It all started on 16 of January, 2018 with my „In short“ post on Facebook. As I always write about my travel adventures in my blog, I thought, those everyday posts would be like my cheat notes. „Short“ 8 pages in a Word file. This is what I got when I put all of them into one fluent text. Don’t read this if you hope to find any kind of a (not) to do/to see list or tips how to save money etc. in Sri Lanka. Our trips with Lina Aiduke are not meant for visiting as many tourist attractions and wonders of the world as you can. The biggest wonder is the life itself, therefore, while travelling (and always) we try to just enjoy everything that happens, not to plan too much in advance, discover, wonder, taste, drink, roll into… Being real and free are our basic values. If you share these or if you wish to learn a bit of it, then, this is our travel diary.
In short.
That same night we received the news that our flight is 10 hours late. OK. No hurry. Lately only Širinskienė and Karbauskis have got worse reviews than UIA in Lithuania, so a serious flight delay was not surprising. Just laughing our lungs out. We are women that aren‘t fallen out of any tree, armed with insurance from head to toes. Work, work, one hour of sleep, breakfast, taxi, as no Uber driver was in the city at 5 a.m. Only at the airport I‘ve found out that my little iqos is cosy at home. My backback is equipped with a block of Heets and all the cleaning stuff. Well, OK. I‘m gonna quit smoking, it seems, by force. May be all good. We get off the plane in Kiev. Frozen3000. Especially, without a coat on, only in a jumper. The flight is already 11 hours late. Not willing to stay at the airport, we head to the nearest hotel to sleep, eat and maybe do something else. We‘re still laughing our lungs out and getting carried away we clink glasses of whiskey at a hotel restaurant that‘s still got all the Christmas decorations out. 10 am. The borshch is coldish and the pancakes are really cold. Never mind. Light blue walls, aquariums and vintage leather sofas all around. Lina‘s purring by my side and I‘m getting all the calls in the world – holidays always start the same way, then you just let it go. I can‘t force myself to sleep even for a moment. Overwork. I manage to wake Lina up, thank god, as she had set her alarm for 4 am, not pm. As she starts showering, all of a sudden, lights go off both in the room and in the shower. My thoughts, if that‘s the start of adventures, what‘s next? We‘re again at the airport, the bartender asks: devuška, možet eščio pivo (ladies, maybe another beer (Rus)? Devuškas are smiling, but no, thank you. 4 more hours till the flight. Hopefully. I also hope to wake up among colours, smells, waves, eating cheap and yum, getting undressed and not worrying about anything. Umaliaju (I beg you (Rus).
Short morale: for a flight like this, travel insurance is a must. Then, you don’t need to panic about flight delays, a lost holiday day etc., as really, having got a refund you can just buy new tickets. Don’t waste your time in airports when there’s such big delay, go to the nearest hotel and rest, especially if after you are stuck on a plane for 7 more hours.
FYI, eventually we got to the warm place. The travel that was supposed to take 12 hours, took 27. Oh well. I slept through some 3 of them. Before boarding the plane in Kiev I was already feeling like living in some parallel universe.
After the voyages of Morocco, Sri Lanka doesn’t disturb that much, except for the warmth of +32… We drop all the stuff in our villa that’s either in a rich or poor disrict – baffling due to the ongoing building works around, and run to the water. Almost no one in it, we don’t care. Rushing I put some sunscreen on, can’t reach my back, so, hello, no longer a fox, but a tiger. But nowhere close to catastrophe. Locals ask Lina for selfies and squint at me while I eat curries as four grown men put together. No sleep – eat and eat. Rice in one hand and crab’s leg in another. 5 bucks. Not to eat? Not to drink when the local Lion beer bottle label says something like, „find your new self“. You find yourself in the world that is full of possibilities that you just have to take advantage of. Go on, do it. Find your strengths. Share ideas. Lift yourself up. There are many horizons you can conquer. Find a lion within you. Veryga would get a heart attack if a beer like this appeared on our market. And we‘re just trying to find the lionesses in ourselves and thinking out loud that this is the first symbolic guideline of our trip. Watching for the signs is vital. I was trying not to sleep till decent at night so as to eventually get enough sleep. Lying across the bed I am thinking. Thinking about what a good thing holidays are. Tomorrow we are out to conquer new horizons. Unlike the rest. Usually people recommend starting from the mountains. Kendy, Ella, the famous train, where you MUST take selfie leaning over the window. We haven’t made accomodation reservations, so it’s going to be interesting, maybe. Stay tuned. We also thought that we had to know deeply one person a day. Goodnight. Jesus Jesus, what I’ve lived up to…
Day 1. LACKSHMIR.
