Matale

Matale (pronounced Motta Lee) is a small town north of Kandy.  They have some cool temples you can check out for a small fee if you're foreign.  I don't know why I bothered staying there for 2 days since you could do the whole thing in one hour in the afternoon.  Presumably because I didn't feel like hauling all my luggage with me, lol.

It's within walking distance of the Matale (2 km or so), so I walked there.

Here's the photos:

A small remembrance.

A couple of shots of the entry way.

Inside the temple--a reclining Buddha.

Detail work from one of the archways inside the temple.

A view of the grounds.

Supposed to be a vision of Hell for the unrepentant.

Seemed more like a torture museum.

I couldn't resist another shot.

Hilltop Buddha.

A view from the temple on top of the rocks.

I forget what this is about.

Design painted meticulously on the rocky ceiling and walls of the temple.

King Norodom of Cambodia apparently helped make this temple possible.

Pretty cool.

You can also visit "Spice Gardens", which are basically gardens where they grow spice plants--cinnamon trees, citronella, tamarind plants, red and green pineapples, coconuts, jasmine, etc.  They'll lecture you about each thing, then try to get you to buy pricey goods.  Luckily, I was so broke I wasn't tempted to buy anything, but it was an interesting place to visit nonetheless.

Spice Gardens abound in this area, but the one I visited was located about one kilometer past the temple.

You can also stop by A&C restaurant which is between Matale and the temple.  I actually stopped in to ask directions to the temple, and ate a fruit salad since (in my usual careless style) I had forgotten to eat lunch.  

I loved their bathroom signs.  

Esala Perahera

So I said I came to Kandy to see the Esala Perahera display.  The processions last for 10 days, with the greatest one on the 10th day.  Although I was in Kandy for 5 days, I didn't bother with the earlier processions...it just seemed like too much of a hassle with people pooling on the streets around midday for a procession that would begin around 8 pm.  But dammit, I was going to see the LAST day.

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $40 to get a good seat.  Being a wage-earner in a Least Developed Country, that pretty much puts it out of my daily budget.  I stuck a 2000-rupee note in my pocket (which is like $15) and negotiated.  

After hours of intense negotiations, I found a seat.  Not an ideal seat, because of the bars that block the lower-half of the procession, but a seat along the front rows of the procession.  It was better than standing on someone's rooftop and straining to see over the edge of the gables at the tops of elephant heads ten floors below, anyway.

First of all, people come by breakdancing with fire.  

It's possibly the coolest part of the procession.

Breakdancing with fire wheels.

And throwing it in the air.

I rest my case.

The best seats in the house!

There are about 90 elephants in the procession.

This is one of them.

Some are big ones, and some are lil babies.

Another elephant!

More elephants!!

The crowd looks on.

(Incidentally, this is why it was so hard to get places during the day).

This is the moment the whole crowd was waiting for.

The elephant is carrying something that may be the Buddha's tooth.

(Worth noting that the tooth is kept in a box in a temple during the day, and no one's allowed to see it.)

Everyone stood up when these elephants came past, to pay respects.

After that, the brainwaves scattered and minds wandered.

No one spoke, but you could feel the tensions had broken.

The rest of the procession was much the same as the first half.

More elephants!

You can't see clearly from this photo, but these are peacock dancers, and possibly the only female dancers in the parade.

Anyway, the procession lasted about 3 hours.  I didn't bother to hang around till the last dancers by, since everyone else was slipping away, and I wasn't eager to get stuck in the mass exodus.

Esala Perahera is an ancient custom, so it was a real privilege to be able to witness it as a foreigner, even if I had to pay for it.  Eh, the price was right.  Here's Wikipedia in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esala_Perahera

Peridenya Botanical Gardens

Kandy has a Botanical Garden which is also a UNESCO world heritage site.  It's on the outskirts of town, and you can visit it with a taxi.  Or, if you're poor like me, you can take a bus to Peridenya.  It's nicer when you go early and there aren't a million tourists swarming all over the place.

Here's my pictures:

Pretty much the scariest suspension bridge you will ever go on.

View from the suspension bridge.

Weird-shaped trees.

More weird-shaped trees!

Some sort of cool water plant.

Really big palm trees 

(if you look at the two figures on the ground, that gives you an idea of the size).

Pretty flowers!  

From the Orchid House.

The pole at the bottom is waist-high.  It shows you how giant this bamboo is.

