Sri Lanka Adventures

Sri Lanka
(Dec 2010) Maps & Facts (click on $ for costs)

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Busy in Sri Lanka

I first heard the name Sri Lanka when I was a wee young lad. I was reading a novel by Arthur C. Clarke. In the novel he mentions Sri Lanka (previously know as Ceylon & Serendipity) quite a bit. Obviously he had fallen in love with this small island nation that is sometimes referred to as the jewel that hangs from the continent of India. From those earliest stories and the way he wrote about the numerous ancient rock wall carvings, statues, temple complexes and cities, I was hooked. However, many things have changed over the past 50 years since he penned those novels. The ancient sites are no longer un-excavated, nor are they sitting idle and ignored by the locals. Now they are all part of a well oiled government moneymaking machine (think Angkor Watt, but smaller in size and more spread out). What did I expect though? I bought the airline tickets on an impulse and figured it would be a good way to shoe horn a bit of travel while spending two months with Cristina in Thailand.

After a month of lying in a hammock on the balcony of a Thai bungalow during the monsoons, I was ready to go any place with sunshine. Unfortunately Sri Lanka wasn't the sunny place I had envisioned. We were greeted in Colombo, the capital, by more heavy monsoon rains and were informed that the island experiences at least three monsoon seasons, and the timing depends on which side of the island you are on at any given time. We decided, on another bad impulse, to buy into a private package venture that would give us the major ancient cites (mostly in the north-central parts of the island) over a four-day period (costing $180 each). The deal included a train ride, car, driver, accommodation and some sunshine at last.

We set out the next day by train. We were booked into the premium observation car on an ancient rickety train. We bounced and wobbled our way to Sri Lanka's second largest city called Kandy where our driver met us. We then paid the ridiculous entrance pass fees to the ancient sites ($50 each, not included in the package). The pass was good at most of the prime locations but not all. A good number of sites charged as much as $10 each to visit so ancient sites have obviously progress from the days of Arthur C Clark's novels.

It turned out that our driver, Lal, was from Colombo and that he had driven over (essentially following the train) that morning. This seemed quite silly, but seemed to fit in with the silliness of the entire venture at that stage.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the car, on the main “highway” which consisted of a “paved” two-lane road with thousands of very old buses vying for customers and to be in the front of each other. The roads were endlessly winding as they wove their way in a lazy northward direction. We stopped a number of times to check out local temples and herbal gardens before turning onto a dirt track that took us to our accommodation for the next few days.

We spent the next day temple hopping to Nalanda Gedige (Tartaric Monument), Dambulla Cave Temple and the Anuradhapura Ancient City Complex. We did the Anuradhapura Complex by bicycle but only covered a small portion of the sites (because of the two hour drive to and from the complex from our remote guesthouse). In spite of our time limitation we did manage to find the sacred Sri Maha Bodhi Tree. A tree grown from a cutting of the original that Buddha sat under while attaining enlightenment. It was an interesting concept and the number and types of pilgrims were just as interesting. Unfortunately time was fleeting so we returned our bicycles and climbed back into the car for the long drive back.

The following day we visited the sprawling ancient city complex of Polonnaruwa (check spelling here). This time we arrived early and made use of our driver but even so, it was difficult to cover the entire site in a day, both because of the number of ruins and because of information overload. There were too many temples to see in too short a time.

On the third and final day of our driver-escorted package we visited the ancient city located on top of a giant rock called Sigiriya . This is a seriously silly place to put a capital city but definitely impossible to attack. Think in terms of Gibraltar but with steeper cliffs. The climb to the top was only matched in its scary-ness by the even scarier descent. The site also housed a very good museum that our driver/guide told us was not worth visiting. It made me wonder about his other negative suggestions over the past few days.

The following day our driver dropped us back in Kandy. It is geologically part of the Hill Country, located at an altitude of 600m, and sits on the edge of a small lake and another set of temple complexes. It served us as a good base from which to do some planning and some Internet.

Hill Country Motorcycle Ride

After a few days in Kandy we decided to rent a motorcycle and explore the Hill Country. Rather than ride around aimlessly we set the fabled World's End as our objective. We were told that World's End is a sheer escarpment located on the Horton Plains and that it could only be reached with a guide and via a 4-wheel drive vehicle. My feelings were that a motorbike can always go where 4-wheel drives can and who needed a guide when you had a good map?

