in the meantime

I do have stuff to tell you about, but I didn't have time to do any posts this weekend, so you will have to settle for these old Stories of the Day. I am tired of having that section of my blog hanging around, so I'm posting ALL of them, and deleting it forever. Enjoy! (click on the pictures to get to the stories)

The earliest evidence of people living together as a family!

On Garfield's 31st birthday, here are some facts about him and his crew.

Stories of dogs that have gone missing and turned up again after a long, long time.

I can't stop watching this video. Turn up the sound!

The funniest protest signs of 2009!

Dave Barry's 2009 Year In Review <--- funny!

The history of my favorite thing: The Restaurant.

The best commercial in the history of ever.

all good things come to an end

We enjoyed another English breakfast on Wednesday morning. The Brits from Singapore had mentioned a few days earlier that the walk to and from Norwood (another of the Tea Trails bungalows) was beautiful. We thought it would be good to stretch our legs after the previous day's adventure, but we also thought it would be going a bit overboard to walk both ways, as it was about a 13 mile round trip. So we got a ride there and then walked back - it was indeed beautiful.

Bear in front of Norwood's giant bamboo

Chickens in a little village we walked through

Graves next to the trail

The trail

The view from the trail

Early on our walk, we passed a girl from New York who was walking to Norwood and getting a ride back. We all arrived back at Castlereagh at around the same time, so we had lunch together (which was vegetable soup, prawns with salad, and custard with cherries). We enjoyed talking to our new friend from NY so much that we chatted with her all through tea (we opted for ginger spice tea with cheese and crackers instead of the whole shebang) and then after tea we moved into the sitting room and asked the staff to make a fire for us in the fireplace. We had some prosecco and little spring rolls, and then went out to the veranda for dinner where we sat with our NY friend again, as well as another British couple who were on their honeymoon. They said things like "smart clobber" and... other Britishisms. We lingered over another Sri Lankan dinner and long conversation, which was delightful.

In the morning, we ordered bed tea in the room, and packed. At breakfast, we chatted with our NY friend again and said our goodbyes.

The drive back to Colombo was nice, and our driver wanted to know if they put the steering wheel on the other side of the car in America, and whether we'd ever seen Michael Jackson in concert. We stopped at a hotel on the way for a look around their museum of cars and a cup of tea on their so-perfect-it-might-as-well-be-Disney-Sri-Lanka patio by the water.

Traffic in Colombo was horrendous. It rivals DC traffic on a relatively bad day. We finally got to our hotel after what felt like weeks during which the driver's conversation devolved into complaints about the government, which sounded remarkably similar to our own country's complaints about its government.

When we arrived at Casa Colombo, I was initially impressed. The building is a restored home, over 200 years old. It would be beautiful, but the decor... it's... it's so ostentatious. The ceilings, which would have been just short of over the top had they been white, were in some rooms painted bright glittering gold. Our bedroom had a phone that looked like bright red lips and a red neon light under the bed. The centerpieces on all of the tables in the restaurant had live fish in them, which I am fairly certain had very short lives. I ordered chicken curry and got a full Sri Lankan meal with 5 or 6 dishes.

The dining room with the gold ceiling, the dangly...thing, and the fishbowl centerpiece.

We tried to go for a walk and a bit of shopping in Colombo, but the city is so very loud, and so very un-pedestrian-friendly that we gave up and went back to our weirdly garish but quieter hotel.

But it was a nice stay, nevertheless. It was nice to lie in a bed and watch TV after such a long drive, and after not having watched TV for the better part of 6 months. And the staff was friendly, as are all Sri Lankans as far as we can tell. We ordered another Sri Lankan meal for dinner in the room, watched the National Geographic channel, and thoroughly enjoyed the Indian commercials.

So, as I said, I love Sri Lanka. I recommend a visit to anyone - just not necessarily Colombo. Here are all of our Sri Lanka pictures if you're interested.


One year ago: thoughts
Two years ago: funny little aside

Adam's Peak

Surprisingly, waking up for the day at 12:30am is a lot less bad than waking up at, say, 3:30am - I suppose because it's a relatively normal time to be awake anyway.

