Trip to Sri Pada (and an abortive attempt)

The route.

The first attempt, the most successful, came right after my last post, when I left for Ratnapura to see the perahera from the Maha Saman Devale to the top of the mountain and watch the ceremonies to open the pilgrimage season. I was prepared for an extremely arduous and potentially multi-day walk, since I thought that the perahera would take the route on the Ratnapura side of the mountain, but it turns out that they take the Saman statue from the temple in a vehicle to Nalatanniya and walk up the mountain from the Hatton side (a much shorter walk, but steeper). When the adventure was going well I imagined myself writing this blog entry with glowing descriptions of things that had happened, with the title of “The Longest Perahera in the World” (how the Maha Saman Devale’s lay caretaker/administrator described it) or something, but the experience ended up including some unpleasant elements that left me with a bit of a bitter taste, and I’ve been reluctant to write about the trip as a result. (Overall, the adventure was worth the crappy parts, and I had some great conversations with some of the pilgrims and came away with a lot of good information in my notebook. But there were about forty five minutes of extreme discomfort.)
Before I left Toby asked me to give a call when I arrived, and since I’ve discovered that I far prefer to send text messages than to have phone conversations to convey basic facts, I kept him updated on my whereabouts that way. The following is the trip told through text messages:

Just arrived in Ratnapura, only three and a half hours! No traffic. Heading to devale shortly. [Delia, 2 Dec 2006, 10:45]

Fantastic! Keep on rockin not stoppin! [Toby, 2 Dec 2006, 12:10]

I just drank one of our thambili, best i ever had. [Toby, 2 Dec 2006, 17:11]

Here’s what I found out: perahera is tomorrow morning! First they take vehicles to Nalatane then go on foot to the top. The bad news: the lay head of the temple made it sound like the perahera was only for the priests and monks, but I’m going to try to join it anyway. The good news: had a great visit to the temple, great conversations, and visual satisfaction! [Delia, 2 Dec 2006, 17:20]

Outstanding! Dont give up easy, and keep doing what you know you must: grind until you get it. [Toby, 2 Dec 2006, 18:02]

On the perahera! In a van right now, going to hatton side. [Delia, 3 Dec 2006, 14:15]

Uber-fan-fucking-tastic! keep me posted as you continue to conquer the planet! [Toby, 3 Dec 2006, 15:46]

Somehow we got ahead of the perahera, now waiting in dalhouse. Light rain but I can see the full (?) moon through the clouds and the lights on the trail up the mountain. Many miles to go before I sleep! [Delia, 3 Dec 2006, 20:45]

Whats the good word? [Toby, 4 Dec 2006, 12:20]

Quite a story, now heading to bus. [Delia, 4 Dec 2006, 12:22]

Coming home today? [Toby, 4 Dec 2006, 12:25]

I should hope so! [Delia, 4 Dec 2006, 12:27]


And photographs:

The Maha Saman Devale, Ratnapura.

The Bo Tree at the Maha Saman Devale.

The start of the perahera, Ratnapura.

The lead vehicle.

Onlookers bring snacks and drinks to the perahera vehicles all along the route.

The perahera setting off from Nalatanniya.

Sri Pada from the Japanese temple.

The crowd watching the sunrise.

At the ceremony for the opening of the footprint shrine.

