Author: Evan from Evansville

Read Part I

My train journey continued through tea country. The terraces weren’t nearly as wet as the rice paddies in Southeast Asia but their structure was similar. As a Midwestern boy used to corn and soybeans, the overlaying latticework of crops contrasted heavily with the table-top farms of southern Indiana.

Due to both the landscape and the nature of the tea bushes, it is difficult or impossible to mechanize the harvest. Instead, groups of women with bags strapped to their foreheads pick the tea by hand. The man there to supervise them emanated overtones of plantation slavery. I’m not sure if he deserves that reaction or not. That’s one of the difficulties traveling to new cultures. Moral navigation can be tricky.

I finally arrived in Ella. It was gorgeous and soothing, but also the definition of how the journey is frequently more important than the destination. It’s a small town nestled in the lowlands. I mostly remember my late night walks on the dirt roads. The jungle sounds were the soundtrack in my mosquito-netted bed. The next day I went to see a waterfall a short tuk tuk ride away. Its beauty gave me pause and contrasted with the urban and urbane landscape I was used to in Singapore. The simplicity of flowing water made me happy.

From here I went down to Yala National Park on the southern coast to go on safari. I stayed in a tent, but a fancy one with a shower and 300-thread-count sheets. As I’ve aged I’ve graduated to more luxurious settings.

The park is quite arid and reminded me of Arizona. Craggy rocks, brush–an earthy moonscape with sparse greenery. Think tumbleweeds. The elephant skull that greeted me was a great example of why Ancient Greeks believed in cyclopes.

 

We drove through the park in a Jeep. I soaked in the terrain and encountered water buffalo, elephants, meter-long monitor lizards and troops of monkeys playfully gathering fruit. We soon were clogged in a traffic jam of fellow visitors. A leopard was resting in the shade and everyone was desperate for a glance. She was about 500 yards away, visible with our guide’s binoculars, but not with my camera, sadly.

The park borders the ocean. I do like fishermen and boats. I don’t know why. I don’t like being on the water. Flimsy wooden vessels with old engines popping oil as they chugged along. Honest folk doing honest work to provide for their families. Teaching English in Korea, I viewed my work as being very supplementary. It’s humbling to watch people do something so essential. It reminds me that mine is a life of luxury, and how almost everyone in the world has it worse off than I do. It reinforces why I refuse to complain until bone pierces skin.

On our way, elephants blocked the path. This is perhaps the best reason to have to stop your vehicle. The people in the Jeep ahead of us were idiots–they had left a bunch of mangos out in their open cab and agile trunks were being forcefully frisky about obtaining them. A backpack was ripped from the vehicle by the tremendous animal.

After my stay at the park, I continued clockwise around the coast to Galle–a 16th century Portuguese fortification. It is very reminiscent of Spanish forts in Florida. I briefly met up with my coworker here for dinner on a chance encounter. We had pasta.

 

Galle was very dreamlike. I knew I was in Sri Lanka but it felt so European. I felt the same way in Montreal when my brain thought I was in Paris. You have to jolt yourself into understanding reality. It’s like when your eyes and inner ear don’t agree and you get dizzy–it was difficult for Evan in Wonderland to parse out the alien familiarity of his surroundings. He walked around the stone walls calmly, tired after traveling for a week straight. Surrounded by an eerie silence, Evan was able to absorb vibrations you otherwise ignore.

He loved the fortifications. How the earthworks strengthened the short, fat stone walls. Being alone gave him time to think about how fort design changed as offensive technology advanced. High walls keep out foot soldiers. Cannon destroy high walls. Fat walls stop cannon. Foot soldiers storm low walls. And so on. An endless game of paper, rock, scissors.

He walked by a schoolyard where some boys were playing cricket. Someone overthrew the ball and it bounced higgeldy-piggeldy on the cobblestone. Athletically scooping it up, Evan relayed it back onto the pitch. He assumed they were astounded by his ability.

 

I woke up with a pleasant calm. As perfect as it was, I knew my trip was over and it was time to go home. I took a train up the southwest coast back to the airport in Colombo. One was wiped out here on the same route in the 2004 tsunami. About 1700 people died upon derailment, the deadliest train accident in history. Apparently the waves were ten feet over the top of the train car. They all drowned.

Three months after this trip, my coworker and infrequent travel partner–through friends of friends–became acquainted with my then-girlfriend. My ex thought that I had been cheating. The flint needed to ignite our inevitable downfall was sparked.

I was wholly innocent of cheating on her, but I did make the mistake of not being candid with her, and many others to boot. Our loose knot, tied with frayed rope, was too fragile for any further stress. I thought that my lie-by-omission wasn’t so bad and that it could save us, even if only for a stupid short while.

We treaded water in choppy waves for the next few months before getting too much in our lungs. My bad judgment finished the trick that so many nasty nights and thrown knives couldn’t. Knowing that this trip was the final strain is harsh and biting.

Looking back, we were both the problem. I’m not trying to throw her under the bus–if anything I was the biggest obstacle to our solvency. But it was like being bound by superglue–we had to sacrifice a layer of flesh to separate from one another.

*****

Adventures are such for a reason. Their nature involves severing ties to the familiar and the comfortable, all in order to grasp at something new.

I finally was able to tick off another box that I had squared as a child. I will never be able to divorce this trip from the dissolution of something that singular, but time has worn away that coarse stone. It’s been polished into an irregular, yet beautiful obloid of a memory.

