Rained out (Gal Oya Part 4)

Continued from (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

Did I mention it was raining? Well it was and showed no signs of letting up. As we huddled under the tarp, making some feeble attempts at sopping up the tents, one of the more astute members of the group noted the river. Where there had previously been a somewhat small rapid shooting frothy white through the rocks, there was now what looked like the Limpopo in full blast. Brown water with vestiges of white foam shot through the rocks with frightening energy as the water swirled up the tree trunks that had previously stood high and dry. The sand bank on the opposite bank, which, with its rock face backing had seemed such an ideal camp site was now washed away.

Given the impending prospect of being washed into the Senanayake Samudra, kitchen table and all, we discussed our options, namely:

a)    get the hell out of there and go crash at the park office

b)    batten down and stay, hope the rain stops and the river doesn’t rise any further.

One would think that given the situation option a) would have been the natural choice. But, being the adventurers that we are, it was quite a lengthy debate we had on what to do. Eventually sense prevailed (not due to any contribution from me, I was quite down for hanging around to see what happened) and we decided to break camp and move out. While setting camp had been relatively simple, breaking camp was anything but.

By this time we were all miserable and soaked to the bone and tired from the hike. Untying ropes, folding tents with sand sticking everywhere and carrying heavy boxes up to the cabs almost incapacitated us...but we plugged on. Once again the tracker showed his true worth by not helping in the least bit. We decided not to tip him after our trip and to instead charge him for our meals due to his helpful demeanor. Gehan made him carry our ablution water bottles though, as an elegant final touch.

Packing the cabs was just the beginning as heading back out to the office we discovered that the piddling little streams we had splashed across in our mighty four wheel drives had now turned into reasonably significant bodies of water. The water was a murky brown amongst the jungle trees and there was no telling what the depth of the water and mud was. Thus we were treated to the sight of grown men holding each others hands and fording the river to check the depth. Unfortunately I had packed away my camera at the bottom of my gear bag to keep it dry so couldn’t record these images for posterity.

For the most part, the streams were pretty shallow and devoid of mud so didn’t provide much impediment to the cabs on four wheel. There was one moment where we all had our hearts in our mouth, where turning a corner it appeared the entire road had become a river, with a couple of trees fallen across it. Thankfully this turned out to be an optical illusion as the road actually swiveled off at right angles to our initial turn and was in quite good condition. We chugged across the last stream and breathed a sigh of relief that we hadn’t been marooned.

Fording through the jungle (note these images were taken the next morning as we were leaving the park)

On our way to the office we took a break to check out a collection of smooth, round, black rocks that were all that was left of an ancient road that apparently had stretched from Ruhuna to Pollonaruwa back in the times of the kings. The road would have been quite wide, enough for two modern vehicles to pass and it was amazing that it still remained in some shape or form (unfortunately no pictures again). We pondered for a bit if even back in those days anybody took a 10% commission for building such roads and then, mildly depressed by the reminder of the situation in the country, we headed back to the relative safety of the Department office to, after an eternity of being damp, enjoy the unbelievable luxury of some dry clothes.

It seemed like our Gal Oya camping adventure had ended but we made the best of it by enjoying the idyllic location of the department office. One of the best parts of a trip out of Colombo is of course the company, so we cracked a couple of bottles of wine and sat around telling tall tales of jungle trips of the past as well as some more earthy and inappropriate stories. Further entertained by a scorpion dropping by to say hello, we drank until we were dry and retired to the rather precarious tree house for the night, noting that we should probably check the weather report before coming to Gal Oya next.


The precarious tree house; Unwelcome visitor

Setting up camp (Gal Oya Part 2)

Continued from (Part 1)

After a handful of hours of sleep and the long, arduous drive, we celebrated by carrying a mountain of camping gear down a small path to our campsite on the banks of the Gal Oya. In the spirit of trying out this Web 2.0 business, I did a small videolog of our approach to the campsite. Note that most of the time I'm talking utter nonsense due to equal measures of exhaustion, concentrating on not trying to fall down the path and my general ability to talk nonsense. David Attenborough I most certainly am not. Also please note there might be a small amount of swearing in the clip so close your ears if you're sensitive to that kind of thing.




Videos aside, we carried everything but the kitchen table (oh wait...we did carry the kitchen table down) to the site and set up. Thankfully the tents (rather brilliant knock offs of $500 REI tents) were easy to install and put up and in the space of an hour we were sorted. All there was to do was jump in the river, which we thought was quite high (little did we know how mistaken we were on this as we saw on the second day) and cool off. Before that however we took some time off to be bitten vigorously by the Kadiya's that were everywhere in Gal Oya...and I mean everywhere! Our tracker also rather oddly proved to be the laziest individual I have ever come across, not lifting a finger to help us or direct us as to the best site to camp, etc. Rarely have I seen customer service done so badly and it was a shame because he seemed quite intelligent and enthusiastic about the wilds.