They said, everyone calls him Lucky. Just what we need for our first day. The second sign, that we have promised ourselves to follow. A professional barber, wanted to work in Australia, but did’t get lucky with a visa. So he works in Sri Lanka as a guide, owns a several rooms villa and a barber shop. I say: you are big business man, Lucky. He smiles and says: no honey, no money. Work and you will have. Sri Lanka is the size of Lithuania. We tell our new friend that only the number of population differs. 3 milion of Lithuanias to 25000000 of Sri Lankans. Oh, he sighs, only 21000000 is left, so that’s more than one Lithuania of emigrants. Same problems everywhere.
Lucky has a wife and two sons. While I was having breakfast, the little one was getting ready for kindergarten, in a uniform, and all. Ironed and neat: a white shirt, dark blue shorts, a neat folded kerchief pinned under the collar, still with half a finger in a nostril. Cute as a button.
I fall asleep at 6 pm Lithuanian time as I can’t move my hooves any more. Happy to be getting some sleep. I wake up four hours later. Hot like in a Moroccan hamam, the one I told lots of people about. Sweltering hot. An hour later Lina wakes up and turns on the conditioner. One more hour later I am freezing. Some kind of Sri Lankan menopause. I wake up swollen like some kind of a hobo. Laughing our asses of. So what.
Travelled by local bus and train. Interesting and all. Alive, never mind. Carrying the backpacks we are looking for our home on the beach, no sunscreen, shoulders are the colour of paprika, but the tummy and legs are still somewhere in the films of Twilight saga. All the Russian nation seems to have come to the village, so we have arrived to some godforsaken place as far as I can see, because only homeless dogs are rolling around on the beach and fishermen are waving. Maybe we’ll go fishing tomorrow, although those half handmade boats-catamarans don’t look relialbe enough.
That’s it for today. Attempt nr 2 to get some sleep. Hope, yoga will help. So help me god.
Day 2. RANGHIT.
We met him in Colombo train station. The train didn’t come on time, but everyone was all over the rails like five minutes ago. Us too. Not a million of those people waiting, but still. And then this old man comes up to us. Where are you from, where are you heading and so on an so forth – everyone here likes to talk. The train is coming and this old man is waving: follow me. Or else. So we do. Lina still doesn’t feel comfortable enough to force her way through the crowd, but I do. I jump onto the carriage and the old man has already saved us the seats with his handbag. Sit down, he says, and rushes away on his little feet in search of place to sit for himself. The ocean will be on this side, he adds, while I am getting comfortable on the window seat. Except, for čeburekai, you can get everything on this train, it seems.
Ranghit is 66. Has done quite a lot of smoking in his life. Barely anyone knows Lithuania here, but we always make sure to note that we are from Europe. Oh, he says, I’ve lived in Europe, in Austria for 11 years. Why did you come back then, I ask. Money is not everything, Laura, the old man says and nods his head. Living in Sri Lanka is much easier, much more fun and much quieter. He worked as a truck driver and I wonder how he could be seen behid the wheel, this little man.
