Driving in Asia is an experience everyone should attempt at some point. Don’t worry about driving on the other side of the road, at least the pedals are in the same place. If everything goes wrong, close your eyes and pray. In Sri Lanka, with the world’s greatest density of religious public holidays and every Bodhi tree a holy shrine, the very trees may be listening to your prayers. Just don’t hit a Bodhi tree as the populace will likely be angrier at that than any bodily injury you may have incurred in the process.

Of course driving in Sri Lanka is also quite dangerous. At last count at least five people are fatally injured each day in a traffic-related accident. That’s quite high, but let’s not dwell on such morbidly fascinating issues. Driving in western countries is quite simple, and frankly comparatively boring; you get in your car, adjust your seatbelt, straighten your mirrors, get into your lanes, watch out for traffic lights and off you go.

Driving in Sri Lanka (and I suspect most of Asia) is truly about participating in a symphonic conversation conducted in concert with a giant stage production. A stage where cars weave in and out skirting pedestrians and leaping around suddenly acrobatically twirling drunks while avoiding certain deaith and dismemberment by the other vehicles on the road.

Let me describe the opening allegro movement of this car horn symphony on the streets of Sri Lanka.

“Hi I’m here!” beeps the Nissan Sentra
“Oi, I know you’re here, just beeping twice!” honks the Nissan Prado.
“Your owner is old, my car is newer!” barps the Toyota Corolla with the new license plate and the stylish driver in a suit.
“Watch out I’m thinking of moving out into the next lane!” sounds the Suzuki Maruti
“What lane are you talking about? I’m already here!”
“This is Sri Lanka! What the hell are you all talking about lanes?!”
“Hey watch out for that pedestrian!”
“I’m honking to the pedestrian as well!”
“Okay now I’m honking so the pedestrian knows I’ve gone!”
“Honking twice. That three-wheeler is barely moving!”
“Get out of my way I have vegetables to deliver!” A truck with headlights blinking incessantly.
“Ha yoooou may think you’re big but I’m bigger!” A towering and teetering public bus bears down on the truck. The conductor is frantically waving out the opposite side as if warning everyone in front that the driver and bus has gone mad. The bus passengers are all praying silently.
“Oi, I’m here too!” A three wheeler with the engine of a lawnmower on steroids tries to pass the bus who’s passing the truck who’s passing a pedestrian who’s now wondering why he didn’t just get in a car to cross the road.

Now for the slow movement:

“Ah, just honking even though there’s no other cars!” A small Maruti passes by.
“Hey you on the motorbike, I’m behind you!” A bike laden with an entire family passes by with a car gently nosing its way out to pass them.
A bus coming from the opposite gently blinds the car with its powerful lights
The car pulls back.
“Thanks!” The motorbike honks.
“No problem now, I’m passing you!” The car moves out and passes.

And then the Minuet:

A drunk twirls seductively waving his arms in the air and falls gracefully across onto the road.
A motorbike swerves.
“What the hell are you doing you stupid bugger?!” The car driving opposite honks.
A pedestrian dances across to the drunk.
The drunk waves conducting the minuet of the cars on the road.

And finally enters the Rondo:

“Get out of my way, get out of my way!” The sirens of a motorcycle are blaring.
“Can’t you see I’m important, I have ‘police’ written on the side!” A black car with shades honks deeply.
“Look I SAID get out of our way, your little lives are worthless!” Another motorcycle with lights and siren blaring.
“You should know by my deep honks and flashy car that I am one of your ministers you pathetically struggling people! Out of my way!” That’s the big four-wheel drive with the wife of a government minister or one of his children.
“No, don’t listen to him in front, remember to vote for him in the next election!” A smaller car beeps plaintively as it now passes in the motorcade.
“Okay you can go back to business. I said go back to business!” The last motorcycle zooms by with its sirens blaring.
“Hi I’m here!” beeps the Hyundai Accent.

Remember to master the techniques of conversing with the horn when driving in Sri Lanka or you too shall be an uninteresting statistic on a news item. If you come to Sri Lanka, take the moment to sit by the side of the road (I suggest behind a concrete barricade), close your eyes and listen to the undulating conversation of horns and sirens. The giant conductor in the sky is telling a lively story about life, politics and death. You just have to listen.

