Working in Sri Lanka, 2005

October, 31 - November, 6

Dehiwela

Maybe it's time to write a little about my home area, Dehiwela. I may have written something about it earlier but here it is with some pictures added. The area is about 10 kilometres south from the downtown Colombo, Fort, going along the Galle road. My apartment is located on Hill Street which is the major street in Dehiwela. It crosses Galle road and runs over a big hill (that's why the name..) where the shops and restaurants are located. It's a kilometer from the Dehiwela-Galle road junction to my home and I normally walk it up and down. There are buses that I could use but they are always too full, not even space to hang outside from the door.

Hill Street without blues.

>From Hill Street you can find pretty much anything, supermarket's fruit and vegetable shops, clothes and tailors, barbers, hardware shops and street hawkers, and of course take-aways. Our first local was JJ's City (pronounced shitty :) Food is just 20 meters from our outdoor. The prices were cheap but the quality was not really good and the food was way too spicy. You would order just noodles and you end up getting noodles WITH chicken and mango or some omelette, just to pull up the price.

So we moved on and found another, more expensive but better quality place called Al Bite. They had a better variety of dishes, Srilankan, Indian and Thai style chicken and beef, with compulsory rice and noodles. They even had doners, or kebabs as we call them in finnish, under the name of lebanese swaharma. Good but way too spicy. I keep on trying them every now and then and it always makes me run to the bathroom. I never learn. But the best and simplest of what they have is the Indian naan bread, fresh-baked with some butter or sauce to go with. Mmmm! And not spicy!

Al Bite.

We have had some funny stories at AlBite's. One time the owner started to ask Michael about his social status, parents and welth. And then every time Michael went to buy something he was served the daughter of the owner obviously with intentions to marry her with Michael. It was really funny! Another time we witnessed the balance of good and evil. The owner has a brother working there (at least they resemble eachother). The owner looks a mean guy with moustache and beard and his not too talkative. On the opposite his brother looks more friendly, no moustache nor beard and smiling. So that time Michael wanted to have just some sauce for the rice, without any spicy chicken. So he asked if it was possible. The brothers answered at one, the bad saying 'No!' and the good saying 'Yes!'. It was a funny situation.

There is a zoo close to our home, less than a kilometer away. One sunday I went to check it out because I hadn't anything better to do and I thought I could use the opportunity. I was mentally prepared to pay a hefty 500Rs. (compared to local 25Rs.) entrance fee but fortunately I had the magical letter of Mr. Nihal with me. Looking very self-confident at the ticket counter I got in with local price. Inside the zoo it really felt like one. Not for the animals but because of the sheer number of locals, mostly families with kids running here and there. I felt myself like one of the animals because the locals seemed to be more interested with white foreigners than the animals. I felt sympathy for the caged animals. All in all it was a good sunday afternoon walk in the park but nothing special. Like I already said I didn't like watching some animals that need space and freedom in the cages surrounded but noisy people.

A giraffe wondering the white guy.

Elephants dancing.

My workplace which is in the picture below is located in Wellawatta, the next area north from Dehiwela. The building cannot be missed when walking on the Galle Road. It is a tall one and the views from the 8th floor over to the ocean are quite nice. Of course the managers offices are in the best part of the building. In the training facilities you don't get to see much of the views but on coffee or tea breaks you can enjoy them.

IFS, you can't miss it.

Weekend in Colombo

On the weekend I decided to stay in Colombo because Hendrik's colleague invited us to see some oriental dance shows at the Elphinstone theater in Colombo. The show took place from Thursday to Sunday always in the evening. We visited it on Friday and Saturday (before the rock competition). I was not expecting much from the show but I was suprised positively. They had strange Asian dances with dancers wearing beautiful costumes. The music was also very personal, something I would like to buy on a CD and take with me as a souvenir and memory. Only thing that bothered me was the language. We couldn't understand anything from the speeches which told about each and every dance and its details, so during the speeches I was feeling bored.

Elphinstone theater from inside.

Professional dancers.

