Sri Lanka - Paradise Lost #2?

Don't save a prayer for me now 

Save it til the morning after

Sri Lanka’s iconic landmark, The Galle Face Hotel, is situated in the heart of Colombo, along the seafront and facing the famous Galle Face Green. 

This was the hotel where, almost exactly 100 years ago, my maternal grandparents held their wedding reception.....

One of the oldest hotels east of the Suez, The Galle Face Hotel embraces its rich history and legendary traditions, utilizing them to create engaging, immersive experiences that resonate with old and new generations of travelers alike. No visit to Sri Lanka is complete without staying at this majestic hotel, built in 1864 and recently restored back to its former glory.

Well.... in 1988, when I chanced by, it hadn't been restored to any former glory, but it was still a fine place for a peg or two.....

Ceylon was a British crown colony until February 4th 1948.  I travelled to Sri Lanka, as Ceylon had become in 1972, and fumbled my way around, trying to avoid conflict with the Tamil Tigers, who were, at the time, a force to be reckoned with in the North and North East.  A civil war was waged for 26 years until 2009.

In 2018, The Guardian reported that, it is nearly a decade since the civil war in Sri Lanka ended, but for many families the long struggle will never be over. During the conflict, many thousands of people from the minority Tamil community in the north of the country were “disappeared”. Amnesty International estimates that there are at least 60,000 of these “missing” people, perhaps as many as 100,000. Their families do not know if they were killed or imprisoned by the government forces. Many were teenagers or young adults when they were lost.

I travelled in a shroud of ignorance and innocence - neither of them an acceptable excuse, I know. I had been to Kerala, where my mother had been born on a tea plantation, and I had visited Cape Cormorin, and stood at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial looking south, and I wanted to see the fabled island jewel across the oceans......

I made this trip with a colleague.  We had just got back from taking a heterogenous party of pupils to the strange world of London (Rome was our home at the time) and a 'foreign' holiday was needed.

I used Pentax MX SLR cameras at the time, and have rescued some of the slides I took (though without sophisticated digital scanning), so these if these pics seem a little odd, please blame their years, not their creator.....

I also kept a diary, scribbled with superficialities, as we moved around.  Forgive me if I recount certain details.....  Our flight out was delayed from 5.30 to midnight. We were given a voucher for a meal which didn't go down very well.  

In fact it came up again, as I recorded in the diary:  After interminable taxiing I suddenly get cold sweats and sickness... I faint, twice, and have to be carried into business class [you expect me to believe this? Ed] my legs raised by a doctor and his girlfriend.... 

It wasn't a heart attack.  

Probably something I ate.

So, grounded in Colombo we check into the Hotel Taprobane (the Ancient Greek name for the island) and have a cup of tea before wandering down to the Galle Face Hotel for a luxurious Pimms.......

My diary is sketchy at this point, but I note that I lay in bed on Sunday morning reading Evelyn Waugh's Unconditional Surrender before breakfast.  [Travel broadens the mind?  Ed]

We then took a two and a half hour train ride to Galle, where we move into the New Oriental Hotel.  We have a vast corner suite, showers, and Sri Lankan cocktails before a fish curry supper and beer....

The Hotel, now rechristened, Amangalla,  is still there, though, I suspect, much transformed.  Here is what it says of itself on the interweb today:

Colonial grande dame 

In the historic port of Galle, Amangalla lies within the ramparts of Sri Lanka’s 17th-century Galle Fort, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Offering views of the Fort and harbour on one side and the hotel’s lush gardens and swimming pool on the other, the graceful residence presents 30 rooms and suites, the two-storey, free-standing Garden House and the tranquil spa complex, The Spa and Baths. Named after the Sanskrit-derived word for ‘peace’, and galla, the Sinhalese word for the town of Galle, Amangalla reveals the Fort’s daily activities and rich legacy, its narrow streets lined with buildings from the Dutch and British colonial eras. Beyond the old-world bustle of this remarkable citadel lie emerald-green rice paddies, tranquil temples, serene beaches and the exhilarating prospect of whale-spotting from November to March.