We leapt energetically out of bed and skipped blithely out to the lobby, gear-in-hand, where we met our guide and picked up our picnic breakfast. We frolicked joyfully out to our ride, which was one of those cute decorated vans that had curtains with tassels, and this is where our glee and energy died a fairly immediate death. It was as if the seats were on springs. Or as if we were in a row boat in particularly choppy waves. I leaned over and whispered to Bear, "the trick is to keep your eyes on the horizon". He nodded gravely and stared out the window at the farthest available fixed point.

Luckily we had nothing in our stomachs and we were at least a little distracted from our misery by sightings of wild pigs, rabbits, and either a fishing cat, which is what the guide claimed, or a polecat, which seems more likely.

The drive seemed to take forever, along winding mountain roads where we caught glimpses of the mountain with a snaking line of lights from the base to the top.

Toward the end, we drove through a few little villages and rows of shops, passing braver souls who started their walk even earlier and farther down the mountain. We parked. I was so conflicted about getting out of that horrible van. I’d be on steady ground, but I’d be doing something I knew was going to hurt, really bad, for days afterward.

We set out, and I was immediately out of breath. I thought about blaming it on the altitude, but really, let’s not kid ourselves. I have not exercised my heart and lungs in years. I wondered vaguely what anyone could do if I had a heart attack. Our guide was strolling along, bored. I asked him between gasps for oxygen how many times he’d been to the top and he said he couldn’t count the times. I asked him what the slowest time was and he said 3 hours. I thought – Well. Prepare to break your record buddy. I asked him what the fastest time was but the answer has escaped my memory, overshadowed by the fact that it was a marathon runner that he was guiding, and he ran up the entire way, and then after that, he ran down. And this guide kept up with a dang marathon runner. You see, the entire thing is stairs. Big, tall stairs. 5,000 of them. Stairs. Bear and the guide walked on ahead and stopped on occasion to wait for me. I plodded along at a steady pace, slowly, not stopping often.

We walked by several little shrines and shops, and passed under a tall stone archway that marks the actual beginning of the arduous journey.

A shrine

The gateway to pain

An old monk stopped us and tied colorful woven bracelets around our wrists, saying a prayer as he did so. I had no idea what the prayer was, but I found myself bolstered; a little more confident that perhaps I was not going to die.

It got to the point where I didn’t really doubt I could do it, and even do it in time to see the sunrise. I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was an almost spiritual experience, which I suppose is the point, as it’s a pilgrimage for Buddhists. Bear says the internet says that back in the 1800s or so, there were accounts written by Westerners who climbed to the top over the strewn bodies of pilgrims who died of exposure and exhaustion along the way. Which would have made me feel a little better about myself but I am pretty sure they didn’t just drive right up to it like we did.

There were women in sandals, carrying babies. There were grandmas and grandpas. There were children, running up the stairs as if they were not half the height of their little bodies. My legs were burning, my lungs were fighting to get a deep breath, my heart rate was soaring, my stomach was starting to act like it wanted to reject this whole idea plus everything that had ever entered it. But I kept going, through the pain and nausea.

me, following the guide up the mountain of pain and nausea

At one point, we passed a man who was stumbling down the stairs and stopping every so often to regain his balance. The guide went to him to steady him and I asked if he was ok. The guide said he was drunk. The man would not stop, would not sit down, and continued to stumble precariously down the stairs. I worried, but I did not stop to watch and will him safely down the stairs because I was terrified of seeing him fall and break his neck. We didn’t see his broken body on our trip down later in the day, so I hope he made it.

We walked and walked, and there were little shops and food stores all along the way, all the way up this mountain. We stopped to buy crackers at one of them. I was a bit awe-struck by the shop keepers who walk up there every day of their lives to run these little stores. I wonder how many calories they eat in a day.

shops in the background.

Toward the end, the stairs became even steeper, and there were hand railings on either side. Bear and I used them to haul ourselves up the stairs using our arms more than our legs, and it was such a relief. Even though they were freezing cold and wet, and we had no gloves. Such a huge relief. At this point, even some of the locals started to get tired, and I felt less idiotic. Our guide, on the other hand, was still on a leisurely stroll.