On saturday evening the TNL radio station organized a band/artist competition in the Sri Lanka Commercial Exhibition Center (SLCEC). My colleague asked me to join him and I asked my friends to come along. Finally my work friend couldn't come because he had problems with his car so we went by ourselves. I was a little worried about the music that they would play when I heard that it was to be a competition with individual category. Fortunately there was a group competition too. The artists were playing mostly cover songs but some of them had their originals as well. It was interesting and nice to see and hear them playing. However nobody sang in singalese. The nicest and most extraordinary experience was to see Srilankans wearing a leather coat and long hair and playing heavy music. It was so contradictory to the feeling you have from the electronic synthetizator music you here in the buses.

An individual competitor.

Singalese playing heavy!

November, 7 - November, 13

Trip to Yala West National Park

Machans Asanga and Pubudu organized a trip to southeast part of the island to see some nature and animals as well as some culture in the temples of Kataragama. The idea was to leave from Colombo on saturday and use the whole day for traveling, go to Yala on Sunday and Kataragama on Monday and finally return back to Colombo on Tuesday. Tuesday was another of these nice poya-holidays (starting to like them for the fact of extra free days from work!) so I took a leave from work on Monday.

Saturday morning all the foreigners (Marco, Susan, Mike, Kersting, Marion, Hendrik and me) + Asanga and Pubudu, we made a date at the Fort railway station. Train to Matara left at 9am. and it took close to 5 hours to reach Matara. We didn't get seats in the beginning but instead it was nice to sit in the doorway of the wagon and watch the landscape as it changed and went by.

Views of jungle from the train.

In Matara we changed to a bus that would be heading towards our base of Tissamaharama. Asanga's uncle had a guest house business going on and we were to use his facilities. Againt the landscape on the right side (on the south coast) was really beautiful and it had many 'untouched' beaches. Maybe I will visit in that area when I have my week and a half long holiday before returning to Finland. The bus ride to Tissa lasted another three or more hours.

By the evening we reached Tissa and found the would-be guesthouse. It was still in construction, not in business, and I think we were probably the first guests there. All in all it was a really nice house with some rooms and a garden with terrace. We had some problems with time and organization of jeep and a driver for the Sunday trip to Yala so we postponed it for Monday.

The guest house of Asanga's uncle.

Kataragama and Kirinda

On Sunday we visited the buddhist and hindu pilgrimage place of Kataragama and later in the afternoon the beach village of Kindira. Kataragama, on the edge of Yala national park and just 10 kilometers from Tissa, was a fairly sized village. The main interest in the village was the temple area behind Manik Ganga, (the gem river). All the pilgrims were to wash themselves before entering the temple area, in a way to purify themselves. From our group Michael wanted to wash himself too but for other reasons.. ;) (hint: he stepped on the poop of a biiig animal)

Michael purifying himself.

Kataragama is one of the important buddhist/hindu gods and his symbol is the peacock as can be seen in one of the pics (the one of the pink gate to the temple area). I don't know the history of Kataragama but googling 'buddhism/hindu' and 'kataragama' might bring out something. Anyway there were some traditions and rituals people came to do in the temple. There were two sacred rocks which were used for breaking up coconuts, flaming ones actually. The pilgrim was to set on fire one coconut and then read the prayers before smashing the coconut down with all force to shatter it into pieces. If the coconut didn't break a misfortune would follow the pilgrim, if it broke some good fortune would come and finally if it broke into two equally sized pieces, half and half, a wish would be granted. It all sounds like Nethack to me but it was very interesting to see people continuing with the tradition and smashing flaming coconuts.

Gate with the peacock to
Kataragama temple.

A woman throwing flaming coconut.

In the far end of the temple there was a big dagoba, a round white monument that is normally filled completely with bricks, meaning it's not hollow. The way to the dagoba was a long and painful walk on hot sand and stonework. It actually helped to concentrate, and 'meditate', not to think of the pain to reach the dagoba. At the dagoba people did sacrifices by pouring oil to the oil lamps and setting insences on fire.

The dagoba of Kataragama temple.

