Tsunami

Eveybody down the south coast has a tsunami story to tell. "I saw the wave out to sea and ran"; "My mother in law was drowned"; I was lucky to be out of town that day"; "I cant sleep worrying about another tsunami" etc etc. But the most common story was "I lost my house and most of my possessions" There are a lot of people around the place, begging who look like they are fairly new to the job, and kind of embarrassed to be doing it. People flag you down and invite you into their makeshift huts in the hope that you will make a donation.

The problem was that houses, like the ruin at left, were built right on the beach, and were virtually at sea level. People didn't stand a chance, and now they live in tiny board huts like the one shown, while they wait for the means and opportunity to rebuild.

At left: One of the hundreds of shanty towns that have sprung up.

One story everyone wanted to tell, on account of its so gruesome, was the train story. Apparently the first wave was about 10 feet high. At the time it struck the coast, not far from Galle, a train was passing loaded with about 1500 passengers, crammed in cheek by jowl as they always are here. It hit broadside, dislocating one carriage from the rest of the train, but it miraculously was still upright. About 500 hysterical villages managed to squeeze their way on just before the second, twenty five foot wavecrashed down on them, drowning all but a handful.

This is one of the levees that a currently being built along the most vulnerable areas of southern coastline.

I understand that you can no longer build withing 150 metres of the coastline now.

Galle & South Coast Beaches

The south coast beaches:
Beautiful one day....................

oh, well.




Well I did say the monsoon came early this year. Doesn't rain all the time, but every other day or so it buckets down for an hour or two.

Galle (pron. Gaul) is quite an interesting place. Initially occupied in the late 16th century by the Portuguese, it was taken over by the Dutch the mid 17th, and then finally by the British in 1796. There is a reasonable amount of the Dutch architectural heritage left in Galle, and of course, of the Brits, but not a lot of the Portuguese influence remains.
I enjoyed floating around looking at the old buildings. Many are in an advanced state of disrepair and it was fun picking out their various features and trying to figure out whether they were British or Dutch.
The photos above are of an old Dutch mansion, converted last year into the Galle Fort Hotel. Actually Galle has experienced a recent explosion in the number of hovels that have been resurrected into B&Bs. This one is beautiful, and has been faithfully restored. The friendly staff were happy to show me around, and I made the most of the opportunity (shut up). The bedrooms have period Dutch antique armoires, four posters and chairs. The ceilings must be 25 feet high, and I guess the walls are very thick because it was as hot as hell outside but in the hotel, the airconditioning wasn't on - and you didn't notice it.
Nearby is another, I assume Dutch, house that is also awaiting its transformation.















I liked the oval windows/lintels above the doors. I guess this is Dutch, although the building looks more mediterranean, so maybe Portuguese?
Some of the old handicraft techniques must persist because there are old crones all over the place selling lace (probably made in Shanghai - lol!)

Here is what Galle is famous for: the ramparts of the old fort. Built by the Portuguese, expanded on by the Dutch and tinkered with by the Brits, they are mildly impressive still. Its cool to stroll along the top of the old walls, and this is possible for almost all of their length as they circumscribe the promontory on which the fort sits..









Do as the locals do and splash around in the shallows in the lee of the ramparts
Or...not, and go back to the hotel for a cold beer "-)

Colombo

Fort Railway Station, Colombo. Beira Lake at right hand side.


Yes, the timing could have been better. I arrived in Sri Lanka right at Tamil and Singhala New Year, which means that everything shuts down for the best part of a week as one and all decamp from Colombo and head back to their villages for the holidays. Also the Tamil Tigers resumed terrorist activity on a large scale in a run up to the peace talks in Geneva. And the monsoon came early.

Still, every monsoon cloud etc etc...it was also the season for ceremonies and celebrations. There was a lot of temple action going on. The locals head off to the monasteries to receive blessings, and to partake in offerings. All very colourful stuff. I heard about a "rice boiling" ceremony to be held at the Hilton Hotel so I went along. Apparently this is something that happens in every Sri Lankan home at New Year. Its one of the first and an essential part of the season's activities. Mum boils up the rice and milk and then Dad feeds it to her and the kids. In the villages, folk offer the milk/rice to the harvest god first and then the family.
Kick off at the Hilton was at 10.00 am with the lighting of the fire in the foyer - a pyromaniac's dream: naked flames around highly flammable looking decorations. Anyway it was all good fun.

Here she is above, getting the pyrotechnics started.

Then the rice and milk goes in. Meanwhile the girls sit around a large drum and bang away, and the guys pretend not to notice but there is a clearly a competition going on.

Eventually after a good dose of conch blowing the noise subsides, and the solemn ritual lighting of the column oil lamp takes place.

At Left: Solemn ritual lighting of oil lamp; with gormless tourist.

Delhi

The glory of the British Raj in India lives on at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. It's a lovely old building, dating back to the 1930's. Its acres of white marble pave grand, wide corridors, whose walls are packed with memorabilia, photos, ink drawings, oils and statues. There are depictions of the Indian landscapes, temples, colourful village scenes, busts of kings and queens, vicoroys, and other important souls, mainly Brits with a few nawabs and rajahs thrown in.
And in particular, lots of paintings of glorious pommie victories - the union jack rampant above the scene of battle, the "hindoo" native crushed beneath the imperial heel.
Above is a bust of Lord Harding, viceroy at the time of the "Grand Durbar" or assembly to mark the arrival of George V and Queen Mary in India in 1911. Its in the foyer adjacent to the bar, seen below.

There are over 3000 works on display, and more than that again in storage. It's a living museum and provides a great memoire of a mob who never thought they couldn't or shouldn't rule here forever. The public areas are beautiful. They are decorated in a mixture of colonial and Indian styles with a lot of art deco features as well. The dining room is particularly splendiferous, supported by pillars that are detailed in royal blue and gold. There is art deco stained glass aplenty and of course, a suitable sprinkling of brass pots full of kentia palms. The lawns are manicured and criss crossed with little paths, lined with flowering plants in terra cotta pots. The overall impression is grand, majestic, ...imperial.
Here are some more photos:



Central corridor, ground floor.












Front lift area.










Guess Who? Wearing the "Star of India" medal. Lovely painting isn't it?

Stop The Car!!

"Nautch Girls" Imperial Hotel, Delhi.

The buses in India are generally overcrowded and uncomfortable, and you always run the risk of having your bags stolen, so I decided it would be more relaxing and fun to cab it to Patna, the capital city of Behar. Sounds extravagent? Not really, it works out at about $20 for the 3