Bug Kingdom

I’m not sure if I have written about bugs here but given my recent experiences I thought it might be in order. First let me say, in the tropics there are a heck of a lot of bugs. I have been with ants since the day I moved in. Long ago I gave up trying to get them out of the house. It was in a losing battle. They reside on all three floors of the house and are the very small variety. I discovered one day if you drop a bit of food on the floor, the ants will cart it away for you and then they get out of the way. So I decided to leave the ants alone. Until yesterday. Yesterday I discover a troop of ants in an unopened cereal box. There was a fine dust inside the box so I am assuming that is some of the paper they have digested. The inner liner was still sealed so they had not made their way into the cereal. I removed the liner and cereal and put it in a zip lock bag. While in the cabinet I discovered that another troop had managed to climb inside a Tupperware container where I keep the cereal that has been opened. I have no idea how that happened.

Last night I had asked our new neighbor and friend Peter and his stepdaughter Mai to join me for dinner since our spouses were on the road with work. I grated some Parmesan cheese right before they came and set it on the counter in the serving kitchen. When they came they followed me into the kitchen as I cooked the pasta and reheated the marinara. We were in there maybe 15 minutes. When I came back into the serving kitchen, the cheese bowl was filled with what looked like ghost ants. Very small, light colored fast moving ant like critters. Bummer. Back into the kitchen to grate more cheese.

It is not uncommon to be sitting at breakfast and have a few ants scurry across the table while we are eating. This morning I found several of the ghost ants crawling on me. I am very careful about not leaving any food scraps around because of the problems with bugs here. Yet they have managed to find the sugar bowl that has a lid and sometimes when I lift the lid, a great deal of scurrying ensues.

What I dislike the most are the roaches. When I lived in Florida we called them palmetto bus. They are large here, about 2-3 inches. They fly, which can be terrifying. My fantasy nightmare is that I would wake up with one on my body. Yuck! Hasn’t happened yet. I hate killing them because it is so unpleasant.

We leave tomorrow for Navsari (Gujarat) India and will be gone eight days. Ron will be completing a professional exchange he arranged way before we knew we would be in Sri Lanka. Raju had stayed with us shortly before we left for Sri Lanka. He went to work everyday with Ron to learn about city management in America. Now it is Ron’s turn. We are very excited about the staying with Raju’s family. It is a privilege anytime you can stay with someone rather than a hotel. It is a real opportunity to see how people from another culture live. I’m also excited because Raju’s wife, Sangita, has promised to teach me how to prepare Indian cuisine, which happens to be one of our two favorites. Thai cuisine is our other favorite.

That’s it from the land of sunshine.

Photos from Chilaw/Mariwilla have been posted

Well we had a delightful time in Chilaw. There had been a cooling rain plus we had ocean breezes. The weather could not have been more pleasant. On Friday while Ron was in his meeting, I walked to my friend’s house (Sahayanie) but she was in Kandy. I took photos along the way. In the village, there are a number of water spigots where the women go to get water for household use. Imagine what you would do if this were the case…I am guessing we all would use a lot less water. I wanted to point out the photo of the pregnant woman who is holding the typical shaped water-carrying vessel. It fits perfectly on your hip so you can wrap your arm around the lip and your other hand is free. However note that the vessel is aluminum. I read an article recently that attributes the increase/preponderance of kidney problems in Sri Lanka to the use aluminum vessels for cooking, water, etc. I have seen the same shaped vessel made in plastic but am not convinced this is an improvement since we now know that some of the chemicals in plastic leach out into the materials in the containers. Oy.

I also saw a man making a fishing net and took his photo. He insisted on me giving him money and his son wanted me to buy a drawing he had done of Jesus with the crown of thorns and his bleeding head. I declined. There is another one of an elderly woman carrying vegetables on her head. It is quite common to see people ‘using their heads’ to carry things. Sometimes I cannot believe the weight they put on their heads. It makes my neck and shoulders hurt just looking at them. I also asked the owner of a small dry goods store if I could take a picture of her and her shop. The shop is in the background and this is a very typical shop here. (In the cities all shops are about 10 feet wide and maybe 15-20 feet deep. No such thing as Home Depot here. And Colombo has the only department store on the island.) The shop owner asked to have her girlfriends get in on the photos. They couldn’t stop laughing. Over and over I find Sri Lankans who are light hearted and have a ready smile. Pretty amazing when you consider the utter poverty they live with. Chandini, our language teacher, told us the per capita income is $800 a year and for India it is $400.

