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| Sri
Lanka |
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Pros: Lovely Palladian architecture, gorgeous temples
Cons: none
"Where
are you going, sir?"
"I want to go to Fort. Is this
where the bus stops?"
"I'm sorry, sir, very few buses
go to Fort. You will be waiting a long time. You should take a taxi."
"No, that's okay, I'll wait. Is it here where the bus stops?"
"No sir, it's on the other side and down the road past that
corner. Can I take you there?"
"No, but thanks for
your help."
The taxi driver turned and drove back to the guarded entrance of
the airport where his buddies lurked. Another unsolicited taxi stopped.
"I don't want a taxi but can you tell me where the bus stops
for Fort?"
"It is on this side of the road,"
he advised.
Now I really didn't know whom to believe. A bus approached. My luck
had been consistently on the money so my deluded conclusion that
this was to be my transportation seemed reasonable. The driver said
no for Fort, but confirmed the side of the road where my feet rested
was indeed where they should stay.
Counting touchdown, I'd been in Sri Lanka approximately half an
hour and I liked it already. The few people I'd come in contact
with had a decidedly gentler demeanor than India. Even the hack
hustler trying to give me a ride cut it out quickly, although his
wild goose chase crack didn't promote humanity.
My bus soon pulled up, the wait long enough to be ogled at by everyone
who passed by. Rather empty at first, three or four stops converted
the bus into one of the top few most densely populated spots on
Earth. Passengers hung outside the door like silverware in a full
dishwasher as we roared down the street, the outermost hung on with
one hand and one foot waving in space. WHOMP! went one of the worn
tires, followed by a pack of groans.
The driver and purser engaged in rousing discussion until the latter
deserted. The former handed back refunds. Like a goober, I patiently
waited thinking some resemblance to order would follow but soon
realized aggression was the only way to avoid being the final one
refunded. The mob, like reporters planting microphones in Michael
Jordan's face, stuck their ticket stubs into the driver's immediate
field of vision and yelled a lot. I slowly maneuvered my stub closer
and closer until it touched his hands. He served us in a quasi-logical
pattern, but each time my turn should have arisen, he passed over
my distinctively alabaster fist until only I remained to be paid.
I didn't get the impression it was a racist tactic, rather I assumed
that the driver wanted to be sure he had enough money to reimburse
everyone. In the event of a shortfall, nothing would have come out
of his jeans; I was implicitly voted the most likely able to absorb
the six rupee (10 cents) debit. The others dispersed and I waited
for another bus with Fort indicated as its final stop. Typically,
I drew long stares.
Fort, an hour from the airport, is the original part of Colombo
where the British had set up shop in their plundering days. These
days, it's the downtown area. One proposed possibility where Colombo
derives its name is kola, which means leaves and amba means mango.
Another possibility comes from an old Sinhalese word kolamba, which
is port or ferry. Sinhalese is the primary language spoken in Sri
Lanka. Sri Lanka derives from Sanskrit shri, happiness or holiness
and lanka, island or translated as Island of the Blessed.
I found a room at The Ex-Servicemen's Institute, a classic in bottom-of-the-line
digs. The interesting plank floors were slippery from years of wear.
My room was so narrow, I couldn't fully stretch my arms across without
hitting the walls. A slender cot, a desk and chair, and a wooden
rack to set my bag completed the decor. In rows of eight, paper-thin
walls reached halfway to a high ceiling. The top half of the wall
was mesh to facilitate circulation. At night, one light left on
shone across all the rooms. Without all the fans whirling, it was
a sauna.
Speaking of steamy, I laid on my cot sweating while partners alternated
on either side of me trying to orgasm in silence. When something
pleasurable required a groan, a poorly camouflaged clearing of the
throat didn't fool anyone. The ladies weakly masqueraded giggles
indicated a pushing of the right buttons. Wobbly old beds creaking
in time to thrusts presented the lovers’ biggest challenge
to silence. Appetite defeated modesty as they built up to climax
and tried to adjust positions to keep the bed's noise to a minimum.
