Sri Lanka by Car

I guess it has been about a week since I last blogged. It seems I’ve lost the habit and it is hard to restart. Since I’m down to my last two weeks, I’ll try plough through to the finish. I left off last Friday, the 22nd, at David’s office waiting to leave on our drive across the country to Ampara.
After meetings, visiting David’s house to pick up clothes, and everyone else in the convoy getting ready, we left Colombo at about 11pm. Ampara is about 220km east of Colombo in the Eastern Province and is formerly rebel-held territory. David is the political party chair here, will probably run for office here, and it is his wife’s hometown. Politics brings him here a couple times a month and he’s making all the friends/allies he can. Our purpose for the trip was to hold a press conference/protest against the opposition leader (think Nancy Pelosi in the US). We drove all through the night and I had the middle row of a LandCruiser all by myself (borrowed the minister’s car). As the evening progressed I got more and more sick and by the time we reached Ampara at daybreak all I wanted was a bed. For the 16 hours we were in Ampara I slept about 13 and spent the other three eating the little food I could force down and attending the rally. My stomach flu wasn’t too painful, it just absolutely zapped me of energy and made my sore. On the drive back I slept most of the way, spending a total of 26 of 30 hours lying down. Since we drove almost the whole trip a night I didn’t miss too much scenery, although I would have liked to have seen the 8 wild elephants we drove by.
Sunday we arrived back in Colombo around 5am and I went to sleep another 4 hours before Church. At Church I was surprised to hear I was supposed to give a talk in the English branch (I’d thought it was the Singhalese branch and had cancelled there). So I threw together a talk for the first ½ hour of the meeting and survived. After Church I relaxed some more at the hotel and officially declared myself better. In Ampara we had called the district president (a doctor) from a pharmacy, told him my symptoms, and he told me some pills to buy and they worked great. The rest of Sunday evening I had dinner at the Athukoralas and played with the kids. I altered the pool game “Marco Polo” to be played in their front room and they loved it. Every time I go back they want to play again.
Monday I packed up my things, checked out of the hotel, and waited at David’s office for a couple hours while he finished up some meetings. We left Colombo around 3pm and headed for the mountains and some river. David’s best friend from the Church runs an adventure company and had hooked us up with a rafting trip. It only lasted an hour of so, but had some good rapids and beautiful scenery. The whole way down the river we were heading generally west and chasing the sunset. This river is quite famous as it has appeared in two western movies, The Bridge Over the River Kwai and Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom. We went right by the spot where they built the bridge and blew it up, basically the whole movie took place there from what I remember of it. The water was a perfect temperature and the entire environment was beautiful with mountains rising on each side, lush greenery, and yellow/pink skies from the sunset. Usually they don’t run rafts this late but they had waited for our late arrival and even the crew was impressed (they asked for copies of my pictures). At the last rapid the driver took us in sideways, resulting in us getting flipped from the boat and having some nice adventure (although he’d checked ahead if he could flip us, we agreed eagerly). During the crash my $8 Walgreens sunglasses flew off and disappeared in the river. More importantly, my $160 hard lens contacts stayed in my eyes. The next 20 minutes we floated down the river in our life jackets and enjoyed the atmosphere. This was one of my favorite experiences on the trip, a little adventure, beautiful scenery, and good times with a great friend on the other side of the world.
After leaving the raft around sunset we ate some dinner at a good river-side restaurant and then got back in the car for another few hours. Around 11pm we pulled into the “Grand Hotel.” I don’t know the name of the town (something Eliwa) but it the mountain get away for the rich people in the country. It has the nicest golf course in the country (Royal was in the name) and it had a really cool history with colonial governors and leadership visiting there to get away from the heat and humidity of the coastal areas. The elevation was over 4000 feet and it was actually pretty cool (50s) when we arrived. The hotel itself was really nice and had first opened in a much smaller incarnation in 1826. Since 1891 a large portion of the hotel has stayed the same and they had tons of cool pictures and histories to read as you walked through the halls. The rooms were all hardwood, with fireplaces, and big cushy chairs. It seemed so British and stuffy, but was a great place to spend one night. The breakfast buffet was amazing. I ate everything in sight and then took a walk in the hotel’s garden.
From the hotel we took a beautiful drive to a national park (Horten Plains?). We put on our tennis shoes and decided to take a 6 mile hike to see the sights. Our journey took us through beautiful mountain valleys, over clear cool creeks, and through forest jungles. The two highlights were Baker’s Fall and End of the World. Baker’s Fall was an amazing waterfall of black volcanic rock with clear stream water flowing all over it. It had three levels and was hard to picture all at once but made for some great venturing. Swimming in the national park was illegal (and the water was freezing anyway) so we could only enjoy the view, but I took tons of pictures and loved feeling the cool, wet breeze. After walking back up to the path from the falls, our guide tried to tell us it was 4 hours if we kept going instead of heading back. This was total lie as we’d already hiked 3+ kms and the entire trail was only 9 so we kept going and made him tag along if he wanted his pay. After another 2+ kms we made our way to “End of the World.” This is strikingly similar to Half-Dome at Yosemite National Park (although a muck easier hike in Sri Lanka). There is this massive drop-off just over the ledge and it looks over this green valley a couple thousand feet below. Sadly, after we’d been there about 3 minutes a cloud rolled in and we couldn’t see 20 feet down, but I did get a good view of the valley before the cloud came (just no picture). To mark the occasion I decided to call my Dad back in the US at 1:30am. One of the blessings of having your father be a farmer is that you can call at all hours and he won’t mind. From this unique location we had a nice 10 minute conversation and I marveled on the wonders of modern technology yet again. From “World’s End” we hiked our way back to the car and get going. We had about four hour drive and were supposed to be at the suit-shop in less than that for my suit-fitting. David drove like crazy (literally), setting new personal speed records and keeping me awake (hard to do when I’m in a car for long periods of time and not driving). Interstingly, I never felt unsafe as I knew David had a lot more to live for than I do (wife and three kids). The roads in Sri Lanka, and pretty much all of the 3rd world countries I’ve been to are in need of great improvement. I don’t think a mile of divided highway exists in this country (they are building some though) and the two lane roads are clogged with trucks, buses, vans, cars, SUVs, trikes, motorcycles, ox carts, bicycles, and pedestrians. The thing that drives me nuts is how at night, ¼ of the people don’t have fully functioning lights and other safety features. ½ the time you have to drive around honking your horn just so people will get out of the way since you can’t see them. Horns are used very liberally in Asia, basically as a way of saying “I’m here or going there, get out of my way.” We got back to Colombo, visited the suit shop (requesting two alterations: the coat had too much fabric on the neckline and needed be made tighter under the collar and the usual Asian cut was done (for skinny people), meaning they take measurements and then make the clothes too tight for Americans so I had them add some space in the upper legs), and then went back to the hotel for the night.