The Mist on the Mountain

by ellrice, posted in Vietnam, Where

Weighty fish swim freely in the moat around beautifully constructed buildings. The sun shines brightly over impeccable gardens. The mountain awaits.

After much deliberation over the cost and authenticity of the Ba Na Hills Sunworld resort I was already glad I came. But less so the instant the cable car left the station.

“So this is what it feels like to be on the wrong side of the oven door!” I thought as we began our silent ascent to the mysterious mountain fun world.

With 1500 metres at its peak the oven dial inevitably turned slowly down and gasping for air gave way to gasping at the views instead.

 

The Mist

The throbbing in my head subsided leaving naught but the occasional rumble from the cable car as it crossed each stanchion, and a Jurassic-sounding jungle below. Behind us the vast panorama, before us a eerie wall of mist into which we would soon be enveloped.

It was hard not to be disappointed that we had already had our only glimpse of that sunlit vista. On the Golden Bridge especially, where great stone hands of might and magic support you, the view would be undoubtedly breathtaking.

But for everything the mist took away it also brought it’s own character. Like a soft focus lens blurring the hard edges of reality, the mist added something that may have been otherwise lacking in such a man-made place.

Though at times we could see no more than 30 or 40 metres in front of us, there was another kind of depth to this place.

The mountain’s breath

Getting lost in the monuments and temples, their shrouded architecture intermingled with the mountain’s past structures. There was a feeling of mystery to the place. As if we weren’t in the centre of five Mercure hotels, brimming with tourists.

A glimpse of a 30 foot Buddha we’d never even known was there. Imagining the unreal, lurking behind every corner, just behind that milky wall of mist. It was a pulse of nature still beating behind the fibreglass facades. A sign the mountain still drew a deep misty breath every now and then.

More pictures from Ba Na Hills

Amazing Animals Part 2

by ellrice, posted in Vietnam, Why

Vietnam had blown through my life like a hurricane. A swirling vortex of landscapes both spatial and social. Not destructive, but powerful. Absorbing my energy like moisture evaporating from the warm South China Sea.

The Sunline Paon Hotel in Hanoi was the eye of the storm for me. I was still surrounded by a cyclone of traffic, and raw surging experience. But for now at least the winds had subsided enough for me to reflect on the group of amazing animals who had been my family for the last 10 days.

Sharing Something

It’s hard to imagine what brings some people together and separates others. The busy riverside road running past the DMZ sky garden bar in Hue, is itself a kind of river. An endless stream of tooting mopeds, each with up to four humans aboard and occasionally a pet dog.

As they aggressively jostle for position it is amazing there are no collisions. Each traffic tributary somehow finds the path of least resistance, and they all go about their lives never having met.

Yet right in the middle of this confluence of disparate lives are group of people with sometimes 15 years between them, homes thousands of miles apart. They play pool, chat, drink and sing together as if there were more between them than just a few shared experiences.

What that thing was, I was sure I’d never understand.

Little did I know that Hoi An would change all that. Like the mysterious mountain resort on Ba Na Hill, there was something there to be understood, but it would take me time to lift it from the mist.

The Bike Ride

The rain ran off the rusty bikes soaking into the fake plastic grass outside the Hotel Paradise. At the time I couldn’t imagine anything further from paradise.

Our ears still ringing from the previous night in Tiger Tiger. Our clothes still wet from the torrential rain/river/swimming pool incidents on the way home. The prospect of a bike ride in the rain was not at all appealing. Especially not with such bizarre sounding stops as the recently bereaved half of the happiest couple in the world. Or watering someone’s allotment and sniffing some herbs.

But I was dead wrong.

Perhaps in part it was, the exercise or the restorative shots of rice and banana wine. But by the time we were all bouncing down the river in conical hats and coracles I was so happy to be there.

Same Same

Later, in Hoi An’s gorgeous old town, the river would reflect what I’d realised. The lights of bars and boats and lanterns all mixing in the water suddenly made sense.

