Sri Lanka boasts much of its own rich indigenous history, as well as a history of colonization and development. As per the Tourist Bureau standard issue brochure, first it was the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the British. The Tourist Bureau will naturally point to the beautiful remains of these periods of colonization, and for some reason they keep mentioning the wooden furniture, which is quite gorgeous, but would also lead one to wonder what was being designed in terms of furniture prior to this move…
In any case, remnants of these glory days can be found in various aspects of Colombo city. Though it often feels that the city, and its people, have learned to live ‘on top’ of these remnants rather than with them. Modestly-sized old houses brandishing a faded flourish here or there belie what used to be underneath the intrusively placed wooden (or neon) sign naming the place of business that now occupies that ground floor. Others seem to have aged and deteriorated along with the status of its occupying family, becoming a sad, rusted shell. These scenes repeat themselves in random order – there is no string of stores or houses of one ‘type’ or the other; a modern-type shop can be found adjacent to a worn down store (and not always of the same line of business, which makes one think of the non-marketing reasons leading to such a decision), and you can constantly find a ‘Big man’ living next to a ‘Poor man’, as one of our drivers put it. But one thing’s for sure – there is clearly room for everyone, and they will make that home quite colourful (if not structurally safe) with brightly painted walls, window frames and doors.
Then there are the relatively larger structures. One such example is the Galle Face, a beautiful stretch of shore by the ocean where giggling families can be seen crowding every available space to fly their multi-coloured kites. You are reminded in every piece of writing about the Galle Face that it was maintained by the Dutch to serve as a strategic space of clear aim for their cannons onto any approaching ships. The neighbouring Galle Face Hotel no doubt also has a story behind it, which I have not yet dug up, mainly because I think it may disturb me. The hotel is majestically positioned right on the shore, and you can sit on a rather long porch sipping one drink or the other as you look out onto a rough endless ocean. It is all sufficiently fantastical until you start looking around at the architecture, at the furniture and the set up, and you realize that it all wreaks of colonial airs, at least those that we have learned about from the British Empire. The waiters are perfectly bow-tied, vested, and white-gloved, and it barely lightens the blow that there are some Sri Lankan patrons as well. Here was the Sri Lankan staff still serving some ‘white’ person from here or there. Granted I hardly hail from a colonizing power of any sort, but the whole scene just left such a bad taste in my mouth that I could not wait to finish my drink and leave.
I am told by others that a few such hotels exist, where the management means to propagate the image of colonialism. As a business, I am sure they would not have maintained this if it did not turn out to be successfully profitable, and I am sure a business-minded friend would argue that at least the Sri Lankans have managed to turn their colonized history into a profit, so that can’t be all bad. Somehow, I just wish it wasn’t still the Sri Lankans who were serving.
A differently positive shift has happened in other places where the final form of the structure reflects an empowered, freer Sri Lanka(ns); such as the university, the grand park, and the National Gallery (which is a haven to established and budding artists). I am sure if I had spent more time in the ‘real’ parts of Colombo, the type you stumble upon on your 3rd or 4th week in a city, I may have found a few more of these, and they would have balanced out my distaste for colonial tradition. For now, I’ll just linger with pleasure at the fact that the ‘Big man’ and the ‘Poor man’ live on the same street…
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Last Leg is the Longest
By virtue of modern air travel, I was able to fly from Beirut, through Dubai, to Colombo in one day. Crossed over no less than 10 countries and more than 2 time zones in one day. I had not thought that the longest part of my journey would be related to the 1 hour flight from Colombo to Jaffna…
The mere mention of the experience is so exhausting that I hesitate to think of it again, but it is too surreal and too miraculous not to share.
I will spare you the relatively boring first day of ‘travel’, where we arrived at the airport at 6am (admittedly far too early for an 8.30am flight) and were informed the airline’s final decision to cancel the flight at 2pm. After hours of “we will let you know in 30 minutes”, it was almost a relief to have a clear cut response.
But that’s only one part of the trip, to be followed by a surreal day where the airline overlooked to inform us that there was seat for me on the flight. Didn’t matter that we were calling them every hour or so… guess their left hand didn’t know what their right hand was doing!
In any case, I can’t say I minded another night in my sweetly modern hotel, where I even indulged in a bubble bath to wash away the stress of the previous two days. I hadn’t realised it would be what I needed to survive the day that followed.
The next day, I was told with great reassurance and optimism that I had a seat on the plane and should leave for the airport immediately. Just to provide a timeline, it was 9.30am. “At least I didn’t have to wake up at an ungodly hour”, I thought, and got ready to make the trip to my final destination where I could finally unpack.
I should have clarified that since Jaffna has been cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka by the band of previously LTTE controlled sites, it has been under heavy military protection for years. This means that it can only be reached by air (the road having been cut off) and only through a military airport.
