coastal sri lanka

Friends - if you are still even out there.... I have had a series of unfortunate events that has not allowed me to post or keep up with my blog. The events have not really been unfortunate..... just everyday LIFE events that keep getting thrown my way and it keeps me busy just juggling ..... balancing .. coming up for air... sorry I am finding it difficult to make time to keep up with my blogging responsibilities.... like blogging about the serendipitous life of the singhalese people......

OK - think back to december..... we landed in a green wonderland, humid and warm green wonderland. Honestly, I was in culture shock..... People, cars, elephants, families of 4 or more on a motorbike, tut tuts, chop-ters, cows, buses, semis, chaos....... a 2 lane highway for an entire country..... craziness... everyone competing for a lane...! Our first half of our trip was spent at the southern west coast of sri lanka. Ahungalla, a 2 hour drive from the airport in Columbo. 2hours for me to ohhhh and ahhhh at all the lush greenery, to see people going about their day to day lives, to see a mosque across the street from a Buddhist temple that was right next to a Methodist Church that was directly behind a Hindi temple. WOW! Men (old men) dressed in skirts with no shirts ( a shock coming from the Middle East) I am only used to seeing people fully clothed.......lol - People mingling about.... selling fruit or goods they have made to make a day's living to put put food on their table. I was in awe. I had never really seen anything like it. You know when you buy that $40 dollar shirt at the GAP.... then when you come home you become disgruntle because it was made in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh ... and you paid top dollar for that.... when you know the material and the cost was a very small fraction of the cost to make that $40 shirt.... well I was looking specifically for these kinds of places..... factories - sweat shops.... not buy something but see for myself the conditions the people have to go through to just make ends meet. I felt like it would help me to put more of a connection to the types of places that the majority of cheap labour comes from. After all, I am curious but mostly I am sincerely interested in learning about the culture of new places. I was surprised to see many open aired rooms that were above a restaurant or small shop.. that had a seamster (not a seamstress) at the window making something.... I never did locate the sweat shops (they were probably deeply hidden in the capital city... where we spent very little time...... The people were good, good people, honest and hard working. What it boiled down to is they see us tourist, and automatically thing we have sooo much more than them.... and well as Americans or Europeans - we really do have so much more than them. We have electricity in our houses - we have working toilets in our houses. Real working roofs and wood or carpeted floors. We have cars and cells phones, clothes and shoes, computers and gadgets...... Most of the sri lankans don't have such luxuries.... Most sri lankans, if they can't make ends meet in sri lanka, they expatriate themselves and work in rich countries (middle east, mainly) as maids or gardeners - they make more money out of their own country and when they send money back home..... it's not just for their wife or children, it's usually for their parents, their wife, children and their children's children...... It was eye opening experience for me to think about just how lucky I am, and I feel dually blessed to have shown my children that there is more to life than wanting the latest DS game. Thankfully the kids were able to see just how lucky they are. That right there made the trip a truly special experience.

Culture.... are you ready? The sri lankans from my impression are a little superstitious or just very into traditions and idols..... Above is a cobra in the hotel, we stayed at.... he is a signature symbol that can protect one from evil... The peacock brings good luck. The elephant brings good memory. No matter what religions the locals were hindi - christian - Buddhist - muslim they all revered these animals(symbols). They adorn their homes (huts), vehicles and clothing - stores and temples..... the images of these symbols are everywhere.

(above) on a short stroll of the beaten path we found this abandoned temple. It was ruined in the 2004 tsunami (dec 26, 2004) Temples are everywhere.... Buddhist and hindi don't really have church times...... they just go find a temple whenever they are in need of prayer.

One really cool experience we did for the first time was have dinner on the beach. Here is my mom, who we drug along with us, to a place she never thought she would visit.

One sri lankan experience, I will never be able to fully express the beauty and awesomeness of this event. I felt as if I should have been watching a National Geographic program.... I never in my life would think I could actually experience something so amazing.

On the eve of the winter solstice, buddhist people celebrate the full moon,the Unduvap Poya. We heard about it by accident, a serendipitous experience, to say the least!!! :) We took a tut tut into town (Bengalla) at 9pm because the poya would start at 9:30pm. Or so we thought..... In true sri lankan fashion, things happen when they are ready to happen. So we stood - we waited and waited - my hotel bed sounded more comfortable by the minute...... we waited some more.... we people watch that was pretty fun, but honestly we were tired of standing - 2.5 hours later...... when finally we heard some drumming.... in the distance.... we waited.... a little longer.... drumming a little closer.... and finally firecrackers??

No boys, young boys, cracking a whip - hitting the cement ground making a popping sound....

male and female dancers,

pole twining

drummers,

dancing elephants

flame spinning

peacocks

monkeys

AMAZING!..... a age long tradition of welcoming the full moon. It was a pretty awesome experience, well worthy of the wait. If you are ever planning a trip to sri lanka, try to plan it around the full moon. They have these poyas every month, but around the winter, summer, spring, fall times.... they REALLY go all out. The following day, all the buddhist took a day off of work and dressed in pure white and made small processions to their local temples bringing many offerings and blessings to their Buddha. It was pretty cool to see.

On the south west coast, we spent three days taking in the green beauty, we took a river safari (felt like we were straight out of vietnam) we watched the sunset every night, we ate a little too much (that's what vacations are for correct?) None of it properly prepared us for the beauty of the interior of Sri Lanka....(imagine it's even more green in the jungle!!) The journey was intrepid for sure.... although it, too, was worth it to see some amazing, amazing ruins from 2 bc and beyond....... and we got lots of rain... lots of glorious rain......

I will post soon, regarding the mountain journey, soon, I hope... or as I am learning here in arabic...... inshalla (god willing)

ayubowan,

amt