Christmas away from home

Celebrating Christmas away from home is always bitter sweet. There's no family to get formally dressed up for and swap stockings with, no daddy to ceremoniously carve the Christmas turkey, no uncle who hugs you a little too hard, none of mamma's delicious apple cake, and no late night board games with sisters who laugh so hard they nearly pee their pants.

But, on the upside, there are other things. Like, for example, the unexpected. All those little unplanned moments that instantly make up for the lack of all of the above.

Yesterday morning we awoke to a gloriously sunshiny day. After the customary cup of Dilmay tea (one sugar, plenty of milk) we proceeded to have one of the yummiest fry ups in recent years. Meredith oven baked some bacon and chopped up a lovely tomato/onion and mango (yes, works beautifully) salad. Dion, meanwhile, created a highly original concoction of scrambled eggs, pesto, crushed cashew nuts and, oddly, generous dollops of wasabi peas. Sami poured a round of strawberry juice and laid the table on the 5th floor balcony.

There we sat, on the 25th of December 2007, overlooking Colombo, sweating profusely in the mid morning sun and stuffing our grinning faces with this random delicious meal. There was no jingle bells, no family Christmas tree and not an inflatable santa in sight. Yet, strangely, after a little while, as we looked at each other, it suddenly felt like Christmas. Aww, bless.

Best wishes to you all.

Going Bollywood

Yesterday afternoon, after our feast of a brunch, we were invited to lunch with our endlessly hospitable local host family, the Marikkars, parents of our good Sri Lankan friend Leah, fiance to old friend Lee. In the Marikkar's stunning central mansion we proceeded to have an overwhelming Christmas lunch/dinner, including secret santas, colourful cocktails and Stevie Wonder.

Since everyone who was there will be guests at the impending wedding between Lee and Leah, in a few days, we were given a rudimentary dance lesson in Bollywood style dance moves. The plan, apparently, is that as the bride couple start their dance, the foreign guests join in with well rehearsed Bollywood moves. In theory a very good plan.

All the girls, without exception, did well. They listened, understood and used their genetic advantage of rhythm, timing and hip movement. The boys, on the other hand, fuelled by a steady stream of strong whiskeys, looked as out of place as Eddie the Eagle did at the Calgary Olympics. Despite repeated slow motion guidance by a troop of Sri Lankan relatives, the 15 tipsy blokes could not get it together for more than three seconds. But, as Leah's patient sister pointed out, it's really just about having fun. It remains to be seen exactly how synchronised the dance will turn out. Hopefully, with the wedding crowd behind us, it will go smoothly.

Colombo; city of nik naks and tuk tuks

Despite an overwhelming and relentless honking and heavy pollution, Colombo can be a remarkably nice city. Just this morning we had a delightful and peaceful brunch at the former HQ of Sri Lankas most famous architect, Mr Jefferey Bawa. The converted colonial-looking mid town office is now home to one of the leading restaurants in the city, The Gallery. With a rain fed courtyard pond, that has floating bouquets of lotus flowers and live fresh water fish, the entrance is a taste of the luxury within. Once seated you get to choose from a wide array of fresh juices and everything else. Although we're in the eagles nest of tea production, sneakily we all ordered cappucinos. Should you ever have a chance to visit, we would recommend the stacked tuna steaks and the mean strawberry daiquiries.

Latest photos

Hillside bus stop


Family day out


Raja's son and bike


Tamil tea pickers, who average 16 Kgs of leaves a day


Morning fishing in the local lagoon

Raja, a man who has nothing and everything.

Mere's striking portrait of Raja, a vegetable farmer from the Ampara district. He invited us into his house for bananas, tea and Coca Cola (a common drink to offer guests). With his wife and son they live a simple life (without electricity, telephone or car) in a dense but absolutely beautiful part of the East Sri Lankan jungle. Despite facing constant hardship, they were genuinely happy people and it was a very inspiring few hours we spent with them. Thank you Raja.

