Friday, October 21, 2005
Nuwara Eilya is to the wealthy citizens of Colombo what the Hamptons is to New YorkÕs smart set and the difference in levels of chi-chi speaks volumes about the relative wealth of NYC and the Sri Lankan capital. Nonetheless, I was there on a full moon weekend, the equivalent of bank holiday, and all the hotels had jacked their prices up by 300% to levels approaching #15, not #5. This was causing something of a stir in certain sections of the traveler community, what with places charging between five and eight times what their desperately clutched Lonely Planets told them would be the case.
Indeed, the fact that Sri Lanka isnÕt quite dirt cheap was something of a perennial gripe. One Dutch woman who arrived after me was aghast at our hotelÕs tariff Ð how could this be? I explained. She said she would look elsewhere. I countered that I had been to the hotels she was considering that they were just as expensive and,more importantly, completely full Ð with Sri Lankans, damn them. What she wanted to know did I suggest she do? I suggested she paid up and shut up. Amazingly, she shrugged acquiescence and did just that. Next up was a group of Germans who were made of sterner stuff. TheyÕre probably still stomping about in the rain, the stupid nickel f-ckers.
As Nuwara Eilya looked like it was set for an afternoonÕs rain, I headed off ona tea factory tour. It was a terrible road with water streaming off the hillsides and, presently, my driver screeched to a halt. ÔLookÕ he said. I scoped for a beautiful mountain or charming bit of wildlife. But no it was bus that had plunged off the road into a field 50 metres below. ÔThree dead,Õ he said, Ôoh dear.Õ His co driver filled me in on the rest of the details Ð a couple of them local boys, apparently Ð and we were off.
My tea factory tour wasnÕt the biggest deal in the world, but it was surprisingly interesting. Escorted by an atractive woman in a Sari bearing the factory logo, I learned that Tea is the countryÕs second biggest crop after tourism and that coconut products are no. 3. To my surprise, I discovered that from picking to packing only takes 24 hours and that the higher up the hill tea is the finer the taste. And historically I was told that the reason the hill folk tend to be dark is because many are descended from low-caste Tamils from India who were bought in when the locals refused to do the job; also the only reason Sri Lanka grows so much of the stuff is because blight wiped out the entire coffee crop in the 19th century. Afterwards, I got to take a couple of appallingly contrived and heavily staged snaps of a tea lady picking tea and drank a rather nice cuppa, next to a sign exhorting me to Ôdrink a cup of factory fresh tea;Õ I guess when the stuff grows all around you thereÕs no need to get all misty eyed and lyrical about its natural provenance.
That evening I hung around the guest house and chatted to a German girl who looked middle-eastern. She herself commented on this saying people were always asking her if she was an Israeli; she was, she said always being offered hash, etc/ in places like this. I offered her some sympathy: young Israelis (often fresh from military service) are the louts of the traveling world and their appalling behavior is well known. Of course, she said, awkwardly ÔAs a German, even if I agreed with you, I wouldnÕt say so.Õ Considering this was her second language, I thought this a deft bit of verbal diplomacy.
The next day I climbed up a modest local mountain as you cannot climb SLÕs highest peak which fairly bristles with military hadware. My walk took me through one of the ubiquitous tea plantation, this time in bright sunshine, and this time with real tea pickers, rather than the set up kind, at work. The tea pickers actually have a very nice sideline: they exhort you take pictures and then ask for ÔpresentsÕ, i.e. cash. As I had managed to forget my wallet and had only a load of #2 coins in a pocket of my rucksack, my little Ceylonese David Bailey experience cost me slightly more than my hotel.
That afternoon, I hung around NEÕs rather beautifully manicured Victoria Park Ð hillstations have a climate that just encourages stuff to grow, but not the vulgarity of jungle. I also completed my gastro (as in gastro-enteritis) tour of the townÕs three restaurants that were worth eating in, just. I then went back to the guesthouse and spent a couple of hours talking with the owners and the German girl; one of the owners had been caught in the Tsunami along with his girlfriend, both had survived.
Then another Group of Germans appeared (despite there being no obvious historical connection, Germans love SL like no other nation) and started speaking to Tanya, the German girl. She was clearly making polite excuses. The owners asked her what he had asked her. ÔOhÕ, she said, Ôthey want to know if I would like to come upstairs and watch their videos of their holidays in Sri Lanka. But I think I would prefer to sit here and talk to people in my second language.Õ It is perhaps obvious to point out that, leaving aside the tediousness of holiday videos, that it is premature and poor form to watch them while still on holiday. Still, there was no stopping them and when I retired an hour and a half later, they were still busily gawping at footage of themselves looking foolishin front of ancient monuments.
