About contrasting beach bunnies, amazing curries,.

19 July 2010 – Monday

About contrasting beach bunnies, amazing curries, bus rides and travel plans.
Some people (mom!) are getting impatient with not receiving the next blog entry. Our internet connection is so bad we have to go to Galle to use a computer (or go to Era hotel) but everything here takes time and patience. We cannot be bothered with making the trip to just use the internet, it has to be a combined visit. So… be patient (and don’t even mention photos...).
Saturday we wake up in our beautiful home and decide to go to Unawatuna beach for breakfast and some sun soaking. We have a great pancake and real coffee breakfast (way too expensive of course, as Unawatuna is the main tourist beach here) and head out to King Fisher’s. The only local beach hang-out the expats here like to go to. The moment we set up our sun chairs and put our towels out the heavens open up and monsoon pours in all its glory. And it doesn’t stop, we even get cold. Here!? Cold? Yes, cold. We are amazed by a Sri Lankan family bathing in the sea. All men in long pants and the women completely covered from head to toe in their saree, sawls and an extra sawl to make sure nothing is see through. Twenty meters from this extreme cover up there’s us, in the skimpiest bikinis ever… contrast. Another contrast which amazes and saddens me is the literally thin line (wall) between our lovely lush swimming pooled garden and the railroad cottages behind it, where the wood chopping, crying babies, train horns and dog barking sounds remind you, you are very much in Asia.
Since the rain doesn’t seem to stop we head back to the house to take a nap and get ready to do to Wijaya for dinner. It’s Saturday night, all dressed up and no place to go. Wijaya is deserted it not being tourist season, but Allister is there and so are Sudu 1 and Sudu 2 (both boys named Sudu, quite handy). The wood oven is on and we have amazing pizza and I mean really good pizza. We sit and chat with Allister, pay our outstanding bill (they even tried to screw us over with the bill, but we managed to bargain) with my credit card and head home. Walking the 500 meters in the dark to me is suicide, but Sara’s brave and goes first. I rather pay 100 RPS (70 cents) for a tuk than to die on a Sri Lankan high way.
Sunday starts out really nice, the sun is out and we’re fully enjoying our garden and swimming pool. Sara’s tummy is a bit upset so we have to wait until we can go into Galle for lunch. After two lopederamide and lots of water we head out. We take the bus (we’re locals now after all) and walk over to Galle Fort. We hear inside is a nice café, called Pendlar Inn Hotel and we have brunch and sit with an Australian couple from Perth. We walk around the fort some more, visit the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk and read the grave stones in Dutch. The cricket is on, THE most important sport in Sri Lanka and we sit on the fort’s outer walls which have an excellent view on the field. All the locals who cannot afford a ticket sit on the wall and watch. Cricket being the most important but also most boring and impossible sport to understand, we get bored after 5 minutes and walk into town. We shop some, go to the grocery store and take a bus back. The minute we walk in we get a phone call from Laura (a girl we met at the party) who invites us to Era Hotel for drinks and dinner. When we get there everybody is completely pissed, and we are so sober it’s no fun. They make complete fools out of themselves and their behavior is quite embarrassing. The staff is probably used to some of this drunken behavior, but I still think it’s completely out of line and disrespectful. We are invited for dinner though and have an amazing curry in this 5* luxurious hotel. Everybody heads out as they have to work today (Monday) and we stay for coffee and dessert. This time we do take a tuk back and are home by 10pm. We sit on our veranda and talk until midnight.
We have this morning’s breakfast on the veranda. Yesterday we bought curd (local yoghurt, comes close to Greek yoghurt), muesli, Sri Lankan syrup, raisins and instant coffee and we feast on this. It’s raining heavily again, but around 11 it clears up and we head out into Galle to take care of some other stuff for school. We print out worksheets, put them in binders and have photo copies made. It takes forever, but it works. One print-out costs 20 RPS (14 cents) so they love us with our 100-something order. Our total bill is around 14 Euros which is a fortune around here. By the time we’re done it’s too late to go the temple but we’ll go there tomorrow early.
We walk around the shopping streets of Galle taking it all in. The smells, the sounds, it’s all familiar for me, but also different. I must say that I find Sri Lanka more chaotic than Nepal/Kathmandu. This is strange because Kathmandu is extremely chaotic, but the people there seem quieter. Maybe it’s because of the Tibetan Buddhism. Here we cannot look men in the eye, whereas in KTM that would be no problem. I do wear my kurta today and I feel a bit more comfortable. Even though kurtas are not really worn here, the women either wear long skirts and a t-shirt or their sarees, I feel safer in it. I laugh with Sara about her initial fear of going into a small curry shop and eat there. I remember fearing it last year so much, but Zach and Max pulled me through. Now I am the one who says it’s fine and not to worry. We eat some vegetable roti and have some water, but by the time we pay and are out on the street again we decide we’re still hungry, cross the street and share a full plate of curry at a decent looking curry hotel (hotel here means small restaurant, not a place where you can actually sleep). The curry is amazing and this for a mere 70 cents for the both of us. After a stop at the grocery store for chocolate, toilet paper and more curd we flag down a bus. We tell the money collector where we want to go, but he shakes his head. As we’re still confused about the head bobbing thing so we decide we’re on the right bus. We’re not. So we get out at the first possible stop, flag down another one and tell them where we’re headed. This seems an expensive bus as it’s small (seats about 16), has air con and is full of only men in suits. This bus drives so fast, we miss the gate of our house and are way, way out. Bummed out (cause we thought we’d save some tuk money) we have to take a tuk back to drop us of at the gates of Lime House. We have tea, biscuits and chocolate on the veranda. We did, however, mae the fatal mistake of not checking the expire date on the chocolate package before paying for it. That was 2x 160 RPS down the drain and a chocolate urge not fulfilled.
It’s now 5 pm. I’m almost finished writing this, and will take a nap soon. We’ll go to Wijaya for dinner and ask Sudu about our coming travel plans. We have some ideas and he can take us to Arugam Bay and Yala National Park (on the East coast). These are the hardest to reach from here, so we figure we’ll go there with him and bus and train our way out of there to the center and up North.
In the meantime we’ve had word from Rebecca and Eugene who discussed the “tiny” building problem. The building has been stopped and Rebecca is visiting here the 1st and 2nd of August (on her way to Los Angeles) for some emergency meetings with Thero. New floor plans have been drawn up and we’ll deliver them to Thero tomorrow. We’ll see how everything progresses. For now we’re looking forward of spending a day with the pre-schoolers and the monks.
Okay, time for my afternoon nap. Later.
XM

