We arrived yesterday afternoon to the hot, turbulent air of Colombo, seething with people, the roads chaotic with traffic thundering and weaving along in both directions with scant regard for left or right. The traffic included huge, old wooden lorries, taxis, buses, smart cars, bullock carts and hundreds of tiny 3 wheelers, known affectionately as tuc-tucs, crammed with families, shopping, vegetables, children – everything imaginable and more. Their drivers lead charmed lives and think nothing of U-turns across the multiple lanes of traffic. Other vehicles somehow swerve around them. Indeed, so busy are the roads that it seems to me that the only way to cross Galle Road might be to hire a three wheeler to take us across. I cannot imagine how we will cope out on our own.
Our flight was long and uneventful. We slept most of the way. We landed briefly in Male in torrential rain. As we were not allowed off the plane we have no impression other than of a long runway where we prayed the pilot would stop before going off the end into the sea! I guess Male is the only atol large enough for a plane to land.
A reception committee of Neil, Jeev, her dad Abey, and Sunil – a close family friend who drove us back – awaited us on our arrival in Colombo. The country looked a green, verdant jungle as we flew in, and our journey south, to Colombo and on to Ratmalana, confirmed this. Coconut palms lined our route. There were swamp lands, grass areas, shrubs and flowering bushes. Everything is very colourful and vibrant with men in loose shirts and sarongs and women in saris. As we reached Colombo there were advertising hoardings everywhere. The general impression is of run-down tat. Nothing much is maintained. Everything functions but is old or recycled. There are hundreds of little shops and vegetable stalls. I couldn’t easily make out what most of the shops did or sold. Fabric shops and tailors abound. Signs are usually in English with Sinhalese script beneath. One has a strange feeling of still being in England but in a time now past. I felt almost as if it were the Britain of my early childhood – but far more colourful. Everything seems old and shabby, as if it has had several different uses before.
Bullocks wandered along the roadside, browsing amidst the dust and rubble for food whilst vehicles swerved around them. Dogs wandered the streets. A lady stood by the roadside cleaning her teeth and washing herself. There were many timber yards and places selling recycled vehicle parts. There were lots of garages – old, grimy places with frequently only one archaic pump which is astonishing given the enormous number of vehicles on the roads in Colombo.
The suffocating journey took about ninety minutes. We arrived to be welcomed by Jeev’s mum Nita to the marginally cooler house with its polished cement floors and its big ceiling fans shifting the warm air around. The house is quite large but seems rather bare, lacking much in the way of soft furnishings and fabrics. It’s furnished with very attractive wooden chairs with woven palm seats which are cooler and more practical in a hot climate than the upholstered armchairs that we are used to back home. The house stands in a quiet – for Colombo – unmade side road off a local road leading into Galle Road, on the far side of which is the Mount Lavinia district with its sandy beaches fringing the Indian Ocean.
Nita, who seems tinier than ever, made us very welcome. It was delightful to see her again. We sat talking on the garden porch watching little lizards running up the rendered walls and the striped squirrels in the coconut trees and on the red-tiled roofs of neighbouring houses.
We are staying in the annex to the house and Neil is staying with us. The ceiling fans are ineffectual against the stifling heat and we need to use mosquito nets at night. The most used thing since we arrived has been the “cold” shower. We all use it – all the time!
This morning I am the only one awake from our lot. Ian’s asleep at last with a bad back and Kate and Rob are still sleeping peacefully. Neil is up and through in the main house with Jeev and family.
Last night we went out with Sunil at dusk to eat on the beach at Mount Lavinia at a seafood restaurant. It was wonderful! Warm black velvet night surrounded us with the waves from the Indian Ocean breaking onto the tideless beach only yards from where we sat. Tall palm trees surrounded us, their spreading leaves silhouetted black against the clear, starry sky. We drank local beer whilst our meal was cooked before moving on to the restaurant veranda to the table for nine laden with huge plates of vegetable rice, devilled fish with chillies, sizzling fish in a piquant sauce and other delicious spicy dishes. There was far too much for us to eat. It was very hot. We were all perspiring badly and the fan wasn’t working which upset Abey who wanted it perfect for us. It definitely was as far as we were concerned.
