A stay in the South

I've been writing this for a while, but only just got a connection good enough to set this up and post it.


Here goes:



Wed 17th June

Day 1. Still 54 to go.


The journey was long and thankfully relatively uneventful. The main highlights were:


-an expedition back “landside” once we had got through security at Gatwick to decant two pots of Marmite into clear smaller pots of 100ml or less so that they could be taken onto the plane. Apparently marmite is a “cream” and therefore a restricted liquid for flying in hand luggage. Still, it had to be done. C had dashed off to buy some yesterday morning before we set off from my mum‘s, and was in such a stressed state that she ran over one of my mum’s flower beds in the car on her return. In the regulation containers it looked more like liquid poo than marmite. Was it worth it? Jacob declined an offer of a marmite sandwich this evening and opted for an omelet



-our first experience of Dubai. In transit. The terminal was just as shiny and pointlessly expensive looking as I gather the rest of the city is. We had a “Cosi” sandwich, a chain which was a regular of ours in New York and famous for its particular salty bread. C pointed out that this bread was really just middle eastern flat bread, and so there we were in Arabia, eating a staple of their diet which had been imported from New York. Given that the other food options were Starbucks, Burger King and Paul, it seemed that the Dubaiees, or whatever they are called, were happy to at least in their airport be subsumed into Western culture.



From Colombo, it was a 4 hour minibus ride to “Marley‘s Beach House“, during which I began to think that the dangers of Sri Lankan driving had been exaggerated until I saw a similar minibus to ours flat on its back in a ditch at the side of the road with various onlookers picking at the wreckage.

But we made it in piece, and the Beach House is amazing, a piece classy glass fronted modernist architecture sitting on its own tropical beach. The only thing that makes this less of a picture postcard paradise is the sea. Not a turquoise pancake flat reef rimmed sea, but instead more of a surfers dream. But the currents can apparently whisk you away in an instant, so not so surprising that haven‘t seen any surfers yet. It makes it feel a bit like the sea has been transplanted from Cornwall to the Indian Ocean - reminds me of staring at the waves at Polzeath, just as transfixing.
J is coping OK, but the reality of being in such a different environment must be a bit of a shock for him. He is switching between excitement, frustration and asking whether he can go back to the flat now, or whether Sam can come to play tomorrow.

S is teething we think. Or she’s jet lagged. Or hot. Or who knows? Happy just now, though. We’re hanging out with her on the bed while she eats our boarding passes and generally giggles away although we’re knackered and its 11.20 at night. But we get to stay awake by having alternate luxurious showers in our swish outdoor bathroom with massive rain head while looking at the stars.

Not so bad really.

Thursday 18th June

I’m sitting in candlelight writing as this evening’s full on tropical storm has put paid to a power line somewhere between here and Galle.

The kids seem to have already adapted to Sri Lankan time, both in bed by 7.30, after the second major curry meal of the day cooked up by out talented 23 year old cook/housekeeper/tuk tuk driver Ranka. The first was the largest breakfast I have probably ever eaten, and certainly the first to feature Sri Lankan “hoppers”, “string hoppers” roti and vegetable curry. Delicious though, and enough plain food for J to enjoy.

A few facts I have learned from Ranga and others today:

1. Most people Ranga’s age round here wanted to fight in the war. The reason he didn’t go was that his family did not let him. He knows several people who have died or have been wounded.

2. Although the war has only been over for 3 weeks, there are legions of enterprising Sri Lankans traveling north to seek out property to exploit the tourist anticipated revival in the tourist market. Both he (with his uncle) and Ranmal have been up in the past week.

3. Counterfeit Indian and western films are very common, but its harder to get hold of Sri Lankan films as the government clamps down on piracy of those films.

4. One fisherman who seemed to spend the day outside our house catching nothing, apparently told Ranga that he caught 1,500 makrel just round the corner.

5. The guest house that Ranga used to work in (just down the beach from here), was saved from the worst of the tsunami by the fact that there was a small amount of reef in front of it. Uneaten (just down the coast)suffered far more badly as fishermen have blown up or sold the reef there.

Our driver from the airport yesterday told us an incredible tsunami story. He was driving 2 Swiss tourists in the South, and the van was picked up by the wave and deposited 1.5km inland. Amazingly it floated the full way and the wheels were still turning when it hit the floor. However, that meant that he drove straight into a tree. The car was still drivable and he managed to make his escape (with the Swiss) inland.