Pretty much the way a park is supposed to look.

Big Rock Kandy Lake

Yes, the name of the city is "Kandy", just like the delicious foodstuff that little kids love to indulge in.  After flying in and spending the night in Negombo, I took the first bus to Kandy to catch the annual Esala Perahera parade, which takes place over a ten day period.

Unfortunately, pretty much everyone in Sri Lanka came to visit the parade, so I wound up in a guesthouse on the outskirts of town (though when I say "outskirts", I mean a 15 minute walk from the center, lol).  It has a nice view anyway:

Kandy is famous for a large lake on the south side of town which has a lot of waterfoul, komodo dragons, and turtles to look at.  I entertained myself for a day by hanging around the lake and looking at things:

A great bird!

A great fallen tree!

An awesome duck!

A baby water foul.

Komodo dragon?

Turtle!

The lake also has some museums and cultural events nearby, which I skipped over.

Back Again

Where is holyrockthrower today?

Actually, I am back in Sri Lanka.  And I'm going to be here for a few more weeks.

Why? you ask. 

Because I received a very small amount of inheritence money, which I have determined is best spent doing something I have been wanting to do--wander through Sri Lanka and look at stuff. 

I like Sri Lanka.  It's small, it's compact, and you can get across the entire country in just a few hours for only a couple of dollars.  Yet there's such an incredible diversity of wildlife, terrain, and culture that you'd never think it was a country half the size of Ohio.

So, I thought I'd explore while I am still young enough and monied enough to do that.

Anyway, it's become exorbitantly difficult for me to update the blog, seeing that my only means of online communcation was forcibly taken from me several months ago.  It's even harder uploading pictures from a public venue, which often won't work or misfires on me.  Yet, I need somewhere to store the pictures I take, precisely because I DON'T have anywhere else to store my photos anymore.

So, I will be putting up lots of pictures, with maybe a blurb about each.

No Justice, No Peace

It's been about 3 or so weeks since I was attacked and robbed in a park on my way home.

I wish I could say there was some resolution to this, some form of justice, some answer...but that's not the way it is.  This is IRL, not a story, not a dream, not Hollywood.

The police did nothing to help me, no matter the price I offered them.  They claimed the robbers disappeared when they showed up at night, and therefore tracking my laptop was impossible.  They then claimed that because of the upcoming election, their full attention was needed in maintaining civil order.  Not helping me.

I doubt they made any effort at all, to be honest.

I actually tracked the thieves myself, with the aid of a local friend.  I wanted to find out about them, who they were, and what I could do to avenge myself.  Listening to some local security guards, we figured out that they operate every night in the park across my house.  (Is this not an indignity?)

We waited outside at night for them to show up.  I dressed up as bait (30 year old jail bait, lol) to get them to rob me again and capture them.  Instead of the two who assaulted me the last time, we found a gang of at least ten, some of whom were women.  So, we lacked the wherewithal to make any moves.

We followed them to see if they possessed a motorbike, or anything I could possibly destroy in retaliation for my losses.  In doing so, we stumbled across a social ill so large, any action we could take would have resulted in a woefully Phyrric victory.  At best.

There was nothing more we could do.

My entire last five years, so carefully stored, groomed, and maintained were taken from me by a pair of cowards who attacked from behind and punched me lying on the ground.  The only things I ever cared about in life were robbed, erased, and sold for no more than $25 in a second hand electronics shop to fuel the drug addictions of pathetic losers who are better off dead ... and my soul died guttering in the rain like a fallen swordsman.

So, that's my story of crime and punishment.  Apparently, crime DOES pay, and moreover, there's nothing YOU can do about it.  I've learned that the world is a brutal inhospitable place where only the most evil prevail.  Consequently, I've permanently lost respect for a) mankind and b) Cambodia.

For these reasons, I will be taking a leave of absence very shortly.  There is nothing for me to do here anymore except be bitter and useless.  I'm out.

Things Not to Tell a Robbery Victim

Some guy, a coworker of mine, managed to give me every bad piece of advice in the book within about 2.5 minutes.  I need to vent it here.

1. "I hope you learned a valuable lesson."  Needless to say, looking at someone notably dispossessed and bruised and impressing a moral lesson upon them is ... not helpful, to say the least.  You are not the teacher, and I am not a child who acted badly.  No "lesson" needed to be learned.  I made an error in judgement, which will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life.  You have *NO RIGHT* to treat me--or any robbery victim--as if this is a minor classroom lesson to be inculcated upon the benighted.  I will not stand for such treatment.  End of story.