School kids wear uniforms. The girls wear white dresses with box-pleated shirts and down to the knees, white socks and white athletic shoes and sometimes they wear ties. No sandals. If they have long hair, which the majority of SL women do, they must wear it in two plaits. The boys wear either dark blue shorts to the knees or white slacks, white shirts, black socks and black shoes.

On Wednesday night before we went out of town, we had dinner at Chandini’s home with her husband Lakshman and their daughter. We sat outside when we first arrived at 8:00 and had drinks and around 9:00 we went in to eat. Sri Lankans eat much later than we do. We had a delicious SL meal prepared by her housekeeper. I was so impressed with their daughter whose name I don’t know. She is an English teacher and teaches adults. She was educated in Australia because during the civil war Chandini moved them there. Lakshman would spend two months here and then two months in Australia. After three years Chandini came back but the daughters completed their education in Australia. At any rate, the daughter spoke perfect English and was quite assertive. She fully participated in the conversation and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We will have them over once we finish our current round of travel.

I can’t remember if I have already written this but we leave Wednesday, May 24th for Gujarat India where we will stay with our friend Raju and his family. This will compete the professional exchange that Ragu and Ron had arranged a couple of years ago. Raju stayed with us about two weeks before we left to come here. He is the director of pubic works and the emergency services n his town, Navsari. We will return June 1st and then on the 10th we will return to India. This time we will be in SE India in Tamil Nadu at Chennai (Madras) and Pondicherry. Ron’s boss, Jon Bormet, from Washington DC will be there so although Ron won’t get paid for being there, it is a great excuse to see more of India. We return June 14th.

We are at the halfway point in our adventure here. I can’t believe it and given what we have coming up with travel over the next few months, I am sure the time will fly. So far things seems to have calmed down but the newspapers are giving quotes that make it sound like each side is threatening the other. Sri Lanka stands to lose so much if the war resumes. There are so many NGO’s here doing all sorts of programs in addition to all the tsunami work. Millions upon millions of dollars will leave if the war resumes and many people who now have jobs with these organizations will lose their jobs. The economy is limping along as it is so imagine what would happen if the money leaves. In addition to NGO’s there are many companies who have invested in SL since the cease-fire. They too will take a hike. Keep your fingers crossed that the government and the LTTE come to their senses and go back to the peace talks.

It’s late and I’m sleepy so that’s it for today from the land of constant sunshine.

