Playful elephants

DSC03465
Originally uploaded by Rob@SFU.

what a day… Got up and headed north into the Hill country
today. Sadly I discovered it isn't named after the Hill family and
there were no "Hills" to be found… We drove for about 2 hours in heavy
traffic towards Kandy. Traffic was particularly heavy due to the four
day Poya (full moon) weekend. This is the most significant Poya of the
year and is also called the Vessak. It is the clebration of the birth
and death of Buddah. As we headed north it was interesting to see
multiple trucks loaded with the identical assortment of furniture,
typically a wardrobe, a dressing table with a tall mirror, a few
plants, a tall fan, and a dresser. Ravi explained that it is the
wedding season and the trucks were taking all the dowries to the
families and that they had very standard items such as what we were
seeing. Another interesting thing about the road is that you come to
small villages that have specialty items such as cashews (mmmmm), cane
weaving, and blow up toys (like you see at a fair, but all sizes up to
small inflatable boats and pools). Rather than distributing their
specialty it is all lumped together into a stretch of half a kilometer
so that when you get out of your car you are bombarded by 10 shop
owners within the 100 meters of where you stopped. I'm not sure why
they wouldn't spread out and diversify. Once we got to the Elephant
orphanage we had missed the procession down to the river but saw large
piles of evidence all along the road/trail down to the river that
there had been grass fed elephants in the area very recently… Once we
got to the river there were about 40 to 60 elephant ranging in size
from babies to very large males. There were two huge bulls who were
chained to the shore as they were "in musk" and had to be kept away
from the others. We watched them cleaning each other and playing and
having an all round great time. One quite sad thing was the elephant
from Jaffna who had lost her front leg just below the knee. I'm
surprised she survived at all and I suppose she has a fairly good life
now but you can imagine how hard it is for her to walk with all that
weight and no front leg. I'm surprised they haven't made a
wooden/titanium leg for her, perhaps it is just too much weight… Later
they led the elephants away to be fed and brought down a very large
and old male with large tusks. He is completely blind and had to be
led on a chain, again very sad to see.



We had lunch at the orphanage and I tried grilled cashews for the
first time, very dangerous indeed! So good! Charles ordered a beer but
was told that it was Poya and no alcohol could be served so he ordered
water. The waiter came back a few minutes later and offered "tea" in a
teapot and all. He declined but it was interesting…



It was a wonderful time but the drive was hectic and we saw a bus get
run off the road (he was driving like an idiot himself) and almost go
over into a rice paddy, scary! I think I might take the train next
time I go up that way. We were told that we should go on to Kandy as
well but really it was a long enough day as we got back to Colombo
around 4 in the afternoon.



Vesak is quite interesting too. All the streets are decorated with
Buddhist flags and lights and fancy lanterns made of crepe paper and
wicker. I'm going out on a Vessak tour tomorrow with Kumari to see all
the lights and lanterns, apparently it is quite a spectacle.

Bicylce in Jaffna

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Originally uploaded by Rob@SFU.

