Metal cutlery, big napkin, tasty food, USB and full electrical power behind every seat.
Video games.
2 or 3 cameras on the plane’s outside. One pointed straight down.
A number of great movies you’ve already seen and a lot of bad – as in “recent” – movies. Remember, Bollywood movies can be amusing without sound.
And this is economy.
In Ella, the big deals are things like a hill, a couple waterfalls, a tea factory.
I took a day to see a hill.
And got watered down while in the usual location: Off the trail.
It seems Costco’s nice, waterproof hiking shoes may not be completely waterproof. But, then, every shoe has a large hole at the top. Such holes in mine may have been a factor. Since I was pushing through thick, chest-high grass on a steep hillside, some of the water the shoes are so liberally soaked with even now, 12 hours later, may, just may, have leaked in fairly. And only one, big finger-cut on the grass, so not much blood to clean off. It was a very short hike, but a complete success.
I wonder what happened to the dog.
In a new place, one can notice separate worlds sharing a space, but only vaguely connected. In Sri Lanka, there are such human worlds. But a couple others become invisible wallpaper if you’re not careful.
Little dogs in the road. Lots of little dogs. Often sleeping. Oddly, with no apparent effort, avoiding being run over.
Little monkeys on roofs, wires and trees. Running around like feral kids. Apparently, they cause some damage. Pull apart roofing to get to food. Sneak in through windows to get to food. What happens to them when they can’t jump from power wire to tree?
The hill country in Sri Lanka is webbed with roads curling around steep hills. Eventually, modern roads will be put in and trips that take a couple hours now will take a few minutes. Driving roads scaled to long English coastline fractal dimensions at speeds approaching 25 kilometers per hour – notice I didn’t say on which side those speeds are “approaching” – makes short trips complex experiences.
Above those hills looms a stand-alone hill that, in another place would be called “Dragon’s Tooth”. It’s English name is “Adam’s Peak”. Referring to the first dude.
3000 feet up in 2.5 to 3.x miles. Most of the e-gain in the last third of the trail. The whole trail is stairs. All stairs. Nothing but stairs. Robust people do it in a couple hours. I took 3. Along with several guys hauling concrete and potatoes and video gear and whatever else is needed for the “season” to start tomorrow.
I stayed in another empty “hotel”. In a town named Maskeliya, not near the trailhead. That would be the last time I’ll book ahead, or even think ahead. This hotel was not only empty, but felt closed. The owner did try hard to make things OK. But I moved on. To a place chosen on the spur of the moment simply because a couple people in the Hatton railway station said it existed. Ella.
And write this in a comfortable, 1-person guest house there in Ella. Where ever that is.
Here’s a tea field between Hatton and Ella. Taken while standing between the rail cars, hanging out, seeing the sights. Catching tiny stickers from grassy stems brushing my hands as the train trundles by.
A long walk through the Buddha-tooth temple/museum/what-not left me very tired. The walls gurgled in the last museum I walked through at a pace like shopping with a woman. The afternoon rains had set in.
But the rain stopped and I walked back to the hotel, always ready to flag a Tuk Tuk if the rain started again.
Emirates through Dubai. 16 hour flight from LAX and, really, cheating a bit on an around the world path. Look at the globe. This flight goes over the North Pole, more or north-coast-of-Greenland less.
Anyway, several bad movies later, I had a 7 hour layover at Dubai. So the metro runs quickly in to the Very Tall Building – sometimes pronounced Burj Khalifa. But not quickly enough. By the time I walked around it, there were no more slots to the top that night. Maybe next time. It is kinda cool, though, from right underneath.
In Colombo airport: Waited with eyes closed for the immigration line to disappear. Didn’t try the net, where I would have found an email from the owner of the hotel in Kandy. The email said a car had dropped someone off and could take me directly to Kandy. Which would have been a good idea, probably.
But the issue was moot. My well-washed passport was finally explained by the Sri Lanka immigration guy. The mag strip isn’t readable. So that’s why I had to go to the empty and mysterious “Room number 3” to get back in the airport in Dubai. And why every passport official fusses about the passport. How did they ever survive back in the day?
Train to Kandy. Struck up a conversation with a doctor. Seems ultrasound scans are $6 or $7 dollars in Sri Lanka. Bit like train and bus prices. Which are, to outside eyes, free. Multiple hour trips across half the country are in the 2 dollar range here. Not sure who’s picking up the tab.
And after a tasty dinner at the almost-empty Majestic Tourist Hotel, I slept for 26 hours.
