Safari in Sri Lanka
Sunrise saw landfall at Hambantota on South East Sri Lanka. The view from the window was curious, as we seemed to be arriving at a brand new port but devoid of ships and any sign of a city – or even a village! The harbour-side was also pretty empty, with no shipping containers to be seen; the only potential cargo was a quayside full of cars, vans and buses, which was odd as we didn’t think Sri Lanka made vehicles.
We left the ship with a sense of nervous anticipation; anticipation at seeing some wildlife and nervousness that we would be away from the ship for about six hours, and well, you never know where the next (usable) loo will be found! The motorway out of the port was pristine and also devoid of any traffic, bar the very occasional (and well driven!) TukTuk or car.
Our excellent guide gave us a brief history of Sri Lanka. All was fine until about 1600, when the Indians (the ‘noisy neighbours’!) starting raiding the coastal areas. The king of the most powerful region of Sri Lanka (Kandy) had a cunning plan and offered the Portuguese sole trading rights if they would kick out the Indians. This worked well for a while but then the Portuguese started to get ideas about running the place, The King of Kandy then had another great idea and offered the Dutch sole trading rights if they would kick out the Portuguese. After a promising start, the Dutch started interfering even more than the Portuguese had. The then current King of Kandy, drawing on the policies of his ancestors now went bigger and offered the British some land if they would just kick out the Dutch. This they rapidly did, but then also kicked out the King of Kandy as well!
This lasted for over two hundred years until the Brits jacked it in after the war. The Sri Lankan’s muddled on for a while but 30 years of civil war nearly bankrupted them.
“So’, said our guide, “The president had a great idea and invited the Chinese to invest in us. They have built these roads and three new ports and a convention centre, all for free …”
“And how’s that working out?”asked one of our party.
“Er well, possibly some mistakes were made. The Chinese now control the port of Columbo and also charge the tolls on the motorways” Apparently, all of the vehicles on the docks were also Chinese, just being held there for long enough to be shipped to India as tariff-free imports from Sri Lanka!
Two immediate lessons to be learned – there’s a difference between learning history and learning from history, and there’s no such thing as a free port!
We rolled on towards Yala National Park through countryside which although by no means wealthy, was a world away from the squalor of India. The traffic was well behaved although there still were roaming goats and cattle, but now also water buffaloes and apparently elephants. There are up to 8,000 wild elephants in SL and they can be a bit of a traffic hazard. Although there was plenty of ‘evidence’ of their passing through, we never actually saw one outside the park. It was also our first sight of paddy fields, admits a flat, lush tropical landscape.
Yala is on the coast and we stopped at a brand new (and empty!) resort hotel right on the most gorgeous beach. If we come back to SL, it will be to here! After a quick lunch, we embarked on a convoy of jeeps for the trip into the park. The one downside of the trip immediately became clear;
All the drivers had gone to the Delhi school of motoring and were determined to barge each other off the dirt roads in a bid to get to the best photo-op first. Hence rather more time than strictly necessary was spent being covered in dust and choking on exhaust fumes, rather than enjoying the tranquility of the beautiful natural park.
But, overall it was great. We did find some peace and quiet and were ‘surprised’ by a family of elephants that came out of the bush right in front of us. There were loads of water buffalo and deer, and we saw monitor lizards, mongooses and even a golden jackal. We had seem some crocodiles in the distance but then one was spotted quite close to the road, with its mouth wide open but very immobile. Being ever so slightly cyclical by nature, and curious as to how these animal sightings were now coming up at regular intervals, I muttered a suspicion to S that some of these might possibly have been placed there for our benefit! The guide overheard;
“Please sir, you are most welcome to check this out for yourself if you wish. Please just to give personal details before you leave the vehicle…”
S gave me a ‘look’ and I decided that a period of silence might be in order.
Towards the end, S became very animated, yelled at the driver to stop the vehicle and then hung off the side with her camera waving wildly. I assumed that she must have spotted one of the jewels of the park at last – a leopard??
But no – S had seen a dung beetle, rolling a ball of dung! This was clearly the highlight of her day. The driver, bemused by what he assumed was typical British eccentricity, tried to avoid reversing over the aforesaid beetle while manoeuvring for a better photo.
“Watch out’, shrieked S, “You’ll squash it!”
And with that, the safari was over. It was ironic that whilst sitting on the coach waiting to return to the ship, we failed to see the troupe of monkeys sitting beside us until we pulled away – and we never did see a Leopard, although another group from the ship saw two.
Later that evening, after diner and then watching the ship leave the deserted port of Hambantota, we ventured into the music lounge. I’d just settled and ordered a non-alcoholic pina collada when I noticed the appalling phrase ‘Karaoke Nite’ on a nearby screen.
“Oh look” said S, “This should be fun! We don’t have to join in, well, at least, not until I’ve had a couple of gins…. hey, where are you going??”