I cannot claim to have any connection with Duran Duran.  I believe they may have been popular recording artists of the 1980s, belonging to something called the 'new wave.' 

As with Mrs Thatcher, and Only Fools and Horses, these were treats I missed by living in the Italian third world, a pleasing backwater managed by corrupt politicians and well-meaning mafiosi....

However, it was somehow extraordinary that this band of romantic youths had pitched up here at this very hotel to record videos.  How could they have foreseen that subsequently I would be there too?  The hotel staff were immensely proud of the connection..... (Especially when I told them I had been to Birmingham.....)

My diary records: We walked round old fort, beautiful place, surrounded by shallow coral sea, and pockets of stilt-fishers etc.....

And then into beautiful hotel pool amidst the most glorious tropical garden; hibiscus, frangipane, cannas and everything green (coconuts) and birds here and there (hummingbirds, flycatchers, etc) and also, later, a couple of mongoose [mongeese? Ed]

Lazy.  Read Waugh.  Have sandwiches and gin and limes, and then start Golding's Close Quarters.

You can see the depth of my enquiry into the socio-economic plight of the world around me. With the benefit of hindsight I would also claim to have foreseen the devastation of Galle by the tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004, which completely destroyed the international cricket stadium, among other essential facilities..... (The tsunami killed over 35,000 people in Sr Lanka, and I recall pictures of the devastation at the time. Fortunately, perhaps, the New Oriental was protected by the walls of the Dutch defences....)

It is hard to see what difference I have ever made to the world, but I like to think that wherever I go I pay my dues, and perhaps my contribution to the local coffers was not a negative.....

Then sunset walk round the fort again and sit on terrace drinking Sri Lankan cocktails.....

I offer the following extract from the diary not as a confession of absolute decadence, but somehow as an homage to the New Romanticism I seem to have caught from previous guests in this particular corner of paradise....

Tuesday: breakfast, bank and then taxi to Umawatuna beach where we snorkel, frizzle and lunch on, rather small, lobsters.....  [Times must be hard when you complain about the size of lobsters....! Ed]

In the evening we had arrack cocktails, write postcards, (remember them?) dine on springhopper biriani and chicken curry and have a very interesting chat with the owner's son and his wife.  [So interesting, note, that you neglected to record a word of it..... Ed]

From Galle, we moved on to Matara, and then to the Tangalle Rest House.....  A little swim, a little walk around, and then a couple of gin, lime and sodas in earshot of a German, and a Californian girl and Texas boy having heady discussion of deepest naïveté [You can talk? Ed]..... ("superficially, on the surface, one can get to know Sri Lankans really well, but, I don't know, it seems difficult to get really close to them!" - "I know a lot of people back home, but I can probably number real friends on ONE HAND!")

We seem to wander a little for a day or two, seeing giant Buddhist sculptures, and swimming with barracudas, but then on Saturday:

Up early and breakfast and walk to train..... Scenery very fine, with views down tea gardens and across the hill country, even to the extraordinary triangle of Adam's peak.....

Our aim was Nuwara Eliya (at 1,868 metres above sea level) where we check in to the Alpen Guest House, a fairly grotty establishment in the biggest deadsville in Sri Lanka.  It is a town of 26,000+ and its nick name is "Little England." My diary records (and please forgive me, these are things my earlier self observed and recorded over thirty years ago....) Every fat, greasy, rich bastard in the country is gathering here for a New Year holiday of blaring disco music, the most inflated prices and the most ghastly weather.  It rains, as we take a seat in the Hill Club Reading Room, hushed atmosphere and month old Daily Telegraphs.....

Later we have an awful chicken curry with drain-smelling rice etc and then back to the crazy Alpen for a belt of Arrack, the same news as earlier, and a fairly chilly, mosquito-ridden night.

