Yesterday..

Wasn't half as dramatic as Fallen and Jarry made it out to be.

Me, Unsilent and Fallen agreed to meet at 4.45 a.m and then head over to Fort. Unsilent, having only slept an hour after a night of insane partying, arrived there exactly on time. I am shamed to say i was five minutes late. But fallen, having slept peacefully like a baby no doubt, ambled along about 20 minutes later, becoming the chief reason that Jerry spent a lonely few minutes in line for the tickets carrying our sandwiches.

Kandy

After a brief moment of panic at the railway station when papareboy started screaming 'wheres my ticket, wheres my ticket' before putting his hand into his pocket and finding it, the first thing we saw when entering Kandy was thousands upon thousands of people sitting on the pavements. eating bumbai mutai. which of course made fallen immediately purchase some for himself, and we all gorged on it while wearing sunglasses and talking in foreign accents.

Gehan came over smartly dressed and wearing shoes. We felt honored of course. and slightly ashamed that we'd come all this distance in just shorts and rubbers. I also took the opportunity to clarify a certain trait of Kandy society that Realskull and me had heard about, but i'll leave that lengthy and productive discussion to a post on my sociology blog.

We went to buy peanuts. 20 peanut shells cost twenty rupees in kandy. they like things all lined up. Apparently they do it to help them deal with numbers more efficiently in the cold weather. Which was probably what had effected me during that unfortunate brawl with the vadey seller that left him and me ultimately arguing about algorithms so complex that everyone else convinced me to give in and pay the extra 25 rupees he was demanding to spare them having to think so hard to keep up.

But that was later, and many things happened in the intervening time.

There is broad consensus on HisPs capacity to give (and take) directions. But here i must step in and intervene and explain how he probably saved us from a useless and near 90 degree trek up a mountain and took us up a even rockier stream which was slippery to boot. but the point is that we ended up at the 'bathing spot'. Though this particular bathing spot required so many feats of athleticism and sheer luck to reach that it can't be very popular. Which was probably characterized by the many undiscoved species of leech we saw. Especially the variety that caused Papare Boy's indegestion which is awaiting approval from the National Science Council to be called leechus papareguts.

'Scotland' will only be Scotland in a few hundred years. When global warming has progressed far enough to make it look like a lush green place in Sri Lanka. but it was lush and it was green. and the view of the Mahaweli river snaking along the distance was breathtaking. Full points to Monte Fano. You should go and see it. massive trees, beautiful forests, cool buildings, eagles and did i mention the view?

And no people.

There were no people!

You would be amazed at the percentage of time we spent yesterday during which we could have easily deluded ourselves into thinking we had stepped into a different universe frozen in time. 'Scotland' was empty. The monks having gone on leave, and our elderly guide was too weak to trek up the mountain with us.

The bathing spot was deserted, only sign of human life being some aricle of clothing or the other strewn haphazardly among the shrubs further upwards from the waterfall. This made the more imaginative of us (like Jerry) imagine things like rape and look lustily at certain others (like papareboy) and stalk them with cameras while they changed innocently behind bushes.

The best kimbula bunis ever tasted was real. It was crispy, the sugar just melted, it was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

This sunday we may mosey down to Mirissa, just to chill like, having had a stressfully adventurous day yesterday and all. Some tap rugger, fishing, snorkeling (HisP tells me about this great rock pool), and surfing if we can manage it.

all are welcome.

pics will be up and about soon i bet. And different aspects and events have been left out, otherwise this post would have been pages long.

Travel blog also opened. Must see how that will take off. HisP's idea.

Update: pics can be found here. The undoctored variety.