People sacrificing insence sticks.

After a lunch of rice'n'curry we headed to the port village of Kirinda. I took some two hours to reach because we had to change and wait for the bus back in Tissa. In Kirinda there were many signs of the tsunami still around. Maybe the most obvious was the big ship in the middle of dry ground. The tsunami lifted and carried this ship inland and after the water level returned back to normal it got stuck to the ground.

Boat stuck on the dry ground after tsunami.

The beach at Kirinda was very nice, calm behind the wavebreaker. We had a swim and played with the waves. I did some skin boarding (not skim nor surf) and got some scratches from the rough sand. There was also one temple that was situated on the top of a high rock. Nice quiet and relaxing atmosphere with beautiful views.

Views from the Kirinda temple.

On the way back to Tissa we stopped by at a cafe and while waiting for the bus the locals invited Susan to play a round of corom. Corom is a local game of which history I'm not completely sure about. Might be that the Europeans brought something similar with them and the it changed into corom or that it's originally from India or Sri Lanka. Maybe google would help in this as well. Anyway the game resembles very much the Finnish 'korona'. You have a square table, small flat and round pieces and pockets in the corners of the table. You use your finger to shoot a bigger flat and round piece like the white ball in pool, to sack the small pieces.

Yala

Early on Monday morning we started for the safari to Yala national park. The watcher of the guest house (friend of Asanga's uncle) arranged a jeep with a driver for us. The jeep was a normal, eight in the back and three in front, unlike some tourists' jeeps which had a 'cinema-like' seating where you sat very high up, feeling almost like on the dinner plate of an elephant.. By 6.30am when the park opened we were at the entrance to pay our fees and pick the compulsory guide. The guide didn't speak too much English but fortunately the driver seemed to be interested in the nature and was a good spotter of animals and birds.

Ready to enter the park.

Our jeep on the beach.

For me it was the first time ever on a real safari. It was strange at first because you were not allowed outside the vehicle, only in few specific places you could jump off to strecth your legs. It is understandable when there are wild buffalos and elephants to stomp you dead if you were to get lost outside the jeep. The safari was a whole day (actually 3/4) safari with a lunch and bathing break at noon. The morning was better time for spotting animals because during the hot day they tend not to move too much. We spotted lots of different animals; elephants, buffalos, crocodiles, mongooses, deers, wild boars, jackals, peacocks, hawks, eagles, jungle fowls (Sri Lankan national bird), and lots of other strange tropical and water birds whose names I don't remember anymore.

Baby elephant having a lunch.

Wild buffalo taking a bath.

The lunch break was at the beach of Yala, inside the national park. There were others too but by the time we came the others left so we got to be in peace. Normally it was not allowed to bathe at the beach but the driver and the guide allowed us so instead of a siesta we took a swim in the ocean after the lunch. To me it was the most beatiful beach in Sri Lanka so far, mainly because you couldn't soo any buildings and human presence there. There used to be bungalows but the tsunami destroyed them, killing some 60 people and leaving only foundations on the beach.

Yala national park beach (to the left).

Yala national park beach (to the right).

In the evening the driver wanted to cook us some local fish so we had a small party at the guest house with non-spicy fried fish and some drinks. It was a really nice relaxing evening after the day at Yala park.

On Tuesday I experienced the fastest bus service of my stay in Sri Lanka. We decided to avoid waiting time at Matara and thus took a bus straight from Tissa to Colombo. After quick short eat breakfast we climbed on a 'Semi Luxury Service' bus and it was actually worth its name, relatively speaking of course. Six hours with a short lunch break from southeast corner of the island to Colombo is fast. So I was home already in the afternoon ready to start preparing things for the arrival of my brother and his wife. The next weekend I will go with them to Kandy and then see some cultural sights at the cultural triangle area, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Anuradhapura..

November, 14 - November, 24

AJ Tours

Just after presidential elections Pepe and Sanna arrived to have one week of holidays in Sri Lanka. I was a bit worried because everybody said that normally there is a little bit of disorder after they announce the results. Fortunately my worries were in vain and the only thing you could notice different was the quiet streets. It seemed that people tend to stay home a day or two after the elections so maybe half of the shops were closed.

