Slinking around Sri Lanka: Colombo

Our last day in Colombo was spent in search of. In search of the markets, in search of some medication for me, and an increasingly desperate search for kotthu roti. Wherever we go, one of Marc's and my favorite things to do is prowl through the markets. In Colombo, the markets are in the neighborhood called Pettah. One of the distinctive things about the market in Pettah is that most of the sellers in the stalls had microphones and seemed to doing an auctioneer's patter. It was very loud and chaotic, since the place was crowded with people and trucks and buses and tuk-tuks already.

just another day at the market

standing on the bridge over the busy street looking down at the market stalls

the same, on the other side of the road

one of the many microphone yelling guys -- that's him in the blue shirt crouched on top of stuff

tuk-tuks are our favorite way to get around on vacation.

a busy street in Pettah

tuk-tuks everywhere.

traffic cops wear GIANT gloves with red markings, the better to see them

the Sri Lanka Railway station

he bore a very heavy load

and so did he, on a very busy street packed with buses and trucks

When we went to Java earlier this year, I got these enormous bright red bites on my stomach and legs -- very itchy. Got them here too, and they were even itchier. It was hot and sticky and that made me itch even more, so after the chaos and noise of the market, I hung out in our room and read while Marc made a number of missions out to find some medication for me. I wish I could be a little butterfly floating above, watching him on these trips; he talks to everyone, asks for help, has all these interactions trying to get what he needs. While he was out, he found a place that had kotthu roti -- which was much more elusive than we ever dreamed it would be. We thought you could hardly turn a corner without running into a stall selling the stuff, but we could never find it. When it was time for dinner, we tried to find a few different places we'd been told about, read in the guidebooks, whatever (couldn't re-find the place Marc saw earlier, either), but we could not find any of them. It was very frustrating; it's one of the main things we were looking forward to. We finally stumbled into a little shop that was pretty seedy and filthy. Dark. One strange guy kept staring at me the whole time and made me feel very uncomfortable. They made egg hoppers and we were told they sold kotthu roti, but we aren't sure. It certainly wasn't what he were expecting; it was heavy and greasy and really kind of gross. Didn't even take a picture of it. We were so disappointed.

we shoulda had the egg hoppers

This morning we had our breakfast and checked out because the taxi was supposed to pick us up at 8am for the 4-hour drive to Tangalle. He finally arrived at 8:40 and told us it was a 5-hour drive, but we'd heard so many varied estimates of how long it should take so we weren't surprised. It was only $85 for such a long trip, and the car was a very comfortable Prius. The first part of the trip was on an expressway, straight and quick, about 75% of the way in terms of miles. But that last 25% was NOT on an expressway, and it was on a very windy road that hugged the Indian Ocean and wound through one small village and town after another. That last 25% of the trip took more than half the time. The driver kept the air conditioning on very low, and I was sitting in the back seat with Marc. So I was hot, the roads were winding, our progress was stop and start, swerving and honking....and I got severely car sick. I was already feeling bad from the medication I was taking for the severe itching, and it started my day with a migraine, so I was not having my best day. At all. I was leaning back with my eyes closed, trying to be still and quiet and not throw up, when Marc grabbed my knee as the car pulled over. Monitor lizards crossing the road. And turns out they just look like really giant creepy lizards, but kinda cool too:

no frame of reference, I know -- trust me, it was really big.

When a monitor lizard crosses the road, you let it. There were two or three crossing together, and by the time I got my camera and tried to capture them, I could only get this guy.

The place we're staying in Tangalle is absolutely wonderful, and extremely remote. We got to Tangalle and went through town, then turned off and wound our way down tiny little roads, turned again onto an even tinier road, passed emerald green fields with water buffalo and snowy white egrets, then turned onto an even tinier road. Then there we were. We were met with strings of frangipani placed around our necks, cold wet cloths for our hands, and we were escorted to our little bungalow:

our room -- yeah, I don't know how to pronounce it either. "Five" works for me.

SO happy to be here.

the bathroom is bigger than our NYC apartment. This half has the tub.

me on the deck with a view of the lagoon

that's our place. #5.

a smallish pool, because the beach is just right over there. still, the pool is nice.

oh, there's the other half of the giant bathroom. it's really giant, did i say that already?