2. "They always pick on the weakest ones."  I'm not weak, and you are my instant enemy for perceiving me that way.  Being a 116-pound female doesn't make me a total wimp; express sympathy if you want, but learn to do it without insulting me.

3.  "It's just a material possession.  Be grateful you didn't get hurt."  Um, NO.  The laptop was not a material possession.  It was my entire inner world, all my stories, all my creativity, all my secrets, and my entire last 5 years in a convenient, 3 pound carrying case.  It was my sole source of entertainment, beauty, and joy in a crumbling world.  It was my only convenient means of accessing the outer world, and it was taken from me.  It feels like I've lost a limb.

And see, the thing is, God gave me this remarkable capacity ... it's called "healing".  I'd have sooner taken hits and still have my laptop in my possession than the reality.  Don't dictate me what I should be grateful for.  I've lost my soul child, make no mistake.

4. "I always buy a can of mace.  You might want to invest in one, too."  It seems like sound advice till you consider that the damage is already done, that the mace would have been in the bag if I'd remembered it at all, and that I likely wouldn't have thought to use it even if I were holding it in my right hand.  I was holding keys in my right hand (between my fingers!) and I didn't even think to use those.  I was also holding an umbrella with a sharp point, and I didn't use that to my advantage either.

Let's face the reality: Mace is useless crap.

5.  ....
The elipsis represents silence.  Most people just try to change the subject or say, "Too Bad, here's a hug".  Most don't really share my sense of outrage.  If you don't care about my being robbed, don't ask me to tell my tale of it.  Please and thank you.

AT LEAST ACT LIKE YOU CARE.

Rant over.  

Loose Ends

I've spent the last several days trying to clean up the mess that those motherfuckers created for me.

Anger
On Sunday, I asked my tuk-tuk driver to take me to get my sim card replaced (I had to call him from a guesthouse since I didn't have a phone anymore, nor did I possess his phone number).  There was $40 on that card, and I needed to get it transferred to a new account before the jackasses used it themselves.

The problem was that I was still too angry in the morning to function as anything other than a sociopath.  I chewed out random strangers I passed on the streets, I ragged on my tuk tuk driver, and I threw a pen at the salesperson's head when she gave me the run around regarding my sim card.  (Yes, really.)  Then I stormed out.

I couldn't function like a normal human being, which was fine because no one else seemed to be fully functional either.  I couldn't call anyone, do anything, contact the police, whatever.  I drifted around town in a state of rage and confusion.

Finally, at the end of the day, I approached a cell phone kiosk and bought an old cell phone for $15, along with a new SIM card.  At least that problem was solved.

Business
The next day was when the fun started. I was somewhat emotionally recovered by then--enough not to be on the brink of criminal insanity anyway.

- I went back to the phone company (I took a number and waited half an hour in penance for my outburst the prior day) and got a new SIM card, my old number, and all my credit back.  The thieves hadn't thought to place any calls on it, thank God.  And now they can't get anything for it, seeing that my phone was a beat up worthless piece of shit IN ARABIC.
- I went to the bank and ascertained that a) my money was OK and that b) the account is not accessible without ID.
- I went to the embassy and scheduled an appointment to report the robbery (useless though that may be)
- I went to the police.  That's the interesting part of this tale:

The local  police station is located right behind my house pretty much.  They don't really speak English, so I had to go with a translator (not possessing the language skills to report a robbery).  Like most things I've done in Cambodia, it was like an episode of absurdity and confusion based on Being John Malkovich. (Floor 7 1/2 and all.)

First of all, there were no police on duty.  We finally found the local commander sitting in a darkened room on a yellow plastic interrogation chair, shirtless.  No fan running, no A/C unit.  I don't know why, either (but this sort of thing is a commonplace occurrence round these parts).  He was way too young and hot to be a real policeman, let alone anyone's commander.  I refrained from pointing this out at the time.

Instead, I filed my report--in this case, it involved tearing a used piece of computer paper in half and filling out the particulars on the unused part.  I also included a graphic illustration of the computer in question, as if it would be remotely helpful.  Not in English, anyway.

