Notes from the Delta: Spring Break to Sri Lanka

Fishing the surf

The Cantaloup Aqua View Hotel

Dhaka being Dhaka, it was time to get out of town. Spring Break came along and we were able to leave the humid 100 plus degree weather and the local confusion for the much more scenic, breezy humid 100 plus degree weather and happier confusion of Sri Lanka. Since we had not been there, it seemed like a good place to go. We traveled with another family—Millie’s close friend, Katie, and her parents (our friends), both of whom work at the American Embassy. The girls had a room to themselves and we got to have happy hour in air-conditioned comfort next to the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka is a three-hour flight away, but the ride from the airport to the southern beaches takes another three hours. The Cantaloupe Aqua Beach hotel is right on the beach that was destroyed by the Christmas Day 2004 tsunami. The area still shows signs of the destruction, but they are re-building and several other resorts were open. I had read that the tsunami had convinced everyone to build a little inland; apparently, our guys forgot. The Cantaloupe is so much right on the beach that getting off the steps to the sand at high tide was pretty darn scary.

The Turtle Nursery

But once we got to it, we could walk the empty beach for miles while the perfectly blue and green Indian Ocean, with nothing to obstruct its tides from Antarctica to 6 degrees north of the equator, raged at our feet. Sea turtles frequent this beach, but we didn’t see any, of course, because they lay their eggs in the sand at night. This is not always a successful experience, but the locals are trying to help. About a mile down the beach from the Cantaloupe was a turtle orphanage, nursery and hospital that takes in ailing and wounded adult turtles and kept buried eggs and babies alive until they could swim off on their own.

And we took a day trip into the nearest big town, Galle, which has a touristy fort area that originated with the Dutch, or maybe it was the Portuguese, in the 1500s. So we went there and had lunch, walked around the walls and found, among other oddities, a snake charmer with a cobra in a basket. He let a big snake wrap itself around Katie’s mom so we could get a few pictures.

The Snake Charmer

Besides lying around next to the ocean and the bar, we also got in a trip on a little boat to see the largest animals to ever live on Earth, Blue whales. In 2006, someone discovered that the area just off the southern coast of Sri Lanka was in the migratory path of these gentle monsters from January to April, and a new tourism industry was born. We saw six of the giant beasts (or the same one six times); the closest we got was to one who coasted along 70 yards or so beside our boat. The whale graced us with his eye, mouth, spout, dorsal fin and tail before he dived out of sight. He was at least three times longer than our boat and could have easily capsized us if he had come up under us. Then it was back to the beach, the pool and happy hour.

Diving Blue Whale

Another one, or maybe the same one

The Queen's Hotel

You can only spend so much time in a tropical paradise before you have to move. So we headed up country to Kandy, a temple city and former capital. This time we stayed in the 19^th century Queen’s Hotel, across from a lake and across the street from the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. The hotel has been only slightly upgraded (with a polished brass accordion door elevator, and maybe the original red carpet in the hallways) since it was built, but has an interesting bar and restaurant, a pool full of blossoms from the surrounding trees, and occasional hot water. Since New Years was approaching in Sri Lanka (and Bangladesh—hence an extra day of vacation for us), everybody had come to town to buy new clothes and fireworks. Consequently, the sidewalks and shops were full of people. Millie and Katie could not even get into the Fashion Bug store next to hotel.

Here's looking at you, kid

On the way to Kandy, we had stopped at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, a government run rescue and rehabilitation center for pachyderms near a rock-strewn river. Tourist shops and hotels have been built along the lane that the elephants use to get down to the river every day at 2:00 PM for their bathing. We got there just in time to follow them down the street—watch your step—and catch the action. Then it was on to Kandy.

The main temple here in Kandy was built around a tooth of Buddha that miraculously survived his cremation in India 2600 years ago. The tooth traveled from one king to another until a queen spirited it out of India in her hair and brought it to Kandy. The Buddhists built a temple complex, and people queue up with their children to pray before the relic. (We saw similar relics in Europe, too; John the Baptist apparently had plenty of fingers, because lots of cathedrals there have one.)

Monks with Parasols at the Temple of the Saxred Tooth

Offerings in the temple

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth

Kandyan Dance

Kandy has traditional folk dancing similar to Bali, so we got tickets and walked part of the way around the lake to see a performance. It was all somewhat predictable until they brought out the bed of burning coals and the fire dancers showed up. These two guys lit torches, then rubbed them across their arms and into their mouths, and walked across the coals. And then they put the torches in their mouths while they walked across the coals.

Eating fire

After Katie and her parents left for Dhaka (embassy people don’t get New Years off), the three of us booked a day trip to a Hindu temple, a Buddhist monastery, and a Buddhist temple built into caves near the top of a mountain. Millie and I survived the sweaty 200-step climb to the caves while Gail, ever wise, enjoyed the museum next to the parking lot.

Reclining Buddha in a Cave

Hindu Temple at Matale

Our final day was spent seeing a couple more temples and then riding three hours to a hotel near the airport. The roads and vehicles in Sri Lanka are in much better shape than India or Bangladesh (similar to Bali, though not as good as Malaysia or Thailand), but the experience is about the same. We would speed up on the two lane blacktop road to just behind one slow-moving tuck-tuck (a three wheeled vehicle common to the subcontinent), bus or motor scooter, jam on the brakes until it was barely safe to pass, then speed up again to the next one. Gail says she no longer has the need for a road trip.

He's everywhere

The best part of the driving adventure was travelling on Sri Lanka’s only limited access interstate highway, between Colombo and Galle. This highway resembles I-55 south of St. Louis, with wide swaths cut through hills and access ramps, truck stops, rest areas and police cars with radar guns. Only here we saw forests of coconut trees, water buffalo in rice paddies and pineapple plantations. Building this highway in Sri Lanka was a major engineering achievement, given that the island seems to be mostly Asian granite, not Missouri limestone.

On the whole, Sri Lanka has a happy vibe and the beaches might necessitate another trip. The weather is tropically hot and humid, but there was always a breeze. The mountains are green and rocky, the flat areas cultivated and the forests full of fruits and nuts. And there are temples everywhere.

And just when we thought Dhaka couldn’t get any weirder, we got home to find a chirping gecko strolling through the dining room, apparently answering something on Game of Thrones. If he eats enough cockroaches, we’ll have to come up with a name.