Tuesday July 20th 2010
So much for spending a whole day w/ the monks. We get there and deliver the workbooks we made yesterday and explain to Thero the cd-rom which holds the files. I wonder if he understands what we are talking about. Officially we hand over some papers for him to sign, actually just signing a paper which states what materials we brought, in case something goes ‘missing’. Give him the laptop we brought for him from Amsterdam, but realize there needs to be a converter. So again, a bus into Galle, etc. etc. An undertaking which normally would not take more than 30 mins, but here…. And I love it! The whole taking the bus, trying to figure out where to go, trying to get food, water, etc. It’s all one big adventure. We manage to find a converter (70 cents?!, why do these things cost 36 Euros when you buy them at the ANWB shop?!?) and head back. The whole ordeal with the bus, etc. I did, however now have the name of the correct bus stop written down by a monk, so we actually get off where we’re supposed to. We sit with Thero and show him the computer, luckily Dharma is there to translate. We advise them both to take computer lessons, because both haven’t got the foggiest about what to do with it. There are already 4 computers donated by VBAT, so in the end all the monks will have lessons, but for now just Dharma and Big Thero should look into it…. Exciting. We leave in the late afternoon to change and get ready for GTs at Danielle’s (the owner of the house we’re in) around 5.
Yesterday we eat at Wijaya where we share a table with some English girls working for VSO (an international organization which places people in developing countries to work). I remember looking into it a while back and now I am even more interested. After dinner we sit down with Sudu and go over our traveling plans. For now the plan is as follows:
Saturday morning we’ll leave for Arugam Bay with the following itinerary.
Leave Sat-morning early and drive towards Arugam Bay, stopping at Kataragamba. Once a year there’s a full-moon pilgrimage party at Kandy and at Kataragamba. The one in Kandy is huge and commercialized, the one at Kataragamba is still very authentic. Here Hindus, Moslims and Buddhists will gather to celebrate the full-moon in the night of the 24th. Supposedly it’s huge with an elephant parade, self mutilation, massive worshipping and pujas and singing and dancing. We’re super excited as we didn’t expect this and thank Sudu for mentioning it. We could take a local bus, but will prob go with Sudu because everybody is heading that way and with our back packs it won’t be so convenient. Sudu will set us up in Tissa at a hostel. Then on the 25th we’ll go to Yala National Park to:…….. go on a night safari!!!!!!!! These trips are organized and we’ll camp on the savannah (apparently Yala looks like Kenia) and will encounter the wild life. After that we’ll head on to Arugam Bay for 2 beach days. There’s a surfing contest going on now so that should be exciting too. The rest of the travelling can be done by bus and train from there, but we think we’ll take up Sudu’s offer to make this an organized trip as it’s all quite remote. So those plans have been made and depending on the estimate he’ll give us we’ll prob do this.
So, you’re in the loop now. This blog-entry keeps getting longer and longer as I still haven’t found a way to upload it. Hope you can chew your way through it.
Time for my afternoon dip in the pool.
Love M&S