Traveler review: Sri Lanka's Spice Trails

Day 1: Saturday 16^th November - Negombo

I arrive in Negombo, the beach resort to the north of Colombo, passing a Tesco Express and various bars with advertisements for ‘happy hour’, ‘fish and chips’ and other similar atrocities. According to Rohana [my driver], in 2009, Sri Lanka had less than five hundred thousand tourists. This year that number has doubled and there is a target of two million for next year. I check-in to my hotel and I then get a further update from Word Porn. The new word is ‘sonder’; to be part of someone else's life. This afternoon twelve desperate individuals will come together, not knowing who is who, to undertake a guided bicycle tour of Sri Lanka.

 

I’m part of the first group of four to try out the bicycles that will be our mode of transport for the next twelve days. Jack and Susannah ride their bikes up and down the hotel forecourt and then go again satisfied. I try my bicycle. It’s new and good. I show the guide and the mechanic my German-designed handlebar bag, but it doesn't fit the bicycle. The three of us experiment with fixings for a while, trying various methods, until the mechanic ties it on with duct tape. Two male Germans arrive next, Klaus and Frank, as the early birds from the next group, both with similar bags. Everything is fine, everyone is pleasant, yet I yearn for my own bicycle, garaged up at home in Frankfurt, and some solitary cycling.

 

I survive the meet and greet and then the dinner. We are eleven able souls from various places around the globe, who will cycle together for the next week and beyond. The twelfth cyclist is due in tomorrow, because of flight delays. All of the others have done cycling tours before and no one else is nervous apart from me. I break my non-alcohol routine with two beers over dinner to fight my apprehension. There are two women, Susannah and Erin, who definitely look younger than me and I think the Germans are too, but otherwise the others look to be in their late fifties or even in their sixties, but they all claim to be serious cyclists. Oh, shit.

 

Day 2: Sunday 17^th November - Negombo to Dambulla (54 km)

This is now getting way too weird. The Word Porn word for today is ‘uitwaaien’; to take a break to clear one's head. I decide I need to stop reading these now.

 

We are off. We have messed around long enough already, filling up water bottles, pumping up tyres, loading luggage and trying on helmets. Thirty minutes later than planned, at eight o’clock in the morning, we leave Negombo. One by one, we depart through the hotel gates in random order and take the road north. It feels great to be finally out cycling. Ten kilometres in, we stop to check that everybody is ok. Already the Aussies, Ronnie and Jane, are bringing up the rear. We are at a railway junction just outside Negombo and Prab, our guide, tells us that the line was recently moved inland from the coast after the last major tsunami. The devastation of the 2004 tsunami was such that it caused over thirty thousand deaths in Sri Lanka.



As we progress along the coast, we pass colourful wooden fishing canoes left randomly on the beach. Today is a Buddhist holiday so nobody is working, but that doesn’t stop the fishing. We pass rows of sardines left out to dry in the morning sun. The houses we pass are basic but all brick built, not that affluent, but nowhere near as poor as India. The smells are strange, either incredible aromas of morning breakfast being cooked or the strong smell of washing as the housewives hang out their clean clothes on makeshift washing lines. At times, I can hardly breathe with the humidity and the food aromas. The locals wave joyfully as we whir past. Most of them are in traditional dress with the men in sarongs but, of course, the few teenagers we see are in modern western uniform.

 

This area of the coast is predominately Christian and we pass one church completely full as Sunday service is in progress. Further on, we pass a service finishing and the road is chaotic as the worshippers leave. They are dressed smartly for church and we have to navigate around them and their cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and bicycles on the bumpy and muddy surface, but everybody waves and smiles at us. All the churches we see are well maintained. Our group has become spread out as the racers have pushed on. The rest of us cycle steadily to take in our new and different environment. Sunday school is in session too and, as I pass one school, the children in their white uniforms run across the playground to the fence to wave at me. It feels like I have won the Tour de France and I wave back to them (pretending that I have).

 

We stop for our first break at a house belonging to a friend of Kannan’s. The abode is small and cosy and we just about all fit into the small living room. There are many Christian pictures on the walls. Lasa lives here with his wife, his mother-in-law and his sister who are currently at church. We’re offered orange juice, sweet tea and biscuits.

 

Back on the bicycles, we continue our journey inland. The scenery has changed and we cycle through vast, dark green plantation fields. The surface is tarmac roads and the route is much quieter away from the coast, with only the odd herder or farmer for company. The group spreads out again quickly and it is mostly silent as we enjoy the solitude of an environment completely different to what we are all used to. Jack stops at a footbridge over a stream to point out a bright, blue kingfisher, perched on a pole at the water’s edge. We’re thankful for the water stop in the heat too.

 

Our next official stop is at a post office and Buddhist shrine in the middle of nowhere. After biscuits and bananas and more water, the last section is a race led by Kannan. It’s the first day and I’m so disappointed that we are already competing. Lunch is at a restaurant on the banks of Kurunegala Lake. Prab shows me where we are on the map. The next few days will be spent in the interior of the country.