Unloading the gear; Setting up camp

A cold beer, gold leaf and a dip in the Gal Oya followed by a rice and curry followed. Pure bliss as the sun set on our little camp in the jungle.

Continued to (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

The Road to Gal Oya (Gal Oya Part 1)

“Let me call you back and let you know if I’m in”

10 seconds later…

“I’m in.”

It really didn’t take much arm twisting for me to say yes to a three day camping trip to Gal Oya when S called to let me know a space had opened up on their trip. Gal Oya looms large in my family lore, my grandfather having been one of the lead engineers when the Senanayake Samudra was being built. All my life I’ve heard fascinating tales of elephants interrupting picnics, inspection tours and arguments with foreign engineers. Add this lore to the obsessive fascination I already have for the dry zone and Gal Oya was indeed my Lankan Shangri La.

So it was that I found myself at C’s place at the ungodly hour of midnight helping pack the vehicle for the trip. A trusty old Toyota doublecab was our chariot to the jungles but before we could leave we had to set up the seats and canopy in the back. What looked quite simple was of course not quite so and a lot of grunting, lifting and cuts from the metal poles were required before the canopy was set. Then came lugging all the gear into the back, ranging from chairs, to a tent, to gas cylinders to…rather interestingly…the kitchen table. I was reassured that all this material was essential for a successful camping trip, which I guess it was.

The last ingredient was the man-servant, whom we tried to fit into the back but he just wouldn’t fit into the last gap between the kitchen table and the stack of chairs. I jest...of course the man-servant, our man Friday, Shantha (may he rest in peace), rode with us in the back, in fact we picked him at a random junction on the way to Ratnapura, where we also picked up D. As a result our ride in the back was quite…squishy…for want of a better word to describe it.

So the overloaded doublecab pottered on, and on, and on. The road to Gal Oya, at least the one we took through the Victoria-Randenigala-Rantembe Sanctuary was very long but extravagant with the scenery. The cloudy hills cloaked in intermediate zone forest rose up on either side of the road as it snaked by the blue-grey reservoirs. This had been one of my favourite parts of the country as a kid and going down these same roads over a decade later was quite a nostalgic and fraught experience. Where before the roads had been quiet and elephants made an occasional appearance, now all we had were trucks plying the deteriorated road and since elephants have been killed on the road, they probably give it a wide berth.



Trucks passing by; Randenigala hills

The hillsides once covered in forest had also been denuded in certain areas with cultivation spreading up them, scarring the green of the trees with great brown gashes. The beauty of Randenigala was still apparent, but she was a ravaged beauty, with wounds that would pour silt into the reservoirs, clogging them up and reducing our electricity generation capabilities. 


Mango seller; Mango eating

Stopping for some mango, we came down out of the hills where the landscape stretched into the causeway by the road, shimmering water and green vegetation. Sri Lanka despite all its problems provides some amazing landscapes and we were treated to more as we took a short cut to Bibile. Green verdant forests rose up on either side of the road except where they had been taken down in little lots where either lush paddy fields lounged or rows of emaciated looking corn marched.


Causeway road; Rainclouds gather


Paddy fields in the jungle; The sun breaks through; Modified bus in Bibile

Tired and a little more than a little cramped, it was with some relief that we passed Bibile and turned off into the park. Despite our tiredness, the interest was palpable as we drove through a landscape that was very different from what we had ever seen before. Straight limbed, black barked trees rose up on either side of the road growing out of the knee high grass. It wasn’t quite the dry scrub of Yala or the green jungle of Wasgamuwa but something in between. A small herd of elephants broke in front of the vehicle and ran into cover, as we started exploring this new jungle wonderland.

 
Gal Oya jungles 

Continued to (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

Day Trip to Batticaloa

It was a random conversation over coffee at Commons for a requisite December meet up with the expatriates where the question of water in Batticaloa came up. My mention of our work in rainwater harvesting systems and P’s work in Batticaloa resulted in us taking a trip on the fly to Batticaloa to see what we could do to alleviate some water issues his projects were having in Batticaloa.

We left Colombo at a bleary eyed 3am to arrive in Maha Oya at a sprightly 9am, where transporthad been arranged for us to visit the project sites that P and his team were working on. Gunathilake and Jayasuriya were our ebullient and ever so nice escorts on the ride; the guns however did make me a bit nervous as we bounced over the A5.

Our transport

Driving from Maha Oya to the Batticaloa area was an eye opening experience. We drove through what had been the last checkpoint that separated government land from LTTE control in the bad old days and entered a landscape of lush green and destroyed buildings.

