Travelling in Sri Lanka

While travelling around Sri Lanka we used just about every mode of transport except a bullock cart.

The prize for the most uncomfortable goes to the no. 27 bus from Wellawaya to Unawatuna.  It was the only way to get from the tea-producing hill country down to the coast without hiring a car and driver.  The start of the journey was fine, we were taken by tuk-tuk from our guest house in Haputale to the local bus station and escorted onto a spacious local bus to Welawaya down in the foothills.  Within a few minutes of arriving in Welawaya we were hot, stressed and hassled by lots of locals wanting a piece of us and giving confusing information about where and when the buses for the coast left.  I've finally learned something that Sue has known for years about these situations, which is don't get infected with other people's sense of urgency - if you're feeling hassled just stop and say "no thank you", find a cafe if possible and sit down and have a drink.  This we did and after about half an hour we got the no. 27.  The next five hours passed in conditions not unlike a crowded London Underground train in the rush hour, except that the temperature was thirty-five centigrade and Sri Lankans have practically no sense of personal space.  We squeezed our way out at the other end hot, sweaty and exhausted, though to be fair the conductor and our fellow passengers had all done what they could to make us feel comfortable within the constraint that if you leave a one-centimetre gap on the seat next to you someone will try to wiggle at least one bum cheek onto it.  I even got a Facebook friend out of the experience - nice to meet you Tensin!

Probably the best way to get around is to use the Sri Lankan railway network.  Our most picturesque trip was from Kandy to Haputale.  For this journey we booked the first class observation car, which is rather like travelling in a 1930s cinema complete with faded green plush velvet seats.  This is a four-hour journey which winds its way up into the tea plantations to a height of about two thousand metres.  The train labours its way through increasingly green and lush countryside past picture book railway stations complete with hanging baskets and flower beds with the station name picked out in border plants.  At times the train seems to almost double back on itself as it climbs a steep hill before crossing a cast iron bridge spanning a ravine.  The observation car has a large picture window facing the rear of the train and through this one can see the railway line instantly reinstated as a footpath, as tea-plantation workers and others file back onto the track which they had just left to allow the train to pass.



At the end of our holiday we had a very different rail journey from Galle to Columbo.  We couldn't book seats and there was no first class available and so we bought tickets for second class.  When the train pulled into Galle it was already packed and in the end we had to force our way into a third class carriage where we managed to find standing room and seat space for half a person, which Sue and I shared for the three-hour duration.  I guess this was the closest we came to the experience of most working class Sri Lankans who need to get from A to B.  The carriage was not just packed, but the isle was used by a steady stream of vendors and beggars literally climbing over and under the people to market their wares.  The most disturbing was a poor woman hideously deformed by leprosy.  One enterprising guy selling cheap balloons wore a multi-coloured frizzy wig, which immediately put a smile on everyone's face and had the kids tugging at their parents' arms to buy them one.  It was a relief to get out at Columbo even though this meant being assaulted by various con-men and main-chancers.

To add to the transport collection we also hired a scooter for a day and bicycles for a couple of days.  Both are great ways to get around, not least because they provide immunity from being stopped by tuk-tuk drivers and render one less visible to hawkers, who expect to see tourists on foot and travelling at three miles per hour.  On one occasion in Galle I managed to overtake a bus on a bicycle with only one working gear and received a loud cheer from the queue at a nearby bus stop.

Despite the discomforts, travelling around Sri Lanka was generally a pleasure, because most of the people we met were friendly and helpful and around every turn one's senses are assaulted by an eclectic mix of sights, sounds and dazzling light and colours.

"You Want Tuk-tuk?"

One of the first things to strike me about Sri Lanka was the sheer number of tuk-tuks, the tiny three-wheeled taxis which are such a familiar sight in most of Asia.  As we roamed the island we found even the smallest towns and villages would have droves of them, mostly parked, often with the driver taking a nap inside or passing the time of day with his fellow drivers.  I suspect they provide a sense of purpose to men who would otherwise be unemployed.  They are the bottom end of the transit market, moving people and goods to the spots inaccessible to trucks and cars as they wheedle their way through the tightest traffic jam and the narrowest alley, guided by a cheap and ever chirruping mobile phone.

For the tuk-tuk driver it's always open season on tourists.  They will peremptorily ditch an existing passenger or errand and do a suicidal u-turn across a busy main road just to get a tourist on their rear bench, because tourists equal serious cash.  Even when you drive round in circles and fail to deliver the perspiring white person or couple to their desired destination, cash will still be forthcoming from their bulging wallets before they alight.  It's impossible to walk anywhere in Columbo, well anywhere in Sri Lanka really, without being accosted every fifty metres by a hopeful driver saying "you want tuk-tuk?"