We made it to the top in 2 hours and 40 minutes. I was surprised, and a little pleased. I am not the slowest person in the world, at least by a good 20 minutes! We took off our shoes and perused the temple, where the legendary footprint of Buddha (or Adam, depending) is of course covered up by concrete and decorations. You just are supposed to believe it’s there. Photos weren’t allowed, and so I have no proof of even the concrete covering up the alleged footprint.

Facing east, there was a row of concrete bleachers, where we settled ourselves and ate the breakfast that was packed for us. Salmon sandwiches again, crackers, bananas, boiled eggs. As the sun rose, they played music on the loudspeakers. The view was gorgeous.

misty mountain morning

The shadow of the mountain on the clouds, facing away from the sunrise

The trek down was painful, but not as demanding on the large muscle groups and lungs. I had an easier time even though the insides of my knees probably look more like gravel than anything else. I held up pretty well, actually. We passed by shop keepers and suppliers on their way up to their shops, carrying huge boxes of supplies on their heads. I felt, not for the first time that day, like a heel.

We took pictures on the way down, since, you know, we could see now.

The guide is showing me the string and packets of herbs that first time (Buddhist) visitors traditionally put here.

Lemongrass! Just growing out of the ground!

This building was given to Sri Lanka by Japan "for world peace" says the guide, although I don't really know what he meant.

Monkeh (he was just finishing a yawn)

That part of the journey took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. I was cautiously happy to see the van at the bottom of the mountain, but again my happiness was crushed by the effort to retain the contents of my stomach. However. The scenery, which we couldn’t see in the darkness of the drive earlier, was spectacular. Huge valleys with rivers running through, tall flowering trees, bright green parakeets. It was paradise.

As soon as we got home, I took a shower and begged the butler for something for my headache, which I inevitably get when I don’t get good sleep. Then I had a fantastic massage in our room and took another shower. I went out to lunch, and we had tomato soup. Bear had asked for grilled cheese sandwiches as well because in his mind it is impossible to eat tomato soup without a grilled cheese sandwich. Oddly, they had lettuce on them. Cajun chicken with cole slaw salad, and a rhubarb tart with tiny multicolored squares of jello for dessert. We tried so hard after that to stay awake, but I wasn’t feeling well (either I bonked or I just couldn’t cope with the lack of sleep or I never really recovered from the van ride) so I caved and had a blissful nap in bed. Bear tried slightly harder, and fell asleep sitting upright in an armchair for several hours. We woke up right at 8:30 and hurried out to dinner. We had green bean and parmesan soup and lamb with steamed veggies. Dessert was some sort of gingerbread, molded into a cone shape. We slept like the dead.

One year ago: a Moppet miracle

sun bathing

Chupacabra!

One year ago: memory lane

anniversaries don't get better than this

Not that I have much experience with anniversaries. I've only had 3, and this was the first one we've spent together. But I have a feeling it's going to be pretty tough to beat.

Sunday January 16th was our anniversary, and we awoke to "bed tea" being served in our room. We sipped it at a little table on our private veranda in our private garden, and listened to the birds singing.


When we went out to breakfast, we were treated to poached eggs on toast, bacon, chicken sausage, hash browns, roasted tomatoes, danishes, fresh fruit, fresh pineapple juice, and tea (of course). I'm pretty sure it was enough calories to last us the day, but they also packed us a lunch to take on our day trip to Kandy. The driver picked us up at 9am and drove us into the little town, which is famous in Sri Lanka for being the home of a beautiful botanical garden, a university, and the most important temple for Buddhists, the Temple of the Tooth.

Our first stop, unfortunately, was on the side of the road by the university, where the car decided it was time to take a nap. The driver called his mechanic, who said something about the "knock sensor" and letting the car cool off a bit. So we sat for a few minutes, and then inched our way to the botanical garden, where the driver told us to walk around for an hour while he parked and let the car cool down.

The garden was beautiful, of course, although I don't feel that Sri Lanka needs any showcase of botany - the entire country is a showcase. But we enjoyed our walk, and saw some interesting things, like this giant bamboo:

See those little people sitting over there on the right? They're not miniature, the bamboo is just gigantic.

One of the things I really liked about the garden was actually the people. There were couples everywhere, holding hands. Men and women were standing around talking to each other in groups, and laughing and smiling. There was no fear of the muttawah showing up and arresting everyone. It was nice. Normal, even.