Everything condensed into a teardrop.

I’ve wanted to go to Sri Lanka since I was a child. Something about it enticed me. I had an opportunity to make the journey, and it ended up being a profound mix of geographic and emotional exploration.

This trip represents the downfall of a relationship that was once precious to me. It tarnishes my recollections of cultural and romantic adventures alike. We fell into our doomed love in Korea. During our honeymoon phase, I chose to go to America to get my first hip replacement and was gone for several months longer than I had planned. She cheated on me while I was gone. We had been together for such a short period of time and I was away for so long. I let it slide.

When we reunited, our spark had dimmed but it was not yet snuffed. When we floated, we floated high. Way up there where you’re afraid to look down for fear of getting Wile E. Coyoted. But we had so many fights. In front of strangers, our friends. There are encounters that neither of us are proud of. Knives were thrown. I ducked.

It was difficult to navigate our spiraling descent. It was such an unhealthy relationship, but we were still desperately in love. We’d been together for a few years when we decided to switch things up. I knew the idea to move to Singapore together wasn’t a good one. So did she. But we wouldn’t dare talk about it. Polite fictions. We simply couldn’t escape our orbit. We didn’t want to. We were terrified that any push would send us hurtling apart. Hoping without promise, we lied to ourselves and each other, secretly knowing and ignoring the truth. We were such stubborn magnets.

****

I had ten days off and I finally got the chance to go to the Teardrop of India. As often is the case, I didn’t know to expect and I was going to do it alone. Mostly. Before I left Singapore, I had casually mentioned my vacation plans to a coworker. We were friendly but not friends, if you know what I mean. A few weeks later she also decided to go to Sri Lanka. We were on the same plane. As soon as we landed we both went on our separate paths.

This is one of the rare adventures where my plan worked out perfectly. I had a rough idea of what places I wanted to visit, what routes I needed to take, the food I wanted to eat, and what things I wanted to do. Went off without a hitch. This is how I like to travel. Do research, but always leave plans loose and untimed. You never know what you’ll find. You’re here to explore, not to punch in-and-out.

I arrived in Colombo very late at night. Having read that it’s a very boring city, I immediately bailed. I took a four-hour cab up north to Sigiriya. I slept in the car and awoke to hot air balloons drifting in the dawn light. Cows were being herded through the half-paved streets.

Sigiriya is an ancient ruin of a city. It’s a towering butte and is best described as the Machu Picchu of the Sri Lankan jungle. Lion paws carved into the rock flank the main entrance. Monkeys roamed freely.

Through the bustling crowd, I climbed up the steps. Erotic paintings decorated the walls during the ascent. They had my undivided attention.

It was heavenly, but a bitch of a climb with dreams of an elevator. At the summit, you can see the foundations of the ancient capital. My imagination built upwards from those stone rectangles, recreating the lost city.

The Lonely Mountain in the distance fed the idyllic lake napping below. It took a lot of effort to convince myself to head back down. It felt like leaving a lover behind. I suppose I was.

Monkeys were darting along the staircases and cliff sides on the descent. You get used to them.

I moved onwards towards Kandy, a city surrounded by tea fields. It was an interesting town but mostly served as a waypoint in my journey. I randomly met with my coworker for dinner and a drink.

On my tuk tuk ride back to my hostel, I asked if I could drive. He shouldn’t have let me in my drunken state, but he did. I exuberantly sped up the mountainside in that foreign vehicle, somehow safely making it to my domicile. The gate was locked. I had to scale the iron palisade to get in. The more bizarre your adventures are, the deeper the images burn into the silver iodide of your memory.

I needed to catch a train from Kandy to Ella, supposedly one of the most scenic routes in the world. The train departed at 6:00, which was going to be a difficult task. With my lifestyle, 6am can be the end of the night, but never the beginning of a day.

Nevertheless, I (somehow) dutifully awoke and rushed to the station. I even had time to jockey myself in position for a seat. BUT. I didn’t want a seat. I wanted to go with my legs dangling off the train car.

I got want I wanted. This was an experience that reminded me of why I live the way that I do. The geography made the trip longer than it should have been. It was only 82 miles and yet took over six hours to traverse. I knew if I got up then I would be overthrown from my hobo throne, so I held my ground for the duration of the trip sans bathroom break. When the game is on the line my body can pull off some shocking upsets.

At a random train station, I took my favorite photo of the trip. I love how his skin and garb mirror the backdrop. Being intensely amused by minutia is a very good way to keep life interesting.

Well, there was one exception to my exuberance. I wanted to take my shoes off and let the air sweep through my toes. That was the type of Huck Finn fun I wanted. Luckily, I nodded off without removing them. The train had come to a station and my feet smashed against the concrete platform. Thankfully it was only at about 30 miles an hour, and my rubber soles took the brunt. Barefoot I would have broken many bones. The torsion from the impact bashed my rib cage against the carriage wall. The bruises became abstract art that changed color and shape over time.

The station had a sign warped with age and flecked with chipped white paint. The top row of the sign was written in Sinhalese, the second in Tamil, and the third was Romanized.

It read “Ella–52km.”

******

Thus concludes Part I. In the final installment, we will continue our journey to Ella. Then we will go on safari before finishing the trip at a 16th-century fort.

Stay tuned and I hope you enjoyed.