At last all the photos from our trip to Sigiriya have been posted as of 5/18/06
At the end of our lane, there is a small construction project. The ditch has water running through it from at least three sources. Someone at the city has decided to upgrade the ditch so for the last while about five or six men have dug out the ditch, laid concrete half pipes on the floor of the ditch and now are building an elaborate wall in the ditch. Unfortunately, someone forgot to engage an engineer in this process so only two of the three sources of water have been dealt with in an effective fashion. We can hardly wait to see how the third source will be incorporated into the project. We keep wondering if it will just be ignored. I forgot to say, for this entire project the men are mixing concrete on the ground and using one gallon buckets to carry the concrete to the worksite. The ditch is about 50 feet long and maybe two feet deep.
Today I spied the postman for the first time. Mail is delivered on a bicycle. I was walking to the veggie market when I saw him. I walked up to him and soon discovered he spoke no English so I went back to the house and waited for him. He has been depositing our mail in the box for newspapers that is not all that secure and definitely not water tight. We have a slot in the garage door that has been provided for mail. So using sign language I showed him where I wanted him to deposit our mail from now on. Keep your fingers crossed. What knocked my socks off was he would ring the bell of any home that didn’t have a mailbox. If no one came to the door, he put the mail back in the bungee cord that held the mail to the bicycle and continued down the street. This is so inefficient but so very Sri Lankan.
When we arrived we decided that we did not need to open a checking account here. We could pay our bills back home on line and use our ATM cards for cash. We have very few bills here (water, electricity, drinking water delivery, telephone and cable TV) and I pay those in cash in person. After a month or two here, our credit card company started charging us 3% on any international charges and this was a steep sum, particularly when we were furnishing the house. One month our fees were almost $200. So we decided we would open an account here to get a domestic credit card. That took numerous trips to the bank, a long wait for our deposits to clear, etc. When our cards didn’t arrive, we visited the bank only to discover they had denied our request because we didn’t have a secured account here. Gee, how come they didn’t tell us that before we applied and how come nobody bothered to notify us when our application was rejected?
When we things like the above three incidents happen here we sometimes make some disparaging remarks about SL. Well just to keep us humble and to remind us that SL does not have a corner on the stupid market our bank in Vancouver has totally screwed up. Ron called our bank (WAMU) to ask them to send his new ATM/debit card early since mail is sometimes taking six weeks to get to us here. He was concerned that his current ATM would expire before the new one arrived and he would not be able to access his account. All this was carefully explained to the customer service rep on the phone. The card never arrived so Ron phoned again. I must say here how grateful we are for Skype, an Internet phone service that costs seven cents a minute. It turns out they had sent the card to our Vancouver address and ATM/debit cards are not forwarded. So it was sent back to the bank and cancelled. Ron again explained our situation and again requested a card be sent directly here, not to our Vancouver address. We were in Nuwara Eliya when his current card was rejected by the restaurant the night we were treating his staff to dinner. HA! Fortunately I had the cash on me to cover the charges. Next morning when he tried to pay the hotel bill, he had the same problem. When we got back to Colombo he called his bank. It turned out they had cancelled his card because they had sent the new card and had assumed he had possession of it so they cancelled the old card. Another phone call to the bank, again he explained his problem and was told the bank would send the card two day express mail No card showed up after 10 days (we were traveling part of that time). He called again and was told they did not have the two digit country code so ‘could not send his card in a two day express mail’. One wonders why someone with a brain didn’t look up the code the same way we did, on the Internet. So the bank called our Vancouver number to tell us they needed the code before they could send the card. Brilliant. To add to the stupidity after these calls, the bank managed to send my card to the Vancouver address also. But they can’t send a new one here until the one they sent to Vancouver shows up. Fortunately my card hasn’t expired or we would be up a creek without a paddle. This has gone on since May 3rd and still no card after 5 phone calls and a whole lot of frustration so last night we stayed up to midnight drafting a stinging letter to the CEO and COO. It turned out there was no way to effectively send the letter electronically since they have a 3000 character limitation and oddly enough ask for a detailed description of the problem. Ron went to the web site and found an email address for investor relations that didn’t have any restrictions on size of the email. We then went to bed. At three o’clock a.m. he got a call from WAMU asking for our address that was in the letter we sent and has to be in our account history with the five phone calls that have been made. We also woke up this morning with two emails of apology, one of which asked for the address of where to send the card. You can only imagine Ron’s response to that email. As I said, SL doesn’t have a corner on the stupid market.
Lots of travel on the horizon
We take off tomorrow for a short trip up the coast to Chilaw. Here we always stay at a lovely resort on the lagoon next to the beach. Last time we were there I befriended a woman who had asked me to photograph her school-aged girls. Since then she has come to Colombo about four times and always calls me when she is in town. We have tried to get together but either her husband has been too busy to bring her here or I have been doing something like teaching my class that has prevented us from getting together. I will call her tonight to see if I can see her while we are in Chilaw. We will return on Friday.
On Sunday Ron will go to Anuradhapura and return on Monday night then Wednesday we are off to India to see Raju, the man who came to Vancouver to do a professional exchange with Ron. Now Ron is going to India to complete this program, never knowing when this was proposed two years ago that we would be right next-door. We will be gone eight days, spending most of the time with Raju and his family in Navsari, a small town in Gujarat, north western India. We will spend two days in Ahmadabad, the capital before returning home. Then on June 10th we will return to India for a fourth time to be with Ron’s boss from DC who is doing some work in Tamil Nadu, south India. We will be there for four days. Around July 20th we are off to Thailand to see our dear friend Nattawan who is building a home in Phetchaburi, about two hours south of Bangkok. We will be there for a long weekend. Our time here will fly by with this much travel. We are maximizing our time here in order to see as much as we can.
I need to post this, as the computer needs to go in for a check up today.
Tata for now.