As today’s Tweetisode gets published it will bring to an end the 12 weeks of the Tweet Rhapsody. The Tweet Rhapsody takes six Twitter accounts and creates a 2000+ Tweet conversation which creates the Tweet Rhapsody story. The details of “what” it is, I have blogged about, but the how and why… well that’s another story.

The How

Technically the Rhapsody is very very simple. So simple in fact that the entire technology was finished in a matter of three days. The site, its design, the wonderful portraits purchased from an artist on iStockPhoto and the bots which post to Twitter. In short from conception to realization the Tweet Rhapsody came together mostly over a single weekend.

The process for posting each Tweetisode went thusly: Write the 25-40 Tweets place them in a spreadsheet which automatically checked for lengths. For each Tweet I entered the GMT time which I had to mentally calculate for its relevance to the story and to what it meant to Montreal, Canada and Colombo, Sri Lanka. I did discover that conducting a romance between those two countries is entirely possible with the time zones (just in case someone wants to try in real life).

Once the Tweets were done, all I had to do was import the CSV directly into the MySQL database and the programming would take care of the rest. This included showing it appropriately on the web site as well as a bot which would post to the Twitter stream of each individual character. Simple, sufficient and in the end worked very well.

The Why

It’s not every day someone wakes up and says “I’m going to write an Internet-based romance between Sri Lanka and Canada and I’m going to use Twitter as a medium”. I can guarantee that that is likely not a thought most people wake up with. I did.

The Tweet Rhapsody was written to accomplish several tasks. One was a technical test of a generic platform I had written in PHP and Zend Framework with MySQL as the database, this platform I hope to now finish and use for various other projects (and yes, eventually open source).

The second objective was to finish a literary experiment I had started several years before during the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) initially at the behest of my good friend Craig Welsh. This was a story written through blog posts similar to the “Briefroman” or Letter novels of the 18th-19th century. I never finished it and it is these characters which became the central pieces of the Tweet Rhapsody. In addition, the great thing about the Briefromane was that they did not ignore the fact that the letters were important to the story, quite the opposite in fact. I wanted to make Twitter not just the medium, but indeed, part of the story. In other words the story might happen in Twitter-space but could not have happened without the characters being aware of Twitter itself.

The third reason was that I wanted to have a running commentary on issues in both Sri Lanka and Canada and show the similarities of the two countries rather than the large obvious differences. I am of the Sinhalese majority by birth but I long for the day that all the peoples of that island nation are brought together in peace, no more than I wish for the eventuality where there is no discrimination between the English, French and Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. In Sri Lanka yet, the divisions are very deep and my hope is in the possibility of friendships of the type displayed by Raj and David in the Tweet Rhapsody.

The last reason is that I am a closet romantic and I kind of liked the idea or seeing whether this format could actually make people believe in six characters enough to follow them through to the bitter end.

You may or may not know that this week concludes my initial experiment into using Twitter, and indeed any online communication service to write a novella. I’ve been meaning to blog about all this for a while, but when I came up with the idea I was working for Sun Microsystems and within the same span of time (12 weeks) that the Tweet Rhapsody ran for, I have quit my job and gone on a three-week vacation. As you might imagine, my blogging kind of went out the proverbial window!

So what and why is the Tweet Rhapsody. First, I am not the first to use Twitter to write a story. Frankly do a Google search and you will discover that there are many Twitter novels. A lot of them come from Asia. Where I might be the first is how I used Twitter to tell the story. Instead of a single Twitter account spouting out 140-character lines from a story, the Tweet Rhapsody was six individuals on Twitter, their individual Tweets would make up the story.

Essentially the Tweet Rhapsody is a collection of Tweets which when read in a specific order bring up a an extended story over the 12 weeks. You could read it on the web site, or you could search for #tweetrhapsody on Twitter and follow the story. Either option worked.

There are many problems with this method of storytelling. First and foremost, the problem with writing a conversational story is that there is almost no background information presented to the reader. In fact the reader has to imagine and make up much of the background story from little snippets of conversation.

