Sri Lanka 5. to the SW and a 'rest'

 

male Asian Paradise Flycatcher

if the bridge has collapsed and
you want to get to town.........

There is a string of excellent National Parks across southern Sri Lanka and we worked our way across Bundala, Yala, Udawalawe and Sinharaja, a World Heritage Site.  All magnificent and each with their own character.  For the first three we were in an open sided jeep but Sinharaja was different, being hilly rainforest, an environment entirely unsuited to anything but walking and we had another early start by tuktuk from our accommodation.  If you look at accommodation as a word it always seems to have too many letters in it, like a mouth with too many teeth.  But I digress.

 

early morning from our balcony - not looking good

and starting to look a lot better as we get to Sirharaja

Palli and Niroshan

By the time we arrived, the mist which hangs around an early morning rainforest was being burnt off by the sun as we walked down a rough track to a river.   Our guide for this Sinharaja visit was Palli, the local expert who had worked at studying this special place for 35 years or so.  He knew the birds, the trees, the plants, the ferns, the snakes, even the snails.  We had been warned to tuck our trousers into our socks and then rub salt (provided) into the socks as a deterrent to leeches.  Leeches are very sticky creatures and easily adhere to clothing as it brushes past them.  It is remarkably difficult to see many birds in a rainforest and it was fairly dark or dappled shade apart from the track we were walking on.  We did see a giant millipede which was ten to twelve inches long and also our first snakes of the trip.  As we were sitting on the edge of the river, someone spotted some movement just downstream and out of the water came a Rat Snake, gleaming black and moving quite quickly as it disappeared into the undergrowth.  Picture in your mind’s eye a glistening piece of coal but sinuous and about eight feet long and that’s what a Rat Snake looks like.  Harmless apparently but presumably not if you’re a rat.  The other snake we saw was only about eighteen inches long, bright green and this was a Green Pit Viper, described by Palli quite ominously I thought as ‘Moderately Venomous ’.

giant millipede.  none of them have a thousand legs

Heather having a paddle in Rat Snake river
- prior to seeing the Rat Snake

 

unknown to me - but definitely a plant, possibly a lily

Green Pit-viper, only 'moderately venomous'

just a good frond

We were having our normal snack lunch (our choice) while Palli and Niroshan had curry and rice when Heather said “What’s that stain on your shirt ?”  Well it was blood and I’d become the unsuspecting buffet for one of those leeches at just about my belt level.  There was no leech there because it had probably been
rubbed to bits as I walked.  Leeches have interesting saliva.  It contains a slight anaesthetic so there’s no sensation of a bite and it also has a blood thinner so the bleeding doesn’t stop, sort of a natural Warfarin.  The local treatment is to burn some paper and rub the ash on the wound but it still bled for about two hours with no sensation at all apart from a slight dampness.  This walk was supposed to be a four hour one but was much nearer to six by the time we finished.  We wouldn’t have covered much distance, there’s far too much to see to walk quickly unless you’d had a rather too much of a close encounter with the Green Pit Viper.  It was a really good day out.

 

Green Garden Lizard

checking out of Sinharaja Rest with  
our cabin behind and to the left  

boat excursion before Galle

Purple Heron

We were rapidly approaching the end of our first two week organised tour and were headed for Galle on the far SW corner of the island for several days ‘rest’.  Galle has a delightful old town called Fort Bliss which is no more than 500 metres square and it has a fortified wall all around it.  Three-quarters or more of the rampart’s circumference faces the sea while the land that joins it to the mainland consists of a road and an impressive cricket pitch.  The ramparts were originally Portuguese, then the Dutch threw them out and added to it and then us Brits did the same.  The old town is on a basic grid pattern with mostly one or two storey buildings.  We were surprised to see a number of buildings in ruins, some with quite large amounts of ground attached because it seemed that this old town would command high prices for any available land or buildings.  We initially presumed that this was tsunami damage which had not been sorted out.  It seems a long time since the tsunami struck but when I first started work in the mid-sixties in Fleet Street there were bomb sites still undeveloped on Ludgate Hill which is inside the old city of London and that was more than 20 years after the end of WWII.  It is very tourist oriented here in Galle, there are many restaurants and shops.  Crucially, the best ice-cream we’ve found in Sri Lanka is here.  It’a a family run shop called Dairy King and not to be confused with the USA chain Dairy Queen, which I would avoid if at all possible.  The shop used wooden spoons which I remarked on as a pleasant change from all the plastic and the owner said he was changing his containers to cardboard but the pots for ice-cream cost three times as much as the plastic ones.    

 

Old Town Galle ramparts, early morning

typical street view, Galle old town

I don’t know how useful the defences were in previous centuries but in 2004 when the devastating tsunami hit Sri Lanka, the wave hereabouts was about 4 metres high while fortuitously the Fort Bliss ramparts are higher than that.  Not much higher so it must have been a pretty close escape.  The old town was spared inundation although the 350 year old drains backed up rather badly causing a bit of a stink.  When a tsunami is approaching the sea goes out a long way just as it will when an ordinary wave is coming, as if the sea is drawing in a big breath in order to produce a big wave.  In 2004 nobody knew what was coming and when the water went out a long way (1 to 2 kms we were told although I suspect it was nothing like that), fish were flapping about on the sand and people just went out to collect them.  I doubt that many of the fish collectors would have survived.

 

one of the two entrance gates into Galle old town 

I like Sri Lanka, the people are very friendly, tuk-tuk drivers and street sellers are usually satisfied with a “no thanks” and half the people who start a conversation are not trying to sell something, they just want a chat.  India is not like at all like that, it is just hassle from anyone who starts to talk.  The hill country here is beautifully scenic and the bird life is plentiful everywhere.  The major downsides for me are the amount of litter which seems to be mostly plastic, the strip development along the roads for miles out of any decent sized town and the towns themselves.  They seem to be universally uninteresting and interchangeable although that opinion is from only a cursory viewing.  The only one we’ve seen that I think has character and is well worth visiting is the old town of Galle.  Kandy possibly but we didn’t see that much of it.

 

drapery store in Galle - brings back memories of the East End

limited stock range but you have to admit
it's a fine selection if you want a pineapple

Sinhala, Tamil and English

Seeing notices written in the local script is frankly quite baffling for me.  There are two main languages, Sinhala and Tamil and they both look very swirly to my untutored brain.  There are a few straight lines but definitely swirly.  Sinhala has

52 letters some of which are not or rarely used while Tamil has 31 letters which can be used in particular combinations to make 247 letters (or combinations).  Definitely puts Wordle in its place.

 

I have a special diet regime I use and if only I could write it up well enough I think it would make a fortune.  It’s the ‘Go to an Exotic Location and Dislike the Food Diet’.  It must be spelt with random capitals and I usually end up losing about half a stone when I’m on it.   It has turned out as a complete failure in Sri Lanka where the food has varied between good and excellent.  Heather is fine with Sri Lankan Spice (hot) but I prefer medium, known as European Spice here.  I expect more of me to come back than when I left. 

waiting for the 07.25 Colombo Express
1st Class tickets booked at £2.22 (US$3)each

 

Covers 25 Jan 22 to 31 Jan 22