We had our little groups and our own styles, like the clusters of similar shapes and colours on the river. The enthusiasm for that rainy bike ride was same in all of us though. Like the bright candles behind all that coloured paper.

By the time we’d reach Hanoi I’d have shared ghost stories with some, travel nightmares with others. Heard tales of tragedy, music, heartbreak. Shared beer, football, mystery. Even random drunken birthday cake.

I’d realised that just like those lanterns on the river, we were, as they say in Vietnam, “Same same but different”. Through it all together we were something bright and colourful, that I was glad to be a part of.

Amazing Animals Part 1

by ellrice, posted in Singapore, Vietnam, Why

The night train to Nah Trang was the first place in Vietnam I felt relaxed enough to open my notebook. The previous 48 hours had been a boiling stew of free shots, dodging mopeds and profuse perspiration.

Ironically, what I’d been told would be the hardest part of my time here was easy: Chilling in the 1st class, 4-birth sleeper cabins for 10 or so hours was not the coffin-like accommodation I’d been warned about. No, instead I’d find the hardest part of my experience would be this very post.

With all the amazing animals I’d seen in my first month of travel through Sri Lanka, Singapore, Borneo and Vietnam, I was not expecting the hardest one to write about would be humans.

Foundations of Singapore

Teylok Ayer street in Singapore’s Chinatown was once a coastal road. A port in to which desperate immigrants sailed, unaware of the harsh lives of back breaking work and opium addiction that awaited them. Now that shore is lined with the crisp clean edges of skyscrapers built on reclaimed land. Through it all run seams of rich greenery, giving shade to happy souls.

A tour round the Chinatown Heritage museum can still give voice to those forgotten settlers, and shape to the lives that they lived. Though the accounts and conditions are hard to hear, there are also families provided for, businesses built and doctors who helped the needy in those stories too.

It is the countless past lives of coolies and trishaw drivers who laid the foundations for the litter-free streets in modern-day Singapore. Streets like Sago street; once a place where the frail would go as to not inconvenience the living. Hearing the strength that they had makes me believe they would not begrudge me enjoying my time in the city they helped to build. I tip my glass to the skyscraper sea and give thanks to the builders.

Two Futures

From Singapore’s chequered past to it’s bright future.

I am sure that modern day Singapore still has its problems. Some say the money that once flowed through private swiss accounts now plates the city’s shimmering façade. That western faces peer out of the crystal towers while the descendants of those early settlers are still told where to live. Like Raffles original town plan dividing the growing groups of immigration, allocating people their futures.

Spending time with Bida and Poppy lets me see another viewpoint. The view down Jelan Besar makes the world seem like just another of their playthings. Micro Machines stop and go in unison in between towers made of Lego.

We found Wally, we burst balloons, we hid and chased and swam. They renamed me “baba” and just like that, with no questions asked, I was part of their family.

Their futures were not set, their lives would be what they made of them. Their minds were not corrupt, love and mischief are what they know. Since they are two facets of Singapore’s future, that future feels bright to me.

Cool Waters

Despite it being relatively comfy, when the night train finally reached Nah Trang I was ready for another sleep. I don’t even remember checking in or signing up for a boat party the next day. It wasn’t until the boat left harbour my memory kicked back in and I met my next amazing human.

Turning to shore, the clouded skyline of Nah Trang looked like a city in the grip of industrial revolution. An ever-multiplying line of beach-front giants, the clouds, their exasperated gasps as they struggle to keep up with the tourist influx.

‘Fookin Meenging Cocktails!” The floating barman announced, with a levity that had until now eluded him. I wondered if perhaps after one too many rowdy tour groups, it took being lowered in to the cool waters of the bay to soak away the stiffness in his heart.

Speaking to him later I learned he did not resent us I assumed he would. Vietnam after all has a labyrinthine history of war with French, American, and Australian enemies to name a few. All of which were represented in our group.

