Road to the beach

We are headed to the south coast. We have seen the jungle, the busy cities, a bit of the history and more than a few temples, it is time to get some R&R, sun & sand. But the south coast where we are headed is 150km as the crow flies, or 300km by road, from where we are, which is probably 12 hours travel by bus. More like buses. We will do this in two phases.

*note, all the tourist guides will tell you the proper way to get from Kandy to Ella is the train, as it is the better way to enjoy spectacular tea country. Therefore, tickets for that train are neigh impossible to attain. We tried for three days, stood in lines in various train stations, several other people even tried on our behalf. Not going to happen. That said, our trip by bus through yet same mountains was cloudy and rainy, so who knows if we missed anything?*

Day 1 we went 140km from Kandy to Ella, about 5.5 hours traveling time, plus an hour waiting for a bus change at Badulla.

We were riding regional buses for this leg of the trip. The entire 2-leg 140km trip cost 214 rupee each, about $2.50 Canadian (not including the 200r we paid for samosas, vadai, and paratha for a snack). What they lacked in creature comfort they made up for in decoration and character. And horn volume.

The roads were generally good, and definitely improved in the second half where it seems they graded prior to paving, not an effort they took for the first half. The countryside was spectacular, even in shifting clouds and rain. The roads twisted up and over hills and along deep valleys. We were surrounded by tea plantations, rice paddies, even the occasional cornfield. The bus only occasionally stopped to let locals on and off in the varying villages and road stops along the way. This was a Super Express, after all.

The wait at Badulla where we changed buses was pleasantly broken up by a parade. What appeared to be several boys' and girls' schools marching bands marched past playing drums, accordion, and melodica.

As with every other trip we have taken in Sri Lanka, the driver stopped once to make an offering and a prayer at a roadside shrine (in this case, Bhuddist).

We pulled into Ella, and quickly realized we were out of the backwoods and into tourist town. The town is little more than a stretch of tourist services and slightly confused Europeans. It may not have helped that we arrived shortly after the train *that everyone must not miss* arrived, but the bars and restaurants were full of people of varying language. Actually, the fact there was a plethora of bars and restaurants made it somewhat unique.

The setting, however, is spectacular. To give you a sense, this is the view from our guest house.

So we enjoyed a nice dinner, a restful sleep, and a spectacular breakfast before bus journey part 2, to get other actual beach, just as the rain seemed to be settling into Ella.

We caught a stuffed local bus to Wallawya (27km, 1 hour, 60 ruppee). There were no seats but the high volume Sinhalese Pop music was free with the fare. With the twistiness of the road and extreme grades, it was probably good we couldn't always see out the window.

At Wallawaya, we switch to a more stuffed express bus to Tangalle (~120km, 3 hours, 200 ruppee). The land flattened out as we approached the coast, and the temperature steadily rose. We have left the mountains and the rainy forest behind, and entered coastal wetlands where waterbufflo seem most at ease (probably unaware of the ginormous saltwater crocodiles in these parts).

And the wheels of the bus went round and round.

Until at Tangalle, where we found the beach.

Which probably means updates here will become less frequent...

 

 

 

 

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Kandy

Traveling south in the more mountainous interior, we have spent a couple of days in Kandy.

All roads leading to Kandy are curving and swooping (I could see myself coming back here with a road bike and spending a week just riding hills - supercharged by Tuktuk exhaust). The city centre is nestled around a narrow lake, but the rest of the town sprawls across the steep surrounding jungle slopes like a Japanese landscape painting. I can only infer the lake is man-made as the main street leading to the train station and impressive rugby green is *downhill* from the lake.

This is tea country. The hills surrounding Kandy are where the tea that made Ceylon a household name in England is grown and processed. Appropriately enough, we visited a historic tea factory not far from our guest house.

The factory demonstrates how tea was processed in the late 1800s at the peak of the British empire. From winnowing the leaf to grinding, fermenting, drying, sorting and grading, featuring all the cool archaic 1880's machine technology and an actual working 1:100 scale model of the process.

