Jim and Queenie Sri Lanka visit

Stopped at a  train station, Moratuwa, Queenie climbed up some poles, scaffolding starts shouting, silently, halo. I find my ipod for the second time on the journey, listen to the sound of a tune I have heard heard before and again find music is mesmerising

Hamantha's father in law. Tea country

SOMETIMES it is called the sub continent. Coincidentally, a couple of the papers, the ones I can read, there are four in English, have in the last week run pictures of an LTTE, terrorist submarine captured by the “victorious forces of the motherland”. It looks a bit like something out of the thunderbirds.

In Unawatara the owner of hotel we are staying in introduces us to Ronin, the owner of the dive shop next door. He is non-chalant, confident type and we are invited to come out in the morning with some German divers to a wreck nearby. We talk about Arthur C Clark who “discovered” Unawatara!. I had read a book by him a few weeks earlier about treasure hunting a little further south somewhere near a lighthouse.

I digress. Everyday is warm and hot and mornings are a relief to the intensity of the midday sun. I walk into the dive shop at the designated time, 9.30. We have been up since six. Ronin has a white board explaining the dive, The wreck is from 1840, but later it turns out to be a steamship so ultimately wonder if fish have a concept of steam or the industrial revolution for that matter.

For one of the diver’s It is the 12th year he has been here. The German and his dive partner are getting ready to go down. I ask the German’s dive mate what part of Germany he is from, he replies that he is Dutch.

They jump off to swim down to the wreck, a ship in the distance looks like it is sinking, when I put my glasses on it rights it self. Queenie and I swim in the warm Indian Ocean, the water here is about 30m deep, below us the divers are lurking about in a seaman’s graveyard, we are swimming about two kilometres out from the Galle Fort.

When we get back we pack up and head into Galle for the train ride back to Colombo. A quick look around the Galle fort. This is the first time we have visited an obviously tourist destination. We skirt around the outside and linger in the shade, and come across a crowd of Sri Lankans transfixed by an older man delivering what sounds from our distance like a religious sermon. We get closer and he has about twenty or so small suitcases of varied sizes, slowly and methodically he pulls out snakes from them and almost caresses them, some people are giving him money. Over the road, I catch out of the corner of my eye, outside the rundown public toilet, a well-dressed man hands over some money to a middle-aged woman.

Queenie just wants to get on the train; the tourist thing is not her bag. We pass the Fort cricket ground, the main stadium has been renamed after current president Mahinda Rajapakse, outside a young woman and her family sit beside a few bits of cardboard, I think it is their house. I give them some rupees.

On the train ride Queenie makes friends with some local kids, they play this endless exchange of lollies and bits of fruit rite of friendship.

Back in Colombo we walk from Mt Lavinia railway station along beach to my mum’s hotel, have a beer. The local brew is Lion.

Next day is Saturday, which is over ten days ago. So much for writing this diary blog thing!

We (me, Queenie, my brother David and his wife Sirya) to Sirya’s village in a place call Kulapitya, which is roughly 8kms south east of Colombo. Our mode of transport is van with a driver. I wont go into the crazy hectiicness of drivers here, but it is crazy and it is hectic, constant beeping, constant swerving, constant near misses, and constant mayhem. It is quite exciting, but it is also great having someone else driving.

We get to Sirya’s village and their house with its 6acre coconut/ beetel/ ginger/ pineapple/ etc plantation is actually quite flash – I was expecting something a bit more down market. The roads a small and windy dirt things, running through paddy fields and coconut palms, with the occasional tropically rustic house.

Sunday is David’s birthday. It seems lie the whole village is here. People sit round in their different family groups. Attempts are made at breaking language barrier. The kids have a treasure hunt and a lolly scramble. Later David opens all his presents. Just about everyone has bought him glasses. The party is deemed a success.

We are invited up to a village in the tea country. Hamantha, a local, is going to pick up his wife and their baby from her parents place in a remote area high in tea country near a place called Haddon.

