Six Flavors of Sri Lanka

The Jakarta Post   |  Fri, 03/28/2008 2:00 PM  |  On a Jet Plane

For 10 days last December, my agenda was a telling blank—the kind of a blank that speaks of true, blissful escape. For 10 days, I was swallowed alive by Sri Lanka and pinballed from dead Buddhist cities to hyperactive towns, cool mountain tea-plantations to resurrected coastal villages, and from jungles to savannas. Here are the highlights of a grand trip.

Day 1 The North, in the sacred city of Anuradhapura
The grandeur of Sri Lanka’s former spiritual and political capital is best sampled while cycling down one of the sacred city’s tree-lined roads, feet off the pedals and hair blowing in the wind. Across this vast expanse of land, the crumbled remains of Buddhist monasteries, palaces and monuments are strewn between ponds, low-lying trees and gravel paths.

Here and there, gigantic domes called dagobas (stupas) poke through the canopy. But most of what makes Anuradhapura a city of mythical proportions is below my feet in one of the most complex urban networks of underground channels, countless monasteries and fortifications that enclosed an area of 663 square kilometers. While the political significance of Anuradhapura may have waned, the stream of pilgrims who travel to this site is as strong as ever.

Busloads of families clad in white, from toddlers to frail elderly people, weave their way from one monument to another to pray while the army looks on. Not far away to the north violence rages between the Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil Tigers, a reality that feels a world apart from this peaceful place.

Day 2 The North, Sigiriya
A massive rock in the middle of a plain, Sigiriya doesn’t as much appear as suddenly materialize from behind the mist on this rainy day, as we trudge down a straight gravel path with other pilgrims. Heavily streaked with dark marks that run down its sides, this red mineral mass in an otherwise green landscape has stoked people’s imaginations for thousands of years.

And these are no bedtime stories. Legend has it that the king’s son, Kasyapa (477–495 AD), walled up his father alive to take the throne, which was intended for his brother, Mogallena. The slighted brother escaped to India, raising an army to seek revenge on his sibling.
Sensing he was in for tough times, Kasyapa established himself on the summit of Sigiriya. In the inevitable face-off between the brothers’ armies, Kasyapa’s army defected and he killed himself by falling on his sword.

Contrast this rather brutal historical backdrop with the few remains of the surrounding town -- landscaped water gardens, deep moats and withered foundations that attest to an elaborate example of urban design. The dilapidated state of the site’s public toilets shows that things have gone downhill since those glorious times.

Day 5 South-Central region
The road that winds from the Sinharaja Forest Reserve to Sri Lanka’s southern coast barely receives a mention in the Lonely Planet guide. Truth be told, it has a tendency to disintegrate into a modest country lane and leave you wondering if you have reached the end of the trip. Then there’s the locally purchased map, which paints an optimistic, rather direct trajectory for our destination on the coast, belying the road’s tendency to vigorously twist and turn as it unfolds along the mountain side.

But this is a small price to pay for the world revealed on our itinerary — forest vistas, tea plantations on steep slopes that seem to defy gravity, plantation workers with golden studs on either side of their nostrils and, upon closer inspection, leeches in the roadside vegetation. We fight back with lighters and tweezers.

Day 7 South Coast, Galle Fort
From a rooftop veranda, shackled to a spot of shade and ice-cold ginger beer by the intense heat, we watch the fortified town of Galle melt away in the midday haze. To the south, a British lighthouse emerges from the sea of red-tiled roofs. To its right, the awkward juxtaposition of Islamic motifs on a Dutch-era church reveals a mosque that is as unique as they come. In the distance, the Indian Ocean sparkles away, with nothing but waves and krill until Antarctica. Gulls lull half-heartedly in the weak breeze. Galle exudes a lazy feeling, perhaps because of its quiet and narrow streets, temporarily disconnecting you from South Asia.

We walk past facades that betray European influences, and yet still evoke Asia; elegant and colorful street-front verandas that often lead to cool shaded courtyards, and a handful of upscale hotels that are banking on the colonial charm of a bygone era.

Day 8 – West Coast, Ambalangoda
Their feet burrowing into the hot morning sand, men of all ages are heaving in an endless net from the sea. They lash themselves onto its extremity using coconut rope, grips firm, shoulder muscles tight, and shouting in unison, pull the net a few meters out of the sea. Shout and heave, shout and heave, hours on end in a clockwork motion that has been passed down the generations; every once in a while, the man pulling at the end of the line walks back down the beach and lashes himself to the top of the line.

It’s long and tiring labor — it will take more than two hours to haul out in its entirety the four kilometer-long net and its writhing contents. “No money, no photo,” I am warned after I have taken a few shots of the men straining under the sun. It’s tough times for local fishermen, many of whom are still struggling to recover from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Cemeteries and carcasses of houses destroyed by the tidal waves line the southwest coastal road, silent memorials to that fateful December day.

Day 10 – Colombo, the expat
The clock will shortly strike midnight and drag Las Palmas, Sri Lanka and the rest of our time zone into 2008. At this resort, where we’ve unexpectedly wound up for the night, we are being treated to a scrumptious dinner of epic proportions and fireworks that are exploding with fits and starts. George Michael and Michael Learns to Rock pour out from the sound system, slowly but resolutely.

Next to us, a group of Chinese tourists eats in morose silence, staring at their plates. A Sri Lankan gentleman (we’ll call him Mr. X) pulls up a chair and joins our table. Loud, potentially charming, but certainly well travelled, Mr. X is the resort owner’s brother. His wife, he tells us, is also Sri Lankan, but of Javanese descent.

During Sri Lanka’s Dutch period (1656-1796), colonial rulers brought political exiles and soldiers from the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago to Sri Lanka, a trend that continued when the island nation was under British rule (1796-1948). Tellingly, even today the Sinhalese refer to Sri Lankan Malays as Jaminissu— the “people from Java”.
I guess I’m not as far away from home as I thought.

+ Marc-Antoine Dunais

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.