Lovely waking in the beach hotel to the sound of waves and to not have
a 6 am wake up call. I went back to Galle to wander the streets and walk around the bastion
ramparts. Then we went back to Colombo. It is a gentler city than the other Asian cities, without the huge crush of people in Mumbai nor the
traffic jams of Delhi. I wandered around Colombo, there was a huge Hindu temple with a facade
packed with gods. The festival we had seen earlier in the week was also
being celebrated here with dishes of fruit being offered. Just down the
road was the Anglican Church. They advertise their Friday night miracle
session from 5 till 7every week, I wonder what their miracle success
rate is?. There were about 50 people there with their arms aloft
singing and chanting, being lead by a smooth voiced evangelical man at
the front.
This has been a great holiday. I have enjoyed the contrasts of Sri
Lanka. Biking was also a great way to see the country and I enjoyed the
tea stops in the villages and talking to people then. The Sri Lankans
are very warm and welcoming, extraordinarily nice people. We also had a
great guide, Suresh who delighted in fixing things and did everything he
could to ensure that we enjoyed ourselves and appreciated his country. I
was last in Sri Lanka 30 years ago and it has developed hugely with
better roads and communications. It is interesting to compare Sri Lanka
and India, the former has a visibly better health and education system. But Sri Lanka suffers from having less political debate and no
effective opposition. Rajajpaksa the current president is busy trying
to deify himself. I read Gordon Weiss's book “The Cage” about the
civil war and the last days of the Tamil fight when thousands of
civilians were stranded in the Nandikadal lagoon with the Sri Lankan
army bombarding them. This was a war crime but the current government
has avoided censure. Both Canada and Australia had questioned whether
Sri Lanka should host the commonwealth Heads of government meeting
(COHOGM) in Nov 2013 because of the genocide in 2009, but the meeting is
going ahead. Weiss notes the absence of journalistic freedom in Sri
Lanka., this is a huge contrast with India with its lively opposition
and a active media.
I was sorry that I did not go up to Jaffna, the capital of the Tamil
area, especially as I had discovered a tomb-stone there with my Dutch
family name “Mom” in 1982. Stacey, a Canadian girl in our group had
been there and had seen both the war destruction and the active
rebuilding programme. She visited a hospital filled with people with
post traumatic stress disorder. The effects of 30 years of civil war
will take many years to ameliorate.
On my last morning I met my Sri Lankan friend Indira Kahawita for
breakfast. she has lived most of her adult life through a civil war,
the first serious Tamil riots were in 1977 when she was at school. She
was relieved to see the end of the war. She lamented the absence of an
effective opposition. She also commented on how well Sri Lankans do when
they are abroad and hoped that this could be replicated back in Sri
Lanka. Many people are learning Tamil as part of the peace process and
her daughter speaks it easily. Maybe these measures will help.
We were a companionable group, we gelled and everybody talked easily
and supported each other in different ways. The Ozzies were fit and good
at enjoying themselves. There was a group of fast cyclists who raced
ahead. I was happy in the slow group, savouring the landscape and taking
photos.
This holiday has been interesting, challenging and refreshing and I
have returned with a love of beetroot curry a Sri Lankan specialty.
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