We get up at about 4am and eventually are winding our way through narrow country streets to our, in my case- unknown, destination. We are travelling in a truck which has couches tied down on the trailer which are the seats. Quite comfy. It is nice travelling at this time of day, not to hot. Kids are walking along the country roads to get t o the school bus, the girls in their white pinnies, boys in blue short and starched white shirts. The standard uniform sums up in many ways how the country is – dirty stinky city-scapes aside – but there is something very old worldy, even new houses look like they have been built fifty years ago, yet there is a constant attempt to keep, what in many cases is rundown, things clean and tidy. The sound of sweeping is a constant; every morning things are being swept from the front yard. We pass a woman sweeping leaves as an elephants ambles up towards her, might need a stronger broom for that mess.

We stop for breakfast about 8 and I have a fish curry thing. When we stop again about ten in a town called Ginigathera, which is near our destination, I really need to go to the toilet to expel the remnants of the curry. Eventually find a side street toilet, it does not matter how dirty a toilet is, when you gota go, you gota go.

Back up the street I start following some monkeys running along the electricity wires. My David Attenborough moment is halted by the sound of a crash and then screams. It had to happen, a three-wheeler has tipped over right next to our truck and a woman’s leg is trapped, probably broken underneath it. The three-wheeler is righted and people gather round, the woman is still screaming, a police officer wanders up and looks disinterested and wanders off. The woman is piled into another three-wheeler and it motors off, and everything returns to normal within minutes. I zoom my camera into the blood on the road.

We reach Hamantha’s in-laws. They are, excuse the cliché, simple country folk. The house is down about 200 steps made from rocks on a steep incline, the valley drops even further below the house and the steep hills are covered with tea bushes.

The hospitality is overwhelming, we have toddy and wild boar, and then when I am just feeling a bit full, it is time for lunch.

Hamantha is ecstatic to be back with his wife and child. The system here is that when the first child is born the mother goes and stays with her mother for the first three months, part of the motherhood learning curve.

When we leave at about 3pm, there are many tears. Hamantha’s wife’s sister’s daughter knows her big sister is leaving and starts crying, knowing that her Aunty is going away, for good. As we get into the van, everyone is crying.

We head off, descending this time. Near Haddon a game of cricket is in progress on a rough dry surface, a number of villagers are watching. It is true what they say about Sri Lankans, they re cricket mad. Everywhere you turn, beaches, construction sites, empty lots, if there is a spare moment a makeshift cricket pitch is made and it is game on.

It is a long day and a long journey, but we are back in Kulapitya about 8pm. Tomorrow there is rice to be cut.

It is a Tuesday and I orgainise talking to a few local people about David and Sirya returning to the village. It works as a suitable excuse not to get to involved in the rice cutting, better to leave it to the professionals. I do start to cut some rice, but it is all a bit token and they laugh at me, I hide behind the camera and film the women chatting incessantly whilst cutting the rice stalks at a powerful rate of scything.

It is hot day in the field.

The next day we head to Kandy. We are doing a long round trip back to Colombo. Kandy is one of the many former capitals of Lanka. It is also the home of the temple of the tooth relic. The temple houses the tooth of the Buddha, which came to Sri Lanka in about 600Ad, not sure about the dates. But the ownership of the tooth was prerequisite to any power in the land, so it was fought over and was and is still an important taonga. The temple was bombed some years back by the LTTE, so the security is fairly full on. Like most tourist things here, tourist pay quite a bit more than locals. It is a beautiful lavish temple, golds and reds, incense and elephants. People are praying, and it does seem, and is, sacrilegious scampering around it in tourist mode.

The other main tourist attraction of Kandy is the Perydenia Gardens. Every tree you can think of layed out in a beautiful sprawling 140 acres.

We get back to Colombo quite late, our driver got a bit lost when We made it back to Mt Lavinia eventually.

The next morning my mother and brother Roger headed back to NZ via Singapore. Spend the next two days day swimming and make a few phone calls, buy some sarongs, go to an optician, catch up on a little work from back in NZ. Nothing too extreme.