After the garden, we drove over to the Temple of the Tooth and the driver procured a guide for us. He reminded me of this guy, with his prominent cheeks. Anyway, although the temple was interesting, we were slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see the tooth, or even the stupa that contains the tooth. They show the stupa at certain times during the day, which we missed, and then once a year they have a reenactment of the tooth being brought to the temple, where they dress up the elephants, etc. But it was interesting to see such a beautiful temple, and all the people so devoted to their religion. Even if we did have to walk around the whole thing with no shoes on (skeeeeeeeve).


After visiting the temple, our driver took us to an overlook where we could get a good view of Kandy:


We ate our packed lunch, which was fried chicken legs, delicious smoked salmon sandwiches, bananas, and oranges. Then we stopped by a little shop to buy a couple of souvenirs, and the driver scowled at the price of my new flip flops and declared that I should not wear them; I should hang them on the wall. Alas, there was no haggling.

The car hung in there on the hour-long drive to the elephant orphanage. We were too late to see them playing in the river, but we did get to watch them walk up the road from the river to their enclosure.


We followed them to their enclosure and watched them eat their lunch. There were two tiny (relatively) babies, about 3 weeks old that were a joy to watch, but this lady was the ham of the group:


It was nice to see elephants with room to roam, and know that they go and play in the river 3 or 4 times a day. I think about the elephants back home in the National Zoo and my heart breaks for them. These guys have it much better, although they are still not free. Many of them were once wild, and had to be saved from the abuses of humans. One old lady lost her front foot in a land mine, and now hobbles around, her spine bent severely to compensate for the shift in weight. And a male, who is kept under a small shelter, is blind because someone shot him to try to get his tusks. On the one hand, the tragedy of these stories hurts to think about, but on the other hand, it's gladdening to know that there are people who have enough love in their hearts to rescue and take care of these amazing animals.

On the way home, the car had trouble again. I had a hard time not worrying that we'd never make it back up the mountains to our bungalow. It was dark, and raining, and we had left our lunch remains in the car, not realizing how industrious Sri Lankan ants can be. We had to stop for a half hour in a little village to let the car cool off, and then we had to drive very slowly the rest of the way back. We finally got there around 8:00. Perfect timing for a special Sri Lankan anniversary dinner:


Everything was so delicious. I suppose you could say the closest thing to it is Indian food, but it's really not a whole lot like Indian food. There were all sorts of vegetables, which Bear shockingly ate with gusto, and fish and chicken curries. We had creme caramel for dessert, and then wandered off to bed.

On Monday morning, we had bed tea again. I wish I could relate the peace and luxury of having bed tea. You ooze out of bed, shuffle out to the patio where you sit and sip tea (with milk and sugar! we were on vacation), read the paper, and slowly the sleepiness leaves you, and you're awake and ready for the day. Which began that day with a Sri Lankan breakfast: fish curry, potato curry, and some very spicy cabbagey stuff. Our butler told us they love spicy food at all times of the day, and the spiciness that we were getting was really quite bland to them. He told us about the "cobra chili" which is arguably the hottest pepper in the world, and which they eat like it's a cookie or something. And of course there was the story of the arrogant westerner who insisted on having "Sri Lankan spicy" food, and was later found in his room, screaming.

After breakfast, we had a tea tasting with the manager of the nearby tea factory. We and two other (older, British) couples sat around a table, and listened to the manager tell us about the history of tea in Sri Lanka, the methods of making white, green, and black tea all from the same plant, and the myriad health benefits of tea (which you must drink without sugar or milk, 4 to 5 times a day, to experience). If you are interested:

• All of the tea plantations were originally coffee plantations, but the plants got sick and died.
• One industrious fellow (I forget the name) still wanted "to do something for Queen and country" and decided to plant this new and exciting tea plant that he'd heard so much about.
• The tea, and the fellow, flourished - the rest of the growers followed suit and it's been tea country ever since.
• If left alone, a tea plant will grow into a tree.
• They pick tea from a plant every 7 days, and so they remain small bushes.
• Eventually, the plant gets tired of trying to keep up with all this picking, and stops growing. At that point, they prune the entire thing, and then let it rest for 4 months, after which it will happily start growing again. In this way, tea plants can survive for hundreds or thousands of years.
• White tea is made from just the bud.
• Black tea is made from two leaves and a bud.
• Green tea is also made from two leaves and a bud, but it is not oxidized like the others.
• The legend of how tea drinking was discovered goes like this: A Chinese emperor was visiting a town, and they were boiling water to get it ready for him to drink. A leaf from a tree found its way into the boiling water, and the water started to turn tea-colored. The emperor, feeling brave, tasted the water, and decided that he liked it. He bade his companions to try it, and they agreed that it was tasty. And so, the practice of drinking tea was born.

After the tea tasting, we had lunch (potato and leek soup, pork chop, salad with mixed vegetables) and chatted with the couple next to us. They were Brits who live in Singapore, and they were there for the wife's 40th birthday. They had climbed Adam's Peak that morning, which we were planning to do the following day, in the afternoon. They convinced us that would be a very bad idea, temperature-wise, and so our plans changed. We reluctantly, after long discussion, decided to get up at 12:30 the next morning and climb the mountain. With fear in our hearts and anxiety-induced nausea in our stomachs, we went for a short walk around the plantation and made plans to go to bed directly after dinner.


Dinner that night was carrot and coriander soup, which was so delicious I couldn't believe it was made out of anything so mundane as a carrot. Here is a recipe that I intend to try as soon as I can find some vegetable stock, which will most likely be after I move back to the US. We also had some delicious beef in a red wine sauce, and veggies. Vanilla panna cotta for dessert. We discussed the next day's plan with the butler and immediately went to bed, pretty convinced that waking up at 12:30 would be the hardest thing either of us had ever done in our lives. Which I will tell you about on Thursday.


One year ago: newest members of the fambly
Two years ago: hospital redux

Sri Lanka!

I'll just go ahead and get my conclusion out of the way first: I love Sri Lanka! I love the people, I love the flowers, I love the mountains, I love the animals, I even love the language(s). Love!

We got there on Saturday, January 15th. It had been raining for weeks, and we expected to be drenched the entire time. But, the sun was out when we landed at the airport where the female workers all wore pretty blue saris and Christmas and New Years decorations hung from the ceilings and adorned the windows. A Buddhist altar kept us company as we waited in line at customs. We exchanged our money, found our driver, and set off on the 5 hour drive from Colombo to Bogawantalawa.

Bogawantalawa is only about 77 miles from Colombo, but there are no highways - only curvy mountain roads with every kind of vehicle from motorbikes to tuk-tuks to buses to semis. There was a lot of passing on the wrong side of the road (which happens to be the right side of the road, as they drive on the left).

Here we are on the right (wrong) side of the road going straight for a truck. Fun times.

I was less panicky than anyone who knows me would imagine. Our driver was maybe 50, and he'd been driving people up into the mountains for many years without so much as a scratch on his car. I thought - what are the chances of us being his first accident, and of the accident being fatal? Almost none chance! And then as we were making our way back into our proper lane, we clipped a motorcyclist (or he clipped us) and the side mirror was shattered. The motorcyclist kept going without even flinching, so it must have just been his handlebar - but after that I was not as calm.

Our driver's first accident. Ever.

The drive was beautiful and scary, but I had a hard time staying awake anyway - I don't do well with night flights and layovers at 2am. The driver showed us coffee trees, tea bushes, and rubber trees. Rubber is a big deal in Sri Lanka, just after tea. While they do grow coffee, they are in an area where the plants are susceptible to disease and so there isn't enough of it to export. (Take all of this with a grain of salt, I learned it from the driver).

Rubber dripping from cuts in the trees' bark, and draining into coconut shells.

As we drove, we noticed that there were dogs everywhere. The dogs in Sri Lanka are like the cats in Riyadh. There are so many, and they are not concerned enough about traffic that they won't curl up for a nap in the middle of the road. Despite that, and despite the insane driving, we never saw a dead one.

Another thing we noticed is that Sri Lankans seem to be at least sort of safety-conscious. They drive like people with a death wish, but they do wear seat belts, which is something that Saudis are much too cool for. And usually, people on motorcycles have helmets. They may not fasten their helmets, but at least they are wearing them (I know Sean, it's not the thought that counts when it comes to motorcycle helmets).