We gave him a ride on a tuktuk to the beach that’s further away. And heard some more tips: don’t deal with local surfers – no money, only diseases. Don’t buy joints from random people (he himself knows where to get the quality stuff), don’t stay in the centre, too expensive. You are my daughters now, he says with a big smile as we are walking away with our gigantic backpacks.
Let alone I woke up swollen and had breakfast with my sunglasses on so as not to scare the neighbours away, no more cataclysms happened. Had a quick swim after breakfast, then jumped into hiking boots and went for a hike down the beach. Fish insides lay here and there, well, it’s a port, isn’t it, the river beside the port has got those too, different fish all around them and all of a sudden, a Monotor lizard the size of a crocodile! Jolkipalki! Immediately we struck up a plan to go to Lake Rathgama to see more of the creatures. At 4.30 pm we have to be ready to meet wildlife. Until then – mango juice at some old lady’s who walks in her litthe shop barefoot, toenails are the length of a mattock, we still drink the juice and let it go. We walk along the river where barely any tourist sets their foot. The lady’s waving at me with her switch hair in her hand, Lina asks if she can take a picture. Of course, she can, throws her switch down and calls her grandson.
Then lunch with the locals, among tuktuk drivers, so hot, that our eyes water, but the taste and price is out of this world. Then again the waves, a book, an afternoon cocktail with soda, as tonic which is really rare here and the expedition again. The Jungle, a buddhist shrine, a lake. Meditation.
It’s getting dark, all kinds of fishermen with their nets are appearing as if out of nowhere, one of them has a little light – magic. At last Lina believes that those eagle sized creatures flying above our heads at night are bats. I’ve been trying to convince her for three days – no luck. She’s used to Lithuanian little ones and has been waiting for the locals to confirm. Fireflies are as numerous as in „Avatar“. I’ve never seen anything like this before. You want to touch them, but the second it’s here and the next – it’s gone. Dogs bark. Some anti-mosquito stuff is fuming. The lanterns shine mystery. Maybe life is really a dream, I wonder. I don’t want to wake up.
Day 3. SEEWLI THERO.
We met the monk in a local village buddhist shrine.
All soft and plump. In the beginning we followed him barefoot like little bigots while he was telling us the sources for buddhism and dreaded to say a word. Why, you ask?! The sculptures all bright blue grinning demons, karma, depicted as a screaming person in a fireplace, a baby chopped to pieces, 10 stages of life where the last one, death, shown as a dead man very realistically…
Still, a bit later we started talking. We ask, when did you come to the shrine? Thinks for like 10 minutes. When he was ten, he says. Even more difficult for him to count how old he is now. How many monks live with him, we ask. 7-8, he replies. Too much counting… So many monks, difficult to track. We smile. There are places where time and numbers don’t exist. For those who love time is eternity.
That monk is easy on the eyes. We ask for his name, gives Lina his phone to write down so she does not make a mistake and out of the blue he slips Lina his own phone number. Now that cracks us up. And it’s not even all. The monk has got his own FB account, but we thing he logs in on Sundays only or at full moon. Anyway, the two pound shrine key was already in our hands, we feel blessed. But mosquitoes bite us in the evenings as normal.
So. We thought we’d been staying in Hakkaduwa for two nights, but as we were leaving it turned out that, nothing of the kind, we’d been in Dodanduwa – you can’t figure out where one town finishes and another one starts in Sri Lanka. We woke up early in the morning and went to visit local fish market.
Today we headed for Weligama and found ourselves in Mirissa and it turned out ot be the best thing that had happened so far. No doubt, the gooodness is also in surviving the trip by local bus. Flying bus we called it. Everyone else calls it crazy bus. Sometimes it is better to keep your eyes closed, especially when overtaking.
For now, this is paradise.
This was the second time we waded in the sands and rocks with those backpacks of ours, which seemed to be growing with every single day altghough we weren’t buying anything. Well, OK, we got two bottles of gin in duty free, but those don’t count. And I think to myself that I wouldn’t feel as happy in any most luxurious resort with all inclusive and nothing heavy to carry in swelltering heat because only you can be the best adventure for yourself. That is all for Saturday.