Of course, there was much discussion about how all tea in the world comes from a single species of plant, but the terroir imparts important and distinctive characteristics which can be enhanced or modified with various processing techniques. I am reminded and impressed, once again, the endless human capacity for geeking out about the details of something as simple as boiling leaves in water to make it taste better.

The other claim to fame in Kandy is the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. This shrine houses what has been interpreted to be a "left tooth" of the Buddah himself. Apparently scavenged from his funeral pyre, this dental totem was spirited off to Sri Lanka 800 years later, and has historically been known to take a somewhat interventionist attitude toward royalty in Sri Lanka, amongst other miracles.

The temple grounds where the tooth is preserved (in a series of protective cases, covered with a gilded roof, behind the opulent curtain above) are an important pilgimage for Sri Lankan Bhuddists, and is located on the picturesque lakeshore in the centre of Kandy.

We also found beer in Kandy (there was no beer to be had in Sigiriya, it being Sunday and Christmas and all) which helped with the humid heat. Memorable meal #3 came from the Moslem Hotel, which was curiously out of most menu items in the middle of the day, but made a killer biryani and spicy samosas, all washed down with a fresh lime juice!

We enjoyed the afternoon just walking around the lake, seeing some of the local wildlife hanging around the trees...

... and enjoyed some of the unique architecture and sights of a pretty little city, completely mired by noisy, stinky traffic. Progress.

Then saw an evening performance of traditional dance and drumming, which is what tourists do. The drummers were excellent, and the dancers were athletic / graceful as per their assigned gender roles. There were some remarkable acrobatics, and even some expert plate spinning. A well-spent hour!

 

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Sigiriya

As we shift south towards higher country, we spent Christmas Day in the tiny village of Sigiriya, which is named after a much larger ancient city, which was located at the base of a 150m-high flat top rock that was home to a temple/palace of the same name.

For tourists and locals alike, traveling to the top of Sigiriya to visit the ruins of that palace is quite the popular endeavor. We woke up early to be at the trailhead at 8:00, hoping to beat the worst of the sun, and of the crowds.

The rock is a very attractive pre-Cambrian quartz feldspathic gneiss, with some areas rich in garnets as big as your thumb:

But no-one is here to look at the rocks. The walk up is built of brick steps, of steel stairs with some grades verging upon ladders, and the occasional strange steel step hybrid. All around is evidence of the steps and shelves carved into the walls by the iron-age founders of the mountain top temple, presumably dug to support rope and wood ladders or staircases.

At places, there are rock overhangs where 1000-year-old frescoes are preserved, depicting either celestial nymphs, or King Kassapa's concubines, depending on who you ask. How the hell the artists got to the shallow hollows halfway down a sheer 150m cliff to lollygag about painting nymphs is not clear, nor is how any presumed audience would get here...

The most harrowing part of the climb is from the first platform to the top, a section you enter by walking between the lions paws, which is a pretty Indiana Jones kinda way to go anywhere...

Archeologists are pretty sure the paws are the remains of a large lion figure that created an imposing entrance to the palace. Interpretations differ on what the lion's head actually looked like.

At the top is a couple of hectares of relatively flat plateau, where from ~400ad to ~1300ad, a palace stood. All that remains are some foundations, staircases, garden walls and pools, all 150m above the surrounding countryside.

We spent probably an hour on the site, then started down just as the tourist busses arrived. The difference between 8am and 10am is notable.

That evening we hiked up a nearby hill called Pidurangala, which was an easy 20-minute scramble to the bare mountaintop. Up there we were provided sunset views of the nearby Sigiriya and the spectacular jungles and farms of the surrounding countryside.

Christmas dinner was curries served from clay pots in a dirt-floored thatched-roof hut, served by a very pregnant woman (which made the environment uncomfortably manger-like).

There was no turkey, but the pumpkin curry was out of this world.

 

 

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Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went to Kaudulla National Park, and we saw elephants.

Not much else to say, because what can you add to elephants?

Hope everyone has a great Christmas. We are hitting Sigiria on Christmas Day, then a stopover in Kandy before we book it the beaches of the southern coast to do some serious relaxing. Peace and love, everyone!

 

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