The travelers were pretty tired after their flight but I still put them to explore the city on their own while I went to work. They managed just fine to avoid being screwed over with taxi prices and such and also saw something of the city. For the rest of the Sri Lanka tour I took of two days off from work so that we could travel between Saturday and Tuesday.

Having a juice at Galle face.

Kandy - Dambulla - Sigiriya - Anuradhapura

Saturday morning we started towards Kandy. We took one of the InterCity Express buses from bus station of Bastian Mawatha. Our idea was to jump of one hour before Kandy to take a tuk-tuk to Pinnewala elephant orphanagem visit there and then continue the journey to Kandy. Everything went smoothly thanks to Michael & Kerstin who did the same thing but just one and a half hours before. So through SMSs I got accurate information and managed to look like an experienced tour guide for my brother and his wife.

For me the elephants at Pinnewala were not so special anymore because I had seen some wild ones in Yala, but still the baby (mini) elephants that the adults protected were quite cute. During the visit in Pinnewala we were pulled off into a "free-of-charge" guided tour in "government" supported herbal garden. We learned about natural medicine and in the end it seemed that almost all the ingredients were "good for everything".

Elephants at Pinnewala.

After the elephant orphanage we continued to Kandy to find an accommodation. An interesting fact after the presidential elections was that you could not buy alcohol from anywhere for two or three days, not because they ran out of it but perhaps because the government wanted to reduce the likelihood of a disorder. Our guest house, Highest View, fortuantely managed to arrange us one beer each after a hard day's work. In the evening we still paid a visit to the evening puja, kind of buddhist mass, in the Temple of the Tooth and ate in an Indian restaurant. The food was okay, especially the bread was good, but there was a group of german "tour-package" tourists who obviously had a higher priority to be served thanks to their local guide. I tried to remember some "Korkeajannitys"-german with Pepe to fit the situation.

Coming from the Temple of Tooth.

Informative poster at Highest View.

Sunday morning started rainy, from the weather point of view. Plan was to take a bus to Dambulla, look for an acommodation and visit the rock caves after which visit Sigiriya by bus and come back to Dambulla to sleep. Everything went smoothly until I tried to present the already legendary letter to get me free into the sights. They didn't accept it, I mean they didn't even look at it. It was a hard set-back and I had to pay the foreigner fees also. The rock caves were very nice, some five or six caves built on top of a big rock. And they were good hiding place from the heavy rain. In the caves you could find sleeping, sitting and standing buddha statues as well as very beautiful and diverse drawings on the walls and ceiling.

The golden temple seems more like
an entrance to amusement park.

Rainy weather at the rock caves.

After the rocks caves Pepe and Sanna got the taste of their first rice and curry at the guest house. Fortunately the food was not too spicy, sometimes you never know what you get here even though you ask for non-spicy version.. Anyway we were in a hurry to catch the bus to Sigiriya. The buses came and left from the centre of Dambulla, just few meters north from the clocktower. We found our bus and my travelers were a little bit afraid to enter the bus because it was a citybus and there were twice as much people entering it. Well we fit in also and it was one of those experiences that you can laught at only afterwards.

Almost like in a Saipa hockey match!.

The Sigiriya Rock was quite remarkable. A huge rock in the middle of jungle and somebody had decided to build up his palace on top of it. Now there was only left some ruins and the gardens in front of the rock. Still it made me think about the ancient high culture that was living in this island more than a thousand years ago. There was a nice story behind the palace, with brothers, one good one evil, their father, some betrayal, exile and revenge. But it's rather long story so I won't go into details here. Also monks had been dwelling near the rock through out the history and it could be seen from the caves that were still there.

The guide and the rock.

Water gardens at Sigiriya.

Monk dwellings.

Ruins of the palace on top of the rock.