I had organised on Friday to meet Susilough de Silva, secretary of the Colts cricket team at the Colts cricket ground here in Colombo. Susilough is involved with an exchange scheme sending young cricketers to NZ to study. His team, the Colts are about to win the Colombo premier cricket league. Nowhere more than the realm of cricket have the trappings of the old colonial days been kept in such authenticity and reverence. Susilough is lounging watching the cricket in a beautiful wicker chair in a large, cabanahish ground level member’s stand. It is not plush, but very old school. Photos of former club presidents and great players line the walls. Out on the pitch great players of the present and possibly the future are looking intense under the late morning sun. Chaminda Vaas is playing and Susilough asks if I would like to interview him. Of course. Vaas, who is not playing in the one days side (there is an India/ Sri Lanka one dayer about to commence at Premadasa Stadium), but he will undoubtedly be b back in the side as he is one of the ‘rocks’, read for crickets aficionados – Mcgrath like player, of the Lankan cricket team.

When the side take a lunch break he comes down and had a chat. He is unassuming and charming. I feel honoured. More later.

Watch some more cricket, and eventually walk back to Galle Road. Pass quite a few army stop points. I carry my camera around all the time, like very good tourist. I linger a bit long near a check point, a bus load of people this time, and an officer comes up to me, I delete any ‘incriminating’ photos in his presence. He asks me in stilted Singa/ English- “Are you angry with me?” He is carrying a gun, but not threatening. “No, you are just doing your job,” I reply. He nods and wanders back to the check point.

The next day I contact Merrill Fernando of Dilmah tea to organise an interview

town cow

Back in time

Currently in Uruwatuna, just south of Galle – check map. Well actually I am not, been have not been near internet connection, but am now back in Colombo, so the following is till about a week out of date, but am going to update tonight, and will also try and ring Active during Midge and Janina’s show about five your time in Friday 30th!!!

We headed out of Colombo yesterday(21st), walked to Mt Lavinia railway station and got on the slow train out. Everyone, like all the ‘friendly’ guys on the street wanting you to ride in their three wheeler, are saying “no you must take the bus, train too slow, stop all stations, take forever…” Not much point telling them `We are in no hurry’. We are travellers and the joy is the passage not just the destination.

On Tuesday I went into Colombo town to talk to the vice president, “soon to be president” of the Sri Lankan Rugby Union. Rugby is big here. We meet in a flash hotel. On the way we get accosted by a ‘friendly’ man walking through Queen Victoria Park. “I have been the gardener here for 29 years, next year I retire,” he smiles, believingly. He drags us (my brother and I) to an old mangled, beautiful, huge tree. “150 years old, come come, come and look at this other tree.” I can see where this is going. I say I have an appointment and need to go. My brother Roger is a gardener and he is intrigued and stays for the tour while I go and meet my rugby contact. I naturally enough walk the long way round to where I am going; it is always the long way when you have never been before. Hot, but bearable. It a busy South Asian city, with soldiers lurking here and there.

My rugby contact is late, but polite. We are ushered to an air conditioned room and eventually have a chinwag about how popular rugger is in Lanka. Another guy turns up, he is the head of the union in western province, then more men drift into the room. All of the union heads are here. It turns out they are having their AGM, a meeting anyway. I take a photo of them all by the pool and scarper out of there.

Like all things in Sri Lanka, there are politics involved here –  in the next morning’s paper the main story on the sports page is on the tangled politics of the Sri Lankan Rugby Union, but for the moment I will ignore it.

Am running late to meet up with my brother so grab a three wheeler, even though it is probably only a five minute walk to the museum. We bargain the price and don’t really come up with one. The driver comes up with the first of a million `No problem” answers to a question that was never there.

Roger had a great time with the gardener, he had hard seeds and soft flowers and many stories, but the museum was disappointing he said. We decided to ride on with the three wheeler driver, “To the Fort,” I demanded.

The Fort is a part of Colombo that also includes the inner city army base so is, um, in parts heavily fortified. In earlier times it was sanctioned to Sri Lankans by foreigners, such as the Dutch and English as it is now sanctioned to most, for um, political reasons. We venture on to check out the presidents palace, formerly the Queen’s residence, We make it through the road block despite the three wheeler driver having  to get out and have what seems like a convoluted conversation with the young army officers at the check-point.

Sightseeing is such a chore, I am almost glad they are making it hard. I start taking pics of the palace, an officer ambles over, and we are told pictures are not allowed. I know why, security, but it seems a bit absurd. 