We set out on a sunny day with a map and a plan to stay on the tiny rural roads (as preached in the novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). All roads in Sri Lanka are actually rural and there are no highways (by Western standards exist), but at least on the winding rural routes we would have the road to ourselves most of the time while the main roads are all plied by countless honking buses and passing cars. The choice turned out to be wonderful. The roads we chose never went in a straight line for more than a few hundred meters and continuously climbed and fell as they wound their way from tea plantation to valley floor and then repeated the sequence. However, this approach did have its drawbacks. At no time did we actually know where we were. The few signs that existed were in Sri Lankan or were simply the names of the plantations, none of which were on our English map. The locals were of no help either. Few spoke English and even fewer had an idea of destinations outside of their valley. By the end of the first day we were forced to turn around and double back to the last junction we passed in order to head out towards the main road and a city for the night.

On day two we tried to use the main road to catch up on some of the previous day's lost time. Initially it seemed like a good idea, but very soon we ran into major construction, which seemed fun on a motorbike for a while. But as the hours passed it dawned on us that the entire route was under major construction. And then it began to rain in earnest. We spent the rest of the day on muddy, curving, climbing, falling, and slipper roads. By the end of the day we had reached the tiny tourist village of Ella, our original destination of the previous day.

The third day looked promising, but rains were forecast for the afternoon. We set out early in fog and overcast skies when we climbed to the top of the numerous hills. By mid-afternoon we reached the crest of the last hills that overlooked the Horton Plains and had to make a choice. We could turn to our west and follow a very long tiny track back into the clouds or continue down into the sunshine of the valley and then turn back into the hills closer to our objective. The sunshine won and we coasted down the long and winding road into sunshine. However, as on the previous days, we were never actually sure where we were. There were few road signs, none in English and the only turn-offs were to private tea plantations. After much confusion we located a Sri Lankan who spoke English and seemed sure of his directions. He pointed out that World's End was just on the other side of the hills but the turn off to reach it was a tiny lane much further back (we must have passed) and that it was not sign posted. He also informed us that once on the track we would need to ask the locals for specific locations in Sri Lankan since no one would know of the place by the English name of World's End. Once again we thought about our options. We could double back and hunt for the turn-off and then our objective or we could simply head into the hills following the many tea plantation roads and aim for it by feel. Naturally I chose to follow my internal compass rather than logic.

By late afternoon we had reached a lookout above the valley and it was clear that we were lost. At this stage we opted to give up on World's End and continue to Adam's Peak for a simple pilgrimage. Perhaps the end of the world was a place better left for sailors.

Adam's Peak

We had the motorbike for another day and a wake up so I figured it would ideal for reaching base of Adam's Peak , a 2,243m summit that climbs out of the surrounding sub-tropical forest at a dramatic angle. It is best know for Sri Pada (meaning sacred footprint), a rock formation near the summit with a footprint indentation. The Buddhists believe it to be the footprint of Buddha; the Hindus believe it to be Shiva's, while the Coptic Christians and Muslims believe it to be Adam's.

We rode hard for the remainder of the day and reached the village, at the base of the mountain, by early evening. We checked into the Green Guesthouse for a hearty meal and then went to sleep immediately. By 3:30am we were up and out the door. The plan was to climb the thousands of steps in darkness in order to reach the summit at sunrise. But it was obvious very quickly that sunrise would be a non-event. The trail was illuminated in lights all the way to the summit that glowed in a halo of clouds. We decided to take our time since the sunrise was sure to be obscured by those clouds and because the going was very tiring anyway.

By 5:30 am we were within reach of the summit and the low ceiling of clouds had risen above the summit but still blocked out the sun. It made for a compelling climb; we were climbing below the clouds but above the lowland fog and could hear the changing of pilgrims and the ringing of a bell in the distance.

By 6am we had made it. It was freezing cold on the top and Cristina was exhausted and grumpy. We sat among the pilgrims for a while to eat our chocolate bars, drink some Pepsi, and warm up. Given the altitude and the gusty winds, warming up was out of the question so we decided to make our offerings of gratitude and hightail it off the mountain ASAP. Scratch another pilgrimage off my to-do list. We wanted to get out of Dodge before it started to rain again.

And rain it did. All the way back to Kandy. We took a more direct route, but that didn't mean the road was at all straight. It simply meant more buses as the tropical strength rains chased us all the way back.

It seemed as though another round of monsoon rains had found us but rumor was that the south was still rain free so that was our next objective.

The South

Getting to the south required another Sri Lanka style indirect route. Rather than heading due south we went west to our starting point, Colombo, the capital by bus. There we took a train to the southern fortress city of Galle for a night. We then took two buses the following day to reach Tangalla and the southern beaches , and as promised, the sun did shine and the beaches were beachy. It was just what we needed before starting the long and complicated return to the west the following week.

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