Colombo, Sri Lanka To Mahe, Seychelles

March 30 – Here we are in Colombo Sri Lanka. When I was young it was Ceylon, famous for its fine teas. Today we are on a long tour, scheduled for 12 hours but since part of it is by train I figure we may be delayed.

Diana seems to be fairly rested and wants to go on the tour so off we go. Her left hand is still swollen but seems to be improving.

The weather here is not as hot as it was in India and Thailand but it is every bit as humid. We’re only about 3 degrees north of the equator so it feels very hot even though it’s only in the high 80s. The sun will rip your skin right off if you are in it too much.

The country has no real highways. Two-lane blacktop with wide shoulders seems to be the best street they have. No one really pays any attention whatsoever to the traffic lanes. People walk and ride bikes in them; scooters, tuk-tuks, cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles all share the same lane. If someone is driving to slow or double parked in your lane you just take up the land that is supposed to be used by people going the other way. Next to the steering wheel, the horn is the most used equipment on the vehicle. Our bus driver passed slow vehicles in places where even an aggressive driver like myself would stay back. There we’d be, in the wrong lane, heading toward an oncoming dump truck and what does our driver do, well he blows the horn of course! We had several misses of less than a foot on the way out of town. Based on the reaction of the driver, guide and bus boy (he passes out water and generally helps the guide) this is no big deal to them. The reaction of some of the tourists was great. All sorts of gasps, yelps and other assorted sounds of panic came from various places on the bus.

We are headed to Pinewella to visit the Elephant Orphanage. It was founded when poaching was a big problem and many baby elephants were in need of care. Poaching is pretty much under control and the orphanage is now really an elephant conservation and breeding facility. Twice a day they herd the elephants through the city to the river for a bath and that’s what we’re heading to see.

As we arrived the elephant parade had just started. It was more of a semi-dash down the street leading to the river. There were two bull elephants, both with handlers and tethered with a chain. The females and babies were allowed to jog to the river pretty much on their own. The males were led in opposite directions when they reached the water to keep them as far apart as possible. The handlers got them to lie down in the water to be scrubbed (left). The rest of the elephants were allowed to spray themselves with water or wallow around, whatever they wanted to do (above right). There were about 45 elephants, more than I’ve ever seen in one place. It was fun to watch the babies follow their moms around and see the care the mothers gave them. I could have stayed there for the whole day but we had to move on to see other things.

Our next stop was at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. It was founded in the 1400 for the Sinhalese queens and has over 4,000 species of plants. It was very pretty. Not much was blooming but several trees were in flower and they had some border plantings that were also in color. There were three trees that were worth noting. One was a huge fichus benjamina. It must have been 80 yards across and it was shaped a little like a turtle. Another was an ebony wood tree, which is almost extinct in the wild. But the piece de resistance is a rare ‘coco de mer’ (Sea Palm). It is only found in the Seychelles Islands, our next port. But the botanical garden here received one in 1850. Its seed is the largest and heaviest in the vegetable kingdom. It is protected by law in the Seychelles.

The seed weighs about 22-44 pounds and resembles a 2-lobed coconut joined like Siamese twins. The seed take 5-6 years to mature and about a year to germinate. Its seeds were discovered floating in the Indian Ocean in 1500AD but the tree was unknown until 1743. It’s the type of plant that has male and female plants. The male plant looks very different and is much smaller than the female. The female tree we saw had about 12-14 nuts on it each painted with a number. The guide told us that each seed is spoken for by a park or garden that wants a tree, hence the numbers. There were a fair number of seed buds on the tree that will mature over the next 6 years.

As we strolled along we saw young couples scattered around the park sitting in the shade of some of the larger trees. It was a very pretty place, and a perfect setting for a romantic chat.

As we drove on we left the valley and started climbing into the mountains. The scenery was beautiful. Rice terraces rose like twisted stairways up the sides of the valleys. Everything was very green and lush. The rainforest was thick and a wide variety of shades of green providing a very pretty drive of about 3 hours.

We stopped for lunch at a very nice hotel in the city of Kandy. The food was very much like Indian food. Very tangy and some of it was quite hot. It was delicious.

The next stop was our main objective, The Temple of the Tooth. It seems that when the Buddha was cremated one tooth was spirited away by a fervent follower and was later enshrined inside 7 highly decorated boxes here in Kandy. The provenance of the tooth is very credible and no one seriously questions its authenticity. The boxes are only opened one day a year for a special celebration so we didn’t get to see it. In fact, we didn’t even get to see the outside box. A very ornate curtain closed off the shrine where it is kept (right). There was a large table covered with flowers offered by supplicants who pause to pray in front of the shrine of the tooth.

The temple was a work of art in itself. To enter we had to go through two security checks and take off our shoes. The dress code required men to have long pants and women had to wear pants or a dress below the knees with their shoulders covered as well. In the heat and humidity it was quite a sacrifice for me to wear long pants but no one said the life of a tourist was easy.