Just to add to the confusion, I posted three, counting this one, blogs today. So the first one tells about our weekend trip to Sigiriya, the second one is about our safety here and now this one. I was afraid you might miss the fisrt one.
Thanks!
Tricia

5-16-06

Personal safety
A number of members of our family and friends have written to us expressing concern for our personal safety based on the reports they are reading in the US. It seems appropriate to write about this in the blog given how many people have written to us about this.

Let me start by saying we will be first in line to get on the plane headed home when we feel that it is unsafe to be here. We have our return ticket home. We are too old to be foolhardy. Ha! Our oldest son, Mark, sent us an article he had read in the NY Times about the situation here. It was fascinating, as some of it was pure exaggeration or worse, out and out misinformation. But we should all remember that with a few exceptions most newspapers’ goal is to sell papers and they achieve that goal by be provocative, which often translates in writing stories guaranteed to stimulate the reader. For example it was reported that 40,000 people evacuated a town that was being shelled by the air force and navy. That was a real feat since the town ‘s population was 10,000.

The only violence that has occurred in Colombo where we live was a suicide bomb attack on the chief military commander. Eleven people died as a result but the commander survived. The event happened on the military base here not out on the street. The violence that occurs here has always been between the LTTE and the military/government. Tourists and foreigners have never been targeted in the 14 years of civil war. Since we have been here, all the violence, with the above-mentioned exception, has occurred on the northeast coast and in the north where the LTTE is located. We never travel to those areas and Ron’s program in the east has been suspended for 60 days to see what will happen

When the war was on, apparently there was violence in Colombo. But again, my understanding is it has always been very targeted. They don’t go into a marketplace and blow it up. The LTTE’s enemy is the government so they target military personnel and elected officials.

When there is an incident, the US Embassy sends us an email and or a text message on my cell phone. The Embassy will tell us when it is no longer safe to be here and ask us to leave. As a result we have made contingency plans. Ron has asked his employer for direction and I have contacted a shipping agent regarding sending our household goods to Thailand. We are not afraid or fearful for our safety at this point so I hope I have helped those of you who have expressed concern. We really appreciate your concern but you need to know things are not as bad as they are reported in the news. I would guess things are bad in the north and northeast. Our hearts go out to those who live in those areas because I do think their lives are often in danger.

The LTTE attacked a navy ship last weekend that had cease-fire monitors on board. Needless to say the LTTE caught hell for that one. I am attaching an article that sums up the situation accurately at this point in time. Both sides have broken the ceasefire agreement but I think both sides are aware that the consequences of returning to war will be devastating to Sri Lanka. You cannot even imagine how much foreign money has and continues to pour into this country as a result of the tsunami. NGO’s trip over each other to help. There are so many programs here to rebuild lives, homes, provide boats to commercial fisherman, training for widows to support themselves, etc. In addition since the cease-fire many foreign countries have invested in SL and continue to do so. ALL of that will go way if the war resumes. It will devastate the island and it will not recover for a very long time. So there is a lot of incentive to find a peaceful solution. Unfortunately, there is a long history of abuse of Tamils in the country and the LTTE is a terrorist organization that doesn’t appear to listen to reason. Only time will tell. Thanks again for your concern.

News article regarding the current situation here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4764521.stm

Some photos of this trip have been posted with more to follow as soon as my honey has the time, probably tonight. www.rtsla.photofreeway.com

We left for Sigiriya on Thursday, as Friday is Vesak, the 2550th anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment and a public holiday. We had planned to leave at 3:00 but Ron couldn’t get away from work so we left at 5:00, just in time to hit the holiday weekend get-away traffic. It took us 3 hours to go 45 kilometers, about 27 miles! OY! I thought I was going to jump out of my skin. Ron had had the day from hell at work so I was most worried about him, particularly when he wondered aloud as to whether we should even be going. After seven hours of travel we arrived at our hotel at midnight. Ruwan, our driver had to stop at one point and splash cold water on his face as he was getting tried. It turned out that he had been up since 6:00 p.m. the previous day! Ouch! About a half a kilometer before the hotel, there were two cows sleeping in the middle of the road. By contrast we made it home in four and a half hours including a stop to buy veggies at a stand.