The following day I got the train out of town talking briefly talking to a young local couple who were very pleasant in an old fashioned way and a young woman from Huddersfield who was here to do tsunami work; she was given to statements like Ôwell, of course, theyÕre all corrupt, arenÕt they?Õ I was steeling myself for four hours of this, but, amazingly, she buried her head in some chick lit and that was the end of it.
A few hours later I realized IÕd got the wrong train. After four hours of stunning jungle and rock formations (cool for about an hour) I found myself in a station in the middle of nowhere. I copped some lunch at a place that shrieked food poisoning, drank water from the jug on the table (in for a penny) and drank the worldÕs cheapest tea Ð 1p a cup. Then I took a train north because my intended destinationÕs train was nine hours away. Next to me was a port authority policeman who told me that if I got off at the next stop IÕd be able to get a bus; they ran every five minutes.
My new found friend wasnÕt a shyster or anything. But his desire to help was exceeded only by an inability to do so usefully. He dragged me all over town via buses and tuk-tuks and eventually I asked him if I could just get a cab. Alas no, but I could get a bus. A bus for my destination arrived Ð this one? No. Get an A/C much better. OK. So no more buses arrived for an hour. No more buses arrived for another hour; it was after 5 oÕclock. Then an A/C bus came. It was the last of the day. It was full. I hope if I ever really need apoliceman, I do not run into this guy.
Eventually, by practically throwing himself in front of the thing he talked them into letting me on. I got to stand in a minibus for two hours and then sit in a seat designed for a dwarf for an hour. And the A/C didnÕt work. And they dropped me 6km from the town I was supposed to go to.
After 20 minutes I found a tuk-tuk whose driver would only take me to a hotel that cost #70 a night and sucked. Apparently Queen Elizabeth had stayed there in 1958 when it sucked less; not much maintenance had been done since. After an argument Ð they could do me roaches for #60 at a pinch Ð I ditched the driver and walked next door to the hotel next door which also sucked. It had rooms which looked like they would make a stylish venue for an interrogation or the kind of place that s-x games go tragically wrong. But they only cost #6. If I am going to sleep in somewhere with an exciting range of insect life in my cell-like room, I expect the price to be right.
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Indeed, the fact that Sri Lanka isnÕt quite dirt cheap was something of a perennial gripe. One Dutch woman who arrived after me was aghast at our hotelÕs tariff Ð how could this be? I explained. She said she would look elsewhere. I countered that I had been to the hotels she was considering that they were just as expensive and,more importantly, completely full Ð with Sri Lankans, damn them. What she wanted to know did I suggest she do? I suggested she paid up and shut up. Amazingly, she shrugged acquiescence and did just that. Next up was a group of Germans who were made of sterner stuff. TheyÕre probably still stomping about in the rain, the stupid nickel f-ckers.
As Nuwara Eilya looked like it was set for an afternoonÕs rain, I headed off ona tea factory tour. It was a terrible road with water streaming off the hillsides and, presently, my driver screeched to a halt. ÔLookÕ he said. I scoped for a beautiful mountain or charming bit of wildlife. But no it was bus that had plunged off the road into a field 50 metres below. ÔThree dead,Õ he said, Ôoh dear.Õ His co driver filled me in on the rest of the details Ð a couple of them local boys, apparently Ð and we were off.
My tea factory tour wasnÕt the biggest deal in the world, but it was surprisingly interesting. Escorted by an atractive woman in a Sari bearing the factory logo, I learned that Tea is the countryÕs second biggest crop after tourism and that coconut products are no. 3. To my surprise, I discovered that from picking to packing only takes 24 hours and that the higher up the hill tea is the finer the taste. And historically I was told that the reason the hill folk tend to be dark is because many are descended from low-caste Tamils from India who were bought in when the locals refused to do the job; also the only reason Sri Lanka grows so much of the stuff is because blight wiped out the entire coffee crop in the 19th century. Afterwards, I got to take a couple of appallingly contrived and heavily staged snaps of a tea lady picking tea and drank a rather nice cuppa, next to a sign exhorting me to Ôdrink a cup of factory fresh tea;Õ I guess when the stuff grows all around you thereÕs no need to get all misty eyed and lyrical about its natural provenance.
That evening I hung around the guest house and chatted to a German girl who looked middle-eastern. She herself commented on this saying people were always asking her if she was an Israeli; she was, she said always being offered hash, etc/ in places like this. I offered her some sympathy: young Israelis (often fresh from military service) are the louts of the traveling world and their appalling behavior is well known. Of course, she said, awkwardly ÔAs a German, even if I agreed with you, I wouldnÕt say so.Õ Considering this was her second language, I thought this a deft bit of verbal diplomacy.
The next day I climbed up a modest local mountain as you cannot climb SLÕs highest peak which fairly bristles with military hadware. My walk took me through one of the ubiquitous tea plantation, this time in bright sunshine, and this time with real tea pickers, rather than the set up kind, at work. The tea pickers actually have a very nice sideline: they exhort you take pictures and then ask for ÔpresentsÕ, i.e. cash. As I had managed to forget my wallet and had only a load of #2 coins in a pocket of my rucksack, my little Ceylonese David Bailey experience cost me slightly more than my hotel.
That afternoon, I hung around NEÕs rather beautifully manicured Victoria Park Ð hillstations have a climate that just encourages stuff to grow, but not the vulgarity of jungle. I also completed my gastro (as in gastro-enteritis) tour of the townÕs three restaurants that were worth eating in, just. I then went back to the guesthouse and spent a couple of hours talking with the owners and the German girl; one of the owners had been caught in the Tsunami along with his girlfriend, both had survived.
Then another Group of Germans appeared (despite there being no obvious historical connection, Germans love SL like no other nation) and started speaking to Tanya, the German girl. She was clearly making polite excuses. The owners asked her what he had asked her. ÔOhÕ, she said, Ôthey want to know if I would like to come upstairs and watch their videos of their holidays in Sri Lanka. But I think I would prefer to sit here and talk to people in my second language.Õ It is perhaps obvious to point out that, leaving aside the tediousness of holiday videos, that it is premature and poor form to watch them while still on holiday. Still, there was no stopping them and when I retired an hour and a half later, they were still busily gawping at footage of themselves looking foolishin front of ancient monuments.
The following day I got the train out of town talking briefly talking to a young local couple who were very pleasant in an old fashioned way and a young woman from Huddersfield who was here to do tsunami work; she was given to statements like Ôwell, of course, theyÕre all corrupt, arenÕt they?Õ I was steeling myself for four hours of this, but, amazingly, she buried her head in some chick lit and that was the end of it.
A few hours later I realized IÕd got the wrong train. After four hours of stunning jungle and rock formations (cool for about an hour) I found myself in a station in the middle of nowhere. I copped some lunch at a place that shrieked food poisoning, drank water from the jug on the table (in for a penny) and drank the worldÕs cheapest tea Ð 1p a cup. Then I took a train north because my intended destinationÕs train was nine hours away. Next to me was a port authority policeman who told me that if I got off at the next stop IÕd be able to get a bus; they ran every five minutes.
My new found friend wasnÕt a shyster or anything. But his desire to help was exceeded only by an inability to do so usefully. He dragged me all over town via buses and tuk-tuks and eventually I asked him if I could just get a cab. Alas no, but I could get a bus. A bus for my destination arrived Ð this one? No. Get an A/C much better. OK. So no more buses arrived for an hour. No more buses arrived for another hour; it was after 5 oÕclock. Then an A/C bus came. It was the last of the day. It was full. I hope if I ever really need apoliceman, I do not run into this guy.
Eventually, by practically throwing himself in front of the thing he talked them into letting me on. I got to stand in a minibus for two hours and then sit in a seat designed for a dwarf for an hour. And the A/C didnÕt work. And they dropped me 6km from the town I was supposed to go to.
After 20 minutes I found a tuk-tuk whose driver would only take me to a hotel that cost #70 a night and sucked. Apparently Queen Elizabeth had stayed there in 1958 when it sucked less; not much maintenance had been done since. After an argument Ð they could do me roaches for #60 at a pinch Ð I ditched the driver and walked next door to the hotel next door which also sucked. It had rooms which looked like they would make a stylish venue for an interrogation or the kind of place that s-x games go tragically wrong. But they only cost #6. If I am going to sleep in somewhere with an exciting range of insect life in my cell-like room, I expect the price to be right.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Sri Lanka is India lite, middle class India, what India would be like if it didnÕt have 600m people living on the breadline. It is, in a weird, third world sort of way, rather middle class. Indeed, it is an interesting Sri Lanka fact that, in the mid 1960s, SL had roughly the same standard of living as Singapore. ThatÕs what forty years of vaguely socialist government and civil war does for you.
I pitched up at the airport and got a cab straight to Kandy in the hills, stopping en route for breakfast which was pretty good. It helps if you like curry: I enjoyed dahl, three kinds of curry and sambol. Sri Lankan food is an order of magnitude hotter than Indian and chilli and coffee are a bad combination. En route the driver told me many interesting facts, although the one that sticks in my mind is that using your mobile phone while driving and drunk driving attract the same fine, 5000R or about #30.
Built around a lake, Kandy is a strange place. ItÕs attractive and has a nice lake and temple. It also has an oddly metropolitan feel with a population about 120,000; in fact if anything itÕs a bit too busy for a hill town. ItÕs also not especially high, so too hot. Still, I found a nice enough guesthouse and had a lunch not dissimilar to breakfast.
Later on, I wandered into town, by now brutally jet lagged. Although pleasant in the day, by night Kandy takes on a slightly less pleasant air. I sat down for some tea to revive my jet lag and, shortly, a guy called Ravi sat next to me. Did I mind? No. We chatted and he seemed OK in a persistent slightly irritating way. I pumped him for information and, as the time came for a natural parting of the ways, he insisted we went for a beer. OK, I said, mainly because I was sop jet lagged that yes was easier than no.
So we went to a bar. I refused his choice on the grounds that I was quite sure he was a spiv. But, well you know, you have to give people the benefit of the doubtÉwell, actually you donÕt and you shouldnÕt. Ravi chose 8% beer, I went for 4 and we continued to chat. As he got drunker, he became cruder and started telling me about Ôtight thai p-ssyÕ and so on. Two of his friends joined us; right my friend, I thought, this is where you walk out without your wallet.
RaviÕs friends were even worse than he was, but I kept my wits about me. He started exhorting me to have a bottle of arak with him and his friends. No, I was too tired. DonÕt you trust us. I went for the non-answer: I donÕt know you. Ravi said heÕd get the bill (for me); I said it was fine. Not that it mattered: the waiter was in cahoots with him and all the beers were marked up by about 300%. Oh, and there was a bottle of arak on the bill. I couldnÕt be bothered to argue about the beers, but I had the waiter take the arak off which he did in that amused, of fancy that, sir, youÕve caught me ripping you off sort of way.
Ravi then appeared. Please by some arak for me and my friends. I explained I had, by my reckoning, already scored him six beers. No, he said, that is the price, donÕt you trust me. No, I said, I donÕt trust you. Oh just give me the money for the arak. No. He grabbed my shoulder, not violently, just to try and stop me from going.
ItÕs quite a nice thing when you get to the stage where you really feel as if you have earned the right to tell someone to fÑk off. And it really is an international piece of language. He did.
The next morning I got the train up to Nuwara Eilya, a proper hill station very high in the centre of central Sri LankaÕs appreciable mountains. There was the usual bureaucracy: you cannot buy a first class ticket because they are all booked. Can I buy a second class ticket? Not until 8. And you have to use the other line.
Still, it is one of the worldÕs great train journeys (if not one of its great trains). You clank across an incredible landscape, past hills, waterfalls and mountains. My journey was enlivened by the people in my carriage. I was next to a nice couple from Colombo who were doing what Sri Lankans like to do on holiday which is go somewhere cold. There were also a pair of English girls sitting underneath a sign saying ÔFor ClergyÕ. They were nice, but dressed identically Ð what makes you wake in the morning and think ÔIÕll wear exactly what sheÕs wearing.Õ There was a sulky girl next to me and a German woman who was convinced the train was filthy and was very uncomfortable. Germans are a rum lot, you see them everywhere, in real third world places and yet they love hygiene and order. There is something Calvinist in the national character; who else would go on holiday to suffer?