The walk up the rock was quite quick despite the height of the rock. Along the way you could see old marks in the rock from the supports that they had used for climbing in ancient times. I wouldn't have climbed it up without the hard-bolted steel staircases..

The mirror wall on the way up to Sigiriya rock.

On the way back to Dambulla I experienced an empty bus the very first time in Sri Lanka. The contrast to the overcrowded citybus was huge but I liked it better empty than full, even afterwards. The guest house in Dambulla was not a smash hit. It looked nice from the first glance but during the night we started to increase the body count. Finally in the morning the Sunday Observer had killed nearly 10 cockroaches. So it was not a really pleasant night nor morning when taking the shower.

Empty bus, what is that??.

Monday started with the usual "moving-to-next-place" routine. We took the bus from Dambulla to Anuradhapura and arrived to our destination by noon. There after the horror night of cockroaches we rented a nice and a bit more luxurious room from a guest house. Again it was partly rainy partly cloudy day so exploring the ancient city of Anuradhapura was not possible with a bicycle. Instead we walked and used a random tuk-tuk. The city with huge dagobas (white painted solid brick monuments), ruins of ancient settlements, monasteries and palaces and museums was beatiful. Our visit happened to be during the off-season time so you could feel the ambient of the vast place. It reminded me of the computer game called Civilization with the irrigation systems and wonders of the world. Now who said that you cannot learn anything from computer games?!

Sri Maha Bodhi, one of the oldest trees in the
world, grown from a branch of the bo tree under
which Buddha is said to have found his enlightement.

We only had some four to five hours to explore the city. This was not enough because the distances are in kilometres. There were some sights that we missed because of lack of time and after four hours of culture you start to get tired of seeing ruins after ruins. So my recommendation is that if you want to see everything that the city has to offer, reserve two whole days for it. I would get bored of the cultural things in that time but then again I'm not a historian.

A dagoba in Anuradhapura.

Ruins of settlements.

This dagoba used to be the third tallest
man-made building in the world in its time,
after the pyramids of Kheops.

A moonstone at the entrance of a ruined palace.

Nine-headed figurine at the entrance of
another palace.

On Tuesday we had to head back to Colombo because I was going to be working on Wednesday and Pepe and Sanna planned to spend the last two days of their holidays in the beaches of southern Sri Lanka. I had a terrible trip in the train because the previous evening I had got some food poisoning and just before the train left in the morning I ran and threw up pretty much everything I had in my stomach. Not a nice experience. Also the train despite being an express train took rather long time because there were some floods caused by the rain.

Pepe and Sanna managed to leave to Unawatuna the very same day and they had a nice relaxing beach holiday after the hard cultural tour organized by AJ tours. On Thursday we all had a dinner together at Lion's pub before a crazy taxi driver took them to the airport for the flight back to Finland.

November, 25 - November, 27

Horton Plains

I had a dilemma this weekend. I had already agreed to travel to the national park of Horton plain with some local friends and then I heard that there is a dinner dance party from the company on Friday. I really wanted to go to both but it was not possible since the night train to the hill country left also on Friday evening. Finally I decided to enjoy some two hours of the dinner party and maybe eat a nice dinner before taking the train with my friends. The plan worked until I noticed that despite the party was to start at 7pm, people started entering at 9 when I was already in a hurry to leave to the railway station. So I didn't manage to enjoy the dinner that much, just a quick piece of the 8th anniversary cake of IFS Sri Lanka. It was also raining alot and the weather broadcast didn't promise good things for the weekend so I doubted many times why I left the dinner party until reaching the hill country and the national park. But promise is a promise.

Getting ready for the cold climate
in Horton Plains.

So we took off Fort railway station in a sleepeter wagon, meaning that it didn't have beds but it was a closed wagon so you could peacefully try to sleep without people coming and going. It was a hard and tiring trip of 10 hours of which I managed to sleep maybe three. But when we arrived to the hill country that was surrounded by tea plantations and magnificent views I was really happy that I had decided to leave the party early and join the trip. The train could only go 15km/h in the hill area because of the possibility of land slides during rainy season. It didn't matter because you could stand in the doorway of the coach and enjoy the views from the railway that run in the altitude of nearly two kilometers.