Then I promised him a few hundred dollars if the computer was returned to me (thus, effectively eliminating any chances I will have at entering the foreign service).

Then I paid five dollars as a gesture of good faith and left.

It's not much, and it will never work, but it's about the only thing I can do at this point.  At least it stops me from raging and foaming and threatening physical violence at service personnel.

Again I Have Survived; Again I Have Lost

All the self-defense classes I kept forgetting to take did not come in handy Saturday night when I was forcibly divested of my laptop and phone in the Vietnamese Memorial park as I walked home late.

I make it a general rule not to carry my laptop around at night, but unfortunately, late hours on a laptop are my only means of chatting with people in other countries.  I digress.

In case you want to know what it actually feels like to get robbed, read my blow by blow account below:

I was walking home, minding my own business, feeling perfectly calm, when a giant arm suddenly grabbed my head from behind.  This didn't alarm me so much as it utterly confused me.  It was not violent or unfriendly, it almost felt like someone was playing a joke on me.  Lacking samurai training, I did not have the intelligence or common sense to duck, to punch the guy who was doing it, to knife him with my key, or to turn on him and scream something catchy, like, "That's my purse!  I DON'T KNOW YOU!".  I was just utterly WTF??

Then a second guy grabbed my bag from behind.  Him, I did fight with, but only so much as was possible with the first guy bear hugging me into submission.  I somehow wound up face-down on the ground, holding my bag like my life depended on it.  I honestly don't remember if they forced me down, or if I fell in the struggle.  I also can't remember what stopped me from grabbing my bag with both arms--if the first guy was holding me down, or if I was just that fucking stupid.  I may have frozen up.

The man grabbing my bag proceeded to pull it off my arm so hard that the strap broke, leaving me with pretty much the bloodiest, ooziest rug burn you've seen in your life, all over my arm and underarm.  He then punched me in the side, which, given that he was a coward and utter wimp, didn't even hurt (or even leave a bruise).

Picking myself up off the ground, I proceeded to chase them, enraged to a barbaric degree.  I was going to kill them, I really was.  I mean physically beat the shit out of them...somehow.  I'd have gouged their eyes out with the metal point of my umbrella, anyway.  Or something.  OK, being a five-seven, 110 pound female with health issues, I probably would have come off the worst in that fight--but I am prone delusions of invincibility and fully intended to unleash my wrath on them.

But, my thyroid-wracked legs weren't really any match for those of hardened criminals, and they got away with my laptop and cell phone.  A tuk tuk driver found me, and not understanding my pleas for help, took me to the nearest bar, where a random expat met me and tried to calm me down (which wasn't possible at that point).

She gave me $20 and gave me a lift home, and recommended I contact my embassy.  At home, I promptly destroyed everything made of glass in my house with my unbloody umbrella, such was my unchanneled rage.  Then I proceed to go on a 6 hour rant off my balcony, at the top of my lungs, about the evils of Cambodian society.  I sounded like Moammar fucking Qaddafi--challenging the powers that be like a lunatic.  Now all the neighbors hate me, which is fine, because I hate all of them.

But let me recount why I was so angry.  Not just the violation--I've lost everything I valued in life.  My ENTIRE LIFE was on my computer.  If they'd burned down my house and everything I physically owned, it wouldn't have been half as devastating to me.  That's not an exaggeration.

Here's why it sucks:
My cellphone--
- was from Dubai and could write in multiple languages, including Farsi and Arabic
- had my photo of me with Sheikh Mohammed
- had all the contacts I've accrued since 2007
- had an ornament that a student of mine gave me
- had recorded music

It's a beat-up piece of shit, complete with holes where you can see into the internal components, and it had no value to anyone except me.

My computer contained--
- photographs dating back to 2008, including personal ones and detailed photos of all my world travels
- everything I've ever downloaded
- my music
- all my Chinese lessons
- all my Khmer lessons
- my copies of passport photos
- my resume
- all my created artwork
- all the blog entries I was going to post (like the one I was illustrating about dengue fever that now you will never read)
- my private journal
- my stories I was going to publish
- all my personality theory work (some of which was expensively gotten)
- several online books
- my collection of awesome images I'd found online
- the passwords to all my accounts
- lots of embarrassing personal details
- my internet access
- my access to everything in the world, including my ability to easily apply for a job in Japan (my projected next move)
- my local bank account

What I was most depressed about is that no one else seemed to care about this.  To me, my life is over.  I am ruined.  I've lost my family, my health, my wealth, my country, my place of residence, my future, and now the only object that I vested anything in and had anything I remotely cared about.  It's as though they robbed me of my very soul.

