Madhu Island and more

To wrap up the last part of Sri Lanka I took a bus from Uduwalawe to Embilipitiya, then bused to Matara. It was another scenic route down to the water. and along the coast from Tangalle to Matara. Matara had some cool stuff. The guesthouse I stayed in on the outskirts of Matara, Seasons Four, wouldn't have passed a safety expectation. The room was in a building behind the family's house. The building was slanted down towards the marshy back of the property. The bed was still comfy and the mosquito net didn't have holes. Plus it was across the road from the beach. I couldn't complain, especially when they made me dinner and breakfast.

Travelling during a country's red letter days can be problematic. Travellers rely on restaurants for food. I walked 6km in one direction searching for food. Little shops were all closed. By the time I had reached a Perrera & Sons everything had been picked over from the lunch menu. Then I found a Pizza Hut, but I couldn't bring myself to eat pizza in Sri Lanka. So I walked back to my guesthouse and asked if I could have dinner there, he said of course.

When I was called for dinner I received a 4-person meal, it was nuts. I barely made a dent in the curries and rice, and I was starving. Everything was so delicious but I was starting to fall asleep from all the walking and heat from the day.

The next day I bought fruit from a fruit stand and sat on some rocks on the beach to watch the sunset.

 
After that night, I packed up as I listened to the morning playoff game, then hunted for an ATM that accepted my bank card. That's one collective thing I really miss about Commercial Bank and Ooredoo: International bank card use and the 100QR Passport for international calling. Both make travel life so much easier.

Anyways, the train to Hikkaduwa was pretty nice, no Kandy to Haputale but it was still nice. I'd recommend taking the bus though because the roads are closer to the water than the train tracks.

After I arrived in Hikkaduwa I got a tuk-tuk to Balapitiya, the town I was staying in. I'm really happy I took a tuk-tuk and not a bus because the guesthouse's location on the map was wrong. 5km-off wrong. The tuk-tuk driver called the place and figured out where to go. We finally made it there, and the place I was staying was the most rustic one in the area. The gate looked like it was stripped off a shipping container but you get what you pay for. Again, mosquito net and comfy bed =  happy camper.

My first full day there I got up and had a wonderful breakfast and set off for something I'd been excited about since the beginning of the trip. Madhu Island and Cinnamon Island. The island was a 40-minute walk from guest house. It was a cloudy day so it wasn't a tough trek. I didn't expect it to be such a quiet walk through a residential area. Then you get to the bridge to the island.

  It was so quiet, the lake was so calm I had the moment all to myself. It was so cool. As I walked across the bridge, motorcycles passed and asked the standard questions "Where are you from?" and "You like Safari?"

Once I got the to the island it was still very quiet. There were mothers and their kids walking the opposite way, probably going to school or daycare, but they were all shy. I got to the temple which was tourist-free. A monk showed me around the area and explained the ages of all the buildings and trees.

 Here's a sleeping Buddha.

 The main shrine at the temple.

 Monk-dolls

  Growing up, my mom had a sewing machine like this in our spare room. 

It was a really cool experience to just be alone in a holy place. The monk asked for a donation and gave me a bracelet (which I'm still wearing) and a delicious king coconut. 

After that, I kept walking down the path and found some dudes and some boats and asked if they could take me to Cinnamon Island. They nodded and directed me into the boat. The two-man crew consisted of a one-armed driver who spoke the most English and another guy who tied the boat up when we stopped.

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We got to Cinnamon Island and they were not ready for visitors. So, in broken English, our captain said we'd come back in about 5 minutes. That was fine by me, then we picked up a random bunch of people off the mainland. They were here on holidays, most of the guys worked in Dubai at one of the five-star hotels. We went back to Cinnamon Island and they gave me some cinnamon oil to try. It works like tiger balm, don't eat it. They also explained the process of how cinnamon is made.

After Cinnamon Island, we hopped into the boat and went to a fish farm. This wasn't just your plain old fish farm though. This fish farm bred tilapia and the fish you find in the lobby of Chinese restaurants.

Each square of water had I'd guess between 100-150 fish. You could dip your feet in and the fish would eat away all your dead skin. They weren't big fans of my callouses. It starts off as a weird feeling then it starts to get relaxing until a big fish starts going at your toe hair.

Once the fish farm was ruined by the ever-so-common throng of Chinese tourists, we left and floated through a "forest" as the Sri Lankans called it.

Our guides, leaving the forest. 

Then the locals got dropped off on an island, they just wanted to hang out and explore for a while. I was beginning to get hungry so I asked to go back to Balapitiya and these two gents above took me back. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not clarifying prices before getting into their boat so I was stuck with footing a hefty price (in Sri Lankan standards) because we didn't have enough middle ground language-wise to negotiate. 

