Sri Lankan Transportation

Guest blogger Makaio has said something to say about transportation in Sri Lanka. 
  

TRAINS

 The first train we took in Sri Lanka started in Colombo and went to Kandy. We decided to go to the station early to make sure we got tickets. Rob went to get food while the rest of us waited. We saw a train arrive before us and people where jumping on the train while it was still moving relatively quickly just to get a seat. Our tickets where second class and had reserved seating. When Rob had came back our train was just arriving but it didn't go for at least a half an hour but we still wanted seats. We jumped on to the first cabin in front of us and easily obtained seating. We noticed that we were sitting in third class so Rob went to check 2nd class but there was no seats so we stuck to third class. As the train drove it accumulated more people and at some point someone was leaning out the side of the door. Our train rides were less crazy after that, especially when we booked first class to Jafna.

BUSES
The buses in Sri Lanka are an experience. There are pictures of Hindu Gods and Buddha in the front of the bus. Where the air conditioner is normally is a large speaker. They often have a TV in the front as well. They use them to play music videos of Sri Lankan Bollywood. The buses are often crowded and accommodate as many people as possible.They cost around 20 cents Canadian an hour.

TUKTUKS
For those who don't know what a tuktuk is, it is a small open three wheeled vehicle with one wheel on the front and two on the back. Most of the taxis in Sri Lanka are TukTuks because they're cheaper than cars. Their upholstery often has interesting things on them. I'll list my favorite examples: slogans such as "I'm single I'm perfect, or Video games characters with weapons. or kid movies that came out 10 years ago. When we go in a tuktuk Dassa has to sit on Leanne's lap and we have an elaborate way to pack all our luggage inside. If you bargain hard a tuktuk ride should cost 80 cents a KM. 

Transport in Sri Lanka is a cultural experience.

The Coast and The Hills

Do you like hot weather? Then Sri Lanka is your place. How about cool rainy weather? If you like that too, then Sri Lanka is always your place. 

After Jafna we explored the east coast of Sri Lanka with stops in Trincomalee, Batticola and Arugam Bay. We traveled from place to place by very hot local buses (often over 39 degrees Celsius), made more uncomfortable by Bollywood hits played at high volume. The beaches along the east have a somewhat desolate, uninhabited feel to them, and lack the shady trees of other beaches I've visited, but they were still beautiful in a rather stark way. In

French fries + waves = happy kids

Trincomalee we walked up to a high point with a Hindu temple and saw beautiful views. Just north of there the kids and Rob went snorkeling with sharks and saw many beautiful fish. I attempted to snorkel but had trouble seeing, and generally misunderstood the whole shark business. I thought we were supposed to flee if we saw sharks, but apparently we were SUPPOSED to see them. I found this very confusing. I also found it very stressful. Makaio as a

View from Trincomalee

kindergartener was obsessed with sharks and I read him countless books, mostly relating their various levels of danger, and there we were swimming with them. The kids and Rob didn't see it this way, and rated it our best adventure yet, until we we surfing. 


Our surfing lesson in Arugam Bay was organized through a pizza place that was memorable not only for the food but for the portrait of David Hasselhof (of Bay Watch fame) that a traveler had made for the owner. I was also moved by the stories told by the owner of the 2004 Tsunami that destroyed the town, as well as many other parts of Sri Lanka. The owner told us that after the storm Canadians were the first group to arrive with food and water and that he would always be thankful for that. Later I learned that our surfing instructor, who oddly to me at the time spoke with an Australian accent, had lost both his parents in the tsunami and had been raised by an Australian couple. Sri Lanka is full of these contradictory things: great beauty and heartbreaking stories. 

Dassa was the true surfing master, jumping up on his board with ease and coasting along the waves. The rest of us managed to stand with slightly less panache and perfected some amazing wipe-outs. Rob impressed us all by cannonballing off his board.

I love this pic because all four of us are in it, all watching to see Makaio pop up and ride the wave. 