Because we arrived so late we decided to sleep in and not climb the rock the first day but visit Polonnaruwa instead. The bad news is we traveled for close to two hours to reach our destination and arrived about 11:30, just in time for the heat of the day. We visited the museum first, then had lunch at a rest house located right on the reservoir that is called a tank or wewa here. The museum was the best I have seen so far and the translations were excellent. And best of all it was air-conditioned. I noticed one of the edicts issued by a king in 1187-96 said ‘Buddhists should be appointed to the throne’. The current president is a devout Buddhists so it continues…

The Sinhalese kings in Anuradhapura used Polonnaruwa as their residence but it did not rank as a capital until the 8th century. The king who was mainly responsible for the design had the tank created that provides cooling breezes through the city, water for irrigation and defense along its entire western flank. This artificial lake is 14 km long and 1 meter deep and irrigates over 90 sq. km of paddy fields. The city was abandoned in 1288. It also is a World Heritage site.

We walked around some of the ruins and realized the heat was too much to endure. Ruwan, our wonderful driver acted as our tour guide as he has been here numerous times from Colombo. We finally decided to bag it as the heat was unbearable but Ruwan wouldn’t hear of it so he drove to another important area and insisted in a very sweet way that we get out of the car and see this part of the city. We were glad he did as we saw some wonderful ruins. He tried one more time but we wouldn’t budge, as our clothes were soaked with sweat. We went back to the hotel, showered and read until diner time.

As this is Vesak, there are colored lanterns everywhere. Most are made from paper, some with very elaborate designs. Ron and I walked around the hotel grounds and he photographed all of them. We then enjoyed a fresh limejuice drink in the bar before eating dinner al fresco. Another very sweet aspect of Vesak is free food and drink. Everywhere we traveled this weekend, there were stands where people would try to flag you drown so you would stop and have a drink or some food. I asked Ruwan about the practice and am not sure if it originally was a custom to serve those who were making a trip to the temple or if it is to earn merit for the next life. Something got lost in translation. We also observed so many families having picnics everywhere we went, often they would ride to their destination in a wagon pulled by a SL tractor, which is basically an engine mounted over two front wheels. We did notice that in this rural area, there was much less litter and garbage strewn about. The exception was the temple at Dambulla was littered with little paper containers of a mix you add to milk. There was litter on the climb up Sigiriya also.

The next morning we got up early and left for Sigiriya at 7:30, bought our tickets and started our climb. I wasn’t sure how I would do but it ended up that Ron had some trouble near the top. He got winded and needed a few minutes to catch his breath before we did the last two flights of stairs. The worst part is some of the stairs are mounted on the side of the rock. I was in a panic as we went up a spiral staircase to view the frescos in the caves. I realized that the staircase was mounted on the side of the rock with iron rods that were drilled into the rock. There was nothing underneath us. I kept wondering if the rods would break and we would go flying into space, landing hundreds of feet below. Not a smart thing to think about when climbing up the side of a rock! I also couldn’t help but think of Betsy Fuller and Ron’s sister Sandi, neither of who care much for heights!

Sigiriya, the royal citadel, was built between 477-485 AD. It is dominated by the vast flat-topped Lion Rock, which rises 600 feet. As well as the palace, the city had quarters the people who built the royal pavilions, pools, and fortifications. The engineering skills required to build the palace, gardens, cisterns and ponds become even more extraordinary when you realize that the site was built in seven years and abandoned after 18 years. The site is also famous for its frescos. It is considered by some to be the eight wonder of the world. It was named a World Heritage site n 1982.

Water is a scare commodity as this is a dry zone. Water was conserved and diverted through pipes and rock cut channels to provide bathing pools for the palace above and to enhance the gardens below with pools and fountains. The water pumps are thought to have been powered by windmills. When the citadel ceased to be a palace it was inhabited by monks until 1155 and then abandoned. Archaeologists rediscovered it in 1828. The ruins and gardens are in good shape as a lot of restoration has bee done here. The views from on top are spectacular. Ron took lots of photos so check them out. Of particular interest are a couple of shots showing the stairs that were carved into the granite that the ancients used. Oy vey!