A few details to fill in the blanks: during my first visit to the temple I met an interesting fellow named Susil who chatted with me for a while about Buddhism (and more interestingly than most – often people don’t realize that if you’re interested in Buddhism you probably already know the basics) and shared his lunch packet with me. (Halfway through the lunch packet I finally asked him “why don’t you become a monk?”) He also encouraged me to try to go on the perahera (to show up at the temple in the morning and see what happens).
The next morning I dressed and packed strategically: white button-down shirt over light pink t-shirt and sports bra, light gray long skirt, with long pants and running shoes and socks at the top of the bag – light colors for the temple, but prepared to make a quick change for comfortable walking up the mountain. When I saw Susil at the temple the morning of the perahera he introduced me to some other pilgrims going to Sri Pada who had an extra seat in their van and agreed to let me ride with them. When the perahera stopped at a smaller Saman devale in Dehiowita, my vehicle only stopped briefly because Menaka (one of the pilgrims) didn’t want to wait, so we ended up ahead of the main vehicles and arrived several hours earlier than them, and passed the time by drinking tea, eating “short eats,” and napping in the van. The perahera arrived around midnight and the walk began around 1 am. The incident referred to as “quite a story” happened after reaching the temple at the top of the mountain. (visit http://sripada.org/text-1.htm for an aerial view of the temple, giving a sense of its size) Menaka and I arrived at the summit around 5 am, in time to see the dawn. Droves of pilgrims kept arriving even after the dawn and during the ceremonies, so by the time the ceremonies had reached full swing I was pressed by the crowd into the far left corner of the upper platform of the temple. When the ceremonies ended, the crowd started pushing and shoving to get close to the footprint sanctuary and the Saman shrine and I got stuck in a block of people that became tighter and more immobile by the moment; in a half an hour I didn’t move more than a foot and a half. I discovered that staring and picking at my fingernails was a great way to calm my nerves and impatience, until a few waves of pushing began to come from the back of the crowd and some shouting matches broke out near the steps to the shrines, and I remembered headlines like this and I thought that I had to leave immediately. I made that realization around the time that a couple of very distraught women and teenage girls climbed over the railing of the main temple platform and onto an adjacent roof (that red part on the right in the picture), so in a flash of panic and adrenaline I extended my arm above the crowd to some unknown person and started calling out “Bahinawa! Bahinawa!” which in Sinhala means “Getting down! Getting down!” (what you say when trying to get off the bus, and what I hoped would mean “I don’t want to push to get to the shrine, I just want to climb down!”) and squeezing through the crush towards the railing. After what seemed like an eternity (but what was probably only about a minute or two) I got to the railing and climbed over. Menaka was at the far end of the platform next to the other railing, so I motioned to him that I was going to walk down and meet him later. The crowd on the other side was just as bad, and at that point I realized that there were still scores of people arriving, trying to get onto the upper platform of the temple, but that past the upper platform there was space to move on the stairs, and it would be possible to walk down. I considered climbing down off the roof onto an adjacent stairwell next to the bathroom, and I had gotten as far as taking off my backpack and rolling onto my stomach to dangle my legs down, but a number of people called out to me and I realized that people were taking notice (and the last thing I wanted to do was to cause a scene, of course), so I decided to brave the crowd one last time. Fortunately I only had about ten feet of traffic jam to cross until I reached the steps, and the “bahinawa!” trick worked again. Once on the stairs it was easy to walk, and the farther down I got the thinner the crowds were, until I was able to hop steps two at a time. I didn’t realize that it was possible to descend those steps so quickly, and at that speed I didn't give my legs a chance to complain. Too much adrenaline, which only wore off near the river, where I stopped at a kade to get some roti and water. After that point I walked slowly and ended up having some interesting conversations with some pilgrims heading down, as well as with this nun



who lives in a hut near the trail, and is known as “Sri Pada Maniyo,” or “Sri Pada Mother.” I waited at the Japanese temple at the base of the mountain and met up with Menaka there, and then he gave me a lift to Hatton, where I caught a bus back to Kandy. (As I was bounding down the steps I had a couple of interesting revelations, one of which was about the advantages of traveling alone – sometimes you have to do ridiculous things that are easier when you're alone, and sometimes you have to climb down off the roof of the bathroom of the ambalama.) After a shower I told that whole epic story to Toby, and then went over to Sarah and Chris’ house for dinner, the first real meal I’d eaten since breakfast in Ratnapura the day before. Dhal, pineapple curry, and green bean curry - their food is always delicious, but that night it tasted like ambrosia.