Top of Ella Rock, Ella

The extreme heat made us excited to head to the interior of the country to the hills. It took us three harrowing bus rides to arrive at the hill station of Ella, but happily it was a comfortable 22 degrees. After the dryness of the east coast, the very lush and damp highlands were a pleasant change. We spent our days in the hills hiking through tea plantations to beautiful look outs. We also toured a tea factory, which was interesting, and hiked up to a place called Lipton's Seat, where Mr. Lipton (you know, of the tea) used to look out over his plantation. 

Tea plantation selfie

Nine Arches Bridge, near Ella. The little red dots are my boys in matching t-shirts.

The best person ever

We weren't the only people to find coastal Sri Lanka too hot and to head to the hills. Many of the hill stations were developed by the British and some even have a very British feel to them. Our last stop in the hills, Nuwara Eliya, had some lovely British-built buildings, including The Grand Hotel, a botanical garden called Victoria Park, and a museum about the British in Nuwara Eliya. As I have read a lot about the Victorians in India, this was of particular interest to me. As a treat Rob suggested we go to high tea at The Grand Hotel, which was a great change of place. Instead of rice and curry, we had small sandwiches and sweets. Tea was also accompanied by a traditional Sri Lankan dancing, although the dancers finished with some line dancing to Cotton-Eyed Joe- definitely my favourite part!   

The beautiful garden behind The Grand Hotel

Dassa wasn't too into the tea, but he liked the snacks!

There were a few aspects to our week in the hills that were less than ideal. We stayed in increasingly dismal and expensive guest houses, each one more musty and dusty than the next. Dassa was allergic to most of them (and refused to take anything for it) and spent each night snuffling and keeping us awake. (I tell you, Liebermans with their stomach issues and their allergies!) In one hotel the doorway was particularly low and Rob smacked his head every time he left the room. Since it rained frequently none of our laundry ever dried, and while this might not seem like a big deal, if you are obsessed with hand washing clothes the way I am, this was disconcerting. And lastly, all of our hikes had to be done before 10 am when mist took over the hills, and definitely before 1pm when torrential rain started to fall. This made for a lot of very early mornings, rushed breakfasts and early nights. So although we enjoyed the hills, it was with some exhaustion that we decided to spend our remaining time in Sri Lanka hanging out on the coast.

We've spent the last four days in Bentota, a lovely beach on the west coast of Sri Lanka. We've upgraded ourselves to a hotel (!) with a pool (!) across from the beach. This was a good place to be for the Sri Lankan new year since almost everything is closed for the holiday. On our way here we spent one night in Colombo and the city was so quiet we had cupcakes for breakfast because a cake shop was the only open restaurant we could find open. 

The beach in Bentota has some foreigners, but mostly there are Sri Lankan families enjoying the new year by jumping in the waves, picnicking and playing cricket in the grass. 

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Pool selfie with goggles AND sunglasses

In Bentota I had anticipated doing some day trips to a turtle hatchery or taking a river safari, but the kids don't want to leave the pool, not even to walk across the train tracks to the beach. This is fine with me. We've swam, done some yoga, walked on the beach and had a beer on our balcony every evening when it starts to pour around 5pm. This stay has also give us time to work out the details of our next adventure: we travel Friday to Jordan. 

Adventures in Jafna

When we were planning this trip, Rob kept suggesting we go to India, and I kept saying no. Although I loved traveling there back in 1998, I was sure the kids would get sick. And, India is a tough place to travel. Instead, we chose Sri Lanka as kind of an India-lite: similar climate, some similar foods, but much more easy-going. 

Nowhere in Sri Lanka feels closer to India than Jafna at the very north of the country. Not only is it only 89 km away, but many suspect a series of limestone shoals between the two countries used to form a land bridge. Friends from our elephant experience recommended we travel there for an off-the-beaten-path experience. We found this is to be a true description of Jafna. We also found that the reason most travelers don't go to Jafna is there isn't that much to see there and the travel infrastructure is minimal. Having said that, we had a memorable time and met many interesting people, including many with connections to Canada.