They had one room set aside for various statues of the Buddha (left). There was an area at one end of the room where Buddhas of all types were displayed. Around the perimeter of the room were golden Buddhas in various forms of dress and tradition.

We were running a little late so we had to scurry back to the bus and fly across town to catch our ride down the hill to Colombo. We’re taking the Viceroy steam train. We’re going to be riding in restored Victorian coaches and get some snacks and Ceylon tea.

The train ride was great, very relaxing and scenic! A great contrast to the wild bus ride up the hill. The steam whistle was a welcome change from the bus’s horn. On the way back down we passed through a violent thunder and lightning storm. The flashing and banging was almost constant for about half an hour. They served us egg salad sandwiches, cookies and very good tea as we rode along.

We had a little excitement on the way down the hill. Diana tried to sit on a couch in the coach to wait for the ladies room and missed the couch and sat on the floor. It wouldn’t have been bad but there was a metal ashtray attached to the wall behind her. She struck it a glancing blow on the back of her head and got a ½ inch cut in her scalp. As anyone who had ever cut themselves shaving knows, capillary bleeding can be hard to stop. It wasn’t bleeding fast, just steadily. We got some ice and towels and applied pressure and it slowed pretty quickly. The tour escort from the ship carries a backpack with some medical supplies in it and we applied a pressure bandage to the wound. All Diana needed was a fife and we could have reenacted the famous painting ‘Spirit of ‘76’ where two drummers and a man with a fife are marching in uniform. She checked out fine other than the cut.

The storm continued for about 3 more hours and was still going strong when we arrived back at the ship. They didn’t make us walk up the exposed passenger gangway but instead let us board the ship over the much shorter but less elegant crew gangway. They had crewmembers standing along the entire way from the bus holding large overlapping golf umbrellas to try to keep us as dry as possible. It was quite a comic sight but very welcome. We arrived home about an hour late and had to go directly up to the lido buffet for dinner, as it was almost 9PM. We had been on busses 3 and 4. Busses 1 and 2, which left before us, had done the trip in reverse, taking the train up the hill. Apparently the bus had been delayed and they didn’t get to lunch until almost 3PM and had to skip the botanical gardens to make their other stops. They didn’t arrive back at the ship until 10:15PM, 2 hours and 45 minutes late. Yikes!!

Diana seemed to be very tired and went directly to bed. I stayed up for a while and listened to the classical string trio in the Explorer’s Lounge until about 11:30 and then turned in for the night.

We have three days to recover before we reach the Seychelles. I’m very glad, as Diana needs the rest.

March 31 – A very restful day. Diana slept quite a bit and her hand seems to be improving quite a bit. The swelling in her hand is down a lot and the cut in her scalp has a good scab on it and appears to be very clean. I’m going to keep some triple antibiotic cream on it for a few days as a safety precaution.

April 1 – Oh, oh, April first. This is going to be a dangerous day. Diana’s hand looks normal this morning and her scalp wound is healing nicely. I managed to get three of the lido staff and one member of the cruise staff with the old “You’ve got something on your shirt” finger trick before everyone caught on and the gag was ineffective. Our daily program for today was full of pranks. The navigation notes said we would be arriving in the Antarctic at 10AM to attend a brunch hosted by King Neptune and other various bits of nonsense.

It’s formal tonight and Diana is going to wear a sari she bought at the hotel in Kandy. I’m going to wear my lava-lava with my white formal jacket, black cummerbund, black formal shoes and black tie (above left). Diana’s sari is medium fuchsia and sea green with gold embroidery. It is very pretty indeed. I’m only hoping she knows how to tie it.

Well, between the two of us we got the sari tied nearly correctly on the second try. Next time we’ll do better, we now know the key points. We had to start over one time as we had committed a tactical error early on that could not be corrected. We looked pretty good, if I must say so myself.

It was 'Farewell to the Raj' theme night and many of the passengers dressed in native attire for the occasion. In the picture above left Diana and I are shown with ( l to r) Lorna (Bobby's mother), Jen, Johnny (Both Cruise Staff) and Bobby (a professional ballet dancer. Bobby had her sewing machine on board and made both her and her mom's saris. Yikes. In the picture above right Diana and I are with (l to r) Liz, Johnny and Steve, all of the Cruse Staff.

Our travel agent, CSI, hosted a party for us before dinner this evening and so many of us were in native garb that Ellen had a picture taken of all of us (left). Our CSI escorts are Ellen, at the extreme right, and Tom, in the center front. Diana is directly behind him and I'm at the extreme left.

We gain another hour of sleep tonight. I could really get used to these 25-hour days.