After a huge ordeal, I got the situation worked out with idiotic Blogger so I could get caught up here, and then we took a little walk over to the beautiful beach. It's empty and so lovely.

we passed a huge field full of these guys as we walked to the beach.

it's gorgeous. That's the rock pool in the distance, where we'll swim. The current is too strong otherwise.

a shot in the other direction. beach love.

no idea, but i liked the way it looked.

cuttlefish bones EVERYWHERE.

We ate a gorgeous meal, Sri Lankan specialties -- folded inside an enormous square banana leaf package was steamed rice, a piece of fish, some prawns, a vegetable cutlet, and a variety of spiced treats to stir in. There was a bowl of boiled egg curry to spoon over the rice and it was just exquisite. Very subtle and heavily spiced with cardamom and cloves and curry leaves and just layers and layers of delicate flavor. I loved it. We unfortunately ordered desserts, which were disappointing, but it's OK. That curry and fish and rice were so good it's easy to just let it have the last word.

And now we sleep. It's 9:15pm here and tomorrow we're going to explore Tangalle and line up some snorkeling. Do some beach walking. Swimming. Relaxing. Reading for me (I've finished 4 books already, starting on the 5th and 6th) and some beach meditation for Marc. Good food, no doubt. Maybe even some kotthu roti, we'll see about that.

Loving Sri Lanka so far. So glad to be here. xo

[preamble: Delay in posting due to problems accessing Blogger! Everything's OK now, so I should be doing my regular daily posting. This is the post I wrote on day 1, I'll do another in a couple of hours to catch up.]

Although they have a very bad reputation, Etihad Airways reliably gets to Abu Dhabi from New York on time. Marc watched it over the weeks before we left, and the bad reputation must have to do with other destinations than Abu Dhabi. Night after night, the flight left New York City mostly on time, and arrived in Abu Dhabi on time. We had a 2 hour and 15 minute layover, which should've been more than enough time given Marc's investigation.

Except there was some kind of unspecified "mechanical" problem on the plane and a gate full of increasingly frustrated passengers. No matter who asked, no matter how often, the response from gate agents was "5 to 10 more minutes." Occasionally it was "5 to 10 more minutes for an update." They 5-to-10-more-minuted us through a 2+ hour delay. And so, of course, we missed our connection. At Abu Dhabi International Airport, after a lot of extremely fast walking, some blind following of other people who seemed to be in the same boat, some often confusing explanations and directions from a variety of airport employees, and then arrival at a second transfer desk, we got tickets on Sri Lankan Airways, were assured our luggage would be transferred to Colombo, and we got seats together. We had enough time to send an email to the hotel in Colombo, telling them we would not be arriving on the 3:30 flight, so we canceled our airport pick-up. While we were waiting to board the plane, a Sri Lankan man sitting next to me opened his large briefcase and it was filled to the brim with candies of all kinds.

We got to Colombo around 6:30am, had the quickest and easiest entry into a new country, changed some money, and our taxi driver was still waiting for us. He had not been given the message, so he waited three hours for us. When we got in the cab, he told us that Prince of Charles was coming (another person later told us King of Charles was coming) and that the country was so proud. We passed billboards that said "We warmly welcome you to our beautiful country." And it really is beautiful -- the visual definition of lush. It's kind of dreamy in some way; Michael Ondaatje, the film director, is from here, and I can see the roots of his visual aesthetic. My primary impressions on the way from the airport is that Colombo is extraordinarily clean and thick with color. Every shop is painted a different rich color, deep oranges and reds and blues and purples, lots of purple.

Our Colombo hotel is beautiful, minimalist, but warm, with gorgeous furniture in the lobby made at a fine and small scale, from wood that's been polished to a very warm glow. The staff are friendly and warm, but the management is another story altogether. We're glad we didn't actually get in at 3:30 as we'd planned; I guess we'd have just been sitting on the street waiting because even arriving at 7 was a problem. The manager who greeted us complained of the early hour, and told us that if we wanted the room early we'd have to pay half the day's rate. Marc argued and eventually we got the room around 10:30. We were exhausted and hot and sweaty and just wanted to peel off the sticky clothes we'd put on in New York 30+ hours earlier and take a cool shower.

