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

I’ve decided to do pictures and stories of our most recent adventure slightly backwards, first, Dubai, the desert metropolis. If there ever was a land of contrasts, it would be Dubai. Just after new year, Mike, Niall, Rebecca and I arrived in Dubai from Colombo, Sri Lanka. While the other three had spent two weeks travelling in Sri Lanka, I had spent pretty close to a month in the land of my birth, so don’t blame us for some of the first things we did upon arrival in Dubai.

I love travelling, don’t get me wrong. I love adventure, hardship and the unknown, but you know, there are certain things you get used to and one of them happens to be breakfast. After a month of Sri Lankan-style breakfasts and yoghurt which wasn’t quite the yoghurt I had become accustomed to, we hightailed it to a grocery store and pigged out on granola and yoghurt. So sue me. It was after that that I truly started to enjoy Dubai and really examine my surroundings.

I’m sure that when Dubai is finished it will be an amazing city. Currently it’s trying very hard to get there and with 20% of the world’s cranes, believe me when I say they are trying 24 hours a day. It’s almost as if the entire city is being built from the desert up. In other cities a metro would be built a few stations at a time. Not so in Dubai. In Dubai the entire system is being built at once ready to be grandly opened in a few years time. Meanwhile the world’s tallest building is being finished at the very centre. As Niall pointed out, if he were to live on the highest floor, he would have a few parachutes installed as emergency escapes, yes it is that tall, and it’s not even finished yet.

Oh yes, there is a desert too. Mind you they’ve managed to grow a “forest” four trees deep in places on the Dubai-Al Ain highway so that you can barely see this desert, but it is there (apparently one of the Sheik’s wanted to see a “forest” as he drove the highway). In Dubai, there is almost no point in measuring “Carbon Footprint”. Just forget it. This is a city that shouldn’t exist but does because the citizens have the money to make it exist. When buildings and land gets devoured by the desert, they will just move on and build again. After all, this is the desert with an indoor ski hill (no we didn’t make it there, we kind of got sick of malls and it’s inside a mall).

However, Dubai is also one of the prettiest cities I have ever seen. They have managed to take the beautiful architecture of the world and recreated in a seamless and incredibly colourful skyline. The night sky is lit to the heavens with radiant towers of multi-coloured shimmering hues. When it’s complete it will be a force to be reckoned with.

Regardless have a quick look through some of the better vistas that passed in front of my lens!

It is never the heights to which we ascend for which we will be remembered, but for the lengths and breadth of our accomplishments. Sir Edmund Hillary climbed to the top of the world’s tallest mountain and descended successfully in 1953. In doing so he and Tenzing Norgay became the first to do so and garnered for themselves a place in our world’s history books.

However, simply clambering onto a piece of rock and snow so far above us, while an admirable feat, is never really what sets a person apart and makes us respect, revere and follow him. Edmund Hillary was and will remain one of my heroes. As an amateur climber you have to respect what he did and the lengths he went to reach the summit of Everest. If you’ve ever hungered to reach a summit while wind is blasting you, your breath knocked out of you, your hands shivering in the cold, and your eyes frosted over, then you know the respect that is garnered any mountain climber no matter their successes.

Growing up, I wondered what it would be like to be Hillary, high atop the world, shrouded in snow (something I had yet to experience at that point). I yearned for his sense of adventure, for new frontiers and to experience nature’s wildness. I don’t think I was alone. Hillary’s achievement in 1953 was not simply reaching Everest, but showing the world, no matter their class, race, creed etc. that he and Norgay, simple, humble men, could reach any height to which one aspires. For fifty years and more he and Norgay embodied the confidence of a human race and our simple, individual achievements.

However, as I write this, I realize that it isn’t the mountaineering aspect which saddens me to see Hilary pass before our eyes, but what he humbly did with his fame and fortune. He did not retire to bask in adoration; he continued to help the people he had come to love in the remote ice fields of Nepal. He acted on preserving that wonderful place that had become littered with the detritus of human achievement. He was in all things, a stellar human being.

I have never personally known the man, and frankly perhaps as heroes go, that’s probably a good thing. But I mourn his absence in this world and I mourn the loss of one my childhood heroes. While he did not guide my hand up any mountain, I know that without him and Norgay in 1953, I might also have never dreamed to stand on a mountain top basking in the glory of the natural world.

Sir Edmund Hillary, thanks for an ascendant journey.