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.