One bloke tried valiantly to cover the squeaking by speaking in
a natural tone, as he and his partner reached their separate heights
of ecstasy.
Colombo is an agreeable city. It's core, Fort, is only a few blocks
square. Unfortunately, since the early 1980's, the Tamil Tigers
and the Sri Lankan government have been in the middle of a grueling,
tiring civil war. Lovely Palladian architecture from British days
made for decent photography, but many buildings are bunkered and
razor-wired off. As I lined up the first shot, a soldier ran across
the street and politely asked that I avoid taking pictures of any
government buildings. He readily agreed to have his picture taken,
and under this ruse, I bypassed his mug in the viewfinder and captured
on film the building in the background.
Later, walking elsewhere, I stopped and stood for a moment to calibrate
my bearings with those of a map. A strange noise came from somewhere.
From across the street. Two soldiers, gun barrels poking from within
a pillbox, clapped their hands seeking my attention. "Walk!
Walk!" they ordered. I resumed and soon located on the map
that I had stopped in front of the prime minister’s official
residence.
At night, the nearby Hilton Hotel generated some noise and a half-block
stretch of soup-stands revealed life otherwise the streets were
so quiet, I thought The Beatles were back on Ed Sullivan. To my
surprise, I turned a corner and saw, like bees hovering at the entrance
to their nest, a group of 20 or so men milling about an otherwise
dark, deserted street. They spoke softly, occasionally bursting
with screeches, and waving their hands in the air. Curiosity directed
I approach from the opposite side to investigate. The attraction
was, what else, a television in a store window broadcasting the
cricket match between Good Old Ourside and India. I moved in to
ask the score and a couple other cricket-appropriate questions.
Understanding made me some curiosity friends. This tired soon and
I continued on my exploration. Each time Sri Lanka hit a four or
a six (roughly equivalent to a home run in baseball), muffled cheers
spread from behind closed windows or from upstairs quarters.
Auto-rickshaw drivers pressed hard for the chance to introduce me
to some Sri Lankan ladies. The pimps all opened at 800 rupees ($13.33)
for "an hour of very good service, sir," instantly dropped
to 700 after my first refusal, and wouldn't go any lower as I made
tracks. For price shoppers, 700 was apparently the bottom line.
A strange guy summoned me over. I didn't go so he skipped up.
"Where you from?" he wanted to know.
"Japan,
where does it look like?" I shot back, "where you from?"
He looked at me like I was daft.
"Colombo...I take you
around, show you everything." He waved his scruffy arms in
the air. "You don't pay me anything."
"I don't
need you to show me around. No thanks. Anyway...no money."
"You don't live here. I must show you what to do. You don't
pay me."
"And I don't believe you. Go away."
I turned and went from whence I came.
He caught up.
"I show you, I show you."
"Get
lost."
I beetled across the street and continued walking. He followed along
on his side. I turned and went the other way. He mirrored my steps.
I saw an empty can and threw it at him. Missed by a mile. I walked
again. He shadowed each step. The effective deterrent missing all
this time were the four rocks I should have picked up in the first
place. He hoofed it down the street and peeked out from the safety
of the other side of a building corner.
Walking home, with the ammunition still in my hands, four or five
stray dogs barked threats from among rips in a steel fabricated
fence. Behind was an empty lot. I raised my hand in defiance. They
snarled louder. I hurled a stone, missed the closest pooch, but
hit the steel. The sharp CRACK! scared the bejabbers out of the
unsuspecting canine gang. Instead of running to the relative safety
of the empty lot, they sprinted perpendicular in both directions
where I was able to unleash the full might of my ordnance, clipping
one on the rear. He yelped, I breathed.
The bus depot was part of a busy, crowded market area. I spent nearly
an hour trying to find the bus to Kandy, a small city a couple hours
north. No less than seven people claimed to know the correct number
on the bus and pointed directions to the pick up point. Each time
I confirmed with the drivers, they either said, "Wrong bus"
or "I don't know." Something was amiss, ajar, a conspiracy
in the alignment of the stars. Maybe I should of checked for a full
moon later that evening.
