A Week Unlike Any Other

I entitled this blog post as I did because this week has been such a change from my previous weeks on the trip. While I have been busy at times and done fun things, I have also had a lot of down time to cruise the internet, watch movies, and read. Monday I think was the first day all trip I didn’t take a picture. The only thing I can remember about Monday was suit shopping. While I started out wanting to buy both light gray and light brown suits, I couldn’t find a gray I liked and only purchased a brown one in the end. Maybe I’ll try again before I leave Colombo but who knows. The brown one makes my fifth suit and that’s probably enough for a guy who only wears them to Church a couple times a month and maybe one other event every couple months. While I’ll be in law school in two months, I have no intentions of dressing different than my previous time a school. Three more years of shorts, shirts, and flip-flops is a wonderful thing.
During part of my downtime here I have started looking into law school, ASU football, and the LDS singles wards/happenings in Tempe. Honestly, I am getting excited, at least for the non-school stuff. For some reason, I’ve always loved Arizona above all places and the Church has always meant more to me here. It will be great to be back and hopefully get into the flow of things. My brother’s house is located just a couple miles from campus and I can ride a bike 10 minutes or take a 4-minute drive to the institute and classes. Starting over will be tough as I’ve never been good at it, but it is time for a change and I look forward to being back with family and old friends.
Tuesday was a busy day. David arranged a van with four big, cushy chairs and I went south to the coastal town of Galle with a driver and Ranuka. Galle is an old gem town with a famous old fort built by the Portugese, used by the Dutch, and abandoned when the English took over. One thing that made it cool was that there is a town inside the fort now. There are historical attractions, store banks, hotels, and all the normal stuff but the 90 acres are fully enclosed by massive walls. The tsunami hit Sri Lanka pretty hard (death estimates are in the neighborhood of 80,000) and Galle was also hit. The Fort walls withstood the blow pretty hard, but a few parts are being rebuilt. Around the fort in many parts there was a beautiful coral reef. The tsunami totally blew it apart and left the chunks at the base of the fort walls. Kind of sad how thousands of years of growth was obliterated in a couple hours. Just outside Galle we hit another Buddha pavilion and then headed north to Haddukawa (something like that). It is a tourist town with amazing beaches and snorkeling/diving during the busy season (Nov-Apr). However, between it being slow season and the civil war (especially rebels attacking airport) there are very few foreigners in Sri Lanka right now. I had the beach to myself and loved the sand. It was amazing in that it was soft and clean, but hard in that you didn’t sink like normal sand. We rented a boat and snorkel and visited the coral reefs which seemed beautiful from my two feet of visibility. The wavy ocean kicked up too much sand and I couldn’t see a thing so that was bummer. Our next stop was a turtle refuge and farm/hatchery. It was cool to see the turtles up close and learn a little marine biology. From here we got back in the van and headed back to Colombo. One of the benefits of a driver is you get to sleep. In the morning I slept 2 of the 3 hours and on the way home I probably slept though the same.
Wednesday was politics day. David had some meetings and I tagged along to Parliament. I wasn’t able to get a good photo though as electronics are banned from the premises and you can’t stop your car on the road. They take security pretty seriously over here right now. The Parliament building is cool as it sits on an island in a lake and was built about 20 years ago. It has been interesting hanging out with David and some of his co-workers. Even though we are on completely opposite sides of the world, lots of the stuff is the same in politics. The media doesn’t like the party in power, they are making posters for press conferences/protests, and the other usual political dilemmas/activities. Usually David gets a semi-clear schedule in the evening and we go grab dinner and occasionally something fun, but he still is working a lot and I hang out at his office a fair amount. It has been lots of fun learning about Sri Lanka and its geography/history.
Thursday was golfing day. I guess I would say the experience was good on the whole and I accomplished my goal (golfing in Asia), but it was a little unexpected. Around noon I teed off with a caddy carrying my rented clubs (first time with a caddy). My game stunk (especially my putting, 3-putted the first 3 holes) but I didn’t care as I went into it with no expectations. After we finished the 4th whole it started to rain. Thankfully we were next to the clubhouse so we grabbed some cover and waited 15 minutes for the rain to let up. It calmed a bit but we went back out in a constant drizzle and made the best of it. As we played the 5th, 6th, and 7th holes the rain and wind intensified to the point where my shirt was whipping and I was soaked to the bone. Since the temperature was still about 80 degrees and the rain drops weren’t big enough to hurt (even at this sideways trajectory) I didn’t mind the conditions and just kept plodding along. When we walked off the 7th green my caddy said, “Par 3, 1…4…2, club?” His English wasn’t too good but I got the drift about how far I needed to hit it and asked for a 7-iron. He planted himself halfway between the tee boxes and the green and let me walk by myself back to the tee boxes. I put the tee in the ground and set my ball on it, lined up my shot, and took a nice healthy swing (not out of control or anything though). The ball comes off low and left in a screaming hook. On the follow-through my arms extend up and to the left and the club slipped right out of my wet hands. I was like, “Uh Oh” watching it fly a good 30 yards away, but didn’t realize my predicament during its 3 seconds of flight. The club came down right in the middle of a pond. I don’t think I could have placed it in a worse spot with no hope of recovery. After initial disbelief, a brief temptation to swear, and a longer moment of anguish over the cost, I burst into laughter after thinking about the whole incident and my condition. For some reason, it all just became very entertaining to me. After completing the 9th whole I went to the pro shop to face the music and was happily surprised when they asked for about 400 rupees to pay some kid to do it when the weather cleared. They were worried that 400 rupees (less than $4US) would upset me and explained that it took a lot to convince someone to get in there as there might be crocodiles or snakes. I thought to myself, “$4? I wouldn’t get in there for $1,000” and was just happy to call it a day with my life intact, wet clothes, and not even knowing my score. Pictured are my caddy and the club-eating pond. I grabbed lunch in the clubhouse (nice food and building) before heading back to the hotel. The rest of the day was just hanging out, watching movies, and grabbing dinner with David, Ranuka, and another friend. The picture is me and Ranuka (my guide/national karate champ/new friend).
Today has been pretty simple. I watched a movie in the morning, packed my stuff, check-out of the hotel, and am sitting at David’s office waiting for him to get back from somewhere. We had a really big wind and rain storm yesterday, last night, and again this morning. I hope the weather clears up as we will be traveling a fair amount between now and Sunday visiting Ampara and Kandy.