After days of serious harassment we accidentally got our revenge on the tuk-tuk tribe in Kandy.  We were in the city centre, it was hot and neither Sue or I had our reading glasses.  We were looking for the Botanical Gardens on the map and I had mistaken them somehow for the Bogambara Stadium, a rugby venue, some five kilometres from our desired goal.  Navigating our way on the map to the Stadium it was not surprising that we couldn't find the Gardens.  I hit on the wonderful idea of instructing the inevitable tuk-tuk that stopped to take us to "the Botanical Gardens" while pointing emphatically on the map to the Bogambara Stadium which was actually about thirty metres from where we stood.  The driver, understanding little English and following my insistent finger pointing at the Bogambara Stadium on the map, said optimistically "three hundred rupee?"  This is about £1.50, practically nothing to a hot and bothered tourist and outrageously expensive to a local.  I decisively said "OK" and Sue and I jumped in.

The driver now had a problem - our destination is looming behind us thirty metres away and he can't really take us there direct without the fare looking much too big.  So he takes us on a wide circuit of the roads around the Stadium.  He stops at one point to show us a view of the rubbish strewn, but otherwise deserted, pitch in a gap between two dilapidated stands.

"Bogambara!"  He exclaims proudly.
"What?"  We reply, puzzled and cranky with dehydration.

The circuit continues with me getting more and more irate about our failure to see any sign of any botanical gardens.  Finally, he delivers us back to more or less where we started, at which point I get out, incandescent with rage and refuse to give the driver his three hundred rupee.  Eventually I give him  a fifty rupee note which he grudgingly accepts with a sense of injustice equal to my own.

Sue then persuaded me to hunt for my spectacles and having found them I study the map again and realise my mistake, prompting a fit of hysterical laughter from both of us.  No doubt the driver will have his own tale to tell about the loony old tourists who insisted on doing a circuit of the Bogambara Stadium and then went completely mad and refused to pay him.

On the Ramparts at Galle

I'm a sucker for old harbours like Galle.  Mainly built by the Dutch then taken over by the British, it is a wonderful mixture of european architecture and asian culture.  We visited several times while staying at Unawatuna beach, five kilometres down the coast.  The old town is walled in by Dutch fortifications and inside is a grid of narrow streets filled with the kind of buildings you would see in a traditional English or Dutch market town, including churches, eighteenth century shops and townhouses and a few art deco gems.  The place is being tarted-up rapidly and renovation work is going on everywhere to create more and more boutique hotels and craft shops.  Of an evening locals and tourists alike spill out onto the ramparts to stroll and watch magnificent blood-red sunsets.  They are accompanied by hundreds of crows, who line the walls and stare indifferently at the pearl-coloured sea.

Despite the gentrification, there remains a large indigenous, mainly muslim, population.  This creates an interesting tension with the tourist development, with some of the smart new cafes making it resolutely clear that they do not serve alcohol.  One evening Sue and I dined on a rooftop terrace and ate curry and drank beer while the faithful were being called to prayer to the mosque opposite.  Sipping my drink I felt like a naughty schoolboy.  In the background we could see the insistent pulse of the town's lighthouse, adding to the surreal and strangely peaceful atmosphere.  The great thing about muslim communities is that the people are polite and reserved and generally leave you alone, unlike in most of the rest of Sri Lanka.


Yes, I think I could retire to Galle and spend my days sat on a rooftop terrace, dressed in cool linen, sweeping the horizon with my battered brass telescope and tottering down of an evening to a nearby hotel for a Tiger beer and a fish curry.

Our Sri Lankan Garden

For the last week of our trip to Sri Lanka we have been staying in a smart guesthouse in the southern beach resort of Unawatuna.  It's a tasteful spot after the some of the more basic places we have been in - a kind of camp and tropical St John's Wood.  But the chief glory is the garden, which has been designed with great care as a habitat for the guesthouse's dogs and the local wildlife.  Every morning we linger over breakfast with the other guests with our cameras at the ready and have rarely been disappointed.


Most dramatic are the monkeys, which you can hear crashing through the nearby woodland as they approach the garden for mangos and papaya left out especially for them and the other visitors.










Staying here has at least taught me that you can have too many photos of monkeys, but that it's almost impossible to stop taking them anyway.

There's also a small breed of local squirrel which is especially attractive.  Fast moving with a stripe up its back which makes it look a bit like a chipmunk.  Unusually I managed to snap this one in the split second before it decided to disappear up the next tree.