I never got the chance to see the footprint shrine, and I only saw the Saman statue during the ceremony when it was installed in the ceremony (the details of which I am omitting, though witnessing it was essential and incredibly useful for my project). I consoled myself in the knowledge that I would be going to Sri Pada again the next week, since Peter had wanted to take a trip with all of us (me, Toby, Sarah, Chris) right before he left for the US. He had also wanted to take the Ratnapura route (which on foot starts from Gilimalai, 15km from Ratnapura by bus), but that plan fell through just as we were about to go to the bus station, when Peter discovered that his plane tickets (bloody old-style paper tickets!) had gone missing, and needed to visit the police station to file a report before the airline could issue a replacement. (that’s the abortive attempt to go to Sri Pada that I mentioned)
So on Saturday, instead of seeing the sunrise from the top of the mountain, Peter, Toby and I saw it from the intercity express bus to Colombo, on our way to the airline’s office to get the ticket replaced. Toby and I did nothing but keep Peter company, and while waiting on a couch in the office I memorized a giant stack of Sinhala flash cards and read the first chapter and a half of Number9Dream by David Mitchell (a recent obsession of mine). Peter used the last of his mobile phone minutes calling Nilam, one of his research associates, to find out the location of the Muslim kade in the Pettah with the best paratha; we found it, and had one of the best meals I’ve eaten in this country: a giant stack of hot parathas with deliciously creamy and cinnamony chicken curry (we came too early for buriyani, though Peter tells me that it is delicious there). I even got to speak a little Tamil. (I have since made a note of that place in my copy of the Colombo A-Z guide – it’s on Abdul Hameed Street, a random back street in the Pettah, not too far from the bus station – I will definitely be making stops there whenever I have to go to Colombo) On the bus ride back from Colombo Peter taught me a very pleasingly elegant Sinhala phrase: “taniyaTa aawa,” meaning “I came to keep someone company.” (as opposed to “taniyama aawa,” meaning “I came alone.”)

Heading to Ratnapura

The last time I wrote a blog entry mere hours before leaving for a long trip I complained about the overstuffed condition of my backpack. This time the situation is similar, though this time the bag is lighter and filled mostly with bulk - running shoes and a sleeping bag. I am going to Ratnapura with the tentative plan of seeing the opening ceremony of the Sri Pada pilgrimage season, involving a procession from the Maha Saman Devale to the top of the mountain, and since I haven't been able to get clear information about whether that is a one or two day trip, I am bringing a sleeping bag. Otherwise I limited myself to packing only those things that I wouldn't mind carrying up the mountain in case I decide to come down the shorter Hatton side. So much of this trip is of the form "I'll get there and see what happens," but at the very least I'll get to see the Maha Saman Devale and its legendary beauty.

Trip to Tangalle

For a full day of traveling, the trip wasn't too bad. We left before dawn, enjoyed the view from the train in the mountains and then by the sea, became surprised and concerned when the train seemed to go the wrong direction out of Galle (but missed the moment when it mysteriously changes direction again to go towards Matara), drank and ate young coconuts, rode the bus to Tangalle during the after-school rush hour and fell asleep despite being pressed into my seat and holding the handbag of the woman standing next to me, and went swimming almost immediately after arriving in Tangalle. The trip back was much worse - the morning buses into Matara were viciously crowded, and we stood up the whole way, and then had to ride a flooded and muddy train to Colombo. But I feel somehow initiated now - it must have been the fact of surviving a two hour standing bus ride in the heat. I'm not exactly looking forward to the bus rides to and from Kataragama, but I feel capable of handling them now. Of course the time actually spent in Tangalle made it worth it - a weekend of swimming, running, drawing, and fresh fish-eating was just what I needed, and the persistent headache that I'd been fighting all week blissfully evaporated (and didn't return on the ride back, as I'd feared).






A couple of observations from the trip: the impression you get of Sri Lanka while taking the train is completely different from the impression you get from the bus, especially on the Colombo-Kandy stretch. The Colombo-Kandy road is like a giant strip mall - the pineapple town gives way to the cane furniture town which gives way to the cashew town, etc, and there's never more than 100m between kades and billboards (after one trip on the road you feel quite informed about the various mobile phone service providers: Mobitel is the cheapest, Dialog has the best coverage, Hutch has the best graphic design). But on the train you never see any advertisements except where the tracks intersect the Colombo-Kandy road, and you can get the impression that Sri Lanka is much more pastoral than it is, from all the views of the the hills and paddy fields. I thought that was especially true in the mountains south of Kandy, where there are lots of little trails through the woods that cross the tracks and the hillsides, often being used by schoolchildren and their parents hurrying them along.
This was also my first visit to the south since the tsunami. From such a short visit (having not been there for the past two years) it's difficult to give any incredibly insightful observations about how reconstruction is going, though some things gave me a more visceral response, like seeing boats washed up far inland (near Tangalle town, for instance, where the water came in 3km from the shore), or the mixture of intact, rebuilt, and partially built houses, with the occasional shell of a dead house with crumbling walls or just a single crumbling wall standing.