Friday 19th June

First family excursion out of the beach house “compound” today. We all piled into Ranga’s tuk tuk, in a very illegally unsafe (in the UK at any rate) way, and drove to Galle. J loved the ride, but we confirmed that walking around an atmospheric decaying old colonial town dotted with new boutique hotels in high humidity was not really a 4 year old’s scene. So we spent a pleasant hour and a half hanging out on the veranda of the fairly swanky “Gallle Fort Hotel” eating chocolate brownies and chips, walked around for about 5 minutes, and then drove a collapsed J back to the beach house.

We knew that holidaying with children would be different to our memories of adventuring to tropical climates in our “youth”. Just about managing expectations really. We should not plan to go out for more than a couple of hours at a time, unless we know that there is somewhere suitable that we can base ourselves, ideally with a swimming pool. In fact, that is what we will seek out tomorrow…

Anyway, J and I then splashed in the waves for a while on the beach, before running back inside so as not to be completely drenched by another monsoon downpour. I decided to revel in the rain this time, and took a shower in our outside bathroom in the middle of the downpour. Fantastic.
　

Tuesday 23rd June

We’ve settled into a routine. The last few days have been beautifully sunny but hot, and we stay in the house and on the beach most of the time. J has a “friend” - Pinidu - Ranga’s nephew, a small boy who is three years old and seems to have about 10 times as much energy as J. They play in the waves or with Jacob’s toys. We’ve also found an area of calm water a little way down the beach where J can swim with his rubber ring. So good to see J swimming in the sea at last.

We had a morning yesterday a bit like some tropical ideal, with Jacob playing wih Pinidu in the water, followed by Ranga shinning up a palm tree and coming back with coconuts which he cut up for us to eat and drink. But of course J turned his nose up at the coconut.

Wednesday 24th June

Jacob’s friendship with Pinidu was a bit strained yesterday, after J pleaded with him to come over, and then decided that he was too exhausted to play and went and hid in his bed as soon as Pinidu turned up. Pinidu was his usual bonkers self, and didn’t seem to mind, running and jumping all over the place, and playing with S, sometimes too enthusiastically. Definitely easier having a frustratingly cautious child than one like that..

J had good reason to be tired, as we had spent the morning on a trip to the very swanky “Fortress Hotel”, where J swam in the pool before picking at a posh tuna sandwich and guzzling some chips, while C and I took turns showering in the expensive spa without actually booking a treatment.
We then went to Kogalla Lake, where we had a tour of a spice garden, with cinnamon, citronella, aloe vera and even apparently a cotton wool tree, before taking a boat trip around the lake and its islands. On one we were guilted into buying some cinnamon sticks, freshly prepared from the cinnamon trees in front of our eyes by a family who looked as if they were surviving on selling the sticks to about 3 tourists a year.

On the boat, S was perched on Ranga’s knee, on the side of the tiny catamaran, in a way that would look very precarious at home, but seemed fine as the lake was calm and Ranga so confident with her. England seems so over-regulated for babies from the perspective of Sri Lanka. We brought the car seat, but it seems from another world - we are happily carrying S on our knees in tuk tuks and tiny boats and are not thinking anything of it. All it takes is one accident to make us look like idiots to those at home I guess, but this is meant to be some kind of adventure, isn’t it…?

And before all of that we visited a turtle “hatchery”. The owners told us that the eggs were kept there to prevent them being taken by fishermen and eaten, and the large turtles in tiny pools were kept to educate the local children about the idiocy of eating the eggs. I had read that some of these places are tourist rip offs, and in that case we were suckers. We paid about $9 for J and C to release three baby turtles back into the sea. It was quite emotional seeing them struggle towards the waves and then get swept away into the ocean. If they survive they will apparently return as 8ft giants to the same beach in 30 years to lay their eggs again. That is if the beach will even be there then… If so, maybe J will be back to watch them.

Saturday 27th June

Last full day in the South. Major rainstorms passing through over the past couple of days/nights, dramatic but so noisy with the sound of the waves that you can hardly hear yourself think.
Yesterday was a bit of a mini adventure. We traveled inland a bit to have lunch with some locals who we met on the beach. I had taken a photo of their daughter balanced on a broken palm tree jutting out into the sea and after I showed it to them they would not let up asking me to “lunch or dinner” at their house. Highlights included being introduced to a neighbour who kept a pet monkey, J having his first ever cricket lesson on the patch of dirt outside their house and eating rice and curry with our fingers for the first time (more difficult that you would think). As usual, S was a major attraction, but this time crowds of local extended female family competed over cuddling her or just watching her sleep! Anyone would think they have never seen a baby before - or maybe its that western babies as young as her are not so common here.

These people are poor. No windows in the house, very few possessions, many living in one house. And everyone is so dependent on tourism. The husband worked in one of the villas down the road, also taking people on boat trips on the lake. Clearly if there are no tourists, then virtually no money. And out of season there are very few.