We went back to the hotel around 9:30, showered, rested and then took off for a very famous hotel in these parts, Kandalama. SL’s famous architect, Geoffrey Bawa, designed it. He built the hotel between a tank (reservoir) and massive rock and it is almost indistinguishable from the surrounding jungle. Check out the photos Ron took photos inside and out while we were there. Bawa literally built the hotel incorporating these massive rocks. He didn’t move them into the hotel but rather built the hotel around the rocks. It is most unusual. We had lunch in the dining room, the most expensive buffet so far at $20 each but the food was excellent and I can’t even begin to tell you how many choices there were. I ate my favorite, rice and curry and splurged and had a couple of desserts and coffee. Yum! Our dear friend Dick Parker said we must spend a night there but t $250 a night, we stayed put at Sigiriya Village. There is also a very exclusive hotel, Elephant Corridor, down the road from where we stayed and they charge up to a $1,000 a night. We didn’t stay there either! More resting and reading. I left the room and looked for birds. Instead I found some fun monkeys.

Sunday morning we got up and checked out of our hotel and headed for Dambulla.
Dambulla is situated on a gigantic granite outcrop that towers more than 160 meters above the surrounding land. The rock is more than 1.5 kilometers around its base and the summit is 550 meters. The caves were the refuge of King Valagambahu when he was in exile for 14 years. When he returned to the throne in the first century BC, he had a magnificent rock temple built at Dambulla. The site has been repaired and repainted several times in the 11th, 12th and 18th centuries.

The caves have a mixture of secular and religious painting and sculpture. The frescos on the walls and ceiling date from the 15th to 18th centuries. The setting is beautiful and the climb much easier and less scary than Sigiriya. There were five small caves, each containing images of Buddha. One had the king’s image and one had some Hindu images. The Buddhists in Sri Lanka have long been tolerant of other religions so it isn’t unusual to see Vishnu or Siva in a Buddhist temple. There is a Buddhist museum below. Ron took a photo as it was unbelievably gaudy but we didn’t visit it as we wanted to get on the road to avoid the traffic jam we had experienced coming to the area. There was a little clothing stall in town where we picked up a few tie dyed things-three shirts and a shirt for $15. HA!

Last night Veena came over to say we should walk down to a nearby major street to see a display of Vesak lanterns. I put on my athletic goes and took off in my shorts. Little did I realize that there would be hundreds of others who were viewing the lanterns, listening to street performances, buying foods from stalls and listening to live and taped music. I was quite embarrassed to be in shorts. Lesson learned! But what a display. It was much like Christmas in the US where you walk around your neighborhood or get in the car ad go to the areas that are known for great displays of Christmas lights. There was a very festive atmosphere in the street. One interesting thing to note is that at every ‘special’ outdoor occasion we have attended in Thailand and here, there is an abundance of loudspeakers with blaring music and dialog at full volume. Remember those speakers we all had in the 70’s that were three-five feet high? Well they all got shipped to SL. You cannot hear yourself think from the noise of announcers and music completing for your attention. The same thing happens when a store is running a promotion. They will set up speakers outside and turn the volume full blast. Someone thinks this is the way to draw in customers. I can’t get near the store as the sound repels me due to the volume. Culture is most interesting isn’t it?

That’s it from the resplendent island in South Asia.

Today is Saturday. We got back from Nuwara Eliya around 9:30 Thursday night. It was a great trip. It was cool the entire time we were there and we had rain from noon until the evening on the first day. I experienced vertigo while there. I learned quickly to get out of bed very carefully holding my head very straight otherwise the room spun and my stomach did flip-flops.

Because of the vertigo, I was unable to do much while in Nuwara Eliya other than moan and whine. I made it to the Internet café one morning and answered a few emails but that was about it. I toured the beautiful grounds of the hotel. Everything was in bloom and it was so lovely. Ron treated the group (there were six of us) to a wonderful meal at the fancy hotel, St Andrews. We had decided we wanted to go there for an evening meal and invited our Sri Lankan friends to join us then realized the price was probably beyond their means so solved the problem by treating everyone to dinner. Afterwards, Ron and Don played snooker but I went back to our hotel and rested. During the two days we were there Ron had three meetings with three local authorities. On the way back to Colombo we stopped at our favorite vegetable stand and got fresh veggies for Veena, Geetha and us. Because Nuwara Eliya is at 6000 feet, they can grow wonderful veggies.

