sri lanka – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

A templing I will go

Thursday 14 March 2013 – Anuradhapura.

Some days I just wonder if there is something odd about me or if my travelling luck/karma/whatever is just bad. I am happy to acknowledge that at times I can be a bit grumpy and after a few days on the road could even be taken as being rather feral. But why do I always seem to end up in restaurants on my own!! Take tonight for instance, I am clean (ish) – I did shower after a hot afternoon, my hair is not standing up crazily, I am in good humour and I don’t stink of booze. Yet here I am utterly alone in Lonely Planet’s pick of restaurants AND the number one on Tripadvisor. What more can I do ? I guess I didn’t have to go in the door!

But it gives me time to write blog posts, though service was so fast I only go this far. Food was OK.

Back to the start of the day. For my first night ‘back on the road’ I kind of slept OK. My room is not too bad, it is the cheapest I could find on-line at $17NZD per night and is actually better than I anticipated, it even had its own bathroom – with the weirdest shower combination I have ever seen….

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It took me a while to get to sleep, I read for ages; finishing another Inspector Rebus novel – I am addicted to them, so consequently I did not wake until quite late – almost 9:00. I exchanged a series of miss-timed messages with Benne and we did not manage to hook up. I had planned on renting a bike and riding to some of the sites around town, avoiding paying some of the entry fees if I could. I will buy the approx $25USD pass that is required for the whole area, but am not happy to then pay fees at individual places as well – though not all charge them of course.

I got a bike from one of the neighbouring guest houses, the normal humiliating slightly small step through style is the rental norm and that I look ridiculous on, but a bike means freedom, and for me this meant getting utterly lost – about five times, well maybe not lost, just not always going the right way….

Before I set off on my adventures I rolled down the road to get breakfast, I chose a selection of ‘small eats’ as they are known here, in my case two vege curry rolls and a sweat pancake along with two cups of lovely sweet coffee.

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I was pretty much completely lost after about five minutes on the road, no-one seems to have a map and my three year old lonely planet is hopelessly out of date as so much work has been done on the roads. I will say that by the end of the day I had kind of worked out all the places I went wrong, but not entirely.

The first thing I found was this large Buddha figure standing by an intersection, there was no info about it and by the state of the grass and gates I guess it is not used much anymore, but I liked it anyway.

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I then got a bit lost for a bit more, it was very hot, sunny and humid and I was starting to wonder how much I could actually do today and was really glad I had allowed two days here. But I did find my first historical object, Yay ! Mirisawatiya Stupa, which was built in the 2nd century. It is believed it was fully surrounded by walls with elephant carvings.

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There were a few herons and monkeys about, but the monkeys were just too quick.

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I liked these discarded coconut oil candles, there was a huge pile of them out the back and the nearby steps were heavily oil stained.,

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To visit all the Buddhist sites you have to remove hats, sun glasses and shoes. The ground was excruciatingly hot and my feet are completely soft these days, it hurt a lot to walk so it was quite a quick visit and I was wondering if my feet will be OK for tomorrow. I saw a number of people wearing socks at sites the other day and wondered why they didn’t take them off, now I know !

I met an English couple and they pointed me in the direction of some other ruins close by and I actually found them 🙂 First was the Ranmasu Uyana, the goldfish park. I really liked the elephant heads carved into the rocks.

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I followed a dirt path for a few more metres which lead me to Isurumuniya, the first Buddhist temple built in Sri Lanka, back in 200BC. I was shown around the temple by a guide and again did not have anything less the $5NZD for a tip, far too much money. I must learn to say no when I do not have any small bills…

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This dying Buddha is only a couple of hundred years old, not an original piece.

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There were some great Buddha feet.

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After the temple I went off seeking the famous Bodhi Tree, but could not find it. As it was approaching 4:00 and I was extremely hot I cycled back to the guest house, only misplacing myself the once !

There was a wedding going on back at the guesthouse and I got invited to join a bunch of very drunk youths, but I got a bit frustrated with them as they were taking the mickey a bit – I think. Anyway I was hot and needed a shower so didn’t linger, plus I wanted a beer and they were not being served anymore ! Luckily the wedding was all over soon after I arrived back as it was really loud.

So after a shower I went into Main St for dinner and we are back at the start of this post – which I finished in my room after eating.

A class above first class

Wednesday 13 March 2013 – Colombo – Anuradhapura.

I had a far better sleep, but still felt shattered when I woke. I was up earlier than the day before but faffed for a bit in the morning, got some washing done and semi-packed for my departure in the afternoon, basically I did sod all.

I took a tuk-tuk back to the Pettah market area and this time declined the day tour. My first stop was the Colombo Fort train station, this is the main station for Colombo.