It seemed strange listening to Jeev and family switching between English and Sinhalese. Neil has learned quite a bit now and Ian of course is captivated by it, so they are bringing out words and phrases which cause amusement. Quite a few Portuguese words are used I believe.
After the meal we were accompanied back to where we had left the car by a member of the restaurant staff carrying a kerosene lamp to light the way. These, we were told, were traditionally used by local fishermen at night to attract fish to the surface. Our route took us across the railway line south from Colombo to Galle. Literally across! Then along beside it on a little footpath. It was a very strange route for us but is accepted as normal here.
Back home we were only too happy to go to bed. I slept very soundly indeed with the fan in the room turning at full-pelt.
Kalinga, Jeev’s brother who lives in Yorkshire, was due to fly in to Colombo at 2.a.m. I gather from Neil that the flight was delayed and Abey and Sunil were up all night waiting at the airport. They arrived back around 7.a.m.
Sunday evening, 24th May 2003 continued.
We are nearing the end of our first full and exhausting day here. Exhausting because of the draining heat which has confined us to the house for most of the day.
Jeev’s family is large, extended and very hospitable. They seem to have taken Neil to their hearts and he mixes in very well with everyone. I really feel very proud of him. He’s just taken me into the kitchen and helped me to tell “Money”, the person who does the cooking for the family, how much we’d enjoyed the lovely lunch he cooked for us. Neil managed this in Sinhalese because Money doesn’t speak English. The message seems to have been understood. He’s currently cooking us all “hoppers” for supper. In this instance it’s a sort of pancake but can also come as “string hoppers”.
Jeev, Neil and the family are very involved in discussions about the wedding so Kalinga, who seems to have recovered remarkably quickly from his sleepless night, drove us in dad’s car, to the Bata shoe shop to buy some cheap, cool sandals. We didn’t really need to drive as it’s right nearby on Galle Road but the car is air conditioned and the streets intolerable.
First however, Kalinga needed to go to the Ceylon Bank to get some rupees. That was on the far side of the road. It was a complete nightmare turning into the Galle Road, edging across several lanes of chaotic traffic – lorries, cyclists, bullock carts, tractors, motorbikes and huge coaches. Nobody ever gives way and pedestrians cross when and as they can. Even the whirling traffic around the Arc de Triomphe fades into insignificance by comparison. Eventually we managed a U-turn and reached the bank which I mistook for a Buddhist temple! Kalinga told us to cross back to the shoe shop and he’d pick us up shortly. It was a terrifying experience achieved by sticking like glue to some local people and crossing with them!
The shoe shop was rather naff. Full of cheap plastic tat that we’d never dream of buying at home. However, for around 50p per pair we left kitted out with flip-flops.
The journey back through the side streets was amazing. The roads lack tarmac and are full of ruts and builders rubble. There were literally hundreds of workmen in sarongs digging culverts to divert the rainwater and clear out the overgrown open sewers full of mosquito larvae. Some of the houses however seemed rather nice and Kalinga commented that they had all been built since his last visit eighteen months ago.
Back at the house various relatives had arrived and an interesting rice curry, cooked by Money, was enjoyed by everyone. He’s been requested to go easy on the chillies for our sakes, but at least one dish was amazingly spicy. I was rather disappointed that the sweet, juicy local pineapples were served sprinkled with salt. However, I imagine we must lose a lot through sweating in this heat.
Lizards run across the inside walls of the house, mosquitoes await every opportunity to attack. A vast ants nest hangs suspended amongst the branches of a flowering tree by the front door and fireflies glow in the shower room at dusk as you wash away the sweat and grime of the day.
Dusk falls around 6.30pm all year round. We are only around seven degrees north of the Equator and even the locals find the weather draining.
For breakfast today we ate dahl (lentils) and the sweet, juicy sections of jack fruit, a huge strange fruit from a relative’s garden. The seeds, each about the size of a chestnut with one to each segment, were later made into a savoury curry for supper that was crunchy and quite delicious.
Also growing in local gardens are bananas, avocados, mangoes, paw paws and king coconuts. There are whole branches of bananas in the larder and dozens of coconuts in their smooth orange husks.