April 2 – Today is another restful day at sea getting ready for the next port. Diana is totally recovered and her usually busy self. She takes beginning bridge lessons and attends Bible study in the morning and water painting class in the afternoon. A retired Reformed Church in America pastor leads the Bible study. I like him. He and his wife are very nice people. He and I were talking last night at a birthday party for one of our trip escorts from CSI and I discovered that he shares my view that the crucifixion had to have occurred on Wednesday of Easter week, not on Good Friday. It’s nice to find someone who has the classical religious education but is still willing to abandon tradition when it makes no sense and serves no useful purpose, a refreshing attitude of rationality.

Tomorrow we have both morning and afternoon tours scheduled so we’d better get to bed.

April 3 – Today we are on the island of Mahe in the Seychelles docked in the capital city of Victoria. Mahe has the largest population of the hundred or so islands that make up the Seychelles archipelago. There are granite islands, like Mahe, and others are coral atolls. Only 4 of the islands are inhabited, the smallest of these in population only has 25 people on it. Mahe is pretty much an up and down place. Only at the extreme perimeter do you find any flat land at all, everywhere else you are either going uphill or downhill and often very steep hills at that.

This is truly a beautiful place. April is their warmest month and the temp was only in the middle 80s. Of course, the humidity was pegged at 90+ all day. In the early morning and afternoon there was a nice breeze that made being in the shade quite comfortable, but around 4PM the breeze died off and it was pretty uncomfortable for most of us, even those people from Florida.

Our morning tour took us around the north half of the island. First we drove through the small capital city of Victoria. I say small because it’s home to only 25,000 people. Even at that it’s the largest city in the country. As our guide said, “It’s really the only proper city, every other town is more aptly described as a village.” Our guide’s accent was typical of most islanders, a French influenced Creole. Creole is the national language but everyone learns French and English in school. The Arabs and Portuguese found these islands at about the same time in the 1500s. They were uninhabited and were the perfect place for pirates to establish a base of operations and hide their treasure. There are several lost treasures that most historians believe to be in these islands, one such treasure is a fabulous, jewel encrusted, gold cross that is very well documented. Its current worth is estimated to be about 200,000,000 British Pounds. A lot of money for sure! Maybe we should get together an expedition to search for it.

Our first stop was at the botanical gardens in Victoria. The main exhibits here are several of the coco de mer trees that we saw an example of in Sri Lanka and a herd (Is that the correct collective? I doubt it!) of giant land tortoises. I’m not sure exactly how many there were but you could walk right in among them (left). We were given greens to feed them and we discovered that they love to have their necks rubbed. Their heads push against your hand just like a cat will when you scratch its neck. One small one was following me around like a puppy. Very cute. They had one tree that was home to a colony of fruit bats. They’re pretty big bats and they look strange all wrapped up in their wings hanging upside down from the tree’s limbs. They are about 18-22 inches tall. Some of them were working their wings and it looked like the wingspan might have been 3-4 feet. Hard to tell as they were quite high up in the tree.

Authors Note: I subsequently learned that the correct collective for turtles or tortoises is 'bale' or 'turn'.

After leaving the gardens we drove around the northern half of the island. The beaches are fantastic (right). They are mixed in with granite cliffs and hills, thick green forest and dotted with islands offshore. The drive took about 2 1/2 hours and was filled with wonderful sights. On the way back to Victoria we cut across the spine of the mountain that gave us vistas of the rainforest and the shoreline. It was very impressive. There are lots of dive shops on the island so I’m assuming the diving is good. The water was certainly clear enough. There were lots of people on the beaches. There was one mother with two small girls, probably about 5 & 7. The girls had just gotten out of the water and were shivering (below). I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Before I could get the camera turned on both of the girls were wrapped in blankets and still looked chilly. All us Norte Americanos were quite warm and here these girls were freezing. Yikes!!

We got back to the ship and grabbed a quick lunch to head down for out afternoon tour. This time we are going around the southern end of the island with a stop at a colonial period plantation that has been turned into a center for the handicrafts of the island, a restaurant and a museum of colonial artifacts. The museum is in the plantation owner’s home. It is decorated with period furniture and artwork. The grounds were very nice. The craft stores were in small buildings that were probably housing for the slaves. There were people who worked mainly in tree bark, seashells, weaving, paintings and jewelry making. Since it’s Sunday only about half of the stores were open.

The drive around the south side of the island was every bit as impressive as the drive around the north, although as the breeze died off it became a lot less comfortable being out of the bus.

We have two days at sea to rest up and get ready for Mauritius.

April 4 – Great day at sea, very restful. The tai chi instructor was the guest at the coffee chat time today. He’s a very interesting guy and his wife is very sweet. He’s been involved in tai chi for 40 years and built up and eventually sold the largest tai chi school outside of China. Now he teaches tai chi on HAL ships and lives on a farm on the east coast of Australia. The entertainment this evening was the New York Vagabonds, a male quartet. They sang some old standards from the 40s, some do-wop from the 50s, some Drifters from the 60s, they were very good. Ah, another sea day tomorrow.

April 5 – Another low-key day at sea. My Tai Chi is proceeding nicely.

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(c)Rod Longenberger