Worse, it's going to be sold for $50, memory wiped clean, and be sold at a huge markup to some spoiled brat.  My entire life, all my memories, my hopes and dreams, everything I valued and cared for in this world--worth a beating and $50.

I can only be grateful of two things--
- I didn't get raped
- I didn't get killed
-I can't even be grateful that I wasn't hurt, cause I'd honestly rather still be in possession of my computer even if I had some cuts, bruises, and a few cracked ribs.

The Big Three Oh

Today I am celebrating the first of the so-called "awkward birthdays".

Although I've thought of myself as middle-aged for quite some time now, it smarts nonetheless.  Oh how it smarts.  It also smarts that no one on this green earth seemed to remember or care.  Not even Thearea.

Not to complain or anything, but birthdays have always been an odd blank spot in my life.  That's why I don't really celebrate them anymore, I guess.

Except in Cambodia, I happen to share a birthday with the king, so I watched the fireworks along Riverside and got a manicure.  You know you can get them for only $5 in this country (albeit with me having to put up with the manicurist gossiping in Khmer about the ragged and bloody state of my nails [which I am now educated enough to understand].  Because I've become a feral human who bites off all her nails and hangnails.  Who needs nail clippers when you have teeth, right?).  Yeah and...fireworks are free.

That's something anyway.  Right?

And at least now I can legitimately claim wisdom and superiority over stupid young people.  I'm a REAL adult now...or just a goofy feral human, deludedly claiming a position of social superiority.  One of the two. XD

Khmer Lessons

It’s April now, which means I’ve been officially studying Khmer for, what, 6 months now?  I think I began in September, maybe late August.

For some reason, I am now able to speak the language at an intermediate level of fluency, which doesn’t make sense given that I can understand what’s going on around me only at a very elementary level, and my vocabulary and grammar levels are somewhat lower than even that.

I’m not quite sure how I started speaking, either--after the first three months of sitting and repeating, of nodding and smiling, of being constantly prodded to “speak more, speak faster”, I one day just opened my mouth and started talking about things in full, complex sentences.  I just felt the impulse to do so.  Now I’m having trouble shutting up.

If you consider that I study an hour a day, twenty days out of the month on average, for 6 months, that puts me at literally only 120 hours of study.  Given that the most I practice outside of class is to occasionally negotiate basic transactions at marked and guide moto-dops to the school every day, I am not quite sure I understand this phenomenon.  Especially given that I can’t be bothered to study or do the homework.  Ever.

I’ve always been a linguistic genius, though.

*I still can’t read or write.

THAT place

I'm in Bangkok.  Given that I didn't buy a return ticket, I'm sort of sitting here trying to figure out how to leave.  I really don't like being in this country...as in, really HATE being here...but for the time I shall forgo the rant.

I did some other stuff in Sri Lanka, which I'll update shortly--I lacked internet access most of my time there, and on the occasions I did have access, I tended to suffer from power outages.

Well, stay posted.  I should be back in Phnom Penh tomorrow, and then I can put up pictures and stuff.  If I'm not too lazy.

Ratnapura: Or, How to Recover from Adam’s Peak

I awoke at 7am the next morning when the guesthouse came to my room, calling me for breakfast.

I wanted to get breakfast…the problem with this a) I felt too sick to get out of bed and b) even if I hadn’t felt like crap, it was firmly impossible for me to move my legs.

I had to ask them to bring the food to my room.  I simply couldn’t walk.  It was like being hamstrung--my calf muscles and thighs were seized up in painful knots.  I walked like a robot without knees.  Worse, I was so dehydrated that I felt physically ill.  I had to have them bring me a lot of lemon juices till I felt like I could eat again.

I decided I’d stay in Ratnapura for several days just to let my legs recover.  Walking around town was comical at best; at worst, just embarrassing and painful.  I doddered around like a kneeless robot, and everyone was like, “Ha ha, Adam’s Peak!!”

I hate showing I’ve been affected by things (I AM NOT A MERE MORTAL!), so I mostly hung out at the internet café, Pizza Hut (lol, it’s been so long since I’ve had crappy American food, come on!), and in the guesthouse’s massage parlor, where I got a leg massage till I fell asleep.

