[Photoset here.]

Our adventure started as all adventures do in Sri Lanka, with a long drive on progressively smaller roads.  Until the roads give out completely. Sights spin by at a breakneck speed - elephants on a flatbed, chaotic towns and open-air markets, lazy cattle wandering free – too fast to comprehend let alone photograph well.  At a couple of points the ride was so steep and bumpy that the rear hatch of the van failed and a couple of packs tumbled into the road to the alarm quickly turning to amusement of all.

The end of the road in this case was the tiny village of Palabathgala, near Ratnapura, and the eleven of us, plus guide, were deposited at the bottom of a staircase into the rain forest, leading up up and up into a misty escarpment. Already the grey skies were dripping on us.

This is the long way up to Adams Peak and the temple of Sri Pada, a pilgrimage popular I suspect not only because it is said to have Buddha’s footprint, but because it’s just so dang hard to get to. Our path starts with unremitting steps up into the forest. Every hundred the count is etched into the concrete - 1000, 2300, 3900. The humidity is intense and I adopt an old man pace to keep from overheating. Step, breath, step, breath. It works pretty well and although I’m towards the back of the pack my heart rate stays low and my legs still feel strong. However my strategy for keeping dry fails. Not only am I drenched in my own sweat, buy when a drizzle starts I throw my windbreaker over my head and drape it over my pack, leaving my arms cool. But any moisture on the pack quickly transfers to the inside of my windbreaker, and mixing with my copious body moisture my windbreaker is quickly thoroughly soaked inside and out.

After an hour or two, we arrive at a small army base just as a monsoon downpour starts, and take brief refuge as it turns our stairway into a temporary torrential waterfall and then disappears just as quickly as it came.

Finally somewhere near step number 5000, the cement ends and the original rock steps begin. Still unremitting, but somehow the uneven steps are easier to navigate. Maybe it’s because you have more choices than a fixed stairway provides.  Or maybe it just occupies your mind more.

After hours of this we reach a rocky river, spanned by a spiderweb of white threads. It is apparently a custom for new visitors, to weave a thread into the web. All of us newbies partake in this custom (photo courtesy of Udeshika). This is a good spot for lunch and we break out out lunch packets - rice, curry, cal, sambol, all wrapped in plastic and then newspaper - a traditional lunch favorite here.

Then hours more of stairs, as we climb right up into the clouds. The temperature drops to a pleasantly chilly range, but the humidity remains so high everything remains soaked. At last we reach a few nondescript buildings, vendor shacks deserted now on the off season, and dry out a little.

We engage the sole visible resident for some hot water and relish in a hot beverage as only the perpetually wet and cold can.

We’ve been climbing stairs straight for about 5 hours now, and I am rather surprised that this village represents not the end, but the official start of the Adams Peak Climb! Three more hours to go and it’s already after 4PM when we leave. I stride out, glad to have saved my strength for this part. But it’s not long before I’m taking a short rest after every 20th step, then every 5th, and then at times after each one. After approx 20,000 steps (a nearly 2000m climb), I’m in summiting mode - don’t think about the rest of the trail, think about the next step.

This section again has concrete steps, and even rails begin to appear, as the stair grade gradually increases from 40 degrees up to 70. The wind is whipping the clouds against the mountain, and although the wind is fairly dry, as we ascend the wind strengthens and blasts us with more and more rain. The vegetation has changed from jungle to cloud forest, eerie twisted shapes draped with moss in the blowing mist. Sometimes Adams Peak is above the cloud layer and while my hopes were never strong that we might emerge into sunshine, it became clear that the summit was being blasted by 40-50 mph winds. We climbed, clinging to the rail, as the stairs wound between granite outcroppings and sheer cliffs whose true extent remained hidden in the mist.

At last a structure emerged from the mist at the top of the near- vertical ascent and as the wind tried one last time to part us, or at least any gear not tied firmly down, from the mountain, we entered an alleyway between two buildings. A man emerged from a tiny cell and showed us to a small cold monastic cell where we could spend the night. A change of dry clothes raised everyone’s spirits and shortly we all moved up into the caretaker’s cell to squeeze onto his bunkbeds, drink another round of hot tea, and chatter away with him animatedly in Singhalese. I just sipped happily as the singsong swirled around the warm cell and mixed with my exhausted daze.