(L-R): last checkpoint; rickety bridge; destroyed structures on the A5

The greenery and paddy fields of course were enjoying the benefits of the north-east monsoon and it was hard to imagine this landscape burning under the harsh sun with water being a rare commodity. But that was the status quo for 8 months of the year and according to Gunathilake, the STF supplied a large number of the villages with water during the harsh months, sourced from holes dug in the surrounding rivers.

Driving through innumerable STF checkpoints, it was incongruous to see the giant John Deere threshers working the paddy fields. These were apparently brought in by mudalalis from outside who charged a rental of around Rs.3,000 a day to harvest the paddy. This was a first for me as I had never seen any of these machines in the south and I wondered what the story was behind them, genuine development or another political get rich scheme?

John Deere machinery at work in the fields

After a visiting a couple of the more accessible sites we swung off the A5 onto the road to Thoppigala, to visit a remote village of around 30 families who lived it seemed in the middle of nowhere. The poverty we saw was simply sobering, most of the families living in simple two room homes built to a rather unfetching design by a local NGO. Water was a constant issue for these people with no way of properly purifying their drinking water and walks of up to 2km during the drought to get any kind of water. Children weren’t going to school due to lack of birth certificates and our lives seemed alien in comparison.

L-R: Thoppigala monument to army; road to the village through paddy fields

After our somber trip and some pictures of the excited kids (who had spent their time jumping in and out of the jeep while we walked around the area) we headed back to the A5, covered in so much dust that it looked like we had dyed our hair.

L-R: Explaining the water issues; preschool teacher; kids and more kids

What was also interesting was in the middle of fields and scrub jungle, there appeared to be significant industrial processes at work, with quarries and rock crushing in much evidence. At the same time people were transporting mountains of firewood by bicycle. Incongruous to say the least.

L-R: Rock breaking operations; bicycle transport

Overall quite a life changing trip, especially listening to a STF ASP (quite high up on the food chain) who emphasized that the people on the A5 had suffered from depredations from both the LTTE and the Government and that their needs had to be met to ensure that terrorism didn’t rear its head in Sri Lanka again. Hearing that kind of astuteness and genuine compassion from such an unexpected source left us with a feeling of hope, that there will be some dawn for our beautiful island, despite all the obstacles and we will move forward towards that elusive peace somehow while good people like the ASP remain.

Sunset near Maiyahangana

Coming Home (Moneragala Chronicles)

As a word of explaination, I once spent two months living in a little village in Maragalakanda, close to Moneragala back in 2004. My purpose, living there without electricity or running water, was to study bird diversity in an agroforestry scheme for my MSc. This was when the photography bug first bit so there are some tales worth telling and some photos worth showing, though the latter were for the most part taken with a dinky Canon G3. The first of the Moneragala Chronicles is a slightly edited version of a post I wrote for a blog I used to maintain a long, long time ago.

Everybody has those rare moments in life where it all comes together, everything is, for a breathless moment, perfect. One of those moments occurred for me in the backwoods of Sri Lanka in Moneragala where I spent two months in a village doing research for my MSc. After a 5am start which due to unfamiliarity of locations turned into an 8am start, my assistant Nuwan and I took a bone-mashing eight hour bus ride in what was a blatantly falsely advertised air-conditioned intercity bus, a trishaw ride over roads that hadn't seen tar since World War II and finally another hours bus ride over more treacherous roads. The sun had just set as we strapped our equipment to our backs and walked 30 minutes through the undergrowth to the house we were staying in for the period of our research.

After a cup of sweet tea by the lantern light to refresh ourselves we then wandered down to the nearby stream to bathe. I hadn’t been to Sri Lanka for over two years and it felt amazing to re-immerse myself in an experience that was so peaceful and timeless after suffering so much to get there. There was still enough light in the sky from the faded sun to silhouette the tops of the mora trees and kitul palms. The water gurgled in a million tones, trickling through the pools and rushing through the bathing pipe, all the while fish were almost painfully nibbling at my feet. Innumerable birds from salelinnias to grey hornbills fluttered and called in the tree-tops searching for their night time roosts adding to the steady chorus of the cicadas.

The final touch to this magic, as we washed the city and town’s dust from our bodies were the fireflies which came out as the last bit of light faded. Sitting on a rock, taking in the little globules of green light drifting in and out of the trees while geckoes skittered through the rocks, I was glad to be home. I finally realized what it was about me that was stuck in our small island, my sense of place. I knew everything would be good.

That is a moment that keeps me going, not only the beauty, the sounds and smells but the feeling of home.

Welcome

Welcome to 2010 and in many ways a fresh start for myself. This blog is something I’ve been meaning to start for awhile, chronicling my travelling travails in Sri Lanka along with showcasing some attempts at photogrpahy along the way. Of course until recently this has been a bit tough since I lived on another continent. However having returned home for the next few years watch this space for tales of my wandering around the island and other trips I have taken/will take in other lands.


Madiha seashore at sunrise