Our hotel is very near Small Beira Lake, so we walked around the lake's perimeter. The streets were utterly empty and all the shops were closed. Sri Lanka is primarily a Buddhist country, especially in the south where we are, so we were puzzled. Where was everyone? We saw military men in little huts with their guns, and women in orange t-shirts sweeping the remarkably clean streets, but few other people. It was steamy and muggy and overcast, so after one tour around the lake we returned to our room to rest a while and figure out what to do, especially given the fact that everything was closed.

When we were in India in September 2006, we had a uniform experience everywhere we went of being lied to and misdirected, and we were rarely able to go where we wanted to go because "Today is a holiday," or "That place is closed, I'll take you here instead." Over and over and over. I hope what happened to us our first day reflected the truth, but it seemed an awful lot like our experience of India. We were walking to the beach and a man fell in step alongside us, saying he was just walking home from work. He asked where we were from, and told us we ought to turn right up ahead, go to the downtown area. We said no, we just want to go to the beach and he said it's closed, the President is here, we're not allowed, no, just turn right up here, come, I'll go with you. Marc persisted and we crossed the street toward the beach anyway, and the guy followed us, insisting that we really should go the other way. We saw people there and he said it closes in 15 minutes, we should go with him. We finally ditched him and of course the beach was NOT closed, it was filled with Sri Lankan people enjoying the afternoon. The sky was full of kites, the steps were lined with people (and young couples hiding behind big umbrellas), the water was filled with people standing and letting the waves crash against them despite the signs saying not to swim because of dangerous currents. We walked the length of the beach and started trying to find a place to get some kotthu roti. But everything was closed, it was so bizarre.

We stopped to sit in the shade for a few minutes to make a plan B, when a young guy walked up to us and asked us what we were looking for. He introduced himself and said he worked at the Hilton (showed us what seemed to be his Hilton employee card), and said we really ought to eat at Summer Garden, a restaurant specializing in Sri Lankan food, in Victoria Park. He told us to get a metered tuk-tuk and motioned for us to follow him. He hailed one and spoke to the driver at length in Sri Lankan, and then he hopped in with us. I'd gathered we were going to drop him off at his apartment along the way, and he was saying something about since it's a big holiday (ah! An explanation, we thought) -- Buddha's birthday -- everything was half price. The driver pulled over at some store and the guy tried to get us out to do some shopping . . . ah, the old switcheroo . . . and we said no, so he tried to explain to the driver where the Summer Garden restaurant was located but was getting nowhere so he just climbed back in the tuk-tuk with us and directed the driver to the restaurant.

We clearly went WAY out of the way, although the long ride was still very cheap, and in the end the guy didn't get anything he was after. We didn't do the shopping he wanted us to do (and for which I assume he'd have gotten some commission), and he didn't get dropped off at his apartment. We sat at an outdoor table under an umbrella and ordered lunch (no kotthu roti, and the waiter laughed when I asked for it); Marc ordered devilled cuttlefish and I got stir fried rice and chicken, I think, along with a giant Lion beer. The food was quite good, the Lion beer cold and bitter, and the place was filled with Sri Lankan people.

After we ate, we wandered through Victoria Park for a few minutes and then hailed a tuk-tuk. The driver was a very old man with a sweet, toothless smile. We showed him the little map of the area where our hotel was located and he nodded his head. Along the way he pulled over at a Buddhist temple and turned around to grin at us, pointing at the elephant being tended behind the gate. We sat for a minute watching the elephant and then the driver pulled back into traffic and dropped us near enough to our hotel that we could easily walk the rest of the way. He kind of redeemed our earlier experiences, but now I am very wary, wondering whether we will be lied to and misdirected everywhere here, as we were in India. I really hope not.

We'd planned to head out for dinner in search of kotthu roti, the dish we've been salivating over the for last couple of months, but the heat and exhaustion caught up with us and we crashed kind of early in the cold of our room.

Day 1 is always kind of dreamy because we're exhausted and a little dingy from the trip. We have another full day here in Colombo -- very different, surely, since the streets won't be so empty -- and then we'll be off to the beach at Tangalla. More Colombo tomorrow!