Sri Lanka: Days 4-5

Travel diaries for Tuesday, April 1 to Wednesday, April 2; written Thursday, April 3

Tuesday, April 1:

We woke Tuesday morning in the beautiful Galle Face Hotel (pronounced like “gall” and “face”) around 10am after a long and restful sleep. A bit hungover from the drinking and socializing the prior night, we went down to the hotel buffet and slurped down some juice and bread and yogurt and coffee, as well as some Sri Lankan offerings like paratha and curry and string hoppers. We returned to our room and lazed about for a few hours, chilling and reading in bed. I’m reading a novel called Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (a Sri Lankan-Canadian author who also wrote The English Patient) which is about a forensic pathologist who is investigating deaths and disappearances during the civil war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, and Daniel is reading a book he borrowed from Tosh called Stories from the History of Ceylon for Children. Ceylon, pronounced “see-lawn,” is the former British/Portuguese colonial name for Sri Lanka; “Lanka” is the historical Sinhalese name for the island, and “Sri” is a prefix that is basically a title of respect, like “the honorable Lanka”; the name was changed in 1972. We left around 2pm feeling very refreshed after the breakfast and the relaxation.

We then took a Tuk to meet up with Etosha and accompanied him on an errand to post a beanbag order destined for Asheville, NC (only about 80 minutes drive from our house back in Kingsport!). The Tuks are on the Uber app, and they are extremely cheap – like 90¢ for a ride. Regular cars on Uber are also super cheap. Tosh, Daniel, and I then went to lunch at a vegetarian Indian restaurant that is one of Tosh and Aparna’s go-to spots (even though they are in no way vegetarians). After lunch, we briefly stopped at Tosh and Aparna’s house where Aparna was busy cooking an eight-day supply of chicken & rice for her dogs for while we’d be gone on our adventure around the island. Daniel and I wanted to do some clothes shopping to round out our Sri Lankan wardrobe, so Tosh took us to a shop called Tropic of Linen where we bought some very affordable clothes, then he dropped us at a higher-end boutique where Daniel and I did some more shopping.

Around 6:45pm, we took a Tuk to meet up with Tosh, Aparna, and Sarah (the British former diplomat) at a dance performance which was a dramatic interpretation of the story of Draupadi, the heroine of the epic Mahabharata, a princess who was forced to marry five brothers. One of the brothers wagers himself, his brothers, and Draupadi in a game of dice against an evil prince, which he loses, so they all become the prince’s slaves. The evil prince tries to disrobe Draupadi in public, but she is saved from humiliation by the god Krishna who makes her sari endless, so it can never be fully unwrapped from her body. There is a war, which for reasons that are unclear to me is Draupadi’s fault, and the other women are mad at her for causing the death of so many people – but they forgive her, because women who have been abused deserve justice. At certain intervals throughout the dance performance, there was an announcer speaking in Sinhalese, and Aparna told me that he wasn’t at all explaining the story, but rather just generally ranting about how men suck and cause problems. Overall, it was a feminist performance and very cool to watch, though sometimes the live drums and swaying dance and extreme heat of the room made me nod off to sleep for brief intervals.

After the dance performance, Tosh, Aparna, Daniel, and I went to a German restaurant which is one of Aparna’s favorite upscale spots. We had some German classics like beer and schnitzel and chatted for a few hours about all sorts of things. We learned that Sri Lanka is apparently one of the most restrictive origin countries when it comes to travel, meaning it’s very difficult for Sri Lankans to get travel visas. According to Aparna, this is because Sri Lankans in general are trying to leave the island at a pretty high rate, and other countries’ governments are wary of letting them in at all for fear that they won’t leave. Occasionally, Tosh travels to London for work, and he said it can take six months or longer to get approved for a visa, if at all. Compare that to my experience getting our Sri Lankan tourist visas – 15 minutes of applying online, $35 application fee, 24 hours before it was approved.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with rich culture and wonderful people, but it’s so sad to think how many people are essentially imprisoned on this island (which is getting hotter and hotter each year because of climate change) due to unfair travel restrictions. I guess what I’d say is – if you have an American passport, be aware of what an insane privilege that is, and take the opportunity to see the world if and when you can.