Flowers floating in a bowl

Our Jafna experience began with the train ride north through some remarkable scenery. We also spoke with a number of people on the train including one man who pointed out when the train ride became smoother because the original track had been destroyed in the war, or as he called it, the terrorist uprising. This was an interesting beginning to our time up north, as the war (and also the tsunami) formed the background of many of our encounters.

Jafna has few sidewalks, lots of wandering cows and a kind of post-war feeling of a city that is still getting back on its feet. We explored the remains of a Dutch fort by the water, visited a huge Hindu temple for puja (prayers) and snacked at a great ice cream parlour. We were almost the only tourists in the city, but we did meet several Canadian Sri Lankans. Rob and Dassa had their hair cut by a barber who lived in Scarborough for most of the 2000's, and we met a young Torontonian, Anath, at a temple who had come back to Jafna to get married. He was excited to introduce us to his beautiful bride who was decked out in an elaborate temple-visiting sari.



During our Jafna visit I was also able to take a few pictures of some of the beautiful clothing Sri Lankan women wear. These two photographs below are of bridesmaids we saw having their photo taken at the hotel where we ate breakfast.

I also took a picture of these dental hygienists (see below) working on a train that had been repurposed for a toothpaste-sponsored dental check train for children. A photographer spotted our kids and asked if they wanted to walk through this Unilever train so they could see the exhibits of traditional Sri Lankan arts (woodcarving, metal work and coloured rice art). The exhibits were interesting and we got to meet some of the artists. We also got free Signal brand toothpaste at the end. Since the official photographer took a lot of photos of us I thought it was okay to ask these women to pose. 

Our second day in Jafna we took a hired van tour of the surrounding area from our hotel. It very quickly became apparent that neither our driver nor our "guide" had ever left the city of Jafna. It also became clear that there wasn't that much to see, although the scenery was lovely: lots of palm trees, sand, and blue water. We drove along an empty coastal road where most of the houses had either been bombed by the army or destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. We stopped by the beach to watch some volleyball players, saw a tired lighthouse and then took many wrong turns to get to the beach. When we did arrive, our driver got stuck in the sand. Rob tried to organize everyone to dig us out, but the guide and driver preferred to wait for someone to come help. Who that was never exactly clear, and it was only when the sun was setting several hours later did they rally and organize the local fishermen to help us. In the mean time, the kids and I went to play in the waves and Rob helped the local fishermen move their boats into the water for their evening fishing. The water was warm, the waves just fierce enough to toss us around, and we met a large family from Colombo who used to live in Jafna, before the war.
 

Jafna fishing boats

Did we enjoy our day? For the most part yes, but it was also very long and our guide forgot to plan lunch or dinner. Our day oddly ended with a quick trip to Pizza Hut.     

In Jafna we also gave out many of the Amis de Poche (pocket buddies) that Dassa's school's humanitarian club made for us. The club is ran by Madame Jacynthe Aubut who was Dassa's grade two teacher, and is an amazing teacher, and an amazing force for good in the world. Her club not only gives out dolls, but fundraises for many different charities. I was particularly moved by the dolls she recently gave to another friend of mine, Gemma, to pass on to victims of the horrendous shooting in New Zealand during Gemma's recent trip there.

