Sri Lanka

What do I think of Sri Lanka?  I'll try not to.  I don't know what I expected from Sri Lanka but this ain't it.  I have been thrown for a loop and humbled from thinking travel is a pony ride in May.  Testament to the resilliance of life is that anything here survives beyond infancy.  Yet despite all the carnage and despair, the locals are pleasantly friendly, smiley, and keen to show genuine interest in your personal story.  But I require a new and greater level of acclimation and adjustment as Sri Lanka is crustier than any of the countries I've been to thus far.  Breathing the air through anything short of a surgical mask can be hazardous.  I don't imagine India being worse but I'm about to find out.  Sri Lanka is the launch pad into India.  I suspect I may be jumping from the fryer to the fire. 

In Colombo, the Cricket World Cup is being hosted.  And as a result, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces are out in full gear trotting & strapped with Russian firepower.  It's their Cricket World Cup message: "Watch the test, then go home quietly!"  I find Colombo to be frightening.  The locals assure me the situation in Sri Lanka is well improved since the cessation of the Tamil Insurgencies.  My imagination lacks ability to envision what could have been before.  Concrete bunker rubble homes and shack-roofs' twisted metal are the choicest dwellings in this town.  Village after village looks like they've been bombed.  Heavy, major floodings in the southeast and a zillion un-detonated landmines in the northern hills make tactical planning an urgent priority.  We can't go there and we won't stay here!  

I've opted for Kandy, a city up in the central highlands where temperatures are friendlier and the air a bit more 'see-through.'  By bus, the trip takes 3 hours and costs 65 cents.  But neither the bus's dash-mounted Satya Sai Baba snow dome nor the blue plastic Ganesha elephant god bouncing on a spring carried enough Shiva power to haul us up into the hills.  We quit and broke roadside.  It was the little bus that couldn't.  But I've got a good feeling about the new bus.  Rigged with golden Buddhas whose tiny lights blink and flash when we brake, they keep me relaxed as we speed our luggage-laden, rooftop-heavy, hoopty of a bus up nasty, hairy, & curvy mountain roads all inches from stupidly steep drops.  A disaster in the making?   It wouldn't be the first time a bus tumble & crush made headlines here.  I'll stay attentive to the blinking Buddhas, they're helping me. 

Kandy has culture.  Home to fire walking, local music, dance and dress, it's a great place to take in some Sri Lankan arts.  But to be fair, Kandy is loud, filthy and aesthetically unpleasing.  I need something, anything else.  Strike two!!

Time out!  Hold the phone!  What?  Take the noose off, this priosner has just been pardoned.  Huh?  Don't write off Sri Lanka just yet because the beaches here rival the best coastlines in Australia and Hawaii.  Fully recovered from the 2006 Boxing Day Tsunami, the beaches are long, white, and immaculate with crystal-clear, warm, & glassy turquoise waters on the doorstep of the Maldives.  Oh my, do I feel a sense of rebirth to have landed here, this place is phenomenal.  This is just what the doctor ordered.  It's been ten weeks since I've had my feet in the sea.  Ahh, am I ever in the mood to sun, sand & surf after all the noise and pollution that is Colombo, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.  This is the ticket!  At home at last.  I think I fancy some fresh pineapple.  I might even read another book.  Yeah, we're staying right here in Eden's garden until D-day to India.  Third time's a charm...