He had actually sided with the Americans in their struggle against the Viet Cong in the 70’s. An air traffic controller for wounded fighters, giant C130’s on one last engine, and bombers coming down with live explosives.

New War

In his own words he describes living through the civil war of north vs south as a brutal and horrible time. But today he faces a new kind of invasion.

As we head back to shore, we pass under the cable car to Vinpearl. A theme park resort cut into a previously green and beautiful hillside. “A scar on the landscape,” as my new friend describes it. He prefers the untouched view on the other side, where Russian and Chinese money has yet to flow and Vietnamese are still welcome.

But though his life today is shaped by our tourism, he reflects the peaceful water and warming sun with his crooked smile. “I do this every day,” he says. “Every day the same. No planes, no wars. The only bad thing… fookin meeging cocktails.”

Oceanic Engines

by ellrice, posted in Borneo, Where

Despite long, thick flippers heaving deep impressions in the sand, the metre-long Green Turtle before me, wheeled around like a great artillery gun. It was not this mother’s night to leave her young with the 1816 eggs laid on Seligan Island in just 12 hours.

The Mother

We finally reached the mother who had begun to lay. She was carefully protected from sighting us so as not to be worried, but something was not right. Like some automaton on a prehistory tour her Triassic design, her precise repetitions, the whole setup just did not seem real.

Seeing her face changed that. Her important work complete, we were allowed to see her at rest. The tears in her eyes, though we knew were her normal glands at work, brought her instantly to life. The ranger scrubbed the sand from her back and she looked at us without concern. Perhaps she would return again many years later, but tonight her job was done.

Chance Encounter

Earlier in the day I’d levered my sunburnt body off the driftwood lounger and made my way sleepily over the hot, pitted sand.

My foot was aiming for the last pit by a massive palm, but stopped suddenly when I spotted a tiny clockwork turtle. A boy I imagined because of sheer pigheaded determination to be out ahead of the 30 siblings behind him.

The years he spent carried by his mother had wound his spring so tight. The magnetic crystals inside her head had guided her home to where she herself had made this same dash maybe 30 years ago. Now with four flippers frantically spinning, her son would hurdle dunes and rocks twice his size to reach the alluring ocean.

A gentle wave engulfed him, his first taste of salt. A great blue expanse opened up and his flippers eased to a glide.

Only mothers would return here so for the islanders there was little left than to watch his little head bobbing up a few more times for air. To watch and to hope that before his spring wound down, the yolk in his belly dry, he’d find some safety like so few of them would.

Hope

We witnessed another 40 or 50 released by the rangers that night. Some got confused and headed landward. Some would feed other animals in the sea. Some would succumb to our plastic and our nets. One never left the beach.

But over 2000 eggs had hatched that night from 26 nests. Around 4500 nests had been rescued in the year so far on just one island. If just 1 or 2 percent of the eggs in those nests make it, that’s 3-6 thousand Green and Hawksbill turtles out there. Their thick leather-like flippers effortlessly impelling them toward a sedentary and peaceful life.

The Journey

by ellrice, posted in Bitesized, How

In Changi’s Terminal 4, a fine, cooling mist descends from a leafy avenue. Fish swim in ponds beneath the butterfly garden, and primates rest in a plethora of bright and comfy places they’d found.

I hadn’t yet left the bright lights and clean edges of Singapore, but what I saw in this eden was as surprising to me as what I hoped waited for me in the deep jungles of Borneo.

In the air the sun sets in to a rusty brown horizon. The dark water becomes a deep space, speckled with the starlight of passing boats.

Once or twice a red dwarf flickers by, as we pass the oil rigs of the South China Sea. Then finally the coast arrived. A golden nebula of lights, the remnants of life gone supernova. Its glistening filaments emerging from the rainforest.

“What adventures await me down there?” I’d wondered. But tomorrow, gliding across 30km of that same water, still not arrived at my first tour destination, I’d realise the adventure had begun back in that airport.

