anyone else, pilgrimers or tourists. The Bodhi tree at the Sri Maha, as the oldest living tree in the world with a reported planting date, was still flourishing, despite that its genetic parent had been dead and abandoned after nobody subscribed Buddhism in India.
The Chinese built museum was not as good as described in LP, Fa-Hsien the Chinese pilgrim who visited the city seemed more impressed by the city and its drain planning than Buddhism.
I liked my Tuk Tuk driver, and accepted his suggestion to visit Mihintale by his transport. Mihintale was impressive by all means, but an annoying guide made a lot of damage. He would say how poor he was, no TV, no electricity, and earning about 60 dollars a month. I really did not need a guide, since most of the guides generally do not know much as LP can tell me. But the guide just follows tourists along wherever they go and talk to them regardless of response. One has to pay him, or he will ruin his/her journey. He would also tell you since he was very poor, and you can give whatever amount of money, but in the end, when I really needed to pay, my (reluctantly hired) guide would say his normal price was 90 dollars (he earned only 60 dollars a month), and gave me a discount of $20. Huge liars.
My belief is over 99% of Sri Lankan are nice, but most of time, tourist are approached by the less than 1% bad people, who hide their mercy deep, and display a professional kill for money. You, I (the tourist) and the guide will possibly never meet again, and the guide will try to maximize his yield in the limited time by all means.
I went back to town, talked to another dozen of new people, and found a nice man in my guesthouse to have some arrack and whiskey together, and headed for sleep to catch a 5am train south the next day.
7
Too little sleep (never have more than 3 hours consecutive sleep due to interruption of mosquito bites), too much greetings and talking, plus an effective dose of Arrack/Whisky weakened my body, and a sore throat developed in my 12 hours journey in the train. I could not handle the massive greetings and approaches any longer. Plus the questions really bored me. The first was always, which country, a Sri Lankan version of where are you from (I would say China), followed by what do you do? (Answer student), and then what do you study (answer system). The 4th question started to vary a bit, but over 90% he would ask how many days do you spend in Sri Lanka, or where are you going next.
I tried to avoid the eye contact and minimize the greeting and did reduce the talks a lot to save my throat. But somewhere in hill country, an old maniac continued to ask me questions relentlessly, and I moved to another carriage, where there was a group of Europeans. Somehow, the Europeans and the Sri Lankan took me as Japanese, I tried to correct twice, but loud sound in the train overwhelmed my voice out of a sore throat, and I gave up.
Ever since, I would never correct any more, if I was taken as a Japanese, which happens almost 100 % of times. They would ask fewer questions, perhaps due to Japanese speak little English, and perhaps due to that they have seen Japanese before (my being the first Chinese they had ever seen intrigued more questions). Interestingly, besides Sri Lankan, Europeans do, noticeably, behave differently, when I told them I am a Chinese or when I go with their assumption of being a Japanese. They would talk more slowly and tentatively to Japanese, and ask the question ‘are you touring the world’ more frequently.
In the later days, I tried to use different identities to make my little experiment testing people’s reaction. I was Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, and Indian – the only one I need to explain a lot. But I know enough geology and history of Arunachal Pradesh in India China border to make up.
Finally, Haputale, a village staged in the middle of a valley between some mounts of 2500 meters welcomed me with chilly winds. It was cold but nice, especially when you have a deep fall of over 1000 meter just out of guesthouse room window.
8
17 hours later, another backpacking will commence, so I have to finish writing this travelogue about Sri Lanka today.
Without any further due...,
Early morning in the chill hill town, bus delivered me somewhere in the mid of hill way, where I marched my way to the top and down. I walked about 13km in total among vast lush green tea plantation. I had seen similar scene in Malaysia, so it was the hiking that really both fatigued and refreshed me. I tried to mediate in the top of the hill after seeing so many Buddha, but failed to grasp any essence of it. Back in the town, a French couple that stayed next door to me in hotel came across me in a tea house before they went to a British monastery. I guess I had not run out of energy, and followed them few kilometers to see a quiet beautiful colonial building.
I was on the way all along for a day, and the next day, I boarded an early morning train to Colombo, and proceeded further to reside in a beach town, Negombo, to get ready to leave Sri Lanka in international airport nearby. I had a nice hotel within 10 m to beach, some wonderful spicy beef in a Muslim restaurant, chatted with some gangs on the street who tried to sell drugs and prostitute to me. I always have a touch and can talk with gangs, perhaps for that I was raised in center of a big city, where gangs were extremely rampant at that time. I found out that one of the gangs that looked cool had several shops and afforded 7 wives, and still wanted to get more, and most of the rest do not have a single one yet. What a disparity, or what an aspect of life disparity has manifested itself into! It reminded me of the yachts owned by barons and eupatrids sailing around Caribbean with a full load of blonds. Without going any further into that topic, I returned to my hotel room, sitting in the balcony, listening to rhythms of waves of sea orchestrated to everyone equally, though some people will have much leisure to listen to them than the rest.
Finally, on the last early morning that I had to wake up for about 10 days, I woke up not to see anything, but to catch a plane back to my tiny island of Singapore.
