INGULFED
(Notes for the Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah)Archive for March, 2011
Speed Bumps
Sri Lanka Part Seven
Sri Lanka Part Six
Sri Lanka Part 5
Sri Lanka Part 4
Sri Lanka Part 3
Sri Lanka Part 2
Sri Lanka Part 1
The day we left Tissa for Yala and Yala for Kandy, the former capital, was so long I remember only flashes and the dull impressions of strange and bad things. It started at three-thirty in the morning — I awoke before my alarm in a comfortable line of passed out cooks squished together on a smaller number of mattresses. Minutes later, pounding on the door, and others from the same bus hustled in to remind us we had to get going. They were so aware, as an entire group, of changes we had made to our “plan”, and were making damn sure we suffered no sightseeing consequence.
It was easier to get up than to explain the concept of the snooze. We were, of coursed, headed to Yala, which, as we remember, sucked.
As we got into the car to leave the compound, a stocky man in between two friends made motions for us to wait. “What?” I called from a cracked window. “Wait, wait,” he said.
It was four o’clock and we were running on fumes and the memory of grilled shrimp. “We have to go.”
“Wait.”.
He put his hands on the hood. I felt in my heart the sound of the door handle lifting. Fuck! Nothing. Chest-pounding, at least I knew the doors were locked.
We were trapped in the compound, with only one narrow driveway leading back on to the main road. Our only the safety of the car — but in those black, predawn hours, a few windows didn’t seem the strongest protection against someone willing to act crazy.
I still didn’t know how crazy he wanted to be.
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Sri Lankan Intermission: Silly Things from the Mideast
“New Qatar Cabinet Names Woman”
For those of you confused, what (I assume) this means is that a conversation identical/similar to this took place in Doha:
Qatar Cabinet: You, woman, I shall call you… Fatima.
Woman: Um… my name is Jessica.
QC: Your name… is Fatima!
W: Whatever.
I only read headlines.
See the real thing: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/new-qatar-cabinet-names-woman-47341.html
More posts from Sri Lanka very soon…
Sri Lankan Intermission: Photoblog
Click to make really big
Elephant, chained, and handler
Road behind Sorowwa Resort (don’t take their elephant ride)
Habarana, Sri Lanka
All photos ©INGULFED.com
More pictures from Sri Lanka here…
Sri Lankan Intermission: Photoblog
Monkeys!
Click to make really big
Monkeys
Various locations, Sri Lanka, South Asia, Asia, Earth… America
More pictures from Sri Lanka here…
Sri Lankan Intermission: Photoblog
Click to make really big
Girl in the Temple 1, 2, and 3
Temple of the Tooth
Kandy, Sri Lanka
All photos ©INGULFED.com
More pictures from Sri Lanka here…
Carrots in a Cage — جزر في قفص
Sri Lanka Part Five
Sri Lanka Part 4
Sri Lanka Part 3
Sri Lanka Part 2
Sri Lanka Part 1
Yala National Park is not fun. It may have once been fun, but it is certainly not now, and I’m mad at everyone Google found that tried to convince me otherwise. Except, actually, now that I’ve followed their bad advice, I wouldn’t redo it all any differently.
It is supposed to be one of Sri Lanka’s prime destinations for wildlife spotting — thousands of kilometers of open area where majestic island creatures roam, discoverable only from the back of a hired Jeep. Buffalo, leopards, beautiful wild elephant — Yala is your gateway to a personal, personalized experience with Sri Lanka’s wild fauna. Yours and five-hundred other tourists, in six-hundred jeeps, making every breath feel like sucking from the back of an exhaust pipe.
Tall Buddhas, Orange Coconuts, and People Talking
Sri Lanka Part Four
Sri Lanka Part 3
Sri Lanka Part 2
Sri Lanka Part 1
We left the island’s south-south-west coast a little before one o’clock with our only goal to make it to any hotel in Tissamaharama (Tissa, for short) outside Yala National Park before five the next morning. It was the one real event we had planned (read: paid out the nose for, in advance) — a hired Jeep to take us into Sri Lanka’s most famous nature preserve where elephants and monkeys and buffalo and leopards roamed free. We had only 200 kilometers to go and easy directions: keep ocean on right.
Heading out of Midigama, we passed the fishermen perched in their traditional fish-hunting post, baking in the sun and waiting to spear fish in the water. And slowly but surely, traffic on the roads eased. After we passed the bold-on-the-map town of Matara, the pressure of the capital seemed to dwindle — our lightly battered Nissan cruised at fifty or sixty kph. The roads still had curves in places the land didn’t, but at least driving no longer felt like fighting off the evil Empire in the assault on the Death Star in the first Star Wars.
Click, listen and read the next ¶
In a park near Tagalle stands a stone Buddha hundreds of feet tall. Cows graze nearby and visitors bring flowers to lay in offering. Camera in hand, it was more than impossible to blend in. Even in a sarong, even standing silently in meditation, our faces did not fall in the very narrow spectrum of local looks. I had no idea whether or not my picture-taking or my stupid, loud plaid shorts (I bought them in your country!) were offending anyone’s spiritual sensibilities. I didn’t know the customs — how could I? So, I tried to tell myself, anxiety doesn’t help anyone. And neither does worrying about when we’re going to get somewhere. The giant statue served as a reminder — don’t stress!. With the smell of incense and birdsong in the air, the jingle of a passing ice cream truck made one thing very clear: anxiety is culturally insensitive.
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Fool of a Tuk-Tuk, or The Carma Sutra
Sri Lanka Part Two
You drive like a local is everywhere both curse and compliment, a label given to one that has just saved a life or nearly lost one (or both). To earn such damnation/praise in Sri Lanka, a driver must adopt all of the English sentiments toward the left side of the road while rejecting every ounce of their trademark restraint, propriety, and unexcitability.
Almost every road in the country is two-lane (one in each direction), always curvier than topographically necessary, and rarely with room for central Asian third-laning between your lane and oncoming traffic. Passing has got to be fully committal, usually before a blind curve and with no shoulder for aborted missions. Honk honk.
INGULFED 