I collected the ticket I had booked on line for this afternoon’s journey to Anuradhupara as I didn’t want to put pressure on myself trying to organise ticket collection while carrying my pack and day bag – especially in this heat. I then walked around Pettah for an hour or so, but really didn’t see much that was photo worthy, or that I felt comfortable shooting. I have seen lots of Asian market places selling shoes, bags, cheap clothes, cell phones and plastic stuff so a wee bit jaded by it all. I did like this section, which I have dubbed ‘speaker corner’.

I decided to do the stupid thing given it was hot and sunny, and walk the five or so km’s back to the apartment. I could do with the exercise, it has been too long and I am getting way too saggy… I had made it out of town and was walking along Galle Face when I was approached by a man who told me he was teacher in the monastery I visited yesterday. He had very good English so we chatted amiably as we walked, before taking a tuk-tuk back to the monastery where I had a better look around and was shown a Buddha in a tree which I do really like. Of course I had to give him a tip, and only had the equivalent of $10NZD so left feeling a bit ripped off. A lesson learned – keep small bills at all times. Which is harder said than done !

I mooched over lunch back at Trudy’s and had a wee doze before getting another tuk-tuk back to the station for my train. I was quite early so I picked up a sim card and some mobile data before I boarded.

I have gone with Expo-rail, which I think is a private company that tack their own carriage on the end of the main train. It is about double the price of first class, but still ridiculously cheap and I thought that for my first train ride in Sri Lanka I would travel in style.

Once on board the stewards provided us passengers with warm towels, mints and water as we departed Colombo Fort Station on time. I made an attempt to write some blog as we went through some of the flat farm land on the edge of the city but the train was rocking and rolling all over the place and it proved to be too difficult, and really I should be looking out the window anyway ! The carriage is facing backwards though which is a real shame, it is supposed to be safer that way, but I always like to see what is coming up!

I met a German guy, Benne on the platform and we chatted for a part of the way to Anuradhapura, he is staying in a different place to me and we tentatively arranged to meet up tomorrow. The journey was quite bouncy and there was not a whole load of interesting things to look at outside, the windows were too grubby to photograph through, which was expected, yet disappointing. It rained really heavily at dusk and by 6:30pm it was too dark to see much outside so I tried to doze for a bit before dinner was served. I had requested a vegetarian meal but ended up with rice and beef, oh well. I ate some of it but was not particularly hungry anyway, though it was most adequate. We finally arrived thirty minutes late at 8:45pm. After crossing under the tracks to exit the station I grabbed a taxi to my hostel, had a beer and posted a blog and went to bed – tired…

I am glad to be back on the road again, interested to see how it will all go, today was a good day though and at least I know there are other tourists in town !

A tuk-tuk tour of Colombo

Tuesday 12 March 2013 – Colombo.

Damn it, I knew this would happen! The night before last I managed to get about three days worth of sleep in one go, so I had to make up for it last night by having none, not a second. So frustrating as I am back to being tired all over again. As well as my body clock suffering from the jet lag of being five half hours out of whack with London it was also a warm and very noisy night. Though they are not supposed to be working at night, there was concrete drilling going on at the construction site next door at 1:30 am and then grinding at 3:00. I was not a happy chappy when I did get up.

Though I did make the most of the day and was out the door by 9:00, I was going to get a tuk-tuk into the Fort area of Colombo and then walk up to the Pettah district to look around the markets. As with most tuk-tuk drivers any opportunity to open a conversation is a potential business opportunity and my driver, Lateef took the chance to offer me a two hour tour of Colombo for the princely sum of $30NZD, I found this remarkably funny and we eventually agreed on half that….

It was worth it as I did get to see quite a few things I would not have seen on foot, plus he knew a bit about some of the history so that made it all the more worthwhile.

It appears that all developing countries have to have some Bob Marley and Che Guevara stickers and posters around the place !

We first visited some of the old and not so old Hindu temples, or kovils in the local Sinhalese language. Both the new Kathiresan and the old Kathiresan Kovil are on the same street. It was enjoyable cruising up these noisy and crowded streets in a tuk-tuk, I am sure I have said it before in what now seem to be posts from so long ago, about how much I enjoy travelling by tuk-tuk.

Our next stop was this catholic church and for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called, but like the Hindu temples it was busy with worshippers rushing in an out and beggars of all ages, shapes and ailments crowding the footpaths and entranceways.

We next visited Sri Ponnambalam Vanesar Kovil one of the key temples in Colombo. The temple is unusual in that it is built from granite slabs and is unpainted, inside and out. Inside is wonderful, but no photos were allowed. Blessing with milk is carried out here so there were a number of cows in the grounds as well as two bullocks used for work. As we were in the temple grounds we were barefoot, I really needed to be careful of the puddles.