Hill country from the train at sunrise.

We arrived to the station of Ohiya (1800m above sea) at 7am in the morning and from there it was a hike of 11 kilometers uphill with 500 meters altitude difference to the entrance of Horton Plains. It was a hard walk but the forest surrounding the road was very beautiful and once you started to reach higher altitudes the views turned spectacular. In the hill country it is normal that early in the morning the weather is excellent, no clouds at all, but by noon it gets cloudy and normally starts to rain. We reached the entrance to the park by 11am and then we could already see the clouds and fog forming up.

Eleven kilometers uphill.

Long drop to the tea plantations.

Valley below the national park.

The park was mainly plains, like the name says, in the altitude of two kilometers. The grass land rolled for kilometres around small hills and rivers and was surrounded by forests. The path went around the park on the grassland, following a river that turned into Baker's falls at some point and then headed towards a steep cliff with a drop of over one kilometer, also known as the World's End.

Entering the park.

We walked the path to the opposite direction starting from Baker's falls and ending to the World's End. It took alltogether some three hours to cover the track of nine kilometers and by the time we came to the World's End it was already cloudy, foggy and raining. But still you could feel the huge drop on the edge of the cliff even though you couldn't see it. For the people who suffer from vertigo this is better. Another thing to point out is that in the hill country the average temperature is slightly more manageable, under 20C degrees. Somehow I felt a little cold here.

Path leading to the drop of World's End.

For me the park was one of the nicest experiences in Sri Lanka. I enjoy very much walking in the nature and here it was possible. It was also possible to see some of the wildlife of the park, deers, sambur, chameleons and birds. In past times before the colonialist hunters came, even elephants walked on those plains. While hiking we met a group of locals who had spotted and photographed a corpse of deer along the path. The picture looked like a leopard might have killed it. We tried to find the corpse also but couldn't. And still couldn't spot the leopard that I wanted to.

River leading to the falls.

Baker Falls.

On the way back to Ohiya we hitchhiked a van ride from a foreigner because we were in a hurry to catch the train of 4.45pm. Thanks to the ride we arrived at the station early just to hear that the train is late. We considered the option of using a bus but it seemed that that particular day the buses didn't go to this small village. So waiting for the train was only option. It was not a nice experience because we were wet from the rain, hungry and tired and finally the train arrived but four hours late!

The station of Ohiya.

Fortunately Pubudu had arranged us a nice accommodation from the town of Diyetalawa. The train trip to that town took an hour. The house itself was used by government workers as an accommodation. It was quite big, like a villa with front and back yard and in history it had belonged to some governor of the town. The plates and cups that we used dated back to the times of English colonialists, saying "made in England". Really nice place to have a good long sleep.

The governor's mansion (or similar).

Dining room.

Next morning our only plan was to catch the train to Colombo. This time it was not late and we could enjoy the whole variety of hill country from the train. It was very interesting to watch the hills and mountains, tea plantations covering everything, rivers and waterfalls. Again the trip lasted some nine hours so when finally we reached Colombo I was pretty tired, but happy from the experience. So big thanks to Pubudu and Prabath for organizing the trip!

Railway running on the hillside.

Tea plantations.

Waterfalls on the way.

November, 28 -

Last week

Last week in the work went fast. I had to prepare my presentation of the Oracle RAC technology and make arrangements for the stop-over visit in Prague. My flatmates moved out from the accommodation in Dehiwela to one closer to their work place. So my last days in Colombo I will be living alone. Fortunately it is just a couple of days.

On my little over week holiday I will try to take it easy and relax. I have been coming and going almost every weekend and seen quite alot of the island. There is still plenty of what I have missed but I'm thinking of having just a peaceful beach holiday in a quiet small village. Let's see if I will find it.

This is my last posting before returning to Finland. I won't be able to update my stories and pictures during my vacation in Sri Lanka and Czech. But I will be back in Finland by Christmas.

Last update 2nd of December, 2005.