Sri Lanka: Colombo

The midnight hour has slipped past those of us wide awake and waiting now at Bandaranaike International Airport, Colombo. Waiting now in neon shadows and reflective glows, waiting to fly out across the Indian Ocean, back to the West Coast of Australia.  Waiting now for a 1am departure from Sri Lanka, at an empty gate (itself waiting to get ready to ferry this flight through the Heavens and back to our other lives).  A group of Buddhist monks walk past, all in orange, all in silence.  A few hours from now and we shall all be higher than the clouds, shooting through the stars, passing by the dreams we all visit in our sleep…

I spent the afternoon beside a pool, steaming in Colombo’s humidity, listening to Snoop Lion (‘Torn Apart’ on multiple repeats) drowning out the pina colada commotions of a group of boisterous travellers, just landed, just getting warmed up for the beginnings of their new adventure.    My body felt warm and relaxed in the heat (exactly as it should; not just when on holiday, but as it should each and every day if only for a few fleeting moments).  I take time to watch thick, fat, purring fur of purple clouds pass overhead – distracted by yellow flashes of periphery lightning, waiting for those flat claps of booming thunder rolls, echoing overhead.

At a bookshop, much earlier, around noon, I spent time chatting to the salesman on shift.  He asked me what I thought of Sri Lanka.  I replied that it was the most beautiful country I had ever seen.  He asked me if I had time so he could show me his favourite book; one he hoped would not sell for a little while longer as he loved to leaf through it during the quiet afternoons.  In the book were many colour photographs of his beloved country.  He asked if I had visited a place called Nuwara Eliya during my stay.  I hadn’t. 

 

‘I think you will return here to Sri Lanka,’ he says, ‘and when you do, you will visit Nuwara Eliya.  It is far from everywhere, and it is a most beautiful place and when you arrive there, you will remember this meeting and you will know what I mean.’

 

My boarding gate suddenly blinks and flashes its readiness to ferry us travellers home, dispelling the reflection from my mind.  Time to get ready to board this flight.  And in an instant you can feel the shift of gears taking hold of Time – from this lulling rock-a-by-baby wandering through a country, a fast-tracked blur of hurry begins again.  The normality of routines and demands beckon.  The seeking of distractions and sleeping through their daily dominance gather beyond the horizons.  But for now, but in this awareness of pure Time, let me slow down in that fervour and allow the mundane to become sacred, even spectacular (if only for a few treasured seconds).  Time to board my flight

Galle

Shaded streets are spiced in silence – scented with fanning palms of afternoon leaves, casting down cool pools of green off canopied shadows across the stretching heat of day.  Merchants and mosques sing out through the quarters of Galle: an old fort town, musked in its own past of myths, dreams and legend, coloured by the moonstone shore of its beloved Indian Ocean.  Serendipity yields its rich rewards and impossible is nothing.  Small pearls of cloud shine high in pure blue, and Sade sings into my ear, ‘…I’d give you the world if it was mine…’

I watch the sun off the shore, and wander slowly, twisting and turning at please, stopping and talking whenever the mood takes hold.  No plans, no deadlines, no outcomes, no deadlines, no idea – free-wheeling and waiting to watch the sun set from the Triton Bastion (one of the many vantage points inside this fortified town named after the Sun, Moon or Stars).  An open book rests on a sunlit table, in a room with rose-coloured walls.  Cricket is played in an open square.  And small pearls of cloud shine high in an endless blue, as Sade sings into my ear, ‘…I’d give you the world if it was mine…’

A storyteller called Faisal faces the old lighthouse from his frangipani balcony near Rampart Street.  He drinks sweet tea and distributes gemstones.  ‘Do you ever wonder from where your dreams are born? Look around you – this is where they all begin.’



 

 I watch the sun off the shore, and wander slowly, touching and tasting at please, stopping to savour whenever the mood takes hold.  Time has managed to yawn.  Echoes carry.  Shadows move in minutes. Old quarters beckon and now new dreams bring to arise from within.  We can make this up as we go along; creating our lives as we wander – leaving behind attachment to outcomes, the plans, the deadlines.  Only ideas from within, free-wheeling self-belief and the rich rewards serendipity yields. 


Never, never let me forget this day… as the small pearls of cloud shine high in unfolding blue, and Sade sings into my ear, ‘…I’d give you the world if it was mine…’

  

 

Road Trip: Kandy

The night sky over Bentota is filled with a thousand prayers.  Each one drifts along upwards on the moonstone blue scented smoke of a hundred burning quills of incense, curling and purring ever higher towards a flat, full moon; each one from a single candlelit courtyard inside a silent – but busy – temple.  Cats and dogs mingle, resting together.  Shackles of Time dissolve beyond vaults of darkness in this sacred light.  And the depths of Deep Peace begin to move out again into an endless Eternity, part of an aria that sings out into the alpha and the omega of Being and now.

 

The day has been spent journeying to Kandy, to see Sri Dalada Maligawa  (the Temple of the Sacred Relic of the Buddha).  A fourteen-hour round trip: there and back to Bentota.  The Temple was constructed from around the late 1600s, and is sacred to the Sinhalese Buddhists who strive to complete at least one pilgrimage here in their lifetime.  In the countless hours wishing, planning, and even imagining what this feels like – for some, the journey itself will become as memorable as the destination itself.

 

Travelling back to Bentota, one cannot help but be amazed by this beautiful land.  No gimmicks are needed in order to appreciate its beauty.  Deep, green valleys fall away into oceans of mist, all still, all silent.  Forests climb up along the roadside, ranging out and across the harvests of tea and peaks and mountains and clouds.  This is some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen and will ever see.