A second problem came from the fact that not only was it conversational, it had to be delivered in the Twitter format of 140 characters. Woah. The third problem was that I wanted this to be fast and quick, so I divided each week into a chapter and each chapter into “Tweetisodes” that last only a day. To add more misery to the writer (i.e. me) I also decided that there was to be no more than 40 Tweets and a minimum of 25 Tweets per Tweetisode. I had to hook and tell people a story with 25-40 lines per day from any of six characters told as a story.

This is not easy. I am very curious to know whether I succeeded.

I then added a further complication to the whole thing. I wanted the Tweet Rhapsody to be written as *fast* as humanly possible. To that end each Tweetisode was written at the most two weeks in advance and there was to be next to no editing. This was basically a write-once, post-immediate exercise. The only exception I made to this rule was that I chose one friend, two at the most, to see the Tweetisodes before they were posted.

So thank you very much Delphine and Meghan.

I had developed a skeletal story for the Tweet Rhapsody but I wanted the story to evolve in relative real time. When an event happened in either of the two countries that the story is set in (Canada or Sri Lanka) I made reference and even wove it into the main fabric of the story. Events such as Michael Jackson’s death could not be ignored. The idea was to make the Tweet Rhapsody as living a conversation as possible. The characters do not inhabit some fantasy land they needed to be part of our fabric of existence complete with weather and news.

This also meant one more restriction. While I knew the relative path of the story I could not write the story more than a week in advance at the later stages. This worked very well until I had to go on vacation to the wilds of Newfoundland and Labrador and discovered that finding an internet connection when required was not always as easy as it could have been.

I have now posted Tweetisodes from airports, train stations, hotels, bus stations, the lobby of restaurants, poaching free wireless from unlocked routers and a whole host of friends houses, cafe’s and what not.

So the end result? 37,000 words over 12 weeks broken into 12 chapters with well over 2,000 tweets.

On Friday September 11, the initial story comes to an end.

It’s been a pretty busy weekend.

As some of you may have read elsewhere or perhaps seen on Facebook and other such places, I’ve switched jobs at Sun Microsystems and have taken on the task of being one of MySQL’s Community Relations Managers. This of course means that I’m heading off to do some “on-the-job” training in Colombus, Ohio then presentations in New York City, then by train to Baltimore and finally attending Open SQL Camp in Charlottesville, Virginia before leaving the States from Washington, DC. Yup, it’s been pretty busy planning for that…

On top of all that, some of you may also know that I’m heading to Ecuador for all of December. And this is where my weekend became really busy. My friends, Mike, Janius and Ed climbed Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador (2007) and discovered some worthwhile causes care of Javier Herrera a mountain guide in Quito. Through Javier  I learned of a school that needs clothes for 5-12 year-olds so we set about trying to either get clothes or money towards clothes for these children since it was an opportunity for me to hand deliver said goods.

Someone (I’d like to claim me, but I might have been inebriated) came up with idea that I could co-opt my traditional Christmas dinners for my friends into a fundraising activity. Within a week, invites went out to everyone I knew in Montreal and suddenly I was faced with the task of cooking for 30 or more people on Saturday. For the record we raised $505 through the event. Thanks to all who donated and/or attended. Your generousity is greatly appreciated.

Now why am I writing all this after the fact (naturally someone is saying “humpf, he never invited me, the jerk”). Well by some measure of luck, the food I cooked came out okay. Some part of the credit has to go to my brother Miuru who made sure I had the correct recipe for the Sri Lankan cutlets which were a giant hit at the dinner amongst the other dishes that I managed to concoct. It was also the dish that took the longest to produce (1.5 hours). So I thought I’d write up the recipe, sadly I didn’t take any photos so maybe one day I’ll actually record photos and better instructions. By the way, I don’t measure anything so I’m sorry to say I have no idea the amounts of spices etc. please think of this as cooking by experimentation and taste and use spices as necessary.