And the best thing I noticed was billions and billions of flowers. I have never seen so many, and so many different kinds of flowers in one place. I was blown away by how beautiful it was in contrast to my poor little struggling Saudi garden. Flowers grew out of walls, and on the side of the road, and up trees, and I'm convinced that if we'd stopped the car for any length of time they would have started growing out of the tires (or tyres as they say).

Toward the end of the drive, the driver pulled over at a little village (villages are tiny on those roads - just a few houses and shops) and asked us to come and see the bridge. I like bridges, I was game. But it was one of those horrible bridges that's just hanging there, the walkway suspended from cables fastened to cliffs on either side of a river. Flapping the breeze. I did not go very far across.

Bridge with driver and ubiquitous dog.

The driver mentioned something about the filming of The Bridge on the River Kwai, but I was a bit too delirious to absorb it. And then I looked down and saw a crocodile. The driver chuckled and said, no, that's an iguana. But I have seen iguanas and I am sorry but that is the biggest dang iguana on the planet. Somebody should submit it to Guinness.

Crocoguana. Blurry from standing on a bridge that was blowing about wildly in the wind.

We arrived on a Hindu festival day, and the party was just getting started as we drove up. Luckily they weren't really underway yet, or we would have had to wait another couple of hours, as they block the roads with their tables of food, their decorated truck, and their music and dancing.

They were kind enough to let us through.

Finally, we got to our bungalow, Castlereagh. If you are ever in Sri Lanka and want to stay in tea country, I highly recommend Castlereagh. It is a tea plantation estate that was built in the 1920s, and has been incredibly well maintained. Each room is named after a grower that lived on the estate at some point (we were in Baker). It has beautiful, beautiful gardens, a swimming pool, a covered veranda for meals (or a dining room if you prefer) and a spectacular view of the reservoir. Most importantly, our bed had a mosquito net.

Castlereagh bungalow

Baker room

We were ushered into the sitting room and given glasses of juice. The chef came out to discuss lunch, and it was ready by the time we'd freshened up and gone to sit at a table on the veranda. We had mushroom soup with pesto sauce, fish with potatoes and spinach, and homemade strawberry ice cream with pears for dessert. Everything was exquisite.

After lunch we took a walk around the plantation, up into the tea-covered hills. We saw several graves up there, I suppose of tea pickers and their relatives whose lives begin and end in tea country.

I don't suppose there's a better place in the world to be buried.

We also saw leeches. There may or may not have been screaming. I didn't get a picture of the one that had attached itself to my ankle, because it's hard to take a picture when you're jumping around and slapping at your legs and suffering from violent convulsions. But I did get a picture of one that was making its way from my shoe to my ankle.

Can you see it? Over there on the right, near the tan stitched area.

Did you know they move like inch worms? I will never look at an inch worm the same way again.

There are so many flowers on Castlereagh's land. I mean, I know I mentioned the flowers before but... it's just overwhelmingly beautiful. I won't bore you with all of my flower pictures here, but I will say that I saw several amaryllis just growing up out of the ground, and a thing that I think is called a bird of paradise, which Gmaw used to have in plastic form in her house, and I will also show you this crazy thing, which was gigantic:


After our walk, we came back to the bungalow for high tea, which they serve every day at 5:00. There were scones and pound cakes (regular and chocolate) and lemon tarts and little sandwiches and butter and clotted cream and jelly. We took a nap. We had pre-dinner drinks with an old couple from Sweden who currently lives in London and visited the Southern US during hurricane season several years ago. And their granddaughter is not yet 21 but is kind of a drunk, which really was a bit too much information for me, but there you have it. Dinner (at 8:30) was a leek quiche tart with salad, pumpkin soup, and a pork chop with orange sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and vegetables. Green tea Jello with fruit for dessert.

It was a glorious first day in Sri Lanka, and I hope I never forget a single detail. That's what blogs are for, right?

back to reality

I've spent the last week in Ceylon tea country - one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I'll work on the photos this weekend and share them with you next week. Time to settle back into the ol' routine.