DAY 4. Eitan Amram.
We swerved a bit from our plan of meeting local people, as by chance, while coming down the miraculous hill, the panorama of our town from which takes your breath away, we met this guy. How old? Impossible to tell, and he doesn’t. Then he does, but only three days after. 39. It’s his second winter in Sri Lanka. From Tel Aviv, Israel, where he and his brother have a sandal factory and off season he manages everything from here https://www.facebook.com/Sunset-bar-mirissa-surfers-house-…/ and lives his life to the fullest. Catches waves in the mornings and evenings. A perfect instructor, bet my life.
This season he’s helping a local family to start a bar. I reckon, not really legally. He’s all in it, there’s something to learn, unbeatable in negotiations, but takes it easy.
We’d met him for an hour or so when we got an invitation for a drink. Lina and me already in beds with our phones, all done with evening drinks, I was almost reaching for the switch on my side of bed. I text back: what if it’s a pyjama party?
That’s how a quiet party happens on the shore of the Indian ocean while the new moon is shining through the palms. You can’t run away from yourself: party maker is always party maker. Eitan’s house is one hotel away from ours. So in our pyjamas and the drops of gin left in the bottle and with our flip flops in our hands as you can’t walk that easily on the beach during the tide, with little crabbies between our feet, lighting our way with the torches in our phones we’re wading to see our neighbour that has ice and tonic – what a joy!
The stars are twinkling, converstations don’t stop. Everybody needs to be touched, says Eitan. And I’m not talking about sex. We talk about stroking children, hugs, massage, real communication and attention. I wan’t to make sure we’re not looking for holiday romance, we’re decent women and have our heads on, in which I sometimes doubt: the phone charger is already lost as well as the hair brush, I have to tell Lina everyday that she has her shirt on inside out again. Good we still remember our names.
It’s all for today as I’ve got a job as a waitress in that illegal bar. Illegally, of course. If I don’t post my travel outline in the evening, I might be in some local jail or something…
Folks, it’s impossible to put everything down. So much action, that there’s not ever time to sunbathe, I’ll be home with this weird tan – patterns everywhere.
After yesterday’s pyjama party, on Sunday, I want to stress, Sunday at 7.30 we’re already at a yoga practice. Dogs, pigeons, joggers, everything’s in one place. Bomžtrendfashion is still on top – a very nice swelling. I can see one advatage – the wrinkles can’t really be seen. After the candle and the bridge asanas I can be normally seen in public – all the morning swelling is gone.
Bam, bam, swimming, breakfast in our lady’s house is incredible, only coffee is, well, interesting here, if you know what I mean, then a short workout on the grass, the instructor evaluates my theoretical and practical knowledge, bam, bam, we’re already rushing to Weligam by tuktuk with a board on the roof, one and a half hour in water, as many waves have been caught as in Morocco, could pee with happiness but don’t want to. Surfing without a wetsuit is something else. Well, only a couple of times, all the beach almost saw these white titties when I was lured by the white spatter. And my butt cheeks are now beetroot red, no lie. Then we were in the tramp for a while in Weligam and again tuktuk to our village, and lunch in a local booth. They say, you have to eat with hands, otherwise you might insult the locals, a la, you think you’re somehow better… Bože, bože! I’m stuffing the rice with both hands and even lick my fingers. On a rice diet. The insides are still fine. Cool.
Then the shop, swimming again at our half-private beach, starting to feel in the evenings that gills and fins are developing and I‘m becoming, well, at least, a mermaid, but I have to get enough of swimming for a year or so.
We’re getting ready for bed, but the neighbour has a friend over, so I’m guessing we‘ll have some wading in the sand in pyjamas to do. Quiet life… So quiet, I don’t know how to escape it.