It felt bad leaving on a sour note like that but when I looked back at these photos as I wrote, I felt calm and relaxed remembering the day and holiday as a whole. This was a beautiful country with incredibly friendly and helpful people. I definitely plan on coming back to Sri Lanka again. 

Uduwalawe

After starting off in Colombo, taking a private car to Dambulla, taking a bus to Kandy, then a train to Haputale, we made it to Uduwalawe, our last in-land stop. The scenery was amazing from Kandy to Uduwalawe. Before that, there was the hustle and bustle of what felt like the entire country moving around because of the New Year celebrations.

When we arrived in Uduwalawe we were greeted by another friendly guy. We talked about going on a safari the following day and set up a full day safari where we'd see a good chunk of the park. Pick-up was 5:30 am so we got up with charged cameras and phones ready for the day of adventure and ELEPHANTS!!!

We hopped in the jeep, and our guide drove off after packing up all the supplies. The jeep was actually a pick-up truck with seats and a canvas roof built into the flatbed. We had to yell so our guide Pia (sp?) could hear us.

The ride out to Uduwalawe National Park was beautiful in the pink sky. Sadly this is my best photo of that:

When we got into the admissions area, Pia went out of the cab and asked us for the money for the tickets into the safari. We paid him and then I started to worry. As he walked over to the line he walked by everyone, then shook hands with a guy and had a dart and small talked. Why isn't he in line? The line continued to get longer and longer. Then he comes back with a cardboard box, he opens our cooler and then puts two beers into the cooler. I don't even remember asking for this! Then he had another cigarette! I was getting very frustrated with this guy's decision making, but of course, his English consists of animal names and survival English, so he didn't understand my distress AT ALL. In the end, he got his tickets from some schmuck who owed him a favour and waited in line while he sat back and enjoyed himself.

With the tickets in hand, we drove off into the park itself. Pia had the tendency to just stop the truck, open the door, and just talk to us about what we could see and his plan. After the first corner, Pia swung out of the cab and said pointing behind us, "this is main road," then pointing ahead, "this is off road." At the second turn, we found our first animal.

I couldn't believe it. And in the background, you can see the outline of a peacock perched on a pole. Uduwalawe has a lot of peacocks.  We continued to drive around and ran into a couple other residents at the UNR.

Here are three female elephants, the front one is pregnant. 

This is a jungle fowl. I'm glad I took a picture of this guy because we never saw another one.

 Here's a bird.

 And another bird.

But this is a lizard.

As we drove around. I realised how unprepared I was and how unprofessional I looked taking pictures with a digital camera that's about 5 years old. Most people driving around had camera lenses the length of your hand... or children half-awake. Driving around I did see a car with just one person sitting in the flatbed and I empathised with him as a person who has travelled alone before. I'm happy I had someone to talk to for the ride. 

The photo above is what most of the ride looked like. This pale dirt road with plants on the side. you run through roads like this all the time and then you uncover this irregular part (lakes and rivers, or clearings). Other times something is eating or perched just off of the path. At times it felt like we were travelling in circles. 

About four hours in, we realised we had another six hours, we decided to cut our safari down to a half day. Pia got on his phone, we spoke the manager, the manager spoke to Pia and everything was cleared up. 

After that, we flipped from time moving like molasses to sneering at how little time was left. The best parts were definitely saved for last.

This is a water buffalo calf.

 The photo above and the one beneath are about ten meters away from the calf. 

 The crocodiles were nowhere near the buffalo. 

This is Pia and small Sri Lankan man. 

 This is a kingfisher. He has a caught a fish in his beak that's roughly the same length as she (or he) is tall. The bird spent a good few minutes slapping the fish against the tree branch and eventually swallowed it whole with no issues at all. Very impressive, unlike the clarity of the photograph.

 These were definitely the three biggest elephants I saw on the safari. 

This is the last photo I took on the safari and I think it's one of my favourites.

I really liked this safari, it was cool seeing all these animals up close and knowing how much space they have to roam, fly and soak in. My advice would be to bring a camera with a good lens because not all of the animals get very close to the truck and just book a half-day safari, six hours in the park is all you need. 