At least it doesn't rain in the morning, and after breakfast we walk for three hours, completely circumambulating the hill station, finding (eventually) the slightly gothic (black corrugated iron roof, fresh white-washed walls) Anglican Church, the mock brickwork Post Office, the nicely flowering Victoria Park, the grey, Caledonian-style St Andrew's Hotel and the pukka wallies on the golf course.  To complete our tour we drop in to the ridiculous race course to see the 10.15, rather more like the sands at Weston than Ascot, with some riders in silks and others in jeans, some with saddles, others without, and all (even ten-year-old lads) long on the dwarf bloodstock.....

Then back to the Alpen for coffee and sandwiches while we wait for the car, and a total prat Brit turns up, who didn't accept a ride on an elephant because he hadn't brought his insurance. "Funny old world, innit?" he philosophised, while sitting in an old British bungalow with pictures of the village smithy, sheep in snow, and lots of antlers on the walls.....  We are very glad to get away.

It is raining hard when we arrive in Kandy,  the second largest city of Sri Lanka, at 500 metres above sea level, and so we check into the Hotel Suisse, and stay there for supper and sleep.

Monday: Lovely morning, after initial mists.... walk round lake to Railway Station (pelicans in the trees, Temple of the Tooth gleaming in the sun) and buy tickets to Colombo tomorrow, then wandering out, we are approached nicely by a bearded taxi driver.  After brief negotiations we agree a price of 300Rps and set off, in the front of his minibus, for the Elephant Orphanage, some 30 miles away.....

It is an interesting drive, down the road to Colombo, through villages, towns, and superb scenery, and our driver is very informative.  He's been a taxi driver for ten years, has a wife and four kids, is one of twelve children himself, 33 years old and has set up an association of taxi drivers (a sort of union though that is illegal) in Kandy.

The Elephant orphanage is delightful and the elephants are all bathing in the river, swollen and red after the rains.  The two or three mahouts don't bother us and for a while we are there with a dozen or so elephants, playing with the little ones (some just three months old) and it is really lovely.  There are also three little ones back in the camp which haven't been allowed in the river today, and we have our pictures taken with them.....

Afterwards we are taken to a spice garden, where we buy a load of spices, and get the recipe for Sri Lankan curry:

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp saffron

ten seeds coriander

ten seeds anis

sen seeds cumin

ten seeds dill

ten seeds black pepper

ten red chilli beans

2 cups cool water

25 minutes cook

1 kilo rice

1 drop almond essence

[Or words to that effect....]

Later, as it is not raining, we walk round the lake in Kandy and meet a charming chap who wants us to meet the high priest, and who waits outside while we have a couple of drinks in the seedy, crumbling Queen's Hotel, and then conducts us to the monastery, shows us some Buddhas before taking us to meet the arch monk of Sri Lanka, a 92 year old serenity who sits in a pleasant ante room of the monks' quarters, with a couple of dogs for company and a nice chaise longue.

Through the interpreter we tell him of our journey and he tell us other places we should go, then we are instructed to make a donation (50Rps seems enough though it doesn't seem to over-impress his holiness) and we are ushered away. [Today I wonder whether we really did meet his supreme holiness, or whether this was just some ancient monk on duty to fleece unsuspecting tourists? I must admit to disappointment both at the time and now.  I studied Indian Religion at University under the great Ninian Smart, and philosophically and spiritually have empathy with Buddhism.  But this was not an epiphany....]

Tuesday: Our man calls for us at 8.30 and we go off on a 'Temple Crawl' first to a modest little Buddhist one then a combined Buddhist/Hindu one and then an ancient Hindu one with interesting carvings and a small Buddhist cubicle.  All are in village settings, surrounded by forests and paddy fields, water buffalo ploughing the mud, and working elephants shifting logs.

Then, as a rare honour, our driver takes us to his father's house to have tea and local sweets and to meet some of his family, including one younger brother who worked as a cook on Midway island for three years.  It's a very friendly, quiet house, with lots of people in it.  Father, 72, has twelve children most of whom are married.