Ode to Antibac

After two chilly nights in the highest hotel room in the highest hotel in Sri Lanka, the ominously empty 'Rising Lion', we lucked out to secure the last two seats in the sought after 'observation saloon' on the marathon train journey from the mountains down to Colombo. The scenery was truly mind boggling - misty valleys, rolling green hills, gravity defying waterfalls. Post cards do not even start to do justice the beauty of this island. The only clearings in the lush vegetation are randomly placed cricket pitches and one or two volleyball nets (?). Among striped rows of tea bushes, heads of tea pickers, with large baskets on their backs, would occassionally appear and wave enthusiatically to the train.

The bad news was that, although we were in an exclusive train carriage (after paying $5 for the 8 hour journey), the toilet was shared with the other hundreds of passengers. Attempting to go to a dirty toilet sucks. Attempting to go to a filthy slippery mess of a toilet in an irratically shaking railway wagon, as it negotiates jerky sharp turns of a hundred year old mountain track, makes one seriously consider peeing one's pants instead. The only successful technique (for no 1) was to spread both feet against the back wall (in order to get some friction and avoid an accidental faceplant), and support the weight of the body with the head against the other wall. In this precarious diagonal position, with one hand bracing against the door and the other aiming at the hole in the floor, it is theoretically possible to go to go about one's business. Needless to say the antibac bottle came in very handy.

Probably the most memorable moment was when we spotted two young boys with a cricket bat, waving at the passing train. As we had three brand new tennis balls in our bag, we threw one to them. Although the train was moving around a corner we could just about see the younger of them excitedly run to the ball, the older brother simply raising a hand in appreciation. It made our day and, possibly, theirs too.

One hundred million reasons to stay home

Relentless blood sucking predators, sneaking up on you when you're asleep, infiltrating your bedroom sanctuary to penetrate your skin and leave you with an itchy bitchy mound of redness. Mosquitos. Mozzies. Douche bags. Call them what you like, but they suck. Quite literally. So far we've had the relative luxury of not needing constant nets and creams. But the future looks bleak. Once further along into South East Asia, they will surely do their darndest to attack any visibly body parts.

No wonder they wipe out more people worldwide than all other insects put together. 70 million people a year get infected with Malaria, and it kills more than 5 million annually.



For us, to date, fortunately only our ankles and a few places along out wrists have been targetted. The uncontrollable itch has been made slightly more controllable by a very cool device from BOOTS. A small plastic BBQ lighter-looking-thing that, when clicked, numbs the skin with a small current. Click a few times and the mozzie bite is suddenly quite forgettable, for a while. It works, but it looks and sounds pretty stupid. Move over, folks. City slickers coming through.

Tea for two

After a nail biting bus ride along a slippery mountain road (fortunately, going up, we were on the inside) we arrived in the quaint ex colonial hangout of Newara Eliya. A once flourishing bastion of tea plantations and British rose gardens, it has lost its oomph but still maintains some picturesque industries. Tea was introduced to Sri Lanka only in the 1800s, after a major Coffee blight wiped out the once famous Coffee plantations. Ordering a cuppa Ceylon Coffee doesn't sound quite right, does it?



At an impressive 2000 meters above sea level even a short walk is rather strenuous. Perhaps that's just us being fat slobs, but it does feel nice to have the altitude excuse for all that panting and wheezing.

Earlier today we visited a hillside Tea plantation where we met a group of worn out female pickers (haven't seen a single bloke picking leaves yet). After some very cute photos, and some handing out of Bic pens (ballpoint pens are a highly treasured commodity, for children, who need them for school) we took a bus back into town.

We also had an inspiring visit to a nearby SOS Children's Orphanage which was full of grateful and polite little munchkins playing cricket and chattering about clothes. We got a thorough tour of the impressive facilities and got an opportunity to sign the guest book and buy some handmade Christmas Cards. The orphans were mixed - boys, girls, Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, living side by side in families of ten. On the walls, proudly placed photographs of the 'graduates' who'd gone on to marry, and some even to study at foreign universities. It seems the destructive habits of hatred and segregation, that are so visible elsewhere, are really a product of adult thinking. Shame.