The violence continues here but is concentrated in the north and east, far away from us. Today’s headlines were about the Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University fleeing the country because of death threats from the LTTE. Jeevan is a very good friend of Ron’s cousin Hal, who teaches at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California. Jeevan taught there for a number of years. Jeevan has a double doctorate in engineering from London University. Apparently the LTTE wanted someone else appointed and did not like the fact he was a Christian. Most Tamils are Hindus. Jeevan came back to Sri Lanka from Harvey Mudd because he wanted to serve his country and region and he wanted his children to grow up in Sri Lanka. All members of his family were threatened according to the article. How very sad. Because the LTTE has long arms, Jeevan’s whereabouts is being kept secret.

The president of Sri Lanka has insisted that the negotiators on both sides return to the peace talks and the goal is May 10th. As a result of the violence in the east, Ron has suspended program activities in the east for 60 days hoping things will settle down. We are more relaxed and feel that we may be able to complete our assignment and remain until December. Only time will tell.

Tonight we have having Suba and his wife over for dinner. SubaToday is Saturday. We got back from Nuwara Eliya around 9:30 Thursday night. It was a great trip. It was cool the entire time we were there and we had rain from noon until the evening on the first day. I experienced vertigo while there. I learned quickly to get out of bed very carefully holding my head very straight otherwise the room spun and my stomach did flip-flops.

Because of the vertigo, I was unable to do much while in Nuwara Eliya other than moan and whine. I made it to the Internet café one morning and answered a few emails but that was about it. I toured the beautiful grounds of the hotel. Everything was in bloom and it was so lovely. Ron treated the group (there were six of us) to a wonderful meal at the fancy hotel, St Andrews. We had decided we wanted to go there for an evening meal and invited our Sri Lankan friends to join us then realized the price was probably beyond their means so solved the problem by treating everyone to dinner. Afterwards, Ron and Don played snooker but I went back to our hotel and rested. During the two days we were there Ron had three meetings with three local authorities. On the way back to Colombo we stopped at our favorite vegetable stand and got fresh veggies for Veena, Geetha and us. Because Nuwara Eliya is at 6000 feet, they can grow wonderful veggies.

The violence continues here but is concentrated in the north and east, far away from us. Today’s headlines were about the Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University fleeing the country because of death threats from the LTTE. Jeevan is a very good friend of Ron’s cousin Hal, who teaches at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California. Jeevan taught there for a number of years. Jeevan has a double doctorate in engineering from London University. Apparently the LTTE wanted someone else appointed and did not like the fact he was a Christian. Most Tamils are Hindus. Jeevan came back to Sri Lanka from Harvey Mudd because he wanted to serve his country and region and he wanted his children to grow up in Sri Lanka. All members of his family were threatened according to the article. How very sad. Because the LTTE has long arms, Jeevan’s whereabouts is being kept secret. The president has demanded that the negotiators on both sides return to the peace talks and the goal is May 10th. As a result of the violence in the east, Ron has suspended program activities in the east for 60 days hoping things will settle down. We are more relaxed and feel that we may be able to complete our assignment and remain until December. Only time will tell.

Tonight we have having Suba and his wife over for dinner. Suba, an environmental engineer, is a program manager for Ron’s program and teaches the classes on Solid Waste. Geetha has prepared a feast of potato curry, green beans, cabbage and bindjal (eggplant) and basmati rice. Yum! Ron has gone native and is wearing the sarong and matching shirt that he received from one of his staff for his birthday. God, he’s a handsome devil. We will post photos soon.
We will post photos soon.

Pictures from the Galle week-end have been posted. See www.rtsla.photofreeway.com ENJOY

A Romantic Get Away

We have just returned from a weekend on the south coast. We stayed in Galle that was a significant port in the past. A Moroccan traveler visited the port in 1344. The first Portuguese arrived in 1505. The Portuguese defeated the Sinhala kings 82 years later. The Dutch laid siege in 1640 and the Brits took over in 1796. The fort there was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. It encloses about 200 houses and we spent part of Saturday walking around the fort and long the ramparts overlooking the ocean and part of Sunday shopping there and driving around, as it was quite hot.