It reminds me of a recent incident in Wellington, my son Max was taking some pictures of a shop windows, he was taking a picture outside a chemist, the owner rushed out… “what are you doing, how dare you take pictures of my shop window, all the p dealers in the world will get those and break into my shop, I am going to call the police right now.”

The three wheeler driver needed some petrol so we stopped and got some, I bought him  a drink, it was soda, he did not like soda so I went and swapped it for a coke, it cost twice as much.

Still can’t get to grips with whether I am in the past present or future. The semi rundown grandeur of the city does not help much. But like Diana Ross says, “If there is cure for this, I don’t want it.”

My brother Roger comments that maybe he gave the gardener too much money. He gave him 1000 rupee. Everyone is so concerned about what the value of their money is, I think, and Roger knows, 1000 rupee, $15 was an ample but warranted tip to a charlatan but charming gardener.

Back to Mt Lavinia. It is my mum’s birthday, we eat in a restaurant on the beach near her hotel. Fairly uneventful evening, Queenie falls asleep before dinner is served. She leaves some money, about 30 rupee(40cents), there – the next day my brother David returns and they have kept it “for the little girl who fell asleep.”

Mt Lavinia beach is a suburb south of Colombo. It runs along a main road, Galle, running from Colombo central, the beach has a bit of rubbish on it, but is good for swimming. There are cabanas all along it up for a kilometre or so, in the weekend the beach pumps, football, cricket on the beach, lovers under parasols. We are getting up early, and the 7am swim in the warm Indian Ocean is now a ritual On weekday mornings people, layers and the like I assume, are power walking along the beach – arms rising high into the air, a sense of purpose blazened across there faces, walk pants and tucked in shirts – it looks s silly here as it does any where else I the world.

The train from Mt Lavinia down to Galle shuttled out of the brown station close to midday.  People shifted over in their seat to make room for Queenie and I. The train has big wide open doors which never close, people are hopping on and off, with the train stopping every five or ten minutes. People smile politely at us, we smile politely back.  A little boy offers Queenie some gum, she offers him some back. The communication line is a stilted affable process of give and take and smiles.

Much of the train ride for the 100 of kilometers follows the sea. Coconut palms, fishing boats flowing into small but busy towns. A group of giggling teenage girls in their starched white tunics and pigtails hop into our compartment. On the platform three boys are standing glancing secretly- overtly towards the girls. One boy, handsome, playful, Queenie thinks he looks a bit ‘girly’, has flickering contact with one girl in particular. As the train pulls out of Indawa station, the boys wait until the last possible moment and daredevilishly jump on. Handsome boy leans out on from the side of the train as far as he can; quickly jutting his head in when the train gets too close to any poles or signs. He flashes assured looks at his girlfriend, she giggles. It is a high speed mating dance.

We had originally planned to head to the former hippy hangout Headway. Hikaduwa is about thirty ks north of Galle, it where the coal reef begins and there is a good surf break. We hop of the train on to the tracks and walk over the rampart to the station. Some Europeans are sitting waiting for the train north, they are going up to the turtle sanctuary a few stops up at Indurawa, where the school kids had got on. A quick conversation ensues, we work at that Unawatara is very chilled, great place. Queenie makes the call, we decide to ride on to Galle. The train is still sitting there on the other side of the tracks, we go to walk over the tracks but another train is coming from the south, we quickly rush back over the rampart to get back on the train. It is a rush, we of course are no in rush, but in these split seconds here is a need to get back on the train. Of course we clamber back on, sweating, and it sits for another minute

A school teacher strikes up a stilted conversation. Like all conversations it closes with an exchange of addresses. I am writing in my notebook, his number, knowing that we will never be in contact. It is all part of the ritual.

We pull into Galle in the middle of the afternoon and head straight to Unawatara, I keep saying I am going to get a bus, but we end up getting a three wheeler. It is about twenty minutes to Unawatara.

One of the English tourists’ at Hikaduwa station gave us a card for a guest house, we find it and we (I) decide to have a bit of a look at some other places. I think I am heading towards the beach but immediately start walking in the wrong direction. This of course is serendipity. There are some water buffalo lulling around under some palms near us.