We next visited Wolvendaal Church built by the Dutch in 1749. It is a large but simple church and I quite liked it. Sadly my camera battery died when I arrived and the spare I recalled was sitting on the floor in my room at Trudy’s place. Damn ! Luckily I could use my phone for a few basic shots.

I was given a tour of the church by one of the staff, there are five gravestones inside were the bodies of the families of the first five governors were buried. The skull and cross bones mean they died of disease and were not to be dug up.

The church is sighted on the highest point of a largely flat Colombo and could be clearly seen from the harbour entrance when ships arrived. After full independence in 1948 a Buddhist stupa was built between it and the harbour entrance so this was the first religious symbol seen by arriving sailors. Sri Lanka is largely Buddhist.

We next visited the food market and had a walk through the fruit section, I was given a few of the twenty four banana varieties to sample as we walked through a banana house.

On the way out we passed the very fresh chicken section – choose your own !

That was pretty much the end of the tour so it was back to the apartment for a lie down and some lunch before heading back out for a walk round Victoria Gardens to the National Museum.

I really enjoyed the museum, though I didn’t like having to pay an extra camera fee, especially given how poorly lit it was inside, but hopefully the money goes to the museums upkeep so I cannot complain.

I did like some of the Buddhas, especially this sandstone one from the 9th century. If you have followed some of earlier travels through SE Asia you will know how much I love the symbols and statutory of Buddhism.

There were some very good carvings of some of the Bodhisattva as well, many well over 1200 years old.

The only time someone asked to see my photo permit was when I took a photo of this 9th century bronze cast of Tara – I found that so amusing…

In the museum grounds there was a good example of the vine covered trees that are all over Colombo, many filling round abouts. I really like them and something I miss from SE Asia. My tree photography is somewhat lacking so I have not captured this wonderful living thing as well as it deserves.

On the way out of the museum I grabbed a couple of samosas from a street vendor and munched them on the way through Victoria Park, which seems to be completely under construction at the moment. Trudy told me that CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of government meeting) is here in November so the place is getting tarted up – at great expense to a poor nation : (

I also passed by this roundabout temple – where devotees have to brave the seemingly constant traffic – except for the second I clicked the shutter !

Back at Trudy’s I spent thirty minutes doing laps of the pool to cool down. There was no sun shining on the pool as it is between the two apartment blocks so it was extremely refreshing.

It was a good day 🙂

Sleep, sleep and more sleep ! oooo and a visit to a temple

Monday March 11 2013 – Colombo.

OMG – Not a saying I use often, if ever but, OMG – I slept fairly solidly for almost fifteen hours. OK, I will admit to some light dozing towards the end, but fifteen hours !!! I don’t normally sleep that much in three days, let alone one night. I was obviously really tired when I went to bed.

My plan to get up at 6:15 and get outside before the heat of the day was well and truly scuppered by my waking up at 12:30 in the afternoon!

I was really groggy for a while but once I had downed a litre of pure caffeine I was only feeling mildly groggy, but with a caffeine rush going on as well – confusing 🙂

Trudy has a housekeeper, Irene, who comes in most week days to do stuff in the apartment and it took me a while to relax into letting her make me lunch and get coffee, I am not used to having help and mildly uncomfortable with it. Given unemployment, low pay and poverty in Sri Lanka I can see the benefits for this sort of work to Irene and her family. We are all considered wealthy compared to most of the Sri Lankan population, so an opportunity to feed back into the community should be taken, but it doesn’t mean I felt OK with it, different strokes and all that. It is a conversation I can see both sides of I guess, and not a topic for a lightweight travel blog!

After lunch I spent a few hours trying to put together a cohesive plan for the next couple of days. Similar to Laos, I found it hard to get useful and current information from the internet, information that was applicable to me as a traveller spending a month here rather than a week or ten days. My next goal is the ancient cities or ancient triangle and it seems a lot of the folk who have blogged their experience have hired cars for a couple of days and whipped around whole thing. I was sort of thinking of spending a couple of days in each place, maybe I am just fooling myself on how interesting they really are. I am also just starting to get to grips with the cost of entry fees which are frankly, outrageous – though I had been warned !!

After much faffing about I have booked myself a first class train seat to Anuradhapura, about four hours from Colombo. The first class seat plus a meal came to a whopping $14 NZD. I could have gone 2nd class for cheaper, but meh – I want to enjoy it ! It cost me more to go to Dartford from London – a thirty minute ride through the less scenic parts of east London, so this is really worth it. I will have to do one 2nd class journey for the experience though. Once I get there I will work out where to go and what to do next.

With that and some reasonably priced accommodation booked in Anuradhapura for three nights sorted it was time to go outside. I went out to visit the nearby Gangaramaya Temple. The temple is the biggest Buddhist site in Colombo and sprawls all over the place including over the road where I found these relics from a former building.

