Bali to Sri Lanka in 28 hours

Surf day started fairly early and we headed up to Canggu. It was my first time on a board in close to 12 days and my first time with Aaron. I was nervous and to spare anyone any tension, I never successfully rode anything. Canggu was full of other surfers, the tide ridiculously high, and a strong current that pulled us all into an area of the beach that was hair-ball to exit. When I lost Aaron for a while after he got a ride, I paddled in and for a brief moment wondered if I'd ever get out of the water. Even Aaron said that type of exit was the hardest he'd ever experienced in his 24 years of surfing, so it wasn't just me. Basically there was a wave that would break hard right at the shore, carving a deep spot and creating an even stronger wave that shoved you hard into the beach and then quickly sucked you back out again.

I took a breather after getting out and was ready to paddle back out when Aaron came out and we decided lunch was in order. After a bite, we ended up at my familiar spot in Seminyak and it was back into the water. In all, we spent close to 7 hours in the ocean. When I quit, I quit with tears in my eyes, arguing, and feeling completely defeated.

Travel day part one dawned early and after the stressful scramble of accounting all of the stuff, shoving stuff, zipping stuff, and then hauling that stuff all over the airport, we arrived in Bangkok. It was an energizing evening of more packing, more organizing, working, cleaning, a brief nap/sleep, and up early for more prep.

Our flight was at 11pm and we miraculously got everything done that had to be done by the time we got on the Sky Train to the airport. More stuff hauling around, a hard nap on the flight, and then it was hauling stuff around the Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.

A short and overpriced tuk-tuk ride later and Aaron and I were able to grab three precious hours of semi consciousness as a storm raged around us with thunderclaps rivaled only by the most intense of summer storms on the plains of the USA. We were up at dawn, stumbling around the room, repacking for the torrential downpour outside, and then there was another tuk-tuk ride and we boarded the train for Marissa.

When we purchased our tickets at the colonial-built station, the money was slid under the window, the motion of this having occured so many times over the last 100 years, there was a silky smooth bowl forming from the sandpaper of money and oiling of millions of hands. We stood in 3rd-class (there's a fourth, but I imagine that's a class that's not actually "in" the train). The train filled up steadily as we neared Colombo until we were all touching, a network of Sri Lankans and the two foreigners in a steaming hot train car with windows and doors shut to the pouring rain as we bounced - literally bounced, had no idea trains could do that - all of the way into the big city.

Getting on the train - photo by aaron

Off On - photo by aaron

Colombo, from what I saw, is a modest capital without the posh high-rises of Bangkok, just wider streets than the small towns and more paved ones. Less chickens and cows and goats in the roads too. I drank it all in from my seat. There was the woman who dipped from her rain water cistern into a plastic bucket and bathed. The men sitting on their porches in their long silk, bright sarongs and watched the train with dark, disinterested eyes. There were the kids in stocking caps and uniforms, the little boy racing the train on his bare feet until he laughed and threw up his arms when we were too fast. It's hot jungle here, a lot like Thailand and Bali with mangoes, bananas, and palm everywhere. It smells like curry though and the people are friendly, speak pretty good English, and have a way about them that is at times no-nonsense and at other times happy with a little head bob that is used with all conversation other than on the phone.

Many people don't wear shoes anytime, anywhere, and the saris on women range from cotton with huge swaths of dark brown skin peeking out from a curry-fattened belly to the silk and chiffon with heavy beading and fold upon fold draped over a slim arm. There's a shortage of public bathroom and I've now awarded the Colombo Fort train station Ladies Waiting Area the most disgusting bathroom I've ever used. Even the locals washed their hands AND FEET on exiting. Yeah, that bad.

bare

tuk-tuk in colombo - photo by aaron

photo by aaron

The train

Our stuff - photo by aaron

The street food is great here and Aaron and I ate at a bakery where they put a heaping tray of savory breads baked and fried, all filled with a mix of spices, chick peas, and veggies. At the end of the meal, they counted the missing ones, added in the three empty mango juice bottles, and issued a bill accordingly. Another snack was fried chickpeas topped with crunchy bits, all vegan, all delicious, and scooped into reused sheets of paper with the scrolling Sinhala language of Sri Lanka covering it. I speculate that these "bags" came from homework, the whole family sitting around folding these together. The napkins at the bakery were sheets from the local telephone book. Waste not, want not.

chickpea yum!

baked goodness with mango juice

Aaron and I took the train, a series of villages on one side, the opposite side of the train was a stormy ocean that was at times above us but safely behind the retaining wall. We didn't bother with long naps, movies on Aaron's new iPad, or even books much, preferring to watch our new Sri Lankan TV from the windows and doors of the train. When we arrived, the hotel was as charming as promised and just a few steps from the water. Aaron and I unpacked and took the public bus into the nearest town where we ate street food, bought him a sarong in the local style, I got a Sari and a lesson on how to wear it, and we strode around the streets passing cows, misspelled signs (Salon is Saloon), and drinking the strange bottle juices and sodas of the area under the watchful gaze of the seller of the beverages waiting to reclaim the glass bottle.

Snacks - 30 cents for 100 grams

I don't know what it says, but I want to see inside

coupling on train

Crowning success

temple

Aaron watching Sri Lanka TV

When I took a nap, I set the alarm for 15 minutes and then proceeded to sleep right through it. Fortunately the alarm worked for Aaron trying to read The Life of Pi for the 5th time on the porch and he woke me up to get a dinner of devilish fish (SPICY) and ginger noodles.

men in sarongs - buying booze