Ambitious weekend plan

It's amazing how the stuff I pack manages to expand to fill whatever bag I've decided to use. Even though I'm only going to be gone for a long weekend, two of those days will be spent mostly on trains, so I had to make sure that I packed enough work and entertainment - reading for my project ("Religion, Art, and Visual Culture"), pleasure reading ("Love in the Time of Cholera"), music, camera, sketchbook, flash cards (which I could be making even more of now, but I'm writing this instead). And of course I will need snacks, since it's a long ride. I am planning to go all the way to Tangalle tomorrow, which will involve a six hour train ride to Matara (leaving at 5am), followed by a two hour bus ride. I was even advised against making the trip only for the weekend, but I had gotten the idea into my head, and when I found out that my Tamil teacher wasn't going to be able to make it for lessons on Friday or Monday I needed to console myself somehow. I'm looking forward to the train ride - it's long but incredibly beautiful, especially in the mountains just outside Kandy, and then when it follows the coast. And by god, I am going to take advantage of the fact that I am living in a tiny country where it's possible to get almost anywhere in a day (currently excluding Jaffna by land).

Mayfly Invasion!

After coming back from lunch with Peter in town I found myself locked out of the annex and so I hung out at Sarah and Chris’ place for most of the afternoon. We decided to go for a walk, and were intercepted by Peter in a three-wheeler, so I joined him going home. I had left some things at Sarah and Chris’ annex and had borrowed their keys to get in, and by the time they came over to get them, Peter had left and I was home doing laundry. By the time they arrived at the gate it was dark and Peter had left the porch light on, but unfortunately it was a night when swarms of mayflies spawned, and when I did the typical procedure of darting out the door I walked through a cloud of buzzing, fluttering creatures. I gave the keys back to Sarah, but getting back into the annex was the problem – the flies were all around the door, and I had to walk right through them to unlock the door and get in. I tried twice, but the disgusting soft fluttering on my neck and face forced me to run away and shake off the flies that had gotten stuck in my hair or on my shirt. On the third try I made it, but even though I slammed the door after me, about thirty flies came in and immediately went to the lamp on the wall of the living room. At this point I had visions of Peter coming home and seeing a swarm of flies and freaking out – maybe he has a hatred of mayflies similar to that of his hatred for mosquitoes. I ran around the house turning off lights and closing doors, trying to contain the invasion, and waiting for their inevitable death. Mayflies are fairly grotesque creatures – on occasional evenings they spawn out of piles of leaves and flutter around light and water sources until their wings fall off and they slither around, doing who knows what, until they die. So about twenty minutes later there were about thirty mayfly corpses slithering around, radiating out from the pile of wings. I managed to contain the slithering ones (presumably trying to find suitable place to reproduce), and then swept the pile of them out the door, and this time there was no swarm around the door since I turned the light off, and since the flies had all lost their wings by that point anyway. And Peter never got word of it.


Some informational reading about the insects

Colombo/Kandy

I knew I had arrived in Sri Lanka when the previously mild-mannered passengers of Sri Lankan flight 142 instantly jammed themselves into the aisle of the plane and began pushing towards the exit. The situation could just as easily have been on a rush-hour train in the Fort Railway Station in Colombo. The flight arrived in the early morning, and I spent the rest of the day fighting to stay alert enough not to look the wrong way while crossing streets in Colombo (the cars drive on the left here). I spent the next few days in Colombo doing mostly official stuff: two days of orientation lectures and activities at the Fulbright commission followed by a reception for the current Fulbrighters, the Sri Lankan alumni of the program, and the US embassy people. On the whole, the orientation was quite interesting and useful. The highlights: listening to Colombo University Law professor Rohan Edirisinghe talk about the current political situation, and then during the tea break, hearing one of the state department officials shout into his cell phone “This isn’t diplomacy, this is the truth!”

After all of that was over I made the great trip to Kandy. It was as pleasant as a Colombo-Kandy trip can be: fast, with appropriately crazy driving (which happened to involve crossing the divider to get around a slow-moving bus, and continuing on the wrong side despite there being oncoming cars), and stops for pineapple, rambutans, and rice and curry lunch. The trip through Dangolla (the neighborhood between Peradeniya and Kandy where I used to live, along with most of the other ISLE students) was giddy and breathtaking – it so closely resembled the way I remember it that I almost doubted whether it was real.