Jafna girl and her Amis de Poche

We gave dolls to a little girl whose family of fishermen helped push our van out of the sand, to some small kids on a horribly crowded bus, and to children in a medical clinic where we briefly visited because Dassa had an infected insect bite. (I'll spare you the details of this, but let you know it involved some parental dispute about whether meds were needed, a child in tears who couldn't swallow pills, a frustrated parent who insisted the child understand the physics of pill swallowing, and pills that refused to be ground up.) The Amis de Poche softened many such difficult travel moments and I loved being able to offer a small handmade doll as a gift from Canada and explain that my son's classmates had made them. Since many people, especially in Jafna, told us they had a sister or cousin or friend in Canada, it was nice to be able to extend this Canadian connection. It was also lovely to see the shy smiles of small children as they received our little gifts. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to write about our safari experience. This won't warrant a full blog post, but I will say that we went to Wilpattu Park before Jafna where we rode a jeep for four hours and saw some beautiful birds, including peacocks, deer, monkeys, crocodiles, mongoose and water buffalo. We didn't see the sloth bears or leopards, but it was still enjoyable. Mostly when we reflect on our safari we talk about the guest house we didn't stay in, called The Wild Lovers. Even now, several weeks later, one of us will sigh and say, "I really wish we had stayed at the Wild Lovers Guest House."   
 

Kandy

Tonight the boys are watching Bollywood videos in our hotel room and asking a lot of unanswerable questions, like, 'why are there dancing Santas shaking their tummies in this video?'
 
I have no answer for this, just like I had no answer as to what a Hindu cow was doing wandering in a Buddhist temple this afternoon, why whitening cream is popular for Asian women, or why our bus driver was driving like he wanted to kill us all, and then suddenly calmed down. Last week I also couldn't answer why Buddhists seem to worship relics of the Buddha. Despite not having a good answer for this last one, we all enjoyed The Temple of The Tooth in Kandy, which is said to house a relic of the Buddha's tooth. 

We arrived at the temple in time for puja or prayers and packed into the second story of this temple with a lot of Sri Lankan Buddhists keen to see the door of the sanctuary open to where the tooth is kept. (You can't see the actual tooth.) People offering prayers bring the most beautiful flowers to the temple. Once the doors were open, there was also amazing drumming and a kind of bugle was played too. Although most women wear white to visit Buddhist temples, there were also some amazing coloured saris. I wanted to photograph all of them, but didn't want to be too obvious. 

Flower offerings

Temple of the Tooth and dusk

We had delicious masala dosa for lunch that day, and then took the bus out to a beautiful botanical garden at the edge of the city. There we saw lots of different kinds of palm trees, some beautiful lawns, and green houses of cacti and other more native plants. We avoided the wandering monkeys and the bats hanging from the trees, and closely monitored the weather. We knew a thunder storm was forecast for that afternoon, and got in a tuktuk just as it started to pour. The park was packed with school children (again in white uniforms) and we didn't stick around long enough to see them get caught in the rain, but I can imagine the chaos of all those children trying to take cover. (Yet another moment where I was pleased to not be in a teacher role.)

Moments before getting soaked!

Walking along the palms 

From Kandy we left the highlands and headed north. We went by private van that day, which was pretty fancy, compared to the crowded bus we took to get to Kandy, and the VERY crowded train we took to the elephant center. The boys were absolutely gob-smacked by the crowding on the train. They couldn't believe that people ran to get on the train before it even stopped, and that people would stand hanging out the door of the train as it went along. So, the kids were quite excited to be in an air-conditioned van. Rob and I were more excited by the vintage 1971 Volkswagon Bug that we had to briefly take to meet up with the van, complete with fancy Sri Lanka painting on the door.
 

We chose the fancy van partly for the AC and partly because it allowed us to stop along the way. We visited a spice garden, which was really interesting. I had never seen plants that grow my favourite spices, and I didn't even know that tumeric came from a root (like ginger) or that curry was actually a leaf. We also got to sample cardamon, cinnamon, mace, pepper corns (VERY SPICY), cloves, and aloe. Our guide also told us that hibiscus flowers can prevent premature grey hair. I was tempted to purchase some, but I'm not sure my grey is actually premature.
The next few days we spent in an area called The Ancient Cities. We climbed a lot of stairs in the mid-day heat to see some extraordinary Buddhist murals and statues in caves. The kids were particularly impressed with how old the statues were. I think Rob was mostly impressed with the vivid colour my face turned after climbing all those stairs. I have since been dubbed, 'tomato face.'
 