Another thing we learned is hard to get in Sri Lanka besides travel visas: cheese! They have a fair amount of cows and other dairy animals, but essentially no cheese processing facilities, and cheese imports (like all imports to Sri Lanka) are very expensive. We berated Tosh for not taking us up on our offer to bring him goods from the US. Next time, we’ll bring cheese. After dinner and much engaging conversation, Daniel and I returned to the hotel (which was conveniently right across the street from the German restaurant) and spent a couple hours packing strategically for the upcoming eight-day trek around the island before going to sleep.

Wednesday, April 2:

We woke early and finished packing before having a quick breakfast at the hotel buffet. We checked out, but left one of our two large suitcases at the hotel, since we’ll actually be staying there again at the other end of our trip. We took a Tuk to Tosh & Aparna’s, loaded up into their car, and took off for our multi-stop adventure. Our first destination is Bandarawela. Colombo (the capital) is on the west coast at around the bottom 30% point of the island, and Bandarawela is pretty much due east to the center-south of Sri Lanka, high up in the mountains. (If Sri Lanka is your hand laid flat, fingers together and pointing up, then Bandarawela is basically the lower center of your palm.) This part of the country is Tosh’s ancestral land, and his grandmother, who lives at the bottom of the mountain, recently officially became the oldest person in the region at the age of 98. We won’t visit her, because her house is difficult to get to and she is very grumpy.

On the drive from Colombo to Bandarawela, we stopped at a rest stop which was an old colonial hotel built by the British back in the day. We had some rice and curry for lunch, and when Aparna and I ordered gin and tonics, the waiter got visibly uncomfortable. Aparna explained that Sri Lanka has some remnant laws and customs from colonialism – collectively referred to as Sri Lanka’s “colonial hangover” – and apparently one law which is still on the books is that women can’t drink liquor! The waiter did serve us, and typically people don’t really enforce this law, but some people do still follow it to an extent.

More about the rest stop: there, and indeed in almost every place we’ve been in Sri Lanka, there was a high-powered handheld bidet (the format of bidet here is kinda like a mini hose with a spray handle that hangs on the wall next to the toilet) but often no toilet paper or paper towels. Given the high heat and humidity of the country, although I have generally been feeling quite clean (due to the vigorous hydrostatic pressure of the bidet) I never feel quite dry.

On the last stretch of drive to Bandarawela, which was a very winding path up a misty mountain that Tosh took at incredibly high speeds with painted lane lines on the roads being more of a light suggestion than a hard fact, Tosh told us that it was about here that his father recently got arrested. Tosh, Aparna, and both of their dads were driving in the area when they got pulled over, and Tosh’s dad decided to be fully honest to the question of “have you been drinking sir” by saying “I only had one beer.” This was in fact a confession to something that is completely illegal, and thus the police immediately arrested him, commandeered Tosh’s car, and drove Tosh’s dad and Aparna to the police station to jail Tosh’s dad while Tosh and Aparna’s dad got stranded on the mountainside. The police station building is, amazingly, Tosh’s great-grandparents’ former house, so Tosh’s dad ended up being jailed in his grandparents’ old bedroom.

We are staying at the Bandarawela Hotel, which is also old British colonial style but much fancier than the rest stop. Tosh and Aparna’s dads are both well-known at this hotel, mostly notorious for being loud, demanding, rambunctious, inconsiderate guests. The people here seem a bit afraid of Tosh and Aparna for that reason, and are super polite and respectful, seemingly to prevent an outburst.

We unloaded our stuff into our rooms (conveniently next door to each other – I tell you, they’re trying to keep Tosh & Aparna happy here), then sat on the open-air walkway outside our rooms and drank and chatted for a few hours before heading to dinner at the hotel buffet. At dinner, we were stopped for a long conversation with the proprietor of the hotel who was imploring Tosh and Aparna to help him track down their relatives (aunts, grandparents, etc.) so he can get photos and oral histories from them about the hotel.

After dinner, I went to bed while the others stayed up a bit later chatting.

Go to next: Sri Lanka Days 6-7