On the way back we see a brother-in-law staggering up the road having had too much arrack.  It's 11.30 am on New Year's Day and everybody is happy....

I was really impressed with our driver, and he gave me his address:

[Later on, home again, I recommended him to friends who were aiming to visit, and I wrote to him, promising to return, but the trail ended there.  I do hope his Union activity didn't get him into trouble, and that he is still living a happy family life....]

The train rattles us down the hills to Colombo through the rain and flooded paddy fields.  My friend claims to have seen a snake eating a crocodile's intestines from within, during a torrential downpour in a flooded paddy.  I humour him.  Poor chap's getting on and it's been very trying for him to have the gout.....

It's still raining in Colombo so we get a taxi to the Mount Lavinia Hotel, on the beach to the south....

Wednesday: .... a wonderful day, reading and resting on the private, Paradise beach.  Later we have dry martinis to a superb sunset, with fireworks celebrating the Tamil/Sinhala New Year down the coast and a big electric storm building up black overhead.

On our last morning we get talked to by some oddballs, including a very funny RC priest on a motorbike who insists on us photographing him.  

It is very quiet and apparently has been since '83  and the troubles.  One man we talk to used to be a barman at a good hotel up the beach, but that is closed now, and he is just a waiter in a run down government rest house.  

Late (at 10.15) the taxi takes us to the airport....  Elaborate checking in takes hours, with to-ing and fr0-ing to change money to pay airport tax etc, and boring waiting, but we eventually get off......

And that's where the diary ends, some thirty years ago....

*     *     *     *

“Hungry Like the Wolf” is one of Duran Duran’s biggest hits. The band has said that the video is like an Indiana Jones movie, but he’s looking for a girl for the night. Seventeen seconds into the video, we see Simon Le Bon sitting in an exotic café wearing a hat and glacier glasses. A bottle of liquor sits on the table while he shoos away a vendor with a monkey. The camera angle switches to the front, and he stands up in slow motion flipping the table dramatically, as we’ve seen in so many 80s videos. That scene was shot in the capital city, Colombo, in the Pagoda Tea Room. The Pagoda Tea Room is still open. It’s since been refurbished and now has a bland, white paint scheme with plastic tables and chairs. Still exotic, it’s located at 105 Chatham Street in the old area of Colombo called Fort. The final reunion scene of the video is shot here as well. Next Simon Le Bon walks through a bazaar. This was shot in the old market in the town of Galle. The market has since been redone and is not recognizable from the video. There is a short segment in the video where the band members are in a bar, elegantly dressed, and standing by a staircase. That scene was shot in the Amangalla Hotel in Galle (formerly the New Oriental Hotel). Most of the other scenes in the video are shot in the jungle or on the streets, not places that are easily recognizable or can be found.

“So you’re looking for the thrill, and you know just what it takes and where to go.” ~ Save a Prayer

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DURAN DURAN IN SRI LANKA

by Marc Weitz

*     *     *     *

Strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you

Mouth is alive with juices like wine

And I'm hungry like the wolf

Hungry Like the Wolf

Duran Duran

*     *     *     *

Me miserable! which way shall I flie

Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire?

Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep

Still threatning to devour me opens wide,

To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n.

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Calling cards from a misspent youth

What larks!..... Let the good times roll!

Today and tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
Follow me close, I’m going to Ballinalee
I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes

Bob Dylan

I contain Multitudes

Me neither....  His Bobitude has his way of surprising us, which usually means he is both ahead of the game and out of orbit.  But.... If I can hazard a glean, I think there may be a suggestion that at the end of life we look back and see a tangle of strands (I sing songs of love/I sing songs of betrayal....) all of which combine to make up the fibre optic that is our shining light.  (Though shining lights are really blended rainbows....)

Recently I have been prompted to open a jar of memories.  I have been sifting acres of photos, and coming across faces who happened to cross their lives with mine - some briefly, and some deeply.  Some I remember clearly; with some I am still in contact.  Others have disappeared almost entirely and I cannot even recall their names, (let alone their blood types or passport numbers....)