 

Journeying back, then, through the dusk, then twilight, then evening, I began to think of what’s left of my time here.  Time is running out.  There are numerous other destinations I am desperate to see here in Sri Lanka: the mystery of Sigiriya, the beaches of Unawatuna and even the peaks of Sri Pada (where Adam first set foot on earth, and where now the butterflies come to die).  But time is running out; so, too, the money.  Pilgrimage is not necessarily done in a single trip, rather its essence is a long, transforming journey unwinding at its own accord. 

 

And if we come to view our lives as a similar type of journey, then, perhaps, the smart money is on enjoying what we have, what we can do, what is in front of us… now.

 

Maybe the time has come to give up the chase; instead, spend more time journeying slowly, rather than rushing to destinations, appreciating the things in … and if I have to come back to a place like Sri Lanka to see the things I’d like to, then so be it.  For now, this amazing night in Bentota will more than suffice.

Monsoon  at Bentota Beach

 

Down at Bentota Beach and the humidity thickens. Early morning shadows are dissolving, the sun is rising higher but there’s a black band of curdling cloud churning and furring along the ocean horizon.It won’t be long before this monsoon rolls in off the Indian Ocean bringing with it a waterfall of rain in a single thunderclap.And when it rains, it really rains; there’s precious little else to do except sit it out and wait for the storm to sluice itself into silence, knowing the blue skies will return by noon and the peace of the afternoon will sing in a serene siesta of bird calls. 

 

Along the shoreline a group of fishermen tell me to take care: the storm is approaching fast. As I head back, along Bentota Beach, one of the things I love most about travelling is how random strangers can see you as one of their own. Your welfare is their concern.

Maybe the sense of serendipity and fortune is heightened during a journey; maybe it is inherent to the adventure itself. Yet it is an opportunity for us to touch others and to allow others to touch us with our shared humanity. There is so much to persuade us that difference will polarise, yet difference is the opportunity for us to discover common ground; to perceive that mornings like this blend humility and generosity into One: your welfare is my concern.

 

Further along Bentota Beach and the monsoon rains hit. A spray of sand spits up into the air as pellets of rain are unleashed along across the beach, hissing in a shimmering blur of colours and a muffled fog of noise to drown the stinging roll of surf smashing ashore. A fraternity of surfers call me to join them in their makeshift shelter – flat pieces of wood nailed to a thicket of trees (from here they hire surfboards to tourists).

These are the fishermen who lost more than their livelihoods during the 2004 Tsunami.

 

During the downpour, a sheltering tuk-tuk driver offers to drive me back to my hotel but no, not yet; let’s all wait until these rains stop. Your welfare is my concern, too. Eventually, the winds will blow themselves out, and so, too, the rains will peter out to a drift of drizzle. Amazing and exhausted, everything will soon rejuvenate in the dripping serenity of sky blue sounds – the birds will sing in their whistles and insects will join them in their chirpings; this storm will soon pass.

No matter the brevity of our meetings, they have the potential to resonate within us for much, much longer. And as these rains fall down on Bentota Beach these words keep such magic alive each time new eyes read this.

For now, though, just sharing these moments is enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Lanka: Hikkaduwa Sunsets

As a child I loved to draw palm trees.  They were the thing I used to love drawing the most.  Thin strings of long lines, each ever reaching upwards towards a green parrot thatch of coconut leaves, rustling and weaving in the shine of yellow light from a smiling sun burning high in an empty sky.  There was an image in my mind’s eye that I could see and could copy then create into new images on paper which others could see.  Writing is much the same.

 

 

 

Here on a train ride along the south west coast of Sri Lanka I see that same image again.  This time, however, the image blinks and flashes into life before me.  This train has departed from Galle and heads elsewhere.  My stop of Aluthgama is an hour away and the sun has already begun to set.  To my left the afternoon sky mellows, the sun sags down towards the ocean horizon and peach and pinks begin to dance upon the lower waves of the Indian Ocean.  I look out of my open window, and row upon row of thin strings of long lined palm trees, each with a green parrot thatch of coconut leaves rusting and weaving in the evening winds, stream past my eyes in the clickety-clack of this moving train.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing to think that this image has been inside me most of my life.  These palm trees have been both here in Hikkaduwa and inside me for almost the same amount of time, almost at the same time.  It would be too easy to grope for a metaphysical interpretation, carefully imposing a tailored meaning onto a wonderful co-incidence. 

There once was a time when I might have indulged in that.  Now, however, I tend to think back about some ancient Polynesian explorers I read about, who used to navigate the Southern Seas using stars as a guide to determine their position, and an image of an island in their mind’s eye as a map for their destination.  They sailed out into the voids of the unknown towards an image they could see and feel and knew was out there waiting to be found. 

 

Perhaps it’s safer to speculate that, sometimes, these images we see are a kind of map for us to follow if we so choose.   Sure, there’s an element of risk and ridicule in sailing out towards those images – and there is no guarantee they exist - but there’s also an element of regret and remorse when we realise that perhaps those images are a part of who we are and might have found our true selves if only we’d trusted in them a little more.

My train pulls out of Hikkaduwa station.  It moves along towards my station of Aluthgama as the sun sets across the Indian Ocean.  The sky slides down behind the ocean horizon, stretching pink clouds across a tangerine twilight.  Between me and the waters are the silhouettes of palm trees.  Thin strings of long lines, each reaching up to a green parrot thatch of coconut leaves.  Same as it’s always been.