Kandy, or Kandha, Sinhalese for mountain, sits at an elevation of
1600 feet in lush jungle, streams, and wildlife. The cooler temperatures
made sleeping much more comfortable.
My hotel was the Olde Empire Hotel. Long, thick, solid planks, smoothed
and varnished, constructed the floors. The double-doors swung into
the room like a grandiose Hollywood entrance. Sheer curtains hung
over the windows. My bed had sweeping arcs where a mosquito net
substituted for a veil in this Arabian princes's boudoir; going
rate, 272 SLR ($4.50). The hallways, decorated with local art and
beautiful vases full of fresh flowers, led to a common balcony to
view a man-made lake, which the city centered around. Hanging lazily,
branches of huge trees surrounding the water pacified the sidewalk.
A small island, originally built to keep the king's concubines,
became an ammunition dump when the British arrived. Now, its part
of the decor.
The Temple of the Tooth is Kandy's major attraction. One of three
places in the world reportedly containing a tooth belonging to Buddha
himself, the denture is housed in a small box that is not for public
viewing. Faith is required to believe, first, the tooth belonged
to Buddha, and second, there actually is a tooth inside the box.
All I know is I didn't pay the two bucks to get in and bribed through
the independent security check for the grand total of two cigarettes.
Kandy is dandy as a place to visit and hang out. A tout named Nelson,
who always seemed to pop up wherever I went, had become friendly
and guided me around for a day.
First stop was a farm with four trained elephants. Elephants have
played an important role in this part of the world, not only through
work but also spiritually. The 63-year-old patriarch of the crew
had enormous tusks that almost dragged on the ground. His trunk,
spotted pink, exposed the layer of skin under his thick hide. He
bumped up against a dock like a mammal passenger ferry where I jumped
on barefoot and clung to the chain wrapped around his neck. My groins
stretched straddling his rock-hard vertebrae. His thick, scouring-pad
hide scratched the inside of my thighs. His mass so overwhelmed
mine I was grateful for the unruffled demeanor included in his genetics.
After my less than glorious dismount, his performance continued.
He obeyed his trainer's commands by scooping logs under his tusks
and holding them in place with that enormous trunk. Then, after
a tough day at the office, he bathed himself by laying in a river
and self-showered the morning heat and dust away. A natural ham,
he posed for pictures, and then went back to what the other elephants
do when not entertaining -- standing.
A botanical gardens featured quiet walks among a potpourri of indigenous
flora. Thousands of daytime bats the size of seagulls clutched upside
down to trees until someone volunteered, for a fee, to rattle their
cage. The rattler found an old stick and banged on the trunks. Skittish
by nature, the slumbering bats had no resilience to this man's thrashings
and flew their coops, blocking out the sun, and formed foreboding
moving shadows like the Air Cavalry was in town.
Nelson decided he'd had enough and bid our day goodbye. A decent
middle-aged man, 80% grayed, and a heckuva grin, he had only asked
that his bus tickets and admissions be paid. In spite of my supreme
suspicions, he was true to his word.
A solo hike through an animal sanctuary among hills that rise behind
my hotel ended the day. The cooler altitude and thickness of the
vegetation blocked the sun so thoroughly I felt a chill. The only
animals were a plethora of monkeys disinterested in the people and
more interested in indiscriminate copulation. "Monkey business
in its purest," I theorized.
When I arrived back in Colombo and headed to the hotel, I walked
the exact same route with a differing mood from the first day in
Sri Lanka. A peacefulness -- even a cockiness -- knew where to get
off, where to go, and knew the route and distance from the bus stop
to the hotel. The Ex-Servicemen's Institute, be it ever so humble,
was the cheapest place in town.
When I arrived back in Colombo and headed to the hotel, I walked
the exact same route with a differing mood from the first day in
Sri Lanka. A peacefulness -- even a cockiness -- knew where to get
off, where to go, and knew the route and distance from the bus stop
to the hotel. The Ex-Servicemen's Institute, be it ever so humble,
was the cheapest place in town. |
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