Here's just a few, (with no intended disrespect to any who might wonder why they are not represented here....  This is truly a skate on the thin ice of memory....)

But, I know this one, and where this was.  But when.....  note the ciggies under the chair....  That dates it!

And these guys?  I was on an early bus from somewhere to Ajaccio, and the driver put us down in a mountain village.  The next thing I knew I was raising a glass of champagne to.....  a Saint?  a Hero? 

I still don't know.  But it was a great breakfast......  Thanks guys....

And while we are in Corsica, this stone shed in a river valley in the mountainous heart of the island was where I lived for what seemed like the infinitely expanded present....  

I would still be there.....  I really would.....

Here is a friend of mine from the Canary Isles.  She had an African (Arabic?) name, as she rejected Spanish rule.  

Not unlike my Corsican friends, (who were not enamoured with the French).....

And here, about to be run down by The Cutty Sark, is the daughter of an Italian journalist, who later married an Opera Singer.....

Meanwhile here's one of a number of close friends with a Palestinian connection, though her mother was American (of German heritage).  Father (Mohammed) was a senior official at FAO; elder brother drove a Ferrari to the States on commission, but had a few scrapes on the way.....  Ouch!

But they were such a kind, welcoming family.....

And here's the daughter of one of the Kenyan Flying Doctors, who, despite being employed in Rome (and I think [?] maybe related to someone else I knew....) fixed me up with a terrific safari in East Africa.....

(see https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2017/02/kenya.html

 and 

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2017/02/kenya-2.html)

And who must have taken this picture of me on the Napoli Express.....

And here's a Jewish girl (from Milan) I met on the ferry from Genoa to Barcelona (when I should have been looking after thirty or so pupils.... Well, they had no where to go.....)

But that's about all I remember.....

I did see her once again in Rome, for lunch, though I don't think I was Italian enough for her.....

'Fraid I don't know who this is either, except she seems to be in my flat in Trastevere.....  I have a vague feeling she was an unhappy au pair.....

Hope she's happy now, somewhere.....

This is Sana. Later involved in the Intifada....   (Not that I know much about Intifadas....)

And her gentle elder sister Wa'fa, who gave me Edmund Burke Feldman's Varieties of Visual Experience, one of my still unread treasures....  I think it was a birthday present, though I was in a dark room at the time.....

Such lovely people - such lovely smiles (and so many knitted jumpers!)  I have been so blessed....  

I mean this.  The variety and colour of life can be found in other people, other places (although it doesn't have to be thus.) In my storybook there aren't many happy endings, but there are lots of good beginnings.....

Here's another scene from the opera buffa that has been my life....  One of the first times I took Amanda to Tuscany, to a remote farmhouse, 600 metres high on Monte Amiata, where peace comes dropping slow (and the ticking of my wristwatch on the window sill would click and clock the break of day....)

I think all the above pictures were taken in the '80s, though I'm not sure exactly.  

This one, below, would have been from ten years before, when I was at Lancaster. 

When I was just setting out.....  

Those were the days my friend

We thought they'd never end

We'd sing and dance forever and a day

We'd live the life we chose

We'd fight and never lose

Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

La la la la...

Yep.... 

La, La, La, La.....

I have been so blessed to have known, and loved, all these people (and more).  All the strands of light from the rainbow that weave the light of our lives.....

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, 

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air: 

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision.... shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on, and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep.

WS

The Tempest

Thank you....  Thank you all....

Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
And rivers that ran through every day

I must have been mad

I never knew what I had

Until I threw it all away

Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round

Love and only love, it can't be denied

No matter what you think about it

You just won't be able to do without it

Take a tip from one who's tried

Bob Dylan

I Threw It All Away

Hey, everybody, let's have some fun

You only live but once

And when you're dead you're done

So let the good times roll

Let the good times roll

I don't care if you're young or old

Get together, let the good times roll

Let the Good Times Roll


*    *    *

In Memoriam Mike Wall

*    *    *