Leaving the irony aside, time is priceless here. Sunsets are amen. One can drool every day, nowhere to hurry, sit under the palms, listen to the ocean… When you think, where the hell we will hurry in our life? Destination is the same for everyone.
DAY 5. Praneeth+Nisansala+Girusha.
A tripple acquaintance. In the village they’ll soon start thinking we‘re some kind of journalists. The family is our Merissa home owners.
Having been greeted with banana milkshakes we extended our stay here from two to five nights. What do you expect? Almost a private beach, clean and comfy. Praneeth, now 35, tells us they built the very first rooms in 2001. Then every year two more appeared. At the moment, 8 couples can stay here.
Pranas (we were fast to make his name sound Lithuanian) is no longer surprised by our build, his wife Nisansala is such a great cook that we almost never eat somewhere else. And they ever take orders. Today we’re having a crab or a lobster, it depends on what the owner can get at the market. When Nisansala got back empty plates to gether with our biggest compliments and when I am complaining that I’ll be back fat, she and her grandma giggle in the kitchen – I assume that’s what they’re counting for. Yesterday I was writing that this lady makes coffee for us, it appears that Nisansala is 37, oh well, just like us. The owners have two sons. One is five and next year he’ll start school. The other’s already at school. Monday. Only the ladies on holidays can afford beer right after lunch with no remorse and then tour the village.
When you don’t need to pack your bags and hurry somewhere else looking for a new place to stay, there’s plenty of time to do other stuff. I got myself a job. Could get used to it. I‘m already a pro at opening coconuts. I don’t really like the drink myself. Hoping to still have both arms and all the fingers when I’m done here. Knowlwdge is no burdain. I work for surfing lessons, while the instructor catches the biggest waves at sunset, I don’t ask for rupees, so maybe, after all, labour inspection won’t be after me. Still I don’t know what to do in case of some hygiene inspecton. Well, we’ll get through this somehow.
I meet all sorts of people in the bar and want to speak with them. And they all look at us as at the advanced ones what concerns Sri Lanka. You can tell them where the food is good, where it’s cheap, how to do what, etc. I can not even remember the names of the towns we’ve stayed at. One client has been staying here for two months, so he was difficult to convince I am a local. Uniform: undies and a shirt, wind, sun in your hair, freckles, sand everywhere possible. They ask if I cook here, I tell them they wouldn’t want to try.
We also tour places on a daily basis, somewhere where tourist don‘t set their feet. So today we’re among the monkeys. We’re on this path and meet this group of locals, men with sticks, an old man behind us mumbling something, a woman with a baby in her arms turns around and yells at him. Lina, I say, there’s a monkey on the palm. My co-traveller doesn’t believe me again! Ne, she says, it’s just a palm branch falling down. But when all these palm branches began jumping around us, she finally believes me. Just like the case with the bats. I don’t know what to do with her… And wonder, what if we meet an elephant. We also saw peacocks strolling in their natural surroundings. The male was even up in a tree with all that beautiful tail of his. I doubt if they can fly, they look a bit heavyweight.
Tomorrow morning again yoga, a bit of this and that, and then work again, so I’m going to bed. During the first days of our trip I had a wish some local would take us home for some tea, voila, we’re going to some ladies’s. Everything that’s bound to happen, will happen. I also have this big wish to take part in a Sri Lankan wedding. I’m almost sure this is gonna happen too. Fingers crossed. I have weird dreams here. Maybe it’s sign as well? That’s what things are here.
DAY 6. Pushpa.
Today’s acquaintance is a bit different. We lingered on this for a while. And it became a longer journalistic research. It also gave some food for thought.
During the first days of our trip we thought it would be fun to have some real Ceylon tea at some local poeple’s home, but not at a coffe place or bar. Not to ask to be invited, but get to be invited for real. When you say them aloud, your wishes start materialising.
