Hard to believe we have been in India for over a month as time has flown by!  There was never a dull moment, and sometimes we wished there were a few because at times our senses were totally overwhelmed with the noise, the smells, the sights and many mixed emotions.  India, as a vacation destination, is definitely not for the faint of heart and in no way has it been relaxing but it has been an experience second to none.  A few years ago I read Katherine Boo’s book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and although I knew it was non-fiction there were many times when I thought this could not be the case.  Boo was a staff writer for the New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize winner for her work at the Washington Post and had lived in India for about three years while researching and writing her book.  It is about an area of Mumbai called Annawadi which is a slum built on swampy land close to the airport and high-end hotels.  The citizens who live there are trying to survive an economic downturn as they scavenge garbage, raise families and deal with corrupt officials and a very corrupt criminal justice system.  While reading this book you become close to the characters and, as mentioned, believe their world cannot be real.  After being here for a month I no longer question that reality and wonder how these people will ever rise above their poverty and as Boo asks in the extension of the title “deal with death, life and hope in an under-city”.  In an earlier post I mentioned that our guide who showed us the astrological museum asked us our signs because he believes so much of what happens in our lives is related to the day we were born and the alignment of the moon and the stars.  What about the environment you are born into I asked him and he immediately started talking about their current Prime Minister,  Modhi, who was born into poverty and at the age of 64 became the leader of their country.  I remember reading an article in the Globe and Mail a few years back when Modhi first became PM so I googled him and he indeed was born into an impoverished family and his mother washed dishes and cleaned for other people.  Modhi has been quoted as saying that “…poverty was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.”  In this country of 1.3 billion people with major environmental issues, poor air quality, corruption, education and health challenges, just to name a few, he sure has his hands full.  On top of that half of India’s population are under the age of 25 and every year ten million young people enter a work force that is corrupted by politicians, bureaucrats and criminals.  One of our guides expressed hope that Modhi could begin to make a difference but that people have to be patient as change cannot happen quickly.  Modhi is reported to sleep three hours a night and starts his day with yoga for discipline – he will need all the help he can get!  So glad we came, ready to leave and hope that the young people we met and talked to are right, in that change will come with patience and determination…….power to the young people!

This is the result of a half hour ride on a tuktuk in a city with sweltering heat and poor air quality. But don’t worry Jim, Dawn and Yves helped me clean up before they would be seen with me in public and after they cracked up laughing!

So we say good bye to India and Hello to SRiI LANKA!!!  The plane trip was not uneventful like the others, and about half way there we hit turbulence that came upon us very suddenly and everyone was looking to each other for reassurance that all would be OK.  No doubt it didn’t last long but was enough to shake the passengers and crew up and I am sure many were quietly saying a prayer except for the young woman sitting next to Yves who was in a teary state with her head buried in her boyfriend’s lap until we landed!   We were all thrilled and interestingly enough we were met by a fire truck but not sure if this was related or not.  We disembarked to 30 degree weather and immediately I began to sweat!  Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, wasn’t really on our radar but several months back Yves suggested that given we were so close why didn’t we stay a little longer and tack it on…….so we did!  Sri Lanka has struggled through a 30 year civil war which ended in 2009.  It has a population of just over 20 million although it is not much bigger than Nova Scotia and is approximately twice the size of Vancouver Island – those are numbers we can relate to given that Jim and I are living in NS and Dawn and Yves on Vancouver Island.   We started our Sri Lanka journey in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s financial capital and its largest city with a population of around six million.  We booked a two bedroom, two bathroom air bnb and were thrilled with the location and how clean it was.  We were overlooking the beach(five minute walk) but again swimming not recommended.  We ate home a couple of times here, even though it was take-out, which was a pleasant change but on our last night we ate at Barracuda which was on the beach and recommended by our host – excellent!

A little dark but dinner at the Barracuda was excellent

Jim and Yves helping local fishermen pull in their boats during our beach walk

We also visited many tourists spots like the National Museum, Museum of Natural History, Dutch Hospital, Galle Face Green but the highlight was the Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple which is one of the most important temples in Sri Lanka.  It is very beautiful, as hopefully you can see from the few pictures below, and is visited by members of a variety of religious faiths.  It has apparently been instrumental in establishing the Buddhist Temple on Statin Island and two others in New York and Tanzania.  The temple, although very busy, was a very spiritual place with many people meditating, saying their prayers, spending time with a friend or quietly wandering around – definitely worth a google!

The Bodhi tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment

It is quite interesting how we stumbled upon the Temple although it was already on our list of places to visit.  We had gotten a little lost and decided to go into the Hilton to ask the concierge for directions assuming English would be spoken.   The young woman who was assisting us had excellent English, spent some time with us and then gave us a map and came out to the street to show us directions.   While we were discussing what to do first, this very pleasant young man must have overheard us say the ‘temple’ because he said “I show you” and indicated he worked at the Hilton, was on his lunch break and was headed to the Temple because of the big Buddhist celebration today with all the dancing elephants.   It was starting in five minutes and “come, come” and we were off!   He was walking, and talking, very fast and with much excitement as he and Dawn were in the lead with Yves behind and then Jim and I.   We rushed for about ten minutes and then he suggested we get a couple of tuktuks because of traffic issues, so we did, and within five minutes found ourselves at Gangaramaya Temple with him as our guide.  He told the tuktuks to wait to bring us to the dancing elephant celebration after our temple visit.   Paid our way, took off our shoes and wandered through the Temple and then began to get suspicious thinking he was just too kind, how long was his lunch break, etc. etc.etc. and if you are thinking we were in the middle of a scam you are right! But my blood pressure has already begun to boil as I reflect back so I will not continue to type and the story can be finished when we next see  you and you ask about the dancing elephants!  I am calling it ‘the sting’ as we refused to accept the terms of the leading man but in reality it once again raised the issue of  ”Who can you trust?’ other than you’re gut!      But we don’t care as we’re off again tomorrow for an early train ride on Sri Lankan Railways to Kandy which is in the mountains and is famous for its tea plantations – no doubt we will have a cuppa!