Our time in the ancient cities was not without mishap. Rob suffered a bout of food poisoning that put him out for twenty four hours, and I had another bicycle related incident with faulty brakes resulting in a very bruised leg. Dassa got multiple bug bites. (And Makaio? Still eating, and still losing his stuff. He's on hat #3 of the trip, and has no pajamas or earbuds.) We also stayed in our first not-so great hotel - cockroaches, dirt and crap wifi. All this slowed us down a bit and with the very intense heat, we spent a few afternoons at pools keeping cool. The boys enjoyed this immensely, as pool afternoons often come with French fries and non-spicy food.






Still to come: The Liebersmiths Go on Safari, The Liebersmiths Go to Jafna and Get Stuck in the Sand, and (some) of the Liebersmiths go snorkeling with sharks. (Guess who didn't go - me!)

Greetings from Sri Lanka

Greetings from Sri Lanka. We've been here awhile, and I thought I'd update you on our travel adventures. We've had an amazing time so far. Sri Lanka is a beautiful and relaxing place to visit with amazing, lush scenery. Everywhere we go we are greeted with smiles. Since almost everyone we've met speaks English we've been able to talk with people all along our travels. Travel distances are much shorter than in Vietnam, so instead of overnight sleeper buses, we've been taking short bus rides around the country. These rides although not air conditioned, and often crowded come with Bollywood soundtracks, and inquisitive schoolchildren, making for memorable experiences. 
We began our visit here with a few days in Colombo. There we visited the visa office to extend our stay, had dinner on the beach at Galle Face Green and accidentally booked ourselves into a really fancy yoga hotel. (I think the hotel was updated between when I booked it and when we actually stayed.) We also toured the National museum in Colombo, located in the Cinnamon Gardens neighbourhood, formerly a cinnamon farm, and now a swanky neighbourhood. The museum is in an old British Colonial building set in a lovely park area. The museum had exhibits of crafts around Sri Lanka, including textiles, ceramics and jewelery. I particularly liked the ivory combs and a water clock with small holes. A certain amount of water running through the holes demarcated a certain passing of time. Most memorable of the museum were the parrots in the massive trees outside and the hordes of school children in white uniforms being led through the museum by their teachers at lightning speeds. All through Colombo we saw great groups of school children and their white uniforms and I could only think of their poor parents struggling to keep those uniforms clean.

The National Museum in Colombo- a fine example of British architecture. 

 

Still, white must keep all those children cooler, which is a good thing, because Sri Lanka is REALLY hot. I mean, really, really hot. I felt especially for some Muslim women tourists dressed all in black including the niqqab, or face scarf. Dassa initially thought these women were ninjas and was completely fascinated by them. I apologize if anyone finds this offensive. 

Another group of people who wear white in Sri Lanka are people at Buddhist temples offering prayers. We went to one such temple in Colombo, where people circumnavigated around a tree, and poured water into carved lion's mouths to water the tree. There were concrete benches around the tree where we sat listening to women do Buddhist chanting. It was really lovely, until we realized that this temple had an elephant tied up in the back. This elephant was clearly in distress, and was even being hit by his mahout, or caregiver. This was disturbing in so many ways, but especially awful that this was part of Buddhist practice. 

Buddhist stupa, Colombo temple - Dassa is standing in the shade because you have to take off your shoes and the sand is ROCKING hot.