We bump into a stoned Australian and ask which way to the beach, he leads us and points us in the right direction. As we are walking he stops and wanders off the track to the side of the small stream us a walking beside. We keep walking but he beckons us back, he has spotted a minotaur(sp), it looks like a small crocodile anyway. We stand transfixed and watch it slink through the water. “Just saw a couple of monkeys fighting before I met you,” he slowly says, his eyes glazed and comfortably looking into a far way place.

We reach the beach walk along, asking at a few places about there rooms. It is the buyers market here, tourism is down. The economic downturn and the war is double whammy for tourism everywhere in Sri Lanka, this in turn comes only five or so years after the Tsunami which destroyed at least 90 per cent of this particular village.

The place we find is on the beach and is 1500 rupees (NZ$20) for the two of us, including breakfast.

There is hardly anyone here, perfect. This is the place that looks like idyllic coral beaches, palms, white sand lulling sea.

The next morning I am lying on a chair, Queenie is in the water. I pull out my Ipod and plug it in. Music has never sounded better, it is like a drug. Toots and the Maytalls version of Time Tough with  Ryan Adams segues strangely but perfectly into the Walkmen’s ‘The Rat’, into Air’s ‘Surfing on a Rocket’. This beach is living up to its name Unawatara -‘place that fell from thre sky’.

Queenie shouts out ecstatic in the blue warm water, “Pa, Pa, I saw a fish”. I feel like crying, I think of Wai and do.

Pa I saw a fish- Unawatara

 

 

 

TBC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Currently in Urawatuna, just south of Galle – check map.

I have too much too write nuy we are heading out to check out a few ship wrecks and coral reefs, so will write when we get back to Colombo tonight… hopefully.

In the meantime here are some pics….

on the way here - boy on the train

where we we are-urawatuna

queenie and flower

little crocadile thing we saw minutes after we got here......

my hand on the urawatana temple

Monday 19 January

Have been in Sri Lanka one day. Rewind to Kuala Lumpur. KL airport very flash. When we got off plane usual travel novice malarkey ensued… “It’s this way” “No its that way,” “Um, we haven’t even been through customs yet”… any way after much tooing and throing, and walking the wrong way, we worked out we needed to get a mini train from one part of airport to main part where all the business – immigration, etc is done. That out of the way, we sat to wait for transit van to hotel.

A Vietnamese woman was also waiting; she had been living in Auckland. We talked as people waiting for a ride do, a travellers variation on the weather – where are you from, etc. The conversation faded off. Shortly, later, a police woman, with bhurka scarf thing, and gun… god acts in mysterious ways – came up to her, checked her passport, seemed nonchalant then wandered off. I asked the woman what that was all about. She did not know. Neither did I. Another police officer wanders, strolls, by, machinegun in hand. In the cab the driver tells me badminton is one of their national sports.

Hotel, early start, write first blog, next morning.

Out hotel is in Serankam (spelling?), not in KL city, we get a one-hour bus ride into town. When I ask the woman at the desk in the hotel where the bus station is, she tells us we must get a cab, it is too far. We walk to the bus station; it is about ten minutes away…

The ride into the city, palm trees, millions of palm trees, where are all the houses, last night’s cab driver said five million people lived here… I think he was exaggerating, there are a lot palm trees. I read in the local paper that the head of the main palm oil company has a lot of political clout.

The palm trees segue apartment buildings with air condition boxes splattered on the sides of them with glue gun proficiency.

It is a very clean city. People are cleaning, everywhere. We pass the old airport; I think it is the air force base. People in rice paddy hats are cleaning the side of the runway; others look like they are cleaning the barbwire on the fence.Even more are cleaning, are those people cleaning those palms, or are they reading them.

In the Kuala Lumpur tourist market we luckily avoid having our palms read because the reader lady is having a lunch break, we get our feet massaged by skin eating little fish instead. And into less touristy Chinatown market. I buy a five-dollar fake Rolex; it is not working as I write this. Oh no, wait it is again.

On the plane to Sri Lanka later that day, a heavily scarfed woman folds up her airplane issue blanket in the same way she would fold her best linen, I muse on the dream like quality of travel.