One Night in Sri Lanka

April Something, 2017
Yesterday, in Dambulla, I had a wonderful authentic dinner. One of the long-time hostel guests invited everyone to a dinner made by one of the hostel's tuk-tuk drivers. He picked up three people and drove off, saying he'd be back in 10-15 minutes. While we waited we swapped stories in the heat of the evening. The tuk-tuk driver came back for the rest of us, four total, and I got to ride in the front seat!
We drove on the main road for a bit then turned off onto a narrower road. We started getting further and further away from the lights of Dambulla. We'd been in the tuk-tuk for so long (in terms of tuk-tuk standards), every time we drove by a house I thought this would be the place. At some point, we turned onto a dirt road lit only by the headlight of the tuk-tuk. Both sides of the road were overrun with plants blowing in the wind. Eventually, we pulled up to a house all on its lonesome. Our keen tuk-tuk driver led us through his fruit trees to a grass hut on the back of his property. The other three were there drinking water and big brown bottles of Lion beer. The four of us ordered beers as well and joined the party. Our tuk-tuk driver, now host, tells us the set menu and offers some speakers to play music on (after the data of one phone floundered I played AM - it was the wrong album I'd say). He came back after a few minutes and came out with a basket of fried curry leaves and chips. While we waited for dinner, there was a beetle that fell through the roof at least 3 times, which entertained us and prolonged the small talk. It's weird how strangers can continuously talk and then it dries up, eh?
Once the food was brought out. people took out their cameras, and phones and snapped away before eating. There was salmon curry, lady finger curry, two fresh salads, dahl curry, bean curry, polos and kol sambol with rice underneath. Everything was spot on. Most people went up for seconds, and I even ordered another beer.
This guy who hosted, his goal is to convert the place into a homestay. I hope it works out for him, he's such a good guy.
Back to the evening-- as I emptied my second bottle of beer I started to yawn as did others and our host drove the first set of people home. Me and the other two lay-dees left behind knew we were in for a wait. Recalling back to what our host had said during the introduction to the meal, we decided to walk further down the property towards the ravine. One girl pulled out her phone and flashed her torch towards the other side of the river. Then, fireflies in an old tree started to light up. Ideally, there'd be a bench to sit on (especially after gorging on Sri Lankan food) and watch one of nature's marvels flicker in the dark of the tree (the sky was actually quite light). We stood and watched the tree light up until we heard the engine of our ride home.
When we had got up our host had returned with fireworks. He lit them and threw them high over a field of beans. The fireworks were disappointing, just loud, but he picked a bean out of the garden and gave it to me. I had never had a raw bean before that was sweet, it blew my mind. While I was savouring the bean, he handed me a wood apple I think he called it, then a small green star fruit which was a very unique taste. Regardless, the meal included ingredients from his home garden and that's one of my favourite things about this place. Live off the land: it's the best way to eat.  

 

Reports

Honestly, I think too much about work. I have to write 88 comments for my upcoming report card. AND if I write 3 a day I'll be done in less than a month. I don't even know when they're due, but I love writing... even if it is report writing. What a weirdo, I know, but over time I've learned that I can't write well under pressure. So this is my solution: just chip away until it's gone. Usually by the time I'm about 40% done a class's reports I have enough Ctrl+C + Ctrl+V material to get through the rest which is also when my willingness to live tends to disappear.

This time could be different. I have already written five comments so at least one day is already down! Not to mention I haven't written a report since November. That's a four-month gap where we've had a science fair, 4 math strands (soon to be 7!), 2 literacy units, guided reading, a unit where kids created their own inventions... the list goes on, I have a plethora of things I can write about. I don't want to jinx it but this feels like if I finish this before for the shitstorm of May I'll be fine. Off the top of my head, there are some kiddos where I couldn't write 750-900 characters about their skills, talents, progressions in each subject area but they'll always get at least one. Being a frank writer, I usually come up short on my character count and that's the only frustrating part. This term I've made a list of talking points for each subject though and I'm hoping that'll get me over writer's block.

My favourite time to write reports is during another lesson when I'm not teaching. The clickety-clack of the keyboard is a B-grade David Attenborough watching a child in their natural environment:

The young mathematician puts his head down has he begins to write furiously in attempts to out-do his rival in the class to win the heart of his teacher. [Insert name here] applies his knowledge of factors and multiples to reduce a fraction to its lowest form to calculate 5/35 of 63 to complete the worksheet. In triumph, he raises his pencil into the air and screams "I'M DONE!" As the boy turns to the teacher, he sees a disapproving finger wagging in the air. He needs to honour classroom etiquette and remain silent.

I'm not a parent but I do have to proofread report comments and this is what I would want to read.

Alas, that is not report-writing etiquette yet. There is still the problem of developing unique boilerplate comments that sound professional. The key to that is staying organised (and letting Microsoft Word come up with synonyms for you). Every teacher has a document of general comments somewhere in their files within files on the cloud. Even though all kids are different there are still a bunch that are hard workers, timid, or incapable of shutting up. Eloquence is also an important aspect to keep in mind when writing reports, especially for the last two last traits. Like all professions, teachers have code words and clauses that flag students.

Do I look forward to writing reports? Not really. The process is too long. Write them. Edit them, send them off to someone else to edit them. Revise them. Recount the characters after making adjustments. Send them to admin. Make admin-recommended revisions. Revise them as a team. It's a long process. And these steps usually take an hour or longer. After a day of teaching, revising report comments is one of the worst PDs possible especially when there's no food... That first draft is always a fun challenge. Especially when you take the time to sit and ponder, not rush, and really just report how the child operates in class.