After lunch we all piled into a couple of hired vans with drivers and fourteen of us made the crazy journey down Galle Road for ninety minutes at breakneck speed, overtaking either on the inside or on the other side of the road. That’s just the way it is here! Weaving through the traffic and the pedestrians with their umbrellas shielding them from the sun, we passed through an endless parade of battered, rundown little shops and street markets that heaved with people either standing around in groups, sitting on walls or, in one instance, climbing coconut trees along the roadside and walking along ropes stretched through the treetops. They were taking the nectar from the flowers to produce “Toddy” which can then be distilled to become a hard liquor called “Arrack”. People walked in groups along the roadside totally ignoring the traffic that thundered so close to them. It almost seemed that vehicles were able to breathe-in to get through gaps smaller than their normal width! Three wheelers would even drive towards you on the wrong side of the road at times!
Beside the road are many Christian churches as well as Buddhist temples and shrines. Street names are quintessentially English and street signs and notices are written mainly in English. Almost everyone seems to have a command of English and frequently use it to speak to each other as the language of choice.
Dust, rubble, rubbish, old hoardings, boarded-up shop fronts, abandoned cement bags. This is Galle Road, stretching right down the west coast of the country from Colombo to Galle in the far south. Shacks, dilapidated wooden buildings, frequently with torn blue plastic sheets for roofing, line the beaches. Many had washing strung across the front and some a battered three wheeler outside. The area of shanty dwellings around Faro that we discovered last autumn is writ large here in Sri Lanka.
Kate and Rob say that Sri Lanka is nothing like India and is far more advanced. Certainly the people look well and healthy. They are thin and wiry and seem very friendly. There are marked variations however in living conditions and affluence.
We crossed wide rivers fringed with mangrove swamps and huge palm trees, eventually turning off at Bentota where we drew up at the entrance to the Taj Exotica for a preliminary wedding visit. The door was opened by attendants in white uniforms with gold braid and we entered perhaps the most opulent hotel we have ever visited. Through the marble-floored, air conditioned lounge we could see the Indian Ocean breaking upon the white sand with a beautiful green lawn, flowering shrubs and palm trees leading down to it. Along the beach trundled our first Sri Lanka elephant.
We were welcomed into a plush, cool lounge and given “welcome” drinks – with ice!! Whilst Jeev and family discussed wedding arrangements with the hotel management, Kate and Rob escaped to the garden and looked longingly at the pool, surrounded by wealthy European guests. Striped squirrels scampered amongst the bushes. Meanwhile, we explored the hotel and discovered a two-foot crested green lizard in a jungly garden courtyard. It had a red crest and a purple chin. Having posed for our photograph it jumped several feet to the leaves of a palm tree where it hung almost invisible. It must have strong suckers on its feet.
We are discovering that arranging anything takes ages in Sri Lanka. Next we were taken to see the wedding room and be talked through the routine for the day. It appears even Ian and I have roles to play. So long as the air conditioning is working that’s fine. I think Jeev is delighted with the location bless, her. As for Neil, he’s being amazingly patient about it all but then he’s already very fond of his new family and devoted to Jeev. I can’t see him being that calm with me if I involved him in long drawn-out discussions all afternoon like that with the beach just outside!
Eventually matters were concluded to everyone’s satisfaction and it was then proposed that we check-out Ceysands Hotel where we will be staying for the wedding. This involved a boat trip across the river to what appears to be a jungle island. The boat we noted was called Neil! I hope it’s a good omen.
Ceysands seems an excellent hotel. Rather more ordinary than the Taj Exotica. It will be very pleasant to stay there with its huge, air conditioned rooms opening onto the river and gardens. There is also a very nice swimming pool.
Back across the river we drove to a café, owned by a German, that is favoured by the family. We drank iced water and ate “short eats” – a selection of savoury, curried pastries. They were very nice but even with the ceiling fans it was unbearably hot in the crowded café.
Then we returned to Ratmalana. As chaotic as the outward journey but even blind fear could not prevent us from falling asleep, so we missed much of the roadside excitement.
Back home Money cooked us egg hoppers for supper. It’s now time to go to bed feeling appallingly hot and sticky. We reckon we even sweat under the “cold” water shower which is in constant use!