Sri Lankan Cutlets

Ingredients:

Whole Potatoes
Sardines (Portuguese canned sardines), you can omit/use alternative
1 bunch of cut green onion or 1/2 onion
Eggs

1. Boil the potatoes in a pot. Once fully boiled, cool and remove the skin.
2. In another pot, add oil, some fenugreek seeds, a clove of garlic, the 1/2 onion, sardines and fry with spices (not very helpful considering, I’m not sure about the exact spices but I would imagine a mixture of, turmeric, coriander, cumin, chilli powder would work well, or go to an indian/sri lankan store and buy some roasted curry powder). Add salt and pepper as necessary. Get the sardines tasty (oh fantastically subjective recipe).
3. Add in the the potatoes and mash it altogether.
4. Seperate the yolk from the egg white.
5. Once the consistency of the potatoes/sardines is nice and gooey (should be still a bit dry), add the egg yolk and mix to create the internals of the cutlet. Should be nice and thick, pasty like.
6. If you cannot buy breadcrumbs, I suggest going over to Mike’s and using his blender, which is what he did to create whole wheat bread crumbs by blending toasted bread. Worked like a charm.
7. Roll the inside of the cutlet into a ball with your palms, dip in the egg white and then into the breadcrumbs. You may need to roll again to get a nice even texture of crumbs around the cutlet.
8. Repeat 7 until all cutlets are done.
9. Fire up a deep pan of oil or a deep fryer. Get the oil nice and hot. Dip the cutlets into the oil and fry until brown outside.
10. Eat. Or serve and let others eat. Or hide and just eat by yourself in a corner. Or hide the cutlets and eat the corner. Or corner the cutlets and cut the mustard.

If you follow the above and it works, please send me a picture. If the above does not work or creates a hazardous waste, please inform the authorities. If you produce the above and end up with something alcoholic, I suggest reporting yourself to the nearest religion and claim the ability to turn spice into wine. You will make a fortune.

• Photo Album: Sights of Serendib (Part 1)
• Photo Album: Sights of Serendib (Part 2)

Well, there you have it. The final two albums of photos from the island they once called Serendib! By the time we found ourselves wandering through the almost infinite security checks at Colombo International Airport, we had crisscrossed as much of the island nation as we were allowed. We had driven south through the Dutch, Portuguese and British fort at Galle, swum in the Indian Ocean and basked on the white sandy beaches.

We had made offerings to the God Kataragama, worshipped at stupas, stood at World’s End, slept in the highlands, awoke with wonderment at Sigiriya and wandered the night lights of Anuradhapura. However, more importantly than all that, and I hope sincerely that this was the case, four extremely close friends discovered the land of my birth and heritage and met my family. In return, I know my family fell in love with them. So put on your goggles, sit back with some arack, relax and check out the full set of photos from our excursion around tropical bays.

• Tea and the Highlands of Sri Lanka
• Flowers and Kandy
• Buddhism in hiding at Dambulla
• The Palace of the Mad King
• The Lights of Ancient Anuradhapura
• Sights of Serendib (Part 1)
• Sights of Serendib (Part 2)
• Dubai, Desert Metropolis

Photo Album: Palace of the Mad King

In north central Sri Lanka stands the rock fortress of Sigiriya. This gigantic square-shaped rock towers above the rest of the jungle landscape. On top of this 200m rock is a palace created in the 5^th century AD by King Kasyapa.

I was very young when my father first told me about the story of King Kasyapa. Maybe it was the fact that I was the youngest of my brothers, but it was one of those stories that I would ask him to tell over and over again. As I grew older, I discovered that there are many versions and Wikipedia does a good job of noting some of them. However, it’s hard to let go of one’s childhood so let me tell you the story of the Mad King Kasyapa as I heard it.

In ancient times Sri Lankans were the world’s foremost dam builders. Faced with a large population and a relatively dry land where rivers flowed fast to the sea, the people of Sri Lanka were forced to build massive irrigation systems based on a system of dams and water tanks. Now in that ancient time there came a King, Dhatusena who ruled from the centre of the world in Anuradhapura. In his youth and new to his Kingship he set about building yet another tank to catch and control the life blood of his nation. The water would feed its myriad of peoples and his name would live forever.

Having satisfied himself and his engineers that he had found the perfect spot for the tank, he decreed it built. Despite the hard work of the engineers they were faced finally with a set back after so much work.