I had never been to a military airport before, so could not blame them for the shack they had set up 100m from the airport entrance where they ‘checked you in’, both the security and the airline kind. To be frank, they were quite friendly for military, and weren’t as intrusive in their questions or search as I was warned. That is, not counting when they weighed my luggage, and then proceeded to weigh me as well! The nerve!!
In any case, my turn finally came up in the long dusty line, all was weighed, and then I was told that my bag (carrying all my ‘settling in’ items lugged all the way from Beirut) was too heavy and would need to go on a later flight. Finding the idea of parting with my luggage traumatising at this stage, I insisted that I was told I would be able to pay an excess baggage fine, but would fly with all said baggage. In the midst of this discussion, the fellow looking at the passenger list had even better news: my name was not on it. I would like to say that I was at my wit’s end, but to be frank, I was so numb by this point that I said nothing and followed their signal to sit on the side and wait. In the 2 hours that I waited there, I was told very little about what was being done, but I was repeatedly reassured – in oddly hushed tones – that I would fly out that day and that my baggage was ‘approved’. Deciding I had no choice but to believe them, I sat and waited.
My baggage still went on a different flight, on the earlier one that I was supposed to fly on, and I ended up on an additional flight that was chartered from – wait for it – the air force.
I’m not quite sure why the air force would want to charter out flights, especially when they so clearly don’t like passengers, and hardly thought of us as clients. We were corralled onto the airplane by pilots in uniform, sunglasses, and stern looks. The 17-seater had three seats per row (two together, one alone), and as I sat on the lonely side seat, I noted that only the paired seats had received ear muffs. Which, in my state of compromised lucidity at that point, led me to believe that the noise must only be coming from the engines on that side of the plane. Besides, I could barely hold that thought long enough when absolutely every fibre of my being was focused on keeping my body from melting. I can only say this to describe how hot and stuffy the airplane was: imagine putting your finger inside a can that had been lying out on the tarmac for a while. Two words: not fun. They only good that came from that is that it knocked us all out – in my case, for the duration of the trip.
But wait, there’s more…
Though the flight and landing were of the smoothest I’d experienced (as far as I can recall), we landed out on an isolated runway at the military airport in Jaffna, and were brought out of the plane. As the maintenance crew rushed to fuel the plane, and do their climbing-all-over-airplane tasks, we were left standing under one of the wings for shade. We lingered there for a while before I was told that we were waiting for a bus to take us to the terminal. How charming.
The bus finally arrived, and carried us and our luggage to yet another hut where they ticked off our names and where we waited for another bus to take us to the final checkpoint. The airline had apparently not scheduled their flights (or ‘additional flights’) properly and there were no buses available. My selfish thoughts at this point were focused on my life packed in a bag that was nowhere in sight, and probably lost in some marsh forever.
It was now 3pm.
But this is where the miracles start.
As I sat there waiting for an absent bus, I heard someone calling out my organisation's name. I had never been more grateful to diplomatic privileges that allowed our drivers to come in and collect us from inside a security zone. Within moments, I was in an air conditioned car, being careened in the right direction: out of the military base!
At the final checkpoint, we found a large truck – the type I am accustomed to seeing on Lebanese highways carrying livestock or produce – with an entire load of luggage. In order to find my bag, I would need to climb up into the truck and identify it. Slightly sceptical that it would be there, but desperate to be wrong, I tried to scale the side of the high vehicle (with great difficulty), and I almost could not believe my eyes when I spotted my lovely big bag. This was a true miracle!
Last on the list were our phones and cameras, which were confiscated as we checked in way way back at the very beginning at that shack on the outskirts of the airport in Colombo. And with those being handed to me, my cup had runneth over with miracles.
I would need a few days to recover from this trip (which is roughly how long it took me to be able to sit and write about it), but with everything arriving safely in the face of so many unpromising possibilities, I felt that all would be well.
And I tried very hard not to think of what the return trip out of Jaffna would be like…
The mere mention of the experience is so exhausting that I hesitate to think of it again, but it is too surreal and too miraculous not to share.
I will spare you the relatively boring first day of ‘travel’, where we arrived at the airport at 6am (admittedly far too early for an 8.30am flight) and were informed the airline’s final decision to cancel the flight at 2pm. After hours of “we will let you know in 30 minutes”, it was almost a relief to have a clear cut response.
But that’s only one part of the trip, to be followed by a surreal day where the airline overlooked to inform us that there was seat for me on the flight. Didn’t matter that we were calling them every hour or so… guess their left hand didn’t know what their right hand was doing!
In any case, I can’t say I minded another night in my sweetly modern hotel, where I even indulged in a bubble bath to wash away the stress of the previous two days. I hadn’t realised it would be what I needed to survive the day that followed.