It is after midnight when we arrive at Colombo airport. It is a lot dirtier, but somehow more satisfying than the international sheen of KL airport. Did I mention we stopped in the Maldives on the way, well we did, but we did not get off the plane, so that is why I did not mention it.

We are picked up by my bother David and his wife Sria. They have hired a van and a driver; David says they had been stopped at three road blocks on the way. Soldiers wander around the airport, a young soldier smiles at Queenie who is pushing the luggage trolley and asks in Singalse if she has a license. I smile back and ask, stupidly, white goofy, but I don’t think he speaks English, if he has a license for his gun. There are loads of soldiers with guns. We are stopped only twice on the way to Mount Lavinia. My brother says often they will just ask the driver something, and all they are doing is checking to see how they speak, ie if they are Tamil or not.

A week or so before we arrived Lasantha Wickrematunge the editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper here was shot down and killed by four armed motorcyclists. He was an outspoken opponent of the Sri Lankan government’s war on the Tamils, and a champion for equal rights and freedom for all. He knew he was going to be killed at some stage and had pre written his post mortem editorial.

The government are calling Wickrematunge’s death a foul and despicable act and a full(police) inquiry is under way.

A few weeks earlier an independent and outspoken TV stations was ransacked in what was described as ‘military precision”.

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse, who incidentally has more than a passing resemblance to Billy T James, had apparently been a friends of Wickrematunge’s for over twenty years. There are giant posters of him everywhere. I keep thinking Billy T is back and performing tonight.

Wickrematunge in his final editorial, his “letter from the grave”, points the finger at his old mate and says “”I have reason to believe the attacks [earlier attempts on his life] were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me”.

Sri Lanka is hot, very hot.

We are in Mt Lavinia, a southern beach suburb of Colombo. Spent our first day here at pool in the hotel my mother, Mary, is staying in. It is by the sea and just along the beach from David and Sria’s house in Mount Lavinia. You cross over the railway line to get to the hotel, we pay 500 rupee to swim in the pool. There is wedding going on in the dining room, the children look spectacular in their golden beige, red, orang, etc sari outfits.

Some local young men invade the pool and play a shallow version of water polo- none of them can swim, Queenie gets the ball for them when it gets too deep. A couple of German guys – fatty and skinny, late fifties – join in and look like they are having fun, but are inevitably a constant comedic absurdity.

The hotel is semi rundown, I have visions of 1958 Havana, without the facade of cool.

It seems lost in a time zone. This whole place is lost in a time zone, I am lost in a time zone. It’s fantastic.

Kuala Lumpur, 6.30am, Saturday 17 Jan, 2008

Left Auckland yesterday, eleven hour flight whistled by, arrived here about 8pm KL time. flight consumed by  inane films, and endless tiny packets of peanuts. At times the flight temperature reached what seemed coolstore temperatures. Straits Times, stories I can remember:ferry disaster in Indonesia, hundresds dead about a week ago, can’t remember  rreading about it in NZ papers, typical; a  woman drags a a body stuck under her car for 3kms without realising it; Bangladesh’s envoy to Malaysia has beene ordered to reurn home to face trial for 1975 assisnation of one of Bangladesh’s founding father’s; an eledrly man has been acquitted of murder after killing his best friend because he thought he was a ghost… he was 97, pretty close; and the New Zealand story- prime minister angry after car company charging tourists for not returning their car after they were crushed under  ice.

it is a ymmmy balmy hot outside, the hotel room has a wallowing cigarette smell, there is still some hair from the previous occupant in the shower.

Queenie won’t let me finish, she wants breakfast… tbc

Queenie and Jim gettng ready for Sri Lanka

Queenie and I are off to Sri Lanka in one week. We fly out of Auckland on Friday 16 january, spend a night in Kuala Lumpur and land in Colombo at 12.15am on 18 january. We are in Sri Lanka until 12 Feb.

In that time I will  start a documentary on my brother David and his wife Sria and their coconut plantation… well I think it is coconut plantation… we will see.

I aim to interview Saneth Jayasuriya… the great Sri lankan cricketer as well as Nerrill Fernando (Mr Dilmah tea) and a few other bits and pieces.

On this site I will try to succinctly document our adventures..