Now we’ve had our dinner packets - despite being tasty my post-extreme appetite is small and I can’t do much more than sample. With another round of animated chatter we laid mats in our cell and have lined up like sleepy sardines to await the morning.

[Morning]

Well, that night felt like Survivor – with each person having a share of the floor approximately two feet by five, cramping legs, whistling wind and rain, chilly enough to cause shivering, bumping into each other as you turn, occasional snores, and someone scraping through the door to use the bathroom every 45 minutes or so.  I listened to music on my iPhone almost all night, but dozed off a few times for a total of maybe two hours of sleep.  The whole experience felt like something from a 19th century Himalayan explorer’s tale.

The traditional climax of a Sri Pada trip – viewing the sunrise – fell victim to the continued mist and increasing rain.  But after some bread and jam for breakfast we visited the temple.  My preparation for the elements – a complete poncho over clothes and pack – disintegrated in seconds in the howling wind – but I dutifully rang the bell once representing my first visit, and fled.

Guess what came next?  Yes!  More stairs!  We took a different (shorter) route down, leading us down the other side of the mountain.  After coming off of the peak and emerging from the cloud, the steps moderated into a broad trail, and we followed a narrow valley filled with manicured hedgerows of tea.  Dozens of waterfalls sprang from the escarpment, and the rain started to ease at times to provide us broader views.  At last we returned to motorized civilization at the village of Nallathanniya, had another hot syrupy tea.

And as all Sri Lankan adventures ended, so did this.  Hours of the most jolting, harrowing driving on narrow, steep, windy roads, leading us inexorably back to Colombo, a shower, dinner, and late that night to the airport, and eventually home.

I’m just back from Sri Lanka, where I shared it’s first week as a unified country in decades.  I saw late night street parties, and Sri Lankan flags stuck on anything that stayed put, or that moves for that matter.  I heard the honks of roving truckloads of flag-waving, drum-beating, celebrators, watched but didn’t understand the President’s speech, and enjoyed the impromptu victory holiday.

The origins of the conflict always seemed pretty abstract to a newcomer, and it is somewhat baffling that progress has incurred such a heavy cost on the economy and liberty of the people.

As far as I can make out the origins of the conflict lie as they often do in colonialism, which employed a divide-and-conquer strategy between the Singhalese majority and the Tamil minority.  The Tamils are known as an industrious people and amassed a disproportionate amount of wealth and power under colonial rule.

After independence 50 years ago, the fledgling democracy was poor at protecting the minority Tamils from the vengeful rule of a suppressed majority – for instance Singhalese was declared the only official language which emotionally, educationally, and legally disenfranchised other language minorities.  One thing led to the next, and with poor decisions and corrupt manipulation on both sides, plus some probable interference from Tamils in South India, a brutal civil war broke out.

Several tired decades later, it is very hard to see objectively why the fighting had continued.  I suppose that a conflict this long generates its own momentum, deepens grudges, and incubates a set of entrenched interests.  In the few years I’ve been visiting I’ve often thought that there hasn’t been objective reasons left to warrant the continuing damage the conflict inflicts.  Like the conflict wouldn’t be very severe if it were starting fresh today.  Furthermore and most depressing, the fighting had concentrated power (namely LTTE leader Prabhakaran) in such a way that no compromise was possible.

Under those circumstances, I sympathize with the Sri Lankan preference for a decisive victory (despite the horrors that accompany it) rather than endure decades more of guerilla war, assassinations, and suicide bombers.  The victory earlier this month capturing the final LTTE territory, and the killing of Prabhakaran and other leadership figures, allows the country to move into a new phase.

