Enclosing Tourists in Sri Lanka

Colombo, Colombo, what is your word? You are filled with curries and crazy drivers, head bobbles and warm, sincere people. I’ve never been to India, but I hear you’re “India Light.” Sri Lanka, right off the Southeastern coast of India, is supposedly cleaner and better-smelling than its large neighbor. I saw sadly little of Colombo because it was a particularly busy work trip, but I did have the chance to attend a spectacular religious parade called the Duruthu Maha Perahara. We sat in the “tourist enclousure” (finding funny little translations like this is one of my travel delights) for 6,000 rupees, and witnessed an exotic and ceaseless procession of elaborately dressed androgynous dancers, performers, and elephants. Some of the elephants had so many lights that they had to wheel generators behind them. The insane crush of people leaving afterward on the one road shared by pedestrians, vehicles, and elephants meant that we didn’t get back to the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. The whole night was bizarre and wonderful all the same.

Over a long weekend, we took a trip down the west coast to the comically named hippie beach town of Hikkaduwa. It’s not exactly a cultural gem, filled with rude Russian tourists and cheap souvenir shops, but I did get to swim in the Indian Ocean and idle on a sandy beach drinking water out of coconut, a much needed respite from a stressful week. The area was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and was still filled with sobering reminders like the stone foundations of abandoned homes. We visited a tsunami museum with even more sobering pictures and first-hand accounts of the day, of families literally torn apart and loved ones lost. There’s a Hindu temple on its own tiny island close to the shore which was miraculously untouched when everything around it was destroyed. Every Sri Lankan stops in the middle of the road when they pass it to say a prayer and give an offering at a roadside shrine.  I would too.

I love the Sri Lankans. They do the distinctive Indian head bobble, a perplexing combination of nodding yes and no at the same time, so you’re never entirely sure if they’re agreeing with you or not. By the end of the trip I felt confident they were bobbling affirmatively, but may it always remain an endearing mystery. I was in engaged in many friendly street conversations such as this one: “Why do you hurry? Was that your boyfriend? Next time, don’t bring boyfriend and I will find you beautiful Sri Lankan boy,” with an elderly Sri Lankan Buddhist. What hospitality! We rented a tuk tuk driver to show us the sights, and ended up on a disconcerting trek through construction zones and jungle (in a tuk tuk, mind you), where we ate dinner on a boat-table gently bobbing in an enormous, tranquil lake at dusk, surrounded by the jungle. Surreal. Sri Lanka also happens to produce one of the most gastronomically pleasing dishes I’ve had the pleasure of tasting , the unremarkable sounding ”rice and curry”, spiced with whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom, and curry leaves for a quite remarkable flavor.

Colombo, what is your word? I’m going with warmhearted.