It turned out that it is real. In the couple of days after I arrived I dealt with enough frustrations to remove some of the rosy nostalgia. The day after I arrived I went back to Dangolla to look at a couple of annexes and meet up with Toby and Peter, and then spent the afternoon wandering around in a sleep-deprived daze, trying to accomplish errands that can’t be accomplished in Kandy on a Sunday, and feeling increasingly dejected. I went back to my guest house to nurse a slightly upset stomach, and after that was soothed with a cup of ginger tea I began to feel seriously restless and uncomfortable. Finally I worked up the nerve to call my old host family. Appachchi picked up the phone, and immediately invited me over for tea. I frantically dug through my suitcase trying to decide what to wear, and since none of my clean shirts matched any of my nice skirts, I settled on the rather ornate shalwar that Amma had picked out for me the last time I was there. I didn’t want to seem like a slob when I came to see them for the first time in two years, but then I felt a bit silly when Appachchi opened the door wearing a sarong and t-shirt.

After the initial shock of first seeing them (which consisted of a long chat with Appachchi about what happened while I was gone, and then an aggressively warm hug from Amma when she came home), and the inevitable tea and sweets, the evening settled into something similar to evenings when I lived there: the Bandaras came over and chatted with me and then left after a while (but Bandara Uncle kept popping in, as usual), I hung around Amma while she threw together a quick dinner of red rice, dhal, green papaya, and pol sambol, we ate (this part was a little different: Dhanasri, now 13, didn’t whine about eating and just fed herself a decent portion), then hung around and chatted some more, half-watching the news in Sinhala. Dhanasri’s room is now messy like a teenager’s, but most of the house looks the same. They also have a new fishtank in the living room which was supposed to have eight goldfish and one black fish (which according to Amma is an auspicious feng shui thing), but has evened out at nine goldfish and one black fish since several died and several others reproduced. Seeing them suddenly made me feel comfortable in Sri Lanka again - when I was in Dangolla before that I was constantly looking over my shoulder in case someone I knew would see me and be incredibly shocked. Now I can walk around Dangolla and actually start to feel at home.

Feeling at home in Dangolla is good, because that’s where I’m living now. The search for an annex had been going quite badly – everything I saw was either way too far away from places I need to go in the Kandy area (Peradeniya University, the ISLE center library), or was lacking in basic things that I think I might need, like hot water, ceiling fans, or a refrigerator. There was one place that I thought was going to be perfect – it had two bedrooms and was on Meda Bowala road (where I used to live), close to Peradeniya road and the bus, and Phil and Flynn had described it as really great (though Phil had decided to take a different place in the end). Toby and I went to see it in the middle of the day, and the place was like an oven – the ceilings weren’t finished and the one ceiling fan (in the living room) was attached right to the corrugated metal roof, and there was no hot water. Over tea with the owner I realized why Phil and Flynn had talked the place up so much: the woman was incredibly charming and sweet, and talked about how sad she was that Phil hadn’t decided to take the place. Later on when I called her to decline, she made me promise to tell any other students about it who might be looking for a place, and I’m sure that Phil must have made the same promise.

But then Peter (another Fulbrighter) offered to let me and Toby stay with him and then take over his place after he leaves in December. The place is perfect, and Peter seems really excited to have some company after living alone for several months. He also harbors an extreme hatred for mosquitoes, which means that there are screens over most of the windows, and that special care must be taken when going in or out – you unlock the door and then leap through and slam it behind you. (slamming it is the only way to shut it sufficiently quickly) Also, at any time Peter might leap up and go into a frenzy of chasing and clapping if he spots one. Moving involved taking my suitcase in a three-wheeler in the rain, but happened not a moment too soon – the night before I was stuck in my guest house room without company except for a brief visit from Damayanthi, the owner, who came to apologize that the hot water had been turned off earlier. I must have looked absurd when she came to the door: I was wearing pajamas and had tears streaming down my face from the takeout packet of chicken biriyani that I had been eating (which I only ordered medium-spicy). I spent the rest of the evening doing some reading for my project but mostly letting my attention wander to listen to the layered rhythms of the rain, the dripping from the tiled roof, the chanting and Kandyan drumming from the monastery next door, and the occasional drone of a three-wheeler going by on the road around the lake (sometimes also punctuated by a honk or the ridiculous melody of a bus horn). My first night in Dangolla felt deafeningly quiet – just the soft rain and the wind in the leaves.