“O King, there is an ancient man seated where we are building the bund (tank wall) and he is not moving to our summons!”

The King concerned about his project immediately went forth to confront this man.

“Please sir! Please, leave this area. Move just a few feet and we can continue building this great tank and feed our people!” He pleaded.

The man however had entered the last stages of attaining enlightenment, and there cross-legged underneath a tree and radiating life, he paid no heed to the King. The King so shouted thrice at the man and finally in a fit of rage, he yelled to the engineers to continue building the bund. The old man was buried alive.

As time went on, Dhatusena was a very successful king and ruled the lands far and wide. Into his family he ushered two sons, the first Mogallana, his favourite and born of the eldest wife, was groomed for the throne. The second, Kasyapa, was a sickly child always full of want and need and born to his youngest and prettiest wife.

If this were to be Dhatusena’s only problems, then this story would end. It so happened unfortunately that Kasyapas mother, having found little pleasure in an old King’s bed, fell in love with the handsome captain of the guard. However, this forbidden love was never to be. The news reached the mighty King and he fell into a rage and called upon his wife and the captain to his audience chamber. Confronting the two with the wife cowering, his sons by his side, the King had the captain beheaded to the wails of his watching lover.

Kasyapa’s mother decided then and there to install her son to the throne, ahead of Mogollana. Whispering more madness into an already mad man, Kasyapa was convinced that his father was hiding something from him. He decided that he must look upon the riches of the kingdom. He exclaimed to his father and said:

“O great father, show me the riches of this kingdom. I wish to look upon them with mine own eyes. Why must I always see but baubles. You are king of this mighty land and a vast horde.” So pleaded Kasyapa over and over again.

Finally, Dhatusena, now and old man, relented and said to his son:.

“Come with me, I will show you the wealth of this kingdom; riches beyond anything else on this world!”

With that he took his son and set out until the great water tank that he had built in his youth stretched before their eyes. Water lilies were now growing near the bund and through the sluice gates fled the water, its fate to nourish the farmers’ fields that stretched for miles. Standing on the bund Dhatusena stretched his arms wide and addressed Kasyapa:

“Here is my treasure; here is what gives us life. From this water we feed a nation of millions. You wanted to see my treasure, I am but a humble old man and this is this nation’s greatest wealth!”

Kasyapa’s mind snapped and his madness overflowed and before anyone could stop him, Kasyapa carried his father to a part of the bund still under construction and walled him alive in the mud.

It is interesting how one’s deeds never go unpaid in this world.

Kasyapa took his mother, rallied the people, set them against Mogallana the rightful heir and took over the kingdom. Mogallana vowed he would have revenge and take back what was his and fled into neighbouring India.

Kasyapa then called upon a soothsayer to read the stars and tell him what he must do and if he ought to fear Mogallana. The soothsayer bathed in incense and looking far said to Kasyapa:

“Escape to the high rock of Sigiriya from whence you will see your brother’s return. But I warn you, should you come down from the Rock and place your feet on the ground then you shall surely die and your brother reign supreme.”

As he was bid, Kasyapa took up his people and fled to Sigiriya from where he ruled the country from a palace in the clouds. Heeding the soothsayer’s advice, Kasyapa never placed his feet below his palace. The parliament met below under a rock carved like a serpent and there he would send a constant stream of runners with and for news.

During his time he built great ponds and gardens, buildings and sculptures. Artists adorned the palace walls with beautiful frescoes and writing. The entrance to the palace itself was through the mouth of a great stone sculpted lion, of which only the paws now remain. Great pools and water systems fed a garden unparalleled in that part of the world at the time. And around it all he placed moats to prevent his brother from reaching him.

Meanwhile, Mogallana had reached India and had indeed raised a vast army. Finally ready to confront his brother and take back Sri Lanka, he invaded and came to the doorsteps of Sigiriya. And there atop elephants he yelled to his brother to come down and face him on the field of battle.

However, heeding the soothsayer’s advice, Kasyapa remained knowing full well the danger of coming within arms length of his brother. And so the siege went on for some days. Finally, and I do not know what was said, Mogallana taunted Kasyapa with something so vile that as had happened with his father, Kasyapa’s mind yet again snapped and all reason fled.