Hi there, here are some photos from my trip to Jaffna. I couldn’t take any photos in any of the high security zones so they’re no there. What is funny is that the soldier photos (dsc03065/03069) were taken in Jaffna where the SLA (Army) has control and where life is very safe, where I couldn’t take photos was in the LTTE controlled area (oh, I just remembered that I did get one…dsc03349 is an LTTE force that went flying past in their new Toyota 4X4 while we were on the side of the road having a tea break), anyway, the Tamil Tigers, as the LTTE is know as, who I saw were for the most part 15 year old girls. We saw lots of mine around the perimeter of Jaffna but in the city it seemed very safe. At the scene where the new Open University is being built (why we were there) there was a sign indicating that the field had been cleared by the Dutch in March 2004 (dsc03190 & 03191). What was sad is that the field was located next to a school that has been used for the entire time. After the Vice Chancellor (my boss here) laid the cornerstone we had a small celebration dsc03133, 03179, 03188). The group then invited us to join them on a trip to Nainativu, an island that houses both a Hindu and Buddhist temple. This only reopened in 2002 as it had been closed off due to the war. To get to their it was a long bus ride along the most beautiful scenery of large open fields surrounded by palms and the beach. We then took a ferry over to the island. The ride over was a little hot and cramped as they wouldn’t let you sit outside on the roof of the boat, we all had to hunker down into the hold where the engine was. It was already about 32 degrees outside so add about 70 people to a boat where 40 should go and it gets warmer by the second. I could just stand up between two beams that were about 10 inches apart but any rocking had me bouncing back and forth from beam to beam. We had a wonderful time on the island and the temples were incredible (dsc 03208, 03214). The scenery was incredible and we enjoyed waiting for the boat. There was a goat with a nice decorative neck piece who kept us entertained (dsc03235)/ I took lots of photos of the colorful boats and the dock activity, only some are attached I’ll show you the rest when I get back :-) (dsc03227, 03237). We then began to board the boat and it was mayhem. I kept hanging back so that I could load “last: and be near the opening for some air, but they just kept coming and coming. They would try to say no and the people would start to scream and cry. It was quite a scene as there was lots of shouting and screaming and crying – I then realized it was me making all the noise! I had sat on the roof of the boat and put on my very best don’t mess with me I’m about to vomit look and leaned over the side of the boat. Nobody said anything and I was able to make sure Kumari was able to get to the opening for some air (dsc03243). I managed to sit on the roof with a few other lucky people and the crew. I don’t know how I could have survived being in the hold, the heat that was pouring out was like an oven. I actually jumped off the boat and secretly filmed the unloading so we could see how many people were loaded in there. It was like those contests they used to have with how many people you can get into a VW bug… We got back to Jaffna and did a bit of shopping in the market and then prepared for our journey the next day. We were to be picked up at 7 but they were about half an hour late so we got on the road at 7:30. The bus was quite nice, brand new (part of the project we believe) and seated about 25. It was a short haul bus meant for trips across town, not across a country as there was no room for luggage, no bathroom, and seats that had minimal padding. After picking us up we drove for about five minutes to the market where we made our first of what I would learn was to be MANY stops…We then got back on the road and stopped AGAIN for tea!



We went through a series of checkpoints where you often had to get off the vehicle, show ID and passes. The biggest checkpoint was where the LTTE actually “searched” our vehicle and bags. It was a very strange search as “Tiger” came on the bus and looked like a school girl going off to class. She was about 15 and had her hair in braids. She was wearing am immaculate uniform that consisted of a starched white shirt, dark blue vest and a long skirt. She asked us to open all our bags and sort of sifted through them. My carry on suitcase has two large outer pockets that were stuffed with books and power cords etc. and she didn’t look in there. There were bags from people who were off the bus and she skipped those too. She asked where I was from (in Tamil) and it was interpreted back to her that I was from Canada, she just shook her head and asked again, it was again told to her but the expression was that if someone said they were from JKHJKHJH. I later found that she had joined the LTTE at a very young age and hadn’t seen her family since. The LTTE don’t educate their members, other than in their own doctrine. The men started to ask her questions and tease her and she looked like your typical 15 year old being teased by her uncles. Very sad. We waited for about an hour to get clearance and were then on our way through the LTTE area. This was sad as for the next 150K just about every house along the highway has been the scene of a battle and was shot up. We were also flanked the entire way by mine fields. Numerous NGO’s were around and we saw a lot of mine clearing teams. At one point we passed a field that had just been swept and the mines were indicated with bright yellow tape. There was a trench about 3 feet by three feet around the mine with all the dirt around it removed to expose the mine. They looked like anti-tank mines by their size. About every Kilometre was a sign reminding kids not to play in the fields due to the mines (dsc03346).



It was a LONG journey, I got home just after midnight, tired, sore, and just happy to be home! The drive was spectacular and I saw a few places I would like to return to. Kumari said that I got the true Sri Lankan experience, complete with the liquor stops, singing, tea, lunch, markets, fast and erratic driving, uncomfortable seats etc. the only difference is that we had AC! In my room in Jaffna I had a frog living in the bathroom, he became a bit of a friend but would disappear at night and I always worried I was going to find him underfoot in the middle of the night so I would sort of shuffle to the toilet. The bathrooms here are often a tile room with a shower in one corner and the toilet and sink sort of in the shower. There is a drain and the water from your shower sort of cleans the bathroom floor at the same time which is good but also not great if you go in to use the toilet in the dark and forget you had a shower before bed…



The birds here are incredible, while we were sitting on our patio one evening a pair of parrots came to eat the mangoes on the tree, they were really pretty. One evening in Jaffna at dusk the sky went dark with huge bats, thousands and thousands of them, it was like a movie, they just kept coming! Apparently this is “bat season”, I wanted to go see where they live but we had to leave, maybe on the next trip…. (they are in an old park (they’ve had to close it) all filling the trees in the day…
On the drive home as the sun was setting the fields were filled with peacocks, it was incredibly beautiful...