Pushma is 46. She has three kids: a 12 year old daughter with a symbolic name Wishmi that’s good at studying and two sons, 16 and 20 years old. The teenager smokes, surfs and causes his mom only trouble. The elder one is the only who supports the family. I’ll explain why.
Pushma and her husband met the simple way. They both lived in the same village and were neighbours. They got engaged in 1993 and married in 1996. Then there were kids. Her husband and some foreigner bought this guesthouse I’m working at now as a waitress.The house also owns our beautiful Sunsethill. This is the best plot I’ve seen in the town and all Sri Lanka. Pushma used to cook for the tourists. The family started building their own house. Downstairs was supposed to be a family restaurant. The house is also on the beach. So they start the construction work and move in immediately. We are invited for tea into this not yeat finished house. Two years ago, on 1st January 2016 the family was watching TV, a light breeze was blowing. Somewhere near a company of people was drinking. Maybe there was too much alcohol, a fight started that has moved to the family backyard. Gamini, that was the name of her husband, went outside to calm the intruders down. He never came back.
Three blows with a knife.
There are his portraits all around the house. Pushma talks about him and smiles softly. Her husband was such a handsome man. And caring, she adds.
What’s your biggest dream, Lina asks. The hostress thinks for a while. I’d like to have that restaurant, she replies.
We have tea in the balcony. The construction work is where the husband left it. The Canadian co-owner of the guest house and the land plot also died. Heart attack. The relatives of the foreigner aren’t willing to share the inheritance with poor Sri Lankans. Hardship of life.
On our way out we leave a banknote in Pushma’s notebook. No, she says, there’s no necessity. There is, we reply, let your dream come true till we come here again.
Pushma walks us through the gate, I put on my sunglasses and cry a little bit until we reach our place.
Do we have any problems in our flats full of everything?
DAY 8. Offer Lacham.
I had a day-off yesterday that I spent travelling and rolling in waves. Ocean and happiness waves. Therefore, I had no time for writing and I fell asleep with a phone in my hand five minutes after I hit my bed. There was an intention, but no strength at all.
So, Offer. Weird luck to meet people with such names, that I will repeat myself, it seems our trip is preset with signs. He’s 41. From Israel. He moved in next to us, there was no chance of not getting acquainted.
He owns a restaurant in Israel and sometimes plays in clubs. Passionate music lover. Absolute. Sometimes it seems he thinks in music. In the evenings we have music exchange. In May Solomun tours in Israel, so one future trip is already planned. What’s important to me as well, you can surf there too.
I travel a lot, says Offer, very much. I don’t feel a lack of anything, I have everything, we, maybe, except for one piece of a puzzle that I am looking for while travelling and communicating with people. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll find it one day.
Absolutely positive, extremely energetic, dives into all the swindles we can think of and even suggests some of his own. 5 years of surfing experience, practices yoga and god knows what else, we have hard time keeping up with him.
Leaving the ocean tomorrow will be a bit sad. Lina asked to correct – it will be hopelessly sad.
Friday. I know it because I cheked in the morning in calendar. We’re on the road again, although the euforia is gone – it’s really sorrowful to leave the ocean. As well as my job in the bar. Yesterday I had to chase a cow out of the bar. Didn’t get the chance to film it. What’s to eat – only palms and rare grass on the sand. The ckients were all wondering where to hide if the cow starts romping.
We thought we would have to take three busses to Ella, but we hitchhiked a tuktuk till Matara. Maybe it was more him who hitchhiked us, a guy was heading that way and was persistent to convince us to go together, although we were determined to go by bus with these backpacks after the meating with Greta Lechaviciute and co. In they luxurious hotel where while we were having our morning coffee one Chinese woman from the ground floor started hanging her undies and socks – all the weekdays – on the hangers for drying. On the tree next to the room. We were like, garage sale, and almost went to try them on.
In Matara we got on a crazy bus and headed to the mountains. 160 km, 4 hours. I don’t drink water as a stop with an outside lavatory is only in 3 hours.