Perhaps in future I’d let the journey be less about the function and more part of the experience.

I sat back in the boat, gobbled down the last segment of my orange and let the cool spray of the sea clean my hands.

Devotion

by ellrice, posted in Sri Lanka, Why

Today I saw my first dead body…

Our train shunted with the kind of metallic impact that previously had me clinging to the arm rests and awaiting the derailment.
Now though, with two solid days of solo-traveller experience, I already felt calmer about these things.
So this time, the noise barely made me flinch. When the train ground to a halt, as it frequently would, I merely leant out the window for some air.
Just at the end of my carriage, about 10 feet away, were the legs of a man who moments earlier had been alive, but wished to be, no longer.
Despite some relatively rough years of late. Enough inner turmoil at least, to compel me to quit the life I knew, and circle the Earth in search of resolution. I still could not fathom the beliefs that had led this man to such an ending.
As the crowds gather, they pick at what remains of the man. Trying, in their own way, to understand.
But in my time alone in Sri Lanka I’ve encountered more, like those still, untelling legs, which will remain a mystery to me.

The Abandoned Capital

Anuradhapura’s sights sprawl like the ancient branches of the Sri Maha Bohdi. A sacred tree brought from India with the Buddha’s teachings and guarded continuously for over 2000 years. They curl and curve like the fluent arches of the Shinhalese script. Or the fingers of an open palm, cradling the faithful who visit three times each and every day.

I take a bike with good brakes, and with a deep breath, funnel in to the multiverse of lanes unmarked but understood by Sri Lankan road users alike.
Fortunately, it is a quieter time for the island. When I pass in to the Citadel it becomes quieter still. I thought I might know when I’d arrived but the ruins are not imposing fortifications, but ancient relics.

Plaques and pictures help paint a scene of 5000 monks filing in to receive alms from the giant stone trough that remains.

Food for five thousand

More cycling through unassuming park, reveals a royal palace. Though columns and guardstones were the only features not reclaimed by the jungle when this once great capital was abandoned.

Then, in Abhayagiri, an explosion of ruins. An exquisitely carved moonstone, twin ponds with cobra-headed guardians and the monumental Dagoba.

The Moonstone

This great dome, said to enshrine the spot where Buddha left his footprint, once stood as fifth tallest of the ancient monuments at 100 metres tall. The Great Pyramids of course are the first three. After that Abhayagiri is second to only Jetavanarama, another Dagoba a short cycle away.

The monkeys of Jetvanarama

These giants have no entrance. They merely sit, protect, and embody the devotion of centuries past. Like the million bricks I saw in Ferrara, such effort both beguiles and disturbs me.
I lay the flower, given to me by a kind local, at the foot of the ancient tree. But I do not pray.

The Lizard’s Lung

Incense burns in a great cloud from the gilded temple pyre. The smell familiar and yet alien all at once. A thousand candles burn but what do they illuminate? In the temple, a carpet of lotus flowers is laid, but whose feet do they cushion? A glimpse of a golden casket containing a sacred tooth, before being quickly ushered past, leaves me no more enlightened.

The Kandyan temple is vast and beautiful, and the glistening lake nearby teems with elegant Heron and formidable Monitor Lizard. I do find one mote of recognition in these places in among the crowds of devotees. Beauty seems to draw in the pious. Like the deep restful breaths of those lakeside lizards, people and their passions are unerringly consumed by the sights here.

The Lion’s Back

I see the same perched atop the magnificent “Lion Rock” Sigiriya. The huge pool below me was painstakingly hewn into the bare rock of the lion’s back. The water gives form to the ceaseless but cooling wind. Over the edge and over 600 feet below, beneath the polished Mirror Wall and mesmerizing frescoes that cling impossibly to the island-mountain side. There a great dark moat of wild green trees surrounds. Walled in by distant mountains that seem to stare in like an invading horde. Still green, but with envy of the beauty here.