Bill Hicks 1 - Dennis Leary 0

funny


not quite as funny

Indeed, hindsight is 20-20. There's no two ways about it. After many hours of trawling through the dark, dubious and darn unpolitically correct depths of the iPods humor section, a definite King has risen. Bill Hicks. Despite having been the top dog on many previous occasions, Dennis Leary simply failed to provoke the same side splitting result. Even his once famous 'No cure for Cancer' just couldn't topple the dry observations of the now sadly dead Hicks. It's kind of like when you watch one of them Monty Python films again and although you can recite every dialogue, it just isn't quite as funny anymore. Sad, really.

Shooting for peace

With such a camera friendly population and jaw dropping surroundings, Meredith's camera shutter has been been purring for weeks. Already racking up many Gigs of memory, she's been shooting for the UN, as well as, at any given opportunity, showing her stunned and flattered subjects their instant digital image at the back of her camera. Their personal and honest reactions are almost as worthwhile as having the beautiful scenes documented for later.

Here are a few recent ones:


Energetic kids at a Tsunami housing project site.


Big group of boys demonstrating fearless water games.


Road side goat farmer at dusk.


Crazy crazy crazy colourful bus decals.


Friendly Arugam Bay fishermen. The ten of them hadn't caught one fish in a month.


Deep valleys offer ample opportunity for spirituality.


Playgrounds are excellent ways for dealing with traumatic memories.

The sweetness of Kandy

After spending a few more interesting days and hilarious nights with the endlessly hospitable UN crowd on the East coast of Sri Lanka, we've moved up into the Hill Country again. Currently we're sarong shopping in the magnificent ancient Sinhalese city of Kandy, the home of, amongst other things, a much revered relic of Buddha's teeth. This allegedly original dental fragment is so important to Buddhists, in fact, that a giant fortified gold plated temple has been built to house it. Around it are countless army posts, presumably protecting it from attack from the Tamil LTTE rebels, who once before tried to blow up this sacred molar.



Kandy, like the name suggests, is home to some particularly sweet people. Elevated at 500 meters above sea level, the second largest town in the country is bustling with eager tuk tuk drivers and shop owners. The air is filled with bird noise, monkey chatter and the strain of overfilled city buses loudly protesting as they slowly climb the hills. The surrounding mountains and lush valleys are filled with temples, colossal Buddha statues and sporadically placed road side corn sellers. That's right, corn. Since we're devoid of our old faithful pop corn popper, we've been indulging in random road side corn feasts whenever we've had the chance. Bliss.

Landing in Lanka

They say Sri Lanka is a jewel of an island, filled with smiling people and breath taking nature. From our experiences of the past few days, we are pleased to report that they are not wrong.

After arriving at the ungodly hour of 5am, and, eventually, amongst a mountain of luggage, seeing our backpacks sheepishly appear on the luggage belt, we made the hour long journey into Colombo. Once there, we went to our friend Dixie's house, one highly neat dood. Brilliant photographer. UN worker. Inspiring conversationalist. At Casa de Dixie we caught up on old times as well as much needed sleep. We also met some other super nice UN and NGO people, whom we played water polo with at one of the snazziest hotels in the country, The Blue Water.

Then, in the bumpy backseat of a genuine white UN 4x4, we had a thrilling ride across the entire breadth of the country, along some tear jerking vistas and sheer drops on the winding highland roads. After some 10 hours we ended up at the secluded Surf gem of Arugam Bay. There, in our hammocks, we chilled for a few days at a fantastic beach front surf place, the Galaxy Lounge, complete with delicious food and plentiful beers.

As a whole, Sri Lanka is full of vibrant, happy, polite people, who are keen to introduce themselves and to learn more about other cultures. Without fail, this has been the case for everyone - whether Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or other.

Despite a sad collapse of the cease fire and a tragic return to what can only be described as full out civil war, the country feels strangely safe for foreign travellers. In fact, from what we've been told so far, the biggest threat are the many super duper poisonous snakes. Eeek. They are presumably waiting for Sami to wander into the tall grass for a drunken late night piss. So far we've only seen one King Cobra, but it was far scarier that any high security zone, military checkpoint or Kalashnikov wielding camouflage soldier.