On the way to Galle on Saturday we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Hikaduwa where I had dined months before. However this time we are presented with a menu whose prices ran from $12-$34 dollars (tourist menu). I knew something was amiss and asked for the other menu. The wait staff pretended to not know what I was talking about. When Ron said ‘let’s go somewhere else’, the alternate (menu for locals) menu appeared. The prices ranged from $1.90 to $6.00. I don’t mind paying more for food, but this place did not warrant those prices. We had a vary disapointing meal, our last at this place. We also stopped at the Brief Gardens and home of Bevis Bawa, brother of the famous Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa. Bevis spent from 1929 until 1989 developing these most magnificent gardens. He was 6’7” tall and Geoffrey was 6’4”. Then name comes from legal brief, as his father used the money from a brief to purchase the land. We toured the gardens and home before heading on out to Galle. The gardens were about 30 minutes off the main road and a real treat. The family has a heritage of Sri Lankan, French and Dutch ancestors. Photos will be posted soon, probably when we return next weekend from Nuwara Eliya.

Our hotel was foremerly a colonial mansion built in 1858 on a promontory overlooking Galle Bay. Each room has a magnificent view of the bay. The colonial character has been well preserved there. That evening we went out for fine dining at the Lighthouse Hotel, designed by Geoffrey Bawa. The staircase was the most artistic I have ever seen. The railing was a series of warriors, Sri Lankan and Portuguese fighting a battle. It was spectacular. The dining room entrance has a lovely reflection pool that I do believe is a hallmark of Bawa’s work. If you wish to see the staircase and pool etc, Google Lighthouse Hotel Galle and then Photos for a feast for your eyes. We were the only ones in the dining room and had a lovely meal, quite romantic as the place was filled with atmosphere with low lighting etc. We spent $36.00, I think the most we have spent since arriving in SL and considered to be a huge amount of money here. The staircase alone was worth the price as far as I was concerned.

Sunday morning we started out driving further south to see more of the coast and the Martin Wickramasinghe Folk museum that was filled with all sorts of everyday objects used in traditional SL life. We thoroughly enjoyed this. We also toured his humble home where he was born. He is a famous SL writer. After this we passed by the famous Taprobane Island. This island home was built in the 1920’s by a French count and it has played host to kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers and the like. Today you can rent the 2 ½ acre island and home for a mere $1400 a night except at Christmas when the price goes to $1760. To view this beauty go to www.taprobaneisland.com. Now we know where the rich and famous hang out in SL!

On Sunday we dined at the Amangalle Hotel built 400 years ago. We dined on the veranda and had a grand time people watching. This is a high-end hotel where the low end starts at $450 and goes to $1,200 a night. No, we won’t be staying overnight here.

That night we went to The Sun House, a boutique hotel that was voted one of the Top 50 New Hotels in 1989 by Conde Nast Traveler. They described the Cinnamon suite as the most beautiful room in the world. I have already decided that we will come back here for our anniversary if we are still in SL. This place oozed atmosphere. Each room was unique and oh so special. Again photos can be seen at www.thesunhouse.com if you care to see this place. We dined outside under a covered porch with an overhead fan. We were the only guests and it couldn’t have been any more romantic. The meal was indescribable. Oh my god, such wonderful food. It started with a salad of lentils, green beans and beets. Then we had the best fish I have had in SL with a ginger orange sauce, greens and rice. For dessert I ordered a flourless orange cake with ice cream while Mr. B had lychee- ginger sorbet. YUM! In between courses, we walked around the gardens, were shown three of the seven bedrooms and looked at the decorative items in the living room and foyer.

So we got home a bit ago and head out tomorrow for Nuwara Eliya and Hatton and will return Thursday night late as Ron has a meeting in Colombo on Friday. Normally we don’t travel at night so late but it can’t be helped this time. So I am doing laundry so we can repack tonight and head out tomorrow.

Today is May Day and a rally was cancelled due to the recent killings on Colombo. No need to create a target for terrorists. We are feeling safe but all activity on the east coast for Ron’s program has been put on hold for the time being. We had planned to travel there next week but not anymore.

That’s it from Sri Lanka where the Bergmans are having more adventure than they ever imagined possible.