The structures here are built from those same bricks again, rising like the undying history here, red as the earth that surrounds them. This place is a true labour of devotion, but the question remains as to why?

The sun beats down, slowly turning me the colour of the bricks and I see the same thing I saw in Kandy. Palace or Monastery, Kings or Gods. Those who sought either would have surely felt what they came for here. Not necessarily because that power is real or true but because such beauty as in the Lion rock, elegance within the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, or the ingenuity of the cave temples in Dambulla, makes them feel real and true.

Dambulla Cave Temple

Whatever reasons people came to these places, they, like I, found themselves captives of them. Staring at the infinite panorama, all questions answered. Devoted to something that could not be understood.

Looking Closer

by ellrice, posted in Sri Lanka, Where

I’m sitting on the A/C bus from Dambulla, the hub of Sri Lanka, trying to cool down. A kind man from Kandy helps me with a hidden auxiliary seat and points the fan at me. Probably because I look like I’m about to liquefy.
We chat about my time in Sri Lanka and he reminds me that sometimes, like now, Sri Lanka finds you. But sometimes, like our time in Yala, you need to look a bit closer to see her.

Yala

It would be easy to be consumed by the fact the Safari had not brought us a Leopard or an Elephant. To feel cheated that nature did not perform for us on demand. So much so, that as we sat down for lunch deep within the 900 square kilometre park, we might have missed a pretty special place in the world.

 

Racing to the elephants

By the lazily babbling river we ate an excellent curry and Daal cooked by our guide. It seemed like the water was the only sound there. But soon I realised that we ate to a captive audience of creatures of many sizes.

The smooth, warm rock between the tributaries was our table. The swarms of fist-sized fish ate our leftovers. The daring monkeys stole our bananas.

 

 

“This is a place you couldn’t come on your own.” Simon had said. Even with Bali our friendly 6-year veteran guide from the excellent Yala Safari Sri Lanka. I still needed thick layers of insect repellent, and gallons of water. When a tick landed on me as I tried to take a rest break I also needed a moment to silence that voice in my head telling me everything wanted to eat me.
It was all here in one small enclave. A true expression of creatures living in nature. Geckos creep between the cracks, giant cotton-winged butterflies circle you closely and still other unknown creatures bubble in the rock pools by your feet. Six humans are the novelty here. Guests in a home far removed from anything they know.
Later we saw at least some of those “big name” items on the safari checklist, but for me our lunch was the real experience.

The “innocent” look

Ella

Cricket and Sunset in Cafe Mandala

 

Another place where Sri Lanka did not immediately reveal herself was Ella. I mean, you’d have to be blind not to notice the layers of tree or tea coated hills, ever reducing in shade from green to blue off into the infinite distance. But we’d arrived too late for a hike up Little Adam’s Peak so instead we watched the locals playing cricket from one of the crop of tourist bars popping up by the station.

 

 

 

 

The unending flow of tourists to this place soak the ground, pulling up the bars, shops and restaurants like some hardy grass not native to these lands. I don’t dislike the heady mix of friendly Sri Lankans, tasty food and familiar Western comforts. For example the 360° Ella’s acoustic legend who plays every night really made my night. However, none of this was what I came here to see and so in the morning we went searching for adventure down the railway line.

 

 

This, we found, was a totally different side to Ella. We had to dodge a train, and some tricky touts who have defaced the markings that used to show the way to Ella Rock. We had to use our gut and the excellent directions here. But with relatively little effort we arrived at the top of the world. A place where if you fell you might never reach the ground. A place to do little else, than look out and contemplate how small you are in the scheme of things. All this, hidden in a cutting we had to look a little closer to see.

View from Ella Rock

 

Me feeling small

Anxious Moments

by ellrice, posted in Sri Lanka, Why
An oasis of calm after a dusty safari

Here I am, stretched out on a comfy wooden sunbed in a hotel whose, eager to please staff, outnumber us about 4 to 1. Palms top a frame of creeping flowers, surrounding the glass-like pool. My hands are cushioned by Buffalo Grass.