Watering the Bodhi tree at the Buddhist temple 

Flowers for sale outside the temple

I have a lot to say about elephants in Sri Lanka, and our experience of them but first I have to explain how Asian elephants differ from African ones. Although elephants in Africa are only wild, Asian elephants exist both in the wild, and in captivity. Domestic elephants are used in both the logging industry, and in Buddhist temple rituals. Asian elephants, are also really different than African ones. They are smaller (although still massive) have smaller ears, a rounder tuchus, and many of them don't have tusks. I know all this now because after Colombo we spent a few days as 'volunteers' at Millenium Elephant Foundation, a center to give domestic elephants a better quality of life. This was an interesting, but complicated place. There are 10 elephants at MEF, and most of them are owned by temples who allow MEF to house and feed the elephants and offer the elephants a better life than in a city temple. Since elephants eat A LOT, the center supports itself with a lot of tourist activities, including elephant rides. Although they do not use the howdah, a kind of platform for people to sit on, the rides must be very annoying to the elephants, and the center is trying to phase them out and offers elephant walks where you can walk with an elephant through the center's forest instead. The center also makes money through their volunteer program, where people like us pay to stay there, clean up poop, scrub elephants in the river, and feed them vitamin balls. Although we all had mixed feelings about paying to be volunteers, and the zoo-like feeling of the center, we all still really enjoyed ourselves. We got up early in the morning to walk with elephants outside the park, helped put out fruit for the elephants to find on their walks, and cleaned up the river bed of trash after it rained. 

Rob is washing Lakshmi while she takes a nap.

 

Early morning walk with Ramenka the elephant

We loved the beautiful Jungle Book-like setting, eating meals in a beautiful old colonial house, and playing volleyball with the staff in the evening. (Okay the boys played.) The center also has ten rescue dogs which Dassa loved. By far the best part was meeting other volunteers, and the great communal feeling created by the volunteer coordinators. I was particularly impressed with a Canadian coordinator, Ryan. He answered our endless questions, cleaned huge piles of poop, led yoga sessions, and sweated it out in his beautiful garden. Through all of this he smiled as he interacted with everyone- from the mahouts, to Russian elephant-selfie-taking tourists and Canadian kids with a lot of stories. The center also hosts high school groups from abroad and it was easy to see how he would thrive with them as well. 

Attempting to pose with elephant

Ryan also took our group of volunteers (about ten of us) into Kandy where we volunteered with a group of adults with disabilities. There's not a lot of services for differently-abled people in Sri Lanka and I was really moved by the MEF's involvment in this group. We participated in their free movement and yoga activities, and then Rob and I led a sing-a-long, singing some Rob Smith favourites such as The Cat Came Back and Bumping in My Little Red Wagon. Dassa also did a solo performance of the Arrogant Worms song, Canada Is Really Big. At one point one of the youngest members came up and sang She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain with us, which was really nice. As we sang I was reminded of the parts of teaching that I actually really like, until one of the women decided to tackle me in a head lock while we were leading He's Got The Whole World in His Hands. (This reminded me of the parts of teaching that I'm not so fond of.) 

This picture was taken right before the woman beside me put me in the Half Nelson.

Some other highlights of staying at MEF was touring the elephant poo paper factory next to the center. Elephants mainly eat leaves and grass, and all the fiber in their diet allows it to be made it paper, mainly for tourist items. The best part of the factory was that all the machines were hand-operated, which meant we were able to see how the machines worked, from the vat that boils the poop, to the tables of young woman painting flowers and elephants on poo paper notebook covers. 

The other memorable experience at MEF was seeing the cobras. This was not intentional, and not one of the animals that I planned on seeing in my life. The kids and I were given the job of putting out fruit for the elephants in the jungle when it started to rain. We stopped on the path to admire some impressively large snails when I saw two cobras, with their heads flared, hissing at us. I pointed, screamed and ran, which is what you're supposed to do, but my brave (stupid?) little naturalists stood staring until I insisted/screamed that they move along. Luckily we saw a documentary on animals of Sri Lanka a few nights later at our hotel which showed how far cobras can spit their venom, and the kids are feeling slightly more cautious. I could talk of nothing but these cobras for days. Someone would mention something about the elephants, and I would reply with something about the snakes. I'm still a little jumpy from this unexpected wilderness sighting. Snake-like twigs and even snake-like braids and pony tails startle me. Rob, of course, finds this very entertaining.