 

The afternoon is spent at the cave temples of Dambulla. The entrance area is busy. Whilst we wait for tickets, I wander a little. There is a huge, golden Buddha statue, in front of the pathway that leads up the rock to where the caves are. Underneath the Buddha is the museum in a building designed in the shape of a dragon with the entrance through the dragon’s white teeth. There are white-robed nuns waiting to enter which adds to the mystique. I wait under a large mango tree. The bright green fruits are shimmering in the sunshine, like Christmas tree lights. I have to wait longer as the others need to change into trousers or sarongs, even though we have already been told to wear long shorts and to cover our shoulders for the temple. We take a bus halfway up the mountainside to the entrance there. An old woman is selling lotus flowers outside the gate and Linda has to buy some. Of course, as soon as we begin to walk, a couple of bold monkeys eat her flowers whilst she is talking to Prab.

 

The Buddhist temples of Dambulla are located in caves at the top of a rock, one hundred and sixty metres above the countryside. The cave temples originate from the first century BC. After losing his throne to Tamil invaders, Vattagamini Abhaya took refuge in these caves for fourteen years. Once he had reclaimed the throne, he constructed temples in the caves. Remains of rock-shelter residences from this period have been found nearby. The evolution of the temples was continued by various monarchs, mainly between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, when the temples were extended into the rock and partition walls were added. At the end of the twelfth century, sculptures were added to the upper terrace and this is when the caves assumed the layout of today.

 

The Buddhist temple is clearly still in use. Before we enter the caves, we pass the Bodhi tree, with incense candles burning all around it. Opposite is a small, blue chapel. Monkeys climb along the metal fences behind the tree. Beyond, I can see down to the dense green foliage of the plains. The huge natural cave is spilt into five temples, each contain statues, paintings and murals. The first cave is the smallest. A fourteen metre long sleeping Buddha, carved out of solid rock, takes up most of the space. The paint has mostly worn away, only the red patterns on the feet remain. The cave is only semi-lit and I can barely make out the other, much smaller figures and the eroded murals painted on the rock walls. Prab explains that this cave is named after Vishnu, who, it is said, created the caves.

 

From the white stone entrance facade that runs along the side of the mountain, it is surprising how deep the second cavern expands into the rock once inside. This cave is dedicated to two great kings. Beyond the orderly row of Buddhas, some seated and some standing, the cave has statues of King Vattagamani Abhaya, who had hidden in the caves and then created the cave-temples, and King Nissanka Malla, who gilded the caves and added seventy Buddha statues in 1190. Prab has to direct us to this second statue, which is located behind another long reclining Buddha, hewn out of the rock. He also points out the eclectic mix of icons as the remainder of the huge cave contains many more Buddha statues, wooden figures of bodhisattvas, Buddha statues of Saman and Vishnu and also images of Kataragama and Ganesh in colourful murals painted on the rock walls.

 

The next cave is vast again. This one is known as the Great New Monastery. The paintings on the sloping ceiling and walls date back to the reign of King Kirti Sri Rajasinha in the eighteenth century and there is a statue to commemorate him. As with the previous cave, there is an orderly row of golden Buddha statues lining the back of the cavern. There is a meditating Buddha, seated in the middle of the cave, and a sleeping Buddha at the side wall, both carved out of solid rock. Lilac lotus flowers have been left in front of the meditating Buddha. Again, the cave is only semi-lit. The colours inside, the dark reds of the wall paintings and the gold of the statues, contrasts sharply with the almost monochrome colours outside of the snow-white stone of the temples and the dark rock of the mountainside.

 

The other two caves are much smaller in size but with similar contents. The last cave is the newest and its statues are carved from brick and plaster, rather than the solid rock of the other caves, including the ten metre reclining Buddha. Prab explains that these are the best preserved cave-temples in Sri Lanka and it’s incredible to think that they have been in use for twenty-two centuries. We leave the cave-temples and, once we have fought with the monkeys to retrieve our shoes, we walk the full distance down the mountainside to the entrance site. The final stairway leads us out next to the giant Buddha and dragon-building that houses the museum. Along the exit are statues of orange-robed Buddhist monks symbolising the beginning of the ascent up the hill.

 

We are bussed to our new, modern hotel, on the edge of the town of Dambulla. It seems so remote, amongst the paddy fields and mango trees. The hotel is of wood construction, with the reception area open-sided, looking out onto a swimming pool and a small cricket pitch. The dining room is situated upstairs and looks out across the manicured orchards and dark green fields beyond. Jack, Lawrie and I are sent to large rooms out in the stables, a short walk away from the main building.

 

Showered and clean after the day’s exertion, I meet the others for dinner. I am the first to be seated and I’m asked what I would like to drink. Lawrie and Erin are sitting near me and we agree on a celebratory beer for our first day. The waiter looks shocked and walks way. Prab comes over and explains that, as it is a Buddhist holiday, the hotel is not allowed to sell beer. However, as we are Western tourists, they will provide us with beer, as long as it’s not seen and it will not be shown as beer on the bill. We looked confused but agree. A few minutes later, Sri Lankan tea is served. Lawrie, Erin and I each get a teapot of beer, which we have to drink in tea cups. The others soon follow our lead.

 

What a wonderful way to finish a great first day. (Later, we find out that Kannan and Chathura, who do not join us for dinner, have also ordered the special Sri Lankan tea).

 

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