Tomorrow we're accompanying our buddies on a second UN mission, this time a trip to document a much needed road project that connects remote villages in the dense East Sri Lankan jungle.

In the next few days we'll probably be back on the South Western Coast, the epicentre of unashamed decadence and worryfree holiday drinking. No doubt, having had this unusual priviledge of seeing the hidden eastern areas of Sri Lanka will certainly make our relaxing even nicer. We can only hope that one day this country will see peace again and that this gem of an island will get what it deserves.

Last night in Amman

Once more we're in the capital, having taken the painfully loud minibus back from the south. Shortly, after checking our emails at a small and smelly internet cafe, we'll head off to the Airport to fly to Sri Lanka. We're excited.

The beard; a progress report

Seeing as a 7 month round the world trip is a rare opportunity to experiment with facial hair, safe from the threat of ridicule from friends and colleagues, Sami has decided to grow a beard. Or, at least, what may one day resemble one.

So far, we're glad to report (as you must have been longing to know), it's progressing quite nicely. Except a few sporadic outposts on the North face of the cheeks, the main follicle groupings are making the early stubble look increasingly respectable. Sami thinks it looks 'Well'ard'. In fact, he claims, several Jordanian females, through their anonymous black burkhas, have been giving him some admiring looks.

Besides, regular scratching during chessgames should provide ample stimulation for future growth. Mere is still on the fence. Her complaints about schnuggly itchiness have so far been ignored. But, one day he may give in. As we all know, the love lobby is a powerful one.

Jordan; country of friendly people, natural beauty and kick ass falafel.

After a pleasant flight on Royal Jordanian, we arrived wide eyed and bushy tailed to Amman Airport, where we queued up for Visas amongst a plane load of meticulously made up Russian models (seems the white skin with red lipstick look never goes out of style in Moscow). Then we were immediately searched by the formal and thorough customs officers (professional camera equipment will do that, we'd better get used to it). Finally, we got a ride into Amman along the dead straight desert roads, by our friendly driver who gave us a super useful 20 minute lesson in Arab phrases.

Next day we made it to the southern town of Wadi Mosa ('Dried river bed by Moses'), from where we had the rare pleasure to see the magnificent splendour of Petra, well deserved of it's place amongst the Seven New Wonders Of The World (the others are, in case you wondered, The Great Wall of China, the Christ statue in Brazil, Machu Pichu in Peru, the Colosseum in Italy, the Taj Mahal in India, Chichen Itza in Mexico, and, the honorary candidate, the Great Pyramid in Egypt). Petra is a breath taking and fantastic ancient town, almost completely carved out of rock. Despite being hammered by earthquakes, floods and other elements it still is absolutely amazing. Remember that Indiana Jones movie? That was Petra.

Some strenuous climbing, several litres of water and one wobbly donkey ride later, we headed back to our not quite as awe inspiring hostel.

Dial M for Mere

These pragmatic white initials, happily sewn on by Mamma Görel, shall from from this day forth leave no doubt as to which bag is which. Some further inspired customization had us request that the local shoe repairman at the supermarket secure a pair of clip-on-clips (?) on the front shoulder straps of either bag. This way we can, at will, fasten our day bags to the front of our monstrosities. It works beautifully, offering both counterbalance and slightly improved protection from stray bullets.

How do you fit four elephants into a Volkswagen?

mere's bag

sami's bag

Fitting mammals into a German car, like fitting stuff into a backpack, takes a lot of practise. That and an open mind. These are our contents, as of our imminent departure. Prioritising items is surprisingly fiendish. It requires part practical advice, part positive thinking and part blind faith. After a few timed marine style dry-runs in the living room, we've came to the unavoidable conclusion that we absolutely positively cannot bring everything we want to. So, second best, we've fitted in pretty much all of 'what we need', and then topped up with 'what we want'. So, like with the elephants, it can be done (the solution, by the way, is 2 in the front and 2 in the back). So obvious, isn't it?