I consider the military victory only one step in resolving the larger political conflict, but all the Sri Lankans I spoke with placed much more importance on it than that – for example:

• The feeling that Jaffna and the beautiful east coast will shortly be accessible to travel.  Many are looking forward to their first visit in years (and for the younger set, the first visit ever.)
• The feeling that many Tamils were forced into supporting the LTTE (financially, as human shields, and even as child soldiers), and now that the LTTE is gone these Tamils cannot be pressured in the same way.  There seems little desire to continue to label them “terrorists” and the term “ex-terrorist” and “ex-combatant” seems to signal a desire for reconciliation rather than ongoing revenge.
• The agricultural riches of the north will again soon allow Sri Lanka to feed itself and result in lower food prices.  The internal trade will also help bind the populace together.
• Confidence in the hard work ethic and capabilities of the Tamils to rebuild quickly and effectively join the political discourse.
• There’s hope that nobody would want to be the last suicide bomber to die for a losing or unjust cause.
• The end of the war will immediately start bringing in more tourist dollars, badly needed now as hotels, resorts, and restaurants already were suffering under the war before the economic collapse.

By the end of my visit I felt more confident that Sri Lanka can take this hard-won victory and build upon it a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous society.  The Sri Lankan people, of any background, certainly deserve that.  And they deserve our support in that process.  Godspeed!

If you happen to find yourself travelling half way around the world, and have a few extra hours to burn in the middle, what could be nicer than Hong Kong?  The landscape is conveniently compressed into a vertical form that makes it photogenic and easy to get around.

I landed at around 7AM from SFO and the express train deposited me in central Hong Kong shortly after 8. While my mission was to find something local to eat, I decided first to visit the small market area and see if it was buzzing early.  It was, with seafood, butcher, grocers, eateries, and more packed into alleyways covering a few blocks of the neighborhood.  I wandered around admiring some of the exotic offerings, but the stifling heat and humidity combined with the steep streets to put me into an overheated state pretty quickly.  I made my way back down towards downtown and lost my bearings for a remarkably long time in a maze of air-conditioned upscale shopping malls.  By the time I found myself I was cooled off and decided a ferry ride was more sensible in the heat.

I travelled the short hop across the harbor to Kowloon and investigated another air-conditioned attraction – the Hong Kong Museum of Art.  Three progressively more exciting exhibits – pottery antiquities, showing the gradual refinement from Neolithic pots to Ming dynasty vases.  Amazing to see a pitcher thousands of years old with a form that modern Italian designers would envy, and how the conventions, techniques, and designs subsequently developed in many cases only detract.

Next was an exhibit of painted scrolls, which although ancient capture an expressionism and spontaneity that the European tradition took centuries to reach.  And the juxtaposition of text and image seemed quite trendy!

The final exhibition was contemporary paintings – all of similar aesthetic to the ancient scrolls, but with modern subjects, colors, and compositions.  Although some came across as fairly flat and cartoony, there were quite a number of amazing pieces from both the point of graphical composition and expressionistic brush artistry.  Well worth the visit!

I hopped a ferry back across to downtown and made my way up the series of outdoor escalators that helps bride the downtown to the trendy SoHo neighborhood.  Searching among the dozens of trendy looking eateries featuring cuisines from all over the world, I finally found a simple Chinese eatery, packed with locals, and with very little Arabic lettering in evidence.

I was placed across a tiny table from a man just finishing his meal, and ordered a few items from the minimal English menu they provided – steamed pork buns, squid and garlic, steamed spareribs with black bean sauce.  Solid but simple choices.

Then back to the train, quickly to the airport by about 3PM to await my final flight leg to Sri Lanka.  A report of my adventures there coming soon!

Full Flickr set here.

Wrapped up alone in the sounds of the first warm summer nights.

 

 Solamente [4:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

At last, my album Off the Path has appeared for download sales on iTunes and Amazon stores!

If you purchase, or already have my album or podcast and like it, I strongly encourage you to leave a review or rating on one or both of these sites, which will help raise my profile and help me gain a larger audience.  And tell your friends too!

Still working on providing direct sales of CDs from this site – stay tuned.

I’ve volunteered to play some live music for the popular Loomis Art Loop, Sunday afternoon 10th May starting after noon sometime and continuing for a couple of hours.  A perfect time to bring a picnic, enjoy the music, acres of blooming iris gardens, and see some of the new work created by local artists (including new tapestries by Deanna Marsh and jewelry by Doug Horton).