I called it a day and went back to bed.

Not interesting, I know.

Adams Peak II: Why It's Better Not to Have Expectations or Think You're Invincible

Ha ha, OK.  Time for an update.

When last you heard me, I’d scaled this mountain all night long and was shivering in a dog-pile with some other folks who’d climbed the mountain with me.

This was actually the part that sucked the most--it was close to freezing point, no one had any food, and it was still 6 hours til dawn.

There were buildings for pilgrims to sleep, but at this time, most were already filled with other pilgrims.  So, we sat on cold concrete steps and shivered and starved together.  I managed to roll into a ball and doze off for about 30 minutes.  That was all.

Finally, dawn came…and this was the part that ruined Adam’s Peak for me, unfortunately.

First, as the lighting changed, it was apparent that the peak itself kept getting covered in mist (or rather, clouds given that we were at 7000+ feet).  But as the sun rose, it became apparent that there was a high-altitude cloud cover on the horizon, as well as the landscape below.   We were sitting in the middle of a gray, misty, colorless sunrise, which was distinctly NOT what I'd expected.   To make matters worse, even this was obscured by a megaphone spitting out a corny sunrise theme song.

The stuff that blocked my view

I was like, Dammit!

When you climb Adam’s Peak, you’re supposed to watch the sunrise.  It’s a spot where you can see the sun literally plop over the horizon.  One second it’s dusky, the next second, all is bathed in the light of a golden sunrise.  The only other place in the world that exhibits this phenomenon is somewhere in Arizona.  How cool is that?  And, on the one day out of the year I managed to climb the peak, brave the elements, and wait all night---it was FUCKING CLOUDY.

And I don’t understand it…everyone was eagerly watching the grey clouds lighten.  Taking pictures.  And stuff.  But not me.  No way was I taking a picture of a crap sunrise obscured by a megaphone.  Hell, I wasn’t even going to look in it’s general direction, so angry was I at the world ruining my hard-sought sunrise.

It was like this:

Call me an ungrateful douche.

I only knew one thing for sure…I wasn’t going to hang around there anymore.  Picking up all my gear, I pushed my way through the multitudes and headed down the other side of the peak, towards Ratnapura.  Disillusioned, I didn’t take any pictures, nor did I bother to see Krishna’s/Adam’s footprint on top of the mountain.  I didn’t pass Go.  I didn’t collect $200.  Not me.  I was getting off the damn mountain.

Still operating under the delusion of invincibility, I then hiked down 14 km of steps under the rising sun.  At first, that was really nice.  It was a great nature trail which quickly soothed my rage at the world.  It looked like this:

Something I learned while doing this is that the path to Ratnapura is much more arduous than going down the peak to Dalhousie (the one I‘d climbed the night before).  Longer, more beautiful, but more arduous.  I assumed that because it was longer, it would be much less steep…ha ha.  It actually takes you down out of the mountain range itself, not just to the foot of Adam's Peak.

Worse, because you’re walking down hill, you don’t even feel the exertion.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing to myself until after about 10 km, when I began to realize how hard it was for me to control my legs.  Walking down 4 more km of steep, railless steps was probably not an ideal way combat this problem.  There were times when I honestly thought I was going to pitch forward and tumble hundreds of stony feet to my death.

Like this:

Yes, those were steps all the way down to the mountains below you.  And then some.

Apparently, you’re supposed to use a walking stick as you descend.  However, because I’m blithely unaware of my physical body and of the fact that I’m not invulnerable to physical exertion, I had just sort of disregarded all advice to bring a walking stick.  And I wound up regretting that.

Eight hours later, I reached the bottom of the trail, which becomes a bunch of bucolic gardens and houses and dead ends into a village.  My legs were so stiff I could hardly walk them at that point, but I still managed to get to the bus stop and get a slow, un-airconditioned bus that went to Ratnapura along narrow, winding roads over-looking steep rock faces.  I made it there by about 4 pm, meaning I had been constantly traveling for the last 30 hours.  And hell, the only thing I’d eaten was an old cheeseburger, a couple of chapattis on the Ratnapura trail, and several cups of chai.

I still don’t know how I did that.  ADVENTURE.

In Ratnapura, I found a guest house where I instantly went  to my room, rolled into a ball, and gratefully went to sleep for the next 12 hours.

