Tear Drop Island.

I think the next couple posts will be more pictures than words, but I’ll still say a few things.  I’m still in Asia, but at least I have moved a bit more westward, and this next country was an incredible place.  I took a trip down to Sri Lanka.  Sri Lanka, or Ceylon, means serendipity, an amazing blend of paradises.  It is called Tear Drop Island, looking on a map like a tear fallen down from India landing softly on the waters of the Indian Ocean. My friend Ruth joined me on this trip, and although I do prefer to travel alone and keep to my own entirely unplanned and happenstance agenda, the trip was fine with the two of us.  She is quite the opposite type of traveler, wanting plans and reservations and all of that, but we made a happy compromise and we both got we wanted out of the trip, and she did make for pleasant company.  See, I can compromise when I need to.  I just prefer not needing to. 

  We flew in to Colombo, but headed out immediately.  We found a bus to the bus station.  At the bus station we found another bus to the train station, and at the train station we grabbed a train heading down toward Kandy.  We spent a good part of the day in transit, rolling out past the impoverished slums and green farms, the shacks and fields.  The train was crowded, dark, and dusty, with half the passengers standing for the 4 hour journey. 

  We got off before Kandy and met a driver who he hired for the duration of the trip.  He proved to be rather convenient.  We first visited the main elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka.  It was one of the things Ruth most wanted to do in Sri Lanka, so I joined her for the visit.  I love animals, but I find it hard to be excited at animals in captivity and places like orphanages, shelters, and zoos.  There were a LOT of elephants at this particular orphanage, and played down in the river gulping the water in before tromping up through the streets of the town to a green pasture with shrubs and trees to graze on.  While I was not all too impressed with the orphanage, the setting was spectacularly beautiful.  The river ran thick and wide below an open field of grass and trees with mountains looming in the back drop.  It was an ideal setting, and I gazed and gazed at the place and thought I would almost not mind so much to be an elephant, to have such a place to stare upon each day.  Nature is my lover, each of her schizophrenic personalities.

  At night we saw some traditional Sri Lankan dancers, beating on drums, singing and chanting, dancing, breathing and swallowing fire, and walking on hot coals.  It had been a long day with a an airplane flight, two bus rides, a train, and a long trip in a van, so after the show, we went to a guesthouse in Kandy high on the top of a hill peering down on the ancient city of culture.  At night, I sat out on the balcony alone, half hanging over the balcony that steeped down the hill with soft pellets of rain and lights from the temples and Buddha statues and the total sound of pleasantry.  It was a fantastic feeling, the solitude of the air, the darkness broken through with the glow of temple lights, the outline of mountains in the dark, and the city below us.  I love such moments, and the more of them I have, the more I crave them, the more I love and need them. 

  In morning I woke and stared from on high to the city, dark replaced by sun, and the soft sounds of night traded in for honking cars and busy streets.  We drove and walked around the city, visiting statues and shops and then began our van journey with our driver, Laal, through the countryside, first stopping at the beautiful Botanical Gardens where Sri Lankan couples walked hand in hand and hid out in the shade of drooping trees stealing kisses in some secret space.  We walked around through corridors of tall trees and open fields of green grass and hallways of ivy with fragrant flowers hanging from trellises and vines.  It was a park of romance, like many I have seen and wandered, and though I was not alone, the potential of the park was kept from me, like some subtle fragrance.  I did not walk hand in hand, or fight the urge to steel a kiss.  I had my moments there, and I had great moments with a friend, but a such a place is a place for lovers, or a place for solitude and meditation.  It covered acres and acres of trees and fields with gardens of all kinds and flowers from across continents that bloomed in bright colors with the buzz of bees.  How I do love flowers, and the memories of them, memories of planting flowers with my mother, deadheading roses and daisies, and bouquets of fresh cut flowers from my backyard garden as a gift to my girlfriend.  All of those things are fantastic memories to me, and I will never look at a flower with the remembrance of such things. 

  After hours peacefully strolling the gardens, we continued onward through such green and glorious countryside.  We climbed tall mountains and winded down steep dirt roads with an island storm of heavy rain with waterfalls and streams and rivers crashing down muddy hillsides.  As we carved our way down sharp curves winding through trees and cliffs with pouring rain, pounding on the roof as the van splashed through brown and dirty puddles of scenic mountains.  It was such a fantastic storm, violent and maddening, the smashing of heavy drops battling the mountainside, torrents of rivers dragging the dirt and the soil and tearing steeply down with deep puddles that we splashed through on bumpy, winding roads that dropped down deep to canyons far below.   We swerved quickly around sharp corners splashing through water and mud, dodging cars and trucks that poked out from behind the blind corners of a spectacular mountain road.  It was a great drive, all the rain, the water, the pounding on the roof, the puddles and water splashing up against the windows, the fear and thought of sliding off the mountain side.  Sometimes I think I am excited about the possibility of the worst thing happening, a part of me my mother wishes I would grow out of, but seem instead to grow further in to. 

I had only been in the country a couple days and already it seemed I had traveled through and seen so much of it, but the best of the memories were still to come, as is my recounting of them.

“Sri Lanka.” – Jack Jersey.

Sri-Lanka

you are my Shangri-La

Hidden in the sun

Recalling the land of my roots

When my life began.

Sri-Lanka

you are my Shangri-La

From this moment on

Take me away in dreams to the

Place I've been born

Recall all my memories

That nearly have been gone

I say hey

This place I wanna stay

Me and my baby

I'm sure I don't mean maybe today.

I say oh

Wish all my old friens would know

I'm almost in heaven

Sri-Lanka so don't let me go

oh no.

Sri-Lanka you are my Shangri-La

A golden memory.

Paradise

regained in the sun

Where I've found my key

Sri-Lanka I'll spek your sinala

From this moment on and let me keep

Pretending you're the isle where I've been born

Secret paradise

For dreamers like me on the run.