In Wellawaya we change busses, only by miracle we get seats while others have to stand and then the next level trip on a crazy bus starts – serpantines on high speed.
I don’r really worry, just have to see that I don’t drop “Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change” by Pema Chödrön on the turning. The bus has a few seats marked: the two first ones on the right for monks, the second row for pregnant women, the third for the disabled. When a monk gets on abus, the drived tells a man with crutches to leave the seat in the first row.
My hair smells like curry. Raising my eyes from the book I meet the look of a one year old Sri Lankan kid, a dot on the forehead. A blind man gets on. The bus driver turns off the music, the blind man takes out his tambourine and starts singing. His voice is so so. Sings for about half an hour. All of us put some rupees into the tambourine. A twenty each appr. He gets off at the next stop. The bus driver turns the music on again. Students in white uniform get on at the following stop. They sat down. In five minutes, as with a waving of a magic wand, they fall asleep with their heads on their backpacks. Each has two braided tails. Just like a movie. The local man standing next to Lina scratches his crotch with the same hand he holds on to the rail. His hand is next to Lina’s. A local woman falls asleep leaning on a hip of a tourists that is standing by. All the tourists, including us, sigh loudly on every sudden turning. That bus is just like some planet in Earth’s orbit. Everyone is so different. Everyone is so similar. The perfect calmness. This trip is amazing!
We find a place to stay in the mountain. I’d recommend it for the view alone, and the personnel is also very helpful. We go for some food. Due to the change of pressure I feel like drunk. So we eat in the worst hole in this country, in some Sri Lankan čiliakaimis. We wouldn’t even like to leave any tips, but are reluctant to wait for our change. Never ever, never, we swear, and watch the local booths, that do not sparkle any interior novelties or wifi, but have never let us down. We miss Nisansala’s dishes, the ocean, sand, and even the sweltering heat as we have to pull our our sweaters out of the bottom our our backpacks. Oh god. 5 days left…
Hello hello. Mountains – check. So calm there, nothing murmurs, not only the mosquitoes fly that high.
We try wo get up early in the morning, so that we don’t get hot while climbing the Ella rock. We booked a tuktuk in advance and the boy has to wait because nobody serves breakfast before 7.15 and we need to eat, they say, it’s 3.5 hours. While having breakfast we hear the monks‘ prayers in the mountais – magic. It’s easy to be a monk hear, Lina decides.
Our driver ir a very cosy boy in a sweater with polar bears. A polar bear in Sri Lanka. OK. Our shirts are being ruffled by the morning wind quite harsh. We go and get lost, climb like mountain goats sweating all over, a serious leg day, hair is not washed as the policy of cool water is OK in the bathroom, but not in the mountains. Not an hour passed, all legs OK, I have a fear of heights, but there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for a good photo. Not so well with standing on the head. It was Lina who said no, I would have tired, I think. Dogs are running all around, I can’t imagine how those tourists climb at night. By the way, no people from Russia were present in this, all of them are lying by the ocean, I reckon.
We go to the second bar we’ve found, all the bartenders are sleeping somewhere. Yesterday beer, cocktails and ganja were on the same menu. Illegal, but in this place, as we can see, everything is legal. We need to take off our shoes before entering. Lina goes to the bathroom and steps into something. So there she sits in one sock, one of mine is torn while climbing. Fair ladies. Two madams, this is how they address women here.
And, gues what! A short conference takes place. Well, it happened while we were drinking coffee having got off the bus. Lina, I say, give me the map. We will take a ride on the famous train, but I want to spend the last days in the waves. I want my board, Lina wants the ocean murmur. You gotta listen to your heart. It never lies.
We have some lunch after the climb, some beer and are at the stop again. You wouldn’t guess in a lifetime it was a stop, but we are already advanced. The bus happens to be through, so we sleep, read, listen to music and see the sun off already at „home“. We had to get another place to stay as Pranas is all booked. We just set our foot in the street and a lovely lady asked us to follow through her flowers to our room, opened the door and said, you’ll be staying here. And so we did. We still had dinner at our last hostess, everyone smiles. Life is simple and beautiful. Tomorrow I’m going to take a bike to the post office to send some postcards. Hope, noone will hit me.