And that's about all I can say about Adam's Peak.  Check all sunrise-oriented expectations at the gate and remember your walking stick.

Adam’s Peak I

I’ve put this off almost a month just trying to find words for it.  It was…an adventure.  Within a single 24-hour period, Adam’s Peak encapsulated just about everything sublime and shitty about traveling.

I shall attempt to give it words in this unnecessarily long, 2-part post.

Adam’s Peak is a pilgrimmage site in multiple religions--Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam.  There's a giant footprint at the top that's considered to that of a divine figure according to which religion you believe.  You can explore the full details on this excellent website if you are interested in the nitty-gritty:

http://sripada.org/text-0.htm

And if you climb up at night, there's supposed to be a brilliant sunrise, in which the sun magically pops above the horizon without much warning.  Cool, huh?

Suffice to say, spirituality + nature trails + spectacular sunrise + mountain climbing under the stars was enough to appeal to me from the start (which is when I had a 24-hour layover in Colombo that time I went to Doha).

I just sort of got on the bus from Colombo and headed to a town that seemed remotely close to Adam’s Peak on the map I was carrying.  When the bus stopped at Hatton and refused to go farther due to encroaching darkness, I hired a taxi to take me to Dalhousie (at the foot of the mountain).  You can do this for about 1000Rs, and probably a lot cheaper if you bother to negotiate.

So, I got into the little three-wheeled tuk-tuk, and we drove at top speed through narrow winding mountain roads into the darkness.  Took about an hour to get to Adam's Peak from Hatton.

Adam's Peak--At Night

The driver let me out at the foot of the mountain.  There were a lot of guesthouses around, but being the plucky duck I am, I didn’t actually bother to check in, rest up, and set my stuff down.  My delusions of invincibility reared their ugly head and I started up the mountain carrying everything I possessed.  Guesthouses are for WIMPS!

But first, I stopped to eat the old hamburger from BK in Thailand, since I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

I was then joined by a group of Sinhalese youth who kept trying to engage me in conversation despite the fact that they could scarcely speak English (like seriously about as well I speak Khmer).  I didn't particularly want them there, but they were ridiculously hard to shake off, as I was to discover.

The Six Samurai

So, we climbed.

Luckily, the steps are fairly easy to walk up for the first leg of the journey.  There are little shops and tea stalls everywhere (which I made liberal use of.  Sri Lankan tea is prepared like Chai, and it's GOOOOD).  Everything’s all lit up--there are lots of stores, tea houses, resting points, and things to sit on.

Shops and stuff along the way

For the religiously inclined, there’s a place at the outset where you can get the monks’ blessings before setting out on your pilgrimmage.  There are several places along the way where pilgrims can participate in rituals…at one point, my entourage felt it was necessary to get me to brush my teeth in a mountain stream.  I never did figure out if that was part of the ceremonials or not, but at least oral hygiene did not go neglected that night.

Ritual

Shortly after that, we came to a halt.  One of the entourage disappeared into a trail off the path.  Then another followed.  Soon all six of them were missing due to a “big problem” as one of them put it.  I have no fricken clue where they went; all I know is I sat there for about 15 minutes before deciding to move on.

And so I climbed.

At this point there were many others also climbing.  People you wouldn’t expect--fathers with toddlers on their shoulders, elderly women, whole families, Thai monks, ancient genderless beings being carried on litters by a team of men.  All sorts of people just coming up and going down, exchanging greetings, snacks, and laughter as we all walked together along the jungle mountain trails under a canopy of darkness and stars.

I must have been ¾ of the way up when I was approached by my team of six, now four short, breathless and distraught.

They informed me that some of them had been arrested for cannabis possession (apparently the word they use for it in Sri Lanka), that they had been taken in for questioning, and that I had been targeted as a potential suspect as well.  My friend informed me that the only reason we weren’t all in jail was because he had a friend who’d recently been put on the local police staff.

Of course I’m sitting here like:

Good thing I kept walking, I guess.  (Just btw, No, I was not in possession of cannabis, nor was I offered any.  I was completely clueless the whole time, which is why that whole instance weirded me out as much as it did.)

The thing about Adam’s Peak is, when you get to the top, the steps get ridiculously steep, and because they curve around, it becomes impossible to gauge how much farther you have left to go.  It seems unending--just endless steep steps on a rock face.  Stairway into heaven.  I kept stopping because I didn’t want to hurt my legs.  You can stop in the middle of the stairwell, if need be.  That’s fine--everyone else was doing just the same thing.  All people milling about, coming and going, stopping, chanting, praying, each going about their own journey in their own way.