The next day, I was told with great reassurance and optimism that I had a seat on the plane and should leave for the airport immediately. Just to provide a timeline, it was 9.30am. “At least I didn’t have to wake up at an ungodly hour”, I thought, and got ready to make the trip to my final destination where I could finally unpack.
I should have clarified that since Jaffna has been cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka by the band of previously LTTE controlled sites, it has been under heavy military protection for years. This means that it can only be reached by air (the road having been cut off) and only through a military airport.
I had never been to a military airport before, so could not blame them for the shack they had set up 100m from the airport entrance where they ‘checked you in’, both the security and the airline kind. To be frank, they were quite friendly for military, and weren’t as intrusive in their questions or search as I was warned. That is, not counting when they weighed my luggage, and then proceeded to weigh me as well! The nerve!!
In any case, my turn finally came up in the long dusty line, all was weighed, and then I was told that my bag (carrying all my ‘settling in’ items lugged all the way from Beirut) was too heavy and would need to go on a later flight. Finding the idea of parting with my luggage traumatising at this stage, I insisted that I was told I would be able to pay an excess baggage fine, but would fly with all said baggage. In the midst of this discussion, the fellow looking at the passenger list had even better news: my name was not on it. I would like to say that I was at my wit’s end, but to be frank, I was so numb by this point that I said nothing and followed their signal to sit on the side and wait. In the 2 hours that I waited there, I was told very little about what was being done, but I was repeatedly reassured – in oddly hushed tones – that I would fly out that day and that my baggage was ‘approved’. Deciding I had no choice but to believe them, I sat and waited.
My baggage still went on a different flight, on the earlier one that I was supposed to fly on, and I ended up on an additional flight that was chartered from – wait for it – the air force.
I’m not quite sure why the air force would want to charter out flights, especially when they so clearly don’t like passengers, and hardly thought of us as clients. We were corralled onto the airplane by pilots in uniform, sunglasses, and stern looks. The 17-seater had three seats per row (two together, one alone), and as I sat on the lonely side seat, I noted that only the paired seats had received ear muffs. Which, in my state of compromised lucidity at that point, led me to believe that the noise must only be coming from the engines on that side of the plane. Besides, I could barely hold that thought long enough when absolutely every fibre of my being was focused on keeping my body from melting. I can only say this to describe how hot and stuffy the airplane was: imagine putting your finger inside a can that had been lying out on the tarmac for a while. Two words: not fun. They only good that came from that is that it knocked us all out – in my case, for the duration of the trip.
But wait, there’s more…
Though the flight and landing were of the smoothest I’d experienced (as far as I can recall), we landed out on an isolated runway at the military airport in Jaffna, and were brought out of the plane. As the maintenance crew rushed to fuel the plane, and do their climbing-all-over-airplane tasks, we were left standing under one of the wings for shade. We lingered there for a while before I was told that we were waiting for a bus to take us to the terminal. How charming.
The bus finally arrived, and carried us and our luggage to yet another hut where they ticked off our names and where we waited for another bus to take us to the final checkpoint. The airline had apparently not scheduled their flights (or ‘additional flights’) properly and there were no buses available. My selfish thoughts at this point were focused on my life packed in a bag that was nowhere in sight, and probably lost in some marsh forever.
It was now 3pm.
But this is where the miracles start.
As I sat there waiting for an absent bus, I heard someone calling out my organisation's name. I had never been more grateful to diplomatic privileges that allowed our drivers to come in and collect us from inside a security zone. Within moments, I was in an air conditioned car, being careened in the right direction: out of the military base!
At the final checkpoint, we found a large truck – the type I am accustomed to seeing on Lebanese highways carrying livestock or produce – with an entire load of luggage. In order to find my bag, I would need to climb up into the truck and identify it. Slightly sceptical that it would be there, but desperate to be wrong, I tried to scale the side of the high vehicle (with great difficulty), and I almost could not believe my eyes when I spotted my lovely big bag. This was a true miracle!
Last on the list were our phones and cameras, which were confiscated as we checked in way way back at the very beginning at that shack on the outskirts of the airport in Colombo. And with those being handed to me, my cup had runneth over with miracles.
I would need a few days to recover from this trip (which is roughly how long it took me to be able to sit and write about it), but with everything arriving safely in the face of so many unpromising possibilities, I felt that all would be well.
And I tried very hard not to think of what the return trip out of Jaffna would be like…
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Two and a half...
The first thing I learned about Sri Lanka was it’s time zone. It was always just a little more complicated to agree on an interview appointment with my now new employer when making calculations for a 2.5 hour difference. Why the half?? It took up much discussion in my farewell party, and none of us could quite figure out the reason behind it.