Next to the temple entrance is a small elephant enclosure with a chained up temple elephant, that looks like it has gone as nutty as the polar bears used to be in Auckland Zoo, rocking back and forth. I really felt for the poor beast.

The temple was interesting though not informative, it had a vast collection of historical items from Colombo’s as well as its own past, but no information on them. However, I really enjoyed walking around the temple site, I really do like the Buddhist imagery and idealism. Though I do need to get back into the temple viewing groove, it always takes a few days to relax back into visiting Buddhist and Hindu temples and the freedoms we tourists have to look and photograph things without restriction. They are often quite serene.

I liked these trucks on a side street outside.

I feel like I have taken the first baby steps back in to traveller mode today – and though it was a rocky start, it felt good at the end !

Bring on the adventures !

A new adventure begins !!!

Sunday 10 March 2013 – London – Colombo, Sri Lanka

After bidding farewell to El I walked back to the flat to shower and finish (start) packing before saying a thank you and see you later to Kevin. I left him sitting in the lounge with the entire contents of the kitchen stacked around him as a total kitchen renovation had started a couple of days ago, fortunately arranged around my departure date. Thanks Kevin, I really enjoyed staying in the flat and your company.

I left in the late afternoon and walked in a cool drizzle back to London Bridge station and caught the long slow tube out to Heathrow Airport. I was there semi-early and the check-in process was smooth, friendly and pain free – basically the best part of the Sri Lankan Airways experience… Once in the departure lounge I had a couple of glasses of Shiraz in one of the bars, caught up on some last minute emails and FaceBook messages and wondered if I would enjoy a month on my own on the road again.

The last bit of solo travelling I did was back in August in Spain and it was a fairly miserable time, with pretty much all of it spent as the sole English speaking traveller in the small villages I visited in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Hopefully Sri Lanka will have a good pool of travellers to share stories, experiences and the occasional meal with.

I am also a little concerned about the cost of Sri Lanka, from all I have read and heard it sounds like it is not a cheap place to stay – especially as a single traveller – has to be cheaper than London – surely!

For a full service flight, albeit a cheap one; the flight to Colombo on Sri Lankan was, as commented in the many unfavourable internet reviews – entirely average. I could not eat the food, the worst type of low quality airline food that I thought went out in the eighties. The service was slow – but with a smile, so credit where it was due. The seat was uncomfortable and I was wedged in next to a rather large young man, who sort of oozed over onto my seat as soon as he sat down. I had screwed up my seat selection and ended up in the middle two seats in the centre block of four, damn airlines inconsistent seat numbering systems !!

What good there was to say about it was the ride was smooth all the way to Colombo, and it was a relief to get off. Getting through immigration was a breeze as I had arranged visa on-line before departing London and I was soon in the back of a car that my friend Trudy had booked to take me the thirty kilometres from the airport to her apartment in Colombo’s district 2.

First impressions of Colombo from the back of a car ?
Clean and tidy. As is usual in Asia the horn is the most used piece of the car, even if the roads are not crowded. It ‘feel’s OK, I don’t feel intimated by being in an alien environment like I did the first time, nothing looks really strange. I like knowing that I have grown from my first touch of Asia fourteen months ago, and even the heat wasn’t too bad…

Trudy is an old friend from way back, we travelled Europe together twenty five years ago and though she is Australian and I have seen her a few times since, most recently in London in June, she has a job that gives her a 10th floor apartment in a 35 story block just outside the ‘centre’ of town in Colombo 2.

There is a lot of building work going on in the area as more tower blocks are being built, which is as usual a bit short sighted as there is too much capacity as it is, though I guess no-one knows what the future will bring.

Once I had got myself sorted we went for a walk down towards the waterfront and Galle Face Green. It took about twenty minutes to get to the ocean and we passed this open air laundry on the way.

Galle Face Green faces onto the Indian Ocean and is hugely popular at the weekends with people flying kites, bathing and couples courting. It was a lovely evening so the beach was very crowded as we left. I love the modesty of the Sri Lankan people, no bikinis or even swimsuits here. I find it quite endearing.

We walked to the far end of the green to the old lighthouse, bizarrely only the side facing the see has been painted, or maybe that just be logically!

This is the old parliament building and taking photos of it is prohibited, sorry Sri Lanka I am bad. But it is a lovely old colonial building and there are not that many that can be photographed.

We walked back to the Galle Face Hotel for a couple of sun downers

before heading back to Trudy’s, in a tuk-tuk. I was knackered, the heat zapped me today. I am sure I wont take long to get used to it though.

I was dropping off through dinner so had an early night, barely making it to 9:00 PM. Sri Lanka is five half hours ahead of London, which is just so out of whack.