GOD KNOWS WHICH DAY. Daniel Dragone. I can’t stop wondering about the surname, what a coincidence.
We can’t count our new acquaintances. But I have to introduce Daniel. 53 years old. Yes, I am not mistaken, Dances like a 23 year old. Italian. Lives 23 km from Rome. It’s his second winter in Sri Lanka. Surfs, rides a sup, windsurfs. Practices yoga every day. Doesn’t smoke or drink. Well, two sips of wine during dinner. The fact that he doesn’t need to get intoxicated is even more surprising having in mind the fact that yesterday he danced with a chair, with a mop and with a speaker. Believe me when I say.
He tells that six years ago he decided to leave his job as every time having come back from the holidays all he could see were the faces filled with stress and anxiety. This is not what life is for.
He reads a lot, at the moment three books about Buddhism and yoga. Two of those about Buddhism he is translating into Italian. He studied Latin and ancient Greek. When I speak to him, I feel that there’s still so much I have to learn.
He is all about ocean, sand and sun. Truly happy.
This is the last stage of Sri Lanka. Time to go home. I wish for a week more, but I am sure after that I’ll need one more. Good and few. Calmness.
The day before yesterday was a beautiful day. As all of them here. Yoga in the sunset. Two huge eagles in the sky. Music. Inscence all around. Local youngsters on the bench. Meet at 5.30. Everyone knows everything here. On the first day they only had fun and took pictures but today they’re trying to help their friends get into the plough asana. Greta Lechaviciute is at the table writing postcards. The sun is setting all right. Namaste.
Then there’s this international supper. Our sunset hill commune. The unexpected unity of grown people. The sunset brotherhood. Offer Lacham and me go to the store for some veggies and get some kind of zuchinni-cucumber hybrid instead of cucumbers, that’ll do. We take a tuktuk to a wine shop 5 km aways, so that there’s enough of everything.Tarindo, the owner of the Sunset bar is firing up the grill. We put some candles out, put some lillies, the symbols of Sri Lanka, in vases. When it’s getting dark they always close, but in the light of the candles they bloom again. All the plates are as different as all of us behind the table. Someone is short of knife, but they eat with hands here.
I cut tomatoes and onions, Offer is making potato mash an string beans, Daniele is dealing with the carrots and that a la cucumber while whistling something. Garlic, ginger, something else. We are waiting to put hand sized fish on the grill. Everone writes on some piece of paper something we’d like to get rid of: emotions, bad qualities, wrongs. We throw those into the fire. No one asks why. Only Eitan Amram worries if those bad things will affect the fish…
I’ve never eaten better fish. We cut it in pieces, put vegetables, puor cold wine into the glasses, the glasses become dewy, the drops are running through hands and the talks don’t die. It’s decided that it’s impossible to pronounce or remember Lithuania, Lietuva sounds much nicer and easier, women/men issues, tax differences, real estate prices, music, books, travelling, buddhism, work and life itself is under discussion. I wish to hug all of them at the same time. A small international community was born. Family. Endless dancing starts on the sand. We take off the Christmas decorations and decorate ourselves. The ocean roars, spatter is all on us, we enjoy the cold beach shower in our clothes. One more wonderful day is coming.
Today we had to head for Colombo, but yesterday the commune decided it was a crime. Backpacks are all packed, boards are on the roof of a tuktuk, we’re going along the ocean shore, gather all the things we’ve scattered and will have another amazing day.
Madams are getting back home. The summer is found. New stories are on the way.
Fox. The adventurer.
P.S. Thank you Lina Aiduke for all beautiful pictures. It’s a treasure to travel with friend-photographer.
SaveSave