Well, I learned all about it on my first day in Sri Lanka, and it is reminiscent of Augustus wanting his month (August) to be as long as Julius’ (July) – Pakistan and India cannot be in the same time zone, so they specified the half hour mark, and Sri Lanka followed suit. (There’s actually more: apparently Nepal also didn’t want to be in India’s time zone or China’s (horror!!) so it specified its time zone on the 15 minute mark!)
After a few days in Colombo, I started noticing a few other things that are done in halfs.
For one thing tuc-tuc’s (motorized tricycle cab) are the most dominant (and most convenient) mode of transportation. They are everywhere, and impose a half lane on the street… producing 2.5-lane roads. And I know I’m stretching the theme here, but can I point out that a tuc-tuc has 2 and a half (of two) wheels?
There are other half compromises that appear here and there – there’s a 2 Rupee coin, but not a 1 Rupee coin, there are ministries for everything under the sun (one for agriculture, then another for irrigation; one for recreation and sports, and another for sports, one for probation and child care, and another for child development and women's empowerment…), halving mandates possibly in an attempt to make sure everybody gets a ministerial brief. And so on and so forth...
But one thing that they do not do in halves here in Sri Lanka is credit lines; I was issued my Visa debit card yesterday and noticed this morning that its expiry date was 2018. No middle ground there – now how’s that for full on trust?!
Well, I learned all about it on my first day in Sri Lanka, and it is reminiscent of Augustus wanting his month (August) to be as long as Julius’ (July) – Pakistan and India cannot be in the same time zone, so they specified the half hour mark, and Sri Lanka followed suit. (There’s actually more: apparently Nepal also didn’t want to be in India’s time zone or China’s (horror!!) so it specified its time zone on the 15 minute mark!)
After a few days in Colombo, I started noticing a few other things that are done in halfs.
For one thing tuc-tuc’s (motorized tricycle cab) are the most dominant (and most convenient) mode of transportation. They are everywhere, and impose a half lane on the street… producing 2.5-lane roads. And I know I’m stretching the theme here, but can I point out that a tuc-tuc has 2 and a half (of two) wheels?
There are other half compromises that appear here and there – there’s a 2 Rupee coin, but not a 1 Rupee coin, there are ministries for everything under the sun (one for agriculture, then another for irrigation; one for recreation and sports, and another for sports, one for probation and child care, and another for child development and women's empowerment…), halving mandates possibly in an attempt to make sure everybody gets a ministerial brief. And so on and so forth...
But one thing that they do not do in halves here in Sri Lanka is credit lines; I was issued my Visa debit card yesterday and noticed this morning that its expiry date was 2018. No middle ground there – now how’s that for full on trust?!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Welcome to the land of Tea, Rubber & Coconut
Everybody you come across in Sri Lanka will tell you of their three main products the moment they know you're a visitor - got it from two cab drivers, a concierge who was making small talk while we waited for paperwork to complete, and some clerk at the airport. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I had already read all about it in my Lonely Planet.
Considering I got these repeated introductions within my first 24 hours in Sri Lanka, I didn't feel it was appropriate to question what I saw as I first entered the airport's duty free. Not unlike many airports, you come across the duty free just as you're leaving with your luggage, and after a rather copious display of beer and alcohol, your eyes automatically wander to the electronics stores. Yes, that was plural, and I don't just mean cameras, phones, hairdryers and such. I am referring to the electronic keyboards, television sets, and - wait for it - fridges, ovens and washing machines! There were so many of these stores lining the hall as we exited that I could only assume this was a lucrative business, or that all of these store owners were equally misguided. I mean, how exactly would one have the foresight to land from a flight, and walk out to buy an oven from the airport?? But just as I was about to convince myself that this was all a stroke of bad planning that would soon be rectified when these stores go out of business, I saw a fellow traveler walking out to his ride with his suitcase... and a brand new television!
I suppose the three main national products would not be heavily taxed to warrant this type of duty free sales inventiveness...
Considering I got these repeated introductions within my first 24 hours in Sri Lanka, I didn't feel it was appropriate to question what I saw as I first entered the airport's duty free. Not unlike many airports, you come across the duty free just as you're leaving with your luggage, and after a rather copious display of beer and alcohol, your eyes automatically wander to the electronics stores. Yes, that was plural, and I don't just mean cameras, phones, hairdryers and such. I am referring to the electronic keyboards, television sets, and - wait for it - fridges, ovens and washing machines! There were so many of these stores lining the hall as we exited that I could only assume this was a lucrative business, or that all of these store owners were equally misguided. I mean, how exactly would one have the foresight to land from a flight, and walk out to buy an oven from the airport?? But just as I was about to convince myself that this was all a stroke of bad planning that would soon be rectified when these stores go out of business, I saw a fellow traveler walking out to his ride with his suitcase... and a brand new television!
I suppose the three main national products would not be heavily taxed to warrant this type of duty free sales inventiveness...
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