The aptly named hotel Serenity, Tissamaharama got me thinking about the contrast of this to my first day in Sri Lanka.

The Gulf of Discomfort

“I was so desperately seeking some comfort in my first few days of travel,” I’d written. But to be honest it was more than that. There had been a moment when I thought about just staying on the plane. Sri Lankan Airlines had been comfortable and I knew this comfort would become scarce outside the cabin. “So maybe a few more movies, another nice meal and just call the whole thing off,” I thought.

Before me was a gulf of 100 days and over 40,000 kilometres to be travelled, and at the time I was fixating on something as trivial as the taxi from the airport to my accommodation.

I know I’m a traveller at heart. I knew it when camping in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. When the horn of a late night freight train was the only sound in the world. Its echoes from the mountain haunted my dreams and all around our electrified site were animals that could have been our ending. However much this had felt right, I was still obsessed with keeping my comfort zone. But why, when the most uncomfortable days in Sri Lanka had yielded the most amazing sights?

The Cycle of Unchange

I’m learning that it is an anxiety about doing things wrong. Very specifically being seen to do things wrong. So, being duped by a taxi, or sounding like an idiot while getting one, terrify me much more than the time I jumped off a bridge with a bunch of guys holding the rope I was hooked to.

My mind refuses to change in light of my experiences. I survived the jump (despite having to catch a plummeting counter weight with my feet). I survived a night in a ditch in Spain. And, after stone-walling the first few touts in Sri Lanka, walking outside and thinking “I’m not really going to walk out to the main road am I?” I swallowed hard and ended up bartering about 50% off the first price I’d been quoted. So I’d survived that too. But it hadn’t changed me. I was still seeking the correct procedure for everything.

I’d awkwardly fumbled through introductions with my deaf guesthouse host. Then I was immediately bitten by what I concluded was Sri Lanka’s biggest and most disease-filled mosquito. I resolved to retreat into the mosquito net to research “the procedure” for imminent death by malaria. This was despite having previously read Sri Lanka had been declared malaria-free since 2016! So the cycle continues.

Calcite Eyes

Before I departed the UK I spent a day looking round the Natural History Museum. It’s easy to find yourself searching for the meaning of things when confronted with the bones of 65 million years ago.

Thumbs up from Iguanadon

But strangely it was crystals from deep with in the Earth that triggered it in me. Calcite double refracts the light passing through it so there are two distinct images offset from one another. The crystals in my mind do the same. One view of truth and logic knew I wouldn’t die of malaria and tomorrow I’d try some basic sign language much to my host’s glee. The other distorted view was always the worst case scenario. It could not be dispelled, merely lived with.

Quartz: because my picture of Calcite was rubbish

Better Days

We are always changing. Whether you believe that seven year cell cycle that supposedly renders you an entirely new person, or that experience and age imperceptibly shift you toward new ways of thinking. There are great examples of conquering your anxieties such as in Lauren Juliff’s inspiring travel memoir How Not To Travel The World. But as for me, I think I will always be this way to some extent.

Some days are better though, like in Mirissa, sipping Lion Lager from a chilled glass. Thunderous waves like nothing I’ve seen are on steep ascent to the shore. The climb reduces them to tickles at your feet as you eat grilled squid from your sun lounger. Maybe later I’ll climb Parrot Rock… if I feel like moving.

Strip all the detail of the world back to three stark bands of sky, sea and sand and there in between it all you sit. Suddenly, it becomes so much easier to simply be yourself.

Parrot Rock

Travel Mechanics

by ellrice, posted in Bitesized, How, Sri Lanka

I may be cursing myself, but so far, everything we’ve planned has worked out well. Even when Simon reserved our room in Galle for the night before we arrived. There were no problems. Shironey the proprietor of Beach Haven Guesthouse welcomed us and was a font of information.