At about midnight, we made it to the top.

At 7000+ feet, it was cold.  I put on the extra clothes I had brought specifically for that purpose and wrapped a cloth around me…three shirts, two pairs of pants, a keffiya, and a shawl were scarcely enough, for the mountain was windy and dark.  There were warm buildings to sleep in, but they were already filled, so we huddled and shivered together on a stone ledge, foodless and sleepless till sunrise.

Waiting at the top

And that's about what it's like to climb Adam's Peak.  Be prepared for PART TWO, in which I detail my the sunrise and my descent downward.

Don't Do What I Did

So, this is what I've done so far on my little vacation. The whole thing was masochistic insanity, and I DON'T recommend you go about this in the following manner:

- Took a night bus to Bangkok to catch my flight (I left a few hours earlier than last time specifically so that I wouldn't miss my flight again).

- Didn't sleep.

-  Got to Bangkok Airport a few hours early and fell asleep on a bench.  When I awakened in time for the flight, it had been delayed by 3 hours (I don't know why this couldn't have happened the first time, when I went to Doha.  No, it happened the day I came early).

- Spent $10 on a tiramisu and a bag of cookies (lol, yes, ten dollars).

- Discovered Sri Lankan Air gives meal vouchers during delays.  Bought a Double Cheeseburger at Burger King and saved it.

-  Left at midnight and came into Colombo, Sri Lanka at 3 am and got locked out of the hostel.

-  Pounded on hostel gates till they gave me a room (which had unexpectedly gone up in price.)

- Woke up at 11 am and went to the Bus Station.  Got a bus to Hatton.

- Arrived in Hatton at 6 pm, and discovered it was too late to go to Dalhousie, the pilgrimage site I wished to attend.  (Though the bus ride to Hatta is a beautiful, tortuously-wending journey through the mountainside, so definitely come check it out sometime).

- Takes tuk-tuk taxi to the mountain for 1200 rupees, down a bumpy, narrow, 1-lane back road with sheer cliffs and no guard-rails, on which two buses habitually pass each other.

- Arrives at 7pm and walks up 5200 stairs, still carrying all luggage in a backpack.  Eats BK cheeseburger from yesterday.

- Arrives at the top at midnight.  Realizes there are no more spaces for sleeping, so shivers and dog-piles with a group of co-pilgrims till 6 am.  Realizes there is no food.

- Discovers the day is cloudy and misty, and view is obscured by a lit loudspeaker.  Discovers we're too wedged-in to move.  Gets chewed out by co-tourist for loudly suggesting that we move.

- Refuses to watch sunrise under such conditions and instantly hates Adam's Peak.  Dismisses the journey as "a total waste of time".

- Storms 12 km down the mountain range to Ratnapura.  Injures legs and cannot walk.  Somehow forgot to eat more than a single Chapatti or drink anything.

- Drags self to bus station and takes bus to Ratnapura, another 2 hours on a cliff road in which we nearly collided with another bus.

- Drags self to massage center and promptly passes out.  Wakes up sicker than a dog the next day due to muscular strain and dehydration.

Yeah.  I'm not saying it was a bad journey--most of it was quite beautiful and entertaining.  My point is, don't structure your vacation the way I did.  That was stupid.  At least don't carry your luggage up a mountain in flip-flops, and don't hold any expectations.  Also, don't take the Ratnapura trail unless you like suffering.  Just go back to base camp and take a bus or taxi the next morning if you want to go there.

I'll shortly make a separate post about Adam's Peak that is more than just negativistic summary.

Obligatory Update

Not to keep you all waiting months to hear back from me or anything, but my disdain for this blog is rivalled only by my disdain for the unremarkability of my own life.

To make a long story short, yes, I've moved successfully.  It happened several weeks ago.  I'm now living in a smaller apartment that's on the top floor and therefore much hotter, and also more expensive.  The only redeeming factor is that it's literally right next to the school I teach at.  I'll put up pictures of it if I ever stop hating it.

I don't really want to talk about it.  Actually, I'm sick as crap of keeping this blog.

On the plus side, I'm going to Sri Lanka tomorrow.

Also, I found out I can write in Arabic:    العربية

:)