Kasyapa called out to his captains, armed himself and descended from the clouds to ride his war elephant and meet his brother on the field. It is hard to know how much a people can love a king, let alone a mad king for the story says that Kasyapa’s army fled at some point, whether it was by mistake or not is anyone’s guess. However, what is known is that in that battle, fought below the heavenly palace of Sigiriya, the soothsayer’s prediction was fulfilled and Kasyapa met his end.

And so began the reign of Mogallana, rightful King of Sri Lanka.

Photo Album: Buddhism in hiding at Dambulla

It’s kind of unfortunate that the week I decide to put up photos of the Dambulla Rock Temple the event is preceded with something much sadder. On Friday, a bomb exploded in the Dambulla bus station killing about 20 part of a series of blasts and killings leading up to today’s 60th anniversary of independence from the British Empire.

Above all this tragedy and mayhem, however, stands a rock temple created by those who sought to protect the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka. In the first century BC the Sinhalese King and his followers were exiled and lay in hiding on this rock after being usurped by South Indian invaders. During his time here, he established this monastery and started creating these amazing rock paintings, many of which survive to this day.

Naturally as time went on kings added more and more as kings are wont to do. The result are five caves from different times, each painted floor to ceiling with Buddhist paintings and adorned with rock sculptures.

Unfortunately since this is still an active religious shrine, religious doctrine overrides archeological needs. As such, I was able to use my flash to take photographs within and none of the paintings are preserved in any way. The acidity of visitors’ breath is rapidly breaking down these paintings and destroying the ancient beauty. Perhaps Sri Lanka should consider the future importance of such shrines and bring more of the archeological needs to bear to protect the religious heritage.

Photo Album: Flowers and Kandy

Kandy (Nuwara – pronounced Noo-were-re) was the capital of the mountainous Sinhalese kingdom that lasted until the British conquered all the peoples of Sri Lanka in the mid-19^th century. The medieval Sri Lankan kings had moved away from the flatter lands of the north (Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa) and the south to settle into a much more defensible mountain valley. This didn’t mean they left their Buddhist or Hindu roots behind.

In the centre of the city lies the famous Temple of the Tooth alongside the man-made lake which served as the King’s personal pleasure lake. The Temple of the Tooth houses one of the other sacred symbols of Buddhism – the tooth of the Buddha taken from his funeral pyre 2500 years ago. The spirit of the tooth is venerated by Buddhists and as such the lines are long and deep and security is tight.

The city itself is Sri Lanka’s second largest city, and as such the narrow streets of the mountain valley are often clogged with human and vehicular traffic. Having a buddy system like in pre-school helps when navigating with a group of people.

The British who came here also loved this highland capital and much of the architecture is endowed with their influence. There was one other place that they created which has lasted and is preserved to this day: The Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya. Let’s face it, as Rebecca noted, the rich soil and the incredibly accommodating climate would have made many an English gardener giddy with glee.

Now, onto what I consider the sad highlight of this part of the trip: the hotel we stayed at. The Hotel Suisse sits opposite the Temple of the Tooth and across the lake. It is a magnificent white tower to colonialism, but like much of colonialism, it looks great on the outside but rotting in the centre. The rooms were bland (for the price we paid) and musty but more annoying was their treatment of our driver Chaminda.

For us Chaminda was an integral part of our trip, our driver and tour guide, in short he was in our employ, not a servant. Obviously there was some issue or concern when our “driver” came to sit with us for supper in the fancy dining room. Worse was the fact that he had to sleep in the van as no room was left in the drivers’ quarters (which were not that great apparently anyway) or enough food for him for breakfast. It took a while to get all this out of Chaminda.

For all considering a trip to Kandy, please consider the above story and think about avoiding the Hotel Suisse managed by the Ceylon Hotels Corporation.

See the photos: Tea and the Highlands of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is an odd island. At about 600 km from top to bottom and only about 400 km at its widest, you would hardly expect the geographical variety on a tropical island this close to the equator. Well, at least not without a few active volcanoes littering the landscape. Ringing the island are white sandy beaches, the primary stop for most tourists. However, just as popular are the jagged highlands that rise in the centre.