Big Mamma’s House

“Big Mamma” as she became affectionately known, showed us that your accommodation has the connections you need first and foremost. But also most of the Tuk Tuk drivers will also be able to get you an air conditioned taxi if you’re travelling further. Fifty minutes of hair-raising Tuk Tuk at 5am between Galle and Mirissa is all we could handle!

WiFi can usually be found in the rooms, cafes and even on the beach in this case!

Sea, Tea and Wiffy
It makes that vital bit of research so much easier. For example, we found the excellent Raja and the Whales and Yala Safari Sri Lanka both family run tour companies who respect and work to benefit the wildlife they make their livings from.

For our £1 train journey I’d looked on The Man In Seat 61 but a man outside the station approached us unpromted and told us everything we needed to know.

The view from the train

In and around Colombo, if you’re lucky enough to have a non-extortionate mobile data connection, get the PickMe app for your phone. If not, get it anyway and use it from your room to give you a price estimate then get out there and have fun trying to get a good deal.

Early morning Tuk Tuk to go Whale watching

Rome2Rio is another good site for getting an estimate to help your bartering but before you get all worked up like I did on my first try, please remember you’re probably arguing for the sake of a few quid.

Peeling Paint

by ellrice, posted in Sri Lanka, Uncategorized

A cool air pulls down the narrow streets of old town Galle. It’s as if it beckons you towards the shore to glimpse the panoramic horizon from the old Portuguese bastion of Flag Rock.
It would be nice to see the sunset, but there is a strange kind of peace here amidst the peeling paint and weathered rooftops.
Undulating roof tiles, some terracotta, some blackened by moss, hang like the mottled teeth of some lurching beast. The spaghetti of wires that crisscross the street bring power occasionally. But less reliably than they provide gangways for the monkeys and squirrel-like creatures living in the wreckage of a bygone era.

Negombo

This all seemed a world away from my first night back in Negombo. Yet it was merely a couple of hours on a train journey that cost about £1. One which through lack of any closed doors or windows, treats you to the sounds, sights and smells of the palm-lined coast along the way.
Perhaps Galle’s thick fort walls had helped contain something that had ebbed away elsewhere.
Negombo had tired fishermen sat in lines of colourful boats and their young attending the nets drying sardine on the shore. A few pitches still clung to the early evening light in the fish market, desperate to sell their spoiling catches. While in the square people played sports on the parched grass, or stared at me with a coldness in their eyes.

I wont pretend that plunging my foot in to a river of what I can only describe as “fish essence” didn’t influence my view of this place. Nor my failed attempt to hike out there when I misread the map and ended up face to face with stray dogs and heavy traffic. But I definitely felt uneasy there, and I was so desperately seeking some comfort in my first few days of travel.

Galle

The charm of Galle provides this in abundance. Right from the beauty of the crumbling Dutch-colonial architecture, through to the smiles and helpfulness of the countless people who stopped to chat to us. Even the crow that turned up at breakfast to watch us tackle our first coconut with chilli and garlic, seemed to have a friendly tone to its caw.
Of course there were many who had beads and taxis to offer us. Livings must be made after all. But they came and went softly like the tumbling tides near the shore on Lighthouse beach. Not once did we feel buffeted by their attentions like the weathered breakers further out.
Galle reminded me of Venice in some ways. There were pristine and palatial fronts contrasted beside crumbling bits of history. But nowhere I’d been, reminded me of the kind of community and relationships the people had built here.

Its true the Dutch engineered this place, bringing trade, architecture and even a fortification that withstood the 2004 tsunami. Inevitably when that power retreated, with it went some of the splendor of that time. But as I lay shaded by palms on the coral-littered beach, I am surrounded by families of many generations. While up on the fortifications couples sit, their smiles reflecting the warmth of this place, with the arc of ancient branches cradling their love.

Perhaps the paint that peeled away in Galle merely shows a different coat underneath. One that was always there. Long awaiting it’s time in the sun.