Most Hill stations have a British theme and look like Surrey villages that have found themselves on the wrong continent. Not Nuwara Eilya: instead of being Ersatz English, it is sham Scottish. To be fair, the Scots did a pretty good job of approximating home. There are pine trees everywhere; Scottish houses sit all over the place (although mercifully no tenenement blocks.Õ Oh and it p-sses with rain about half the time. On the afternoon I arrived, the place looked very charicature of Glen Misery on an October afternoon. It required no effort whatsoever to imagine a Scottish tea planter sitting by his fire, murmuring contentedly, ÔOch, just like home.Õ
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I pitched up at the airport and got a cab straight to Kandy in the hills, stopping en route for breakfast which was pretty good. It helps if you like curry: I enjoyed dahl, three kinds of curry and sambol. Sri Lankan food is an order of magnitude hotter than Indian and chilli and coffee are a bad combination. En route the driver told me many interesting facts, although the one that sticks in my mind is that using your mobile phone while driving and drunk driving attract the same fine, 5000R or about #30.
Built around a lake, Kandy is a strange place. ItÕs attractive and has a nice lake and temple. It also has an oddly metropolitan feel with a population about 120,000; in fact if anything itÕs a bit too busy for a hill town. ItÕs also not especially high, so too hot. Still, I found a nice enough guesthouse and had a lunch not dissimilar to breakfast.
Later on, I wandered into town, by now brutally jet lagged. Although pleasant in the day, by night Kandy takes on a slightly less pleasant air. I sat down for some tea to revive my jet lag and, shortly, a guy called Ravi sat next to me. Did I mind? No. We chatted and he seemed OK in a persistent slightly irritating way. I pumped him for information and, as the time came for a natural parting of the ways, he insisted we went for a beer. OK, I said, mainly because I was sop jet lagged that yes was easier than no.
So we went to a bar. I refused his choice on the grounds that I was quite sure he was a spiv. But, well you know, you have to give people the benefit of the doubtÉwell, actually you donÕt and you shouldnÕt. Ravi chose 8% beer, I went for 4 and we continued to chat. As he got drunker, he became cruder and started telling me about Ôtight thai p-ssyÕ and so on. Two of his friends joined us; right my friend, I thought, this is where you walk out without your wallet.
RaviÕs friends were even worse than he was, but I kept my wits about me. He started exhorting me to have a bottle of arak with him and his friends. No, I was too tired. DonÕt you trust us. I went for the non-answer: I donÕt know you. Ravi said heÕd get the bill (for me); I said it was fine. Not that it mattered: the waiter was in cahoots with him and all the beers were marked up by about 300%. Oh, and there was a bottle of arak on the bill. I couldnÕt be bothered to argue about the beers, but I had the waiter take the arak off which he did in that amused, of fancy that, sir, youÕve caught me ripping you off sort of way.
Ravi then appeared. Please by some arak for me and my friends. I explained I had, by my reckoning, already scored him six beers. No, he said, that is the price, donÕt you trust me. No, I said, I donÕt trust you. Oh just give me the money for the arak. No. He grabbed my shoulder, not violently, just to try and stop me from going.
ItÕs quite a nice thing when you get to the stage where you really feel as if you have earned the right to tell someone to fÑk off. And it really is an international piece of language. He did.
The next morning I got the train up to Nuwara Eilya, a proper hill station very high in the centre of central Sri LankaÕs appreciable mountains. There was the usual bureaucracy: you cannot buy a first class ticket because they are all booked. Can I buy a second class ticket? Not until 8. And you have to use the other line.
Still, it is one of the worldÕs great train journeys (if not one of its great trains). You clank across an incredible landscape, past hills, waterfalls and mountains. My journey was enlivened by the people in my carriage. I was next to a nice couple from Colombo who were doing what Sri Lankans like to do on holiday which is go somewhere cold. There were also a pair of English girls sitting underneath a sign saying ÔFor ClergyÕ. They were nice, but dressed identically Ð what makes you wake in the morning and think ÔIÕll wear exactly what sheÕs wearing.Õ There was a sulky girl next to me and a German woman who was convinced the train was filthy and was very uncomfortable. Germans are a rum lot, you see them everywhere, in real third world places and yet they love hygiene and order. There is something Calvinist in the national character; who else would go on holiday to suffer?
Most Hill stations have a British theme and look like Surrey villages that have found themselves on the wrong continent. Not Nuwara Eilya: instead of being Ersatz English, it is sham Scottish. To be fair, the Scots did a pretty good job of approximating home. There are pine trees everywhere; Scottish houses sit all over the place (although mercifully no tenenement blocks.Õ Oh and it p-sses with rain about half the time. On the afternoon I arrived, the place looked very charicature of Glen Misery on an October afternoon. It required no effort whatsoever to imagine a Scottish tea planter sitting by his fire, murmuring contentedly, ÔOch, just like home.Õ