When the British conquered the island they set about exploring and mapping the island thoroughly as the British were wont to in those days. They discovered the highest points of the island, areas where Sri Lankans had seldom travelled, it was after all too cold. At 2000m the temperatures can drop down to the low teens at times, not the kind of place for peoples accustomed to the sun-drenched lowlands.

Here the British grew tea and built their summer homes. With sunshine, abundant rainfall and rich soil, the Highlands were a favourite of the British. Our journey of the highlands began through a night at the Belihul Oya Resthouse. From there we climbed over 1500m by van through winding tea estate roads to a place called “World’s End” in the middle of Horton Plains National Park. This plain at 2000m was once filled with elephants so the story goes, until the British White Hunters found them and decided to see how they looked framed.

World’s End is a precipitous drop of over 1000m that you can belly up to. You know that you are nowhere near the litigious west as when you reach this incredibly dangerous spot (which we did in fog), there is merely a sign. There is no fence, just a warning to not get too close. “Back up just a bit more guys, you’re all not quite in this shot… yeah one more step back…”

From World’s End and its weird vegetation we travelled to Nuwara Eliya on the world’s worst road. I kid you not: 32km took better part of 4 hours. After the wild-eyed looks that Mike, Keli, Rebecca and Niall gave to our driver Chaminda Gunesekera and I we decided that further travel by van on such roads would lead to a mutinous affair. We immediately gave up plans to climb Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak) and went for a night at Nuwara Eliya, the capital of the highlands and what turns out to be the honeymoon capital of Sri Lanka.

We parked the van and Chaminda and I started scoping out the various places to stay. Naturally the others being off-colour as they were would only have increased room prices at a mere glimpse. At one place, Chaminda and I were invited through to see a room buried in the basement, through the kitchen where people eating supper were surprised to see us and hushed into submission. The room itself had so much mould that Chaminda and I started bolting from the place only to be chased by the potential hoteliers with shouts of “we have another room!”

Despite all this we did luck into quite the hotel. As Mike ascertained in the end, it is likely that the owners were in the middle of renovations and asked us in. Obviously the place was incredibly new and they barely had enough blankets.

Having slept soundly we left the next morning towards the medieval capital of Sri Lanka, Kandy (Nuwara) with a stop at the Mackwoods Labookellie Tea Estate. Let me tell you, I’m seriously considering buy some land and growing a small tea plantation… naturally I’d get my friends to pick the tea, they’re good cheap labour… “Come stay in Sri Lanka for a month, a relaxing vacation with fresh air and exercise…”

Anuradhapura (Anoo-rather-poo-ra) was created by the ancient kings of Sri Lanka as both a religious and political centre for its empire. Over a thousand years of history, from the 4th century BC until 11th century AD, passed by as kingdoms fell, mad kings committed suicide, invaders pillaged and monks prayed. About a thousand years ago, suffering from the weight of invaders, the city was abandoned and was claimed by the jungle.

Today the city remains a centre of cultural and political heritage within the modern Sri Lanka. It is from here that the Sri Lankan Army bases its operations in the North against the Tamil Tigers, and it is here that one of the most venerated places of Buddhism stands: the ancient sapling of the Bodhi Tree. It is said that just after the death of Gautama Buddha, a sapling of the Bodhi Tree under which he attained enlightenment was carried to the island of Lanka and planted in this grove.

During this past trip to Sri Lanka, only Mike and I managed to make it up to Ancient Anuradhapura. Niall, Rebecca and Keli decided to stay and catch up on not being in the van and we drove in a mad dash to see the night lights of the ancient city. We weren’t disappointed. While I was not allowed to take any photos of the Sri Maha Bodhi, I did manage to take some photos of the Lovamahapaya (The Brazen Palace), the giant and ancient Ruwanwelisaya which stands at 300ft and built in the 3rd century BC, and Thuparama, said to be the site of the oldest dagoba in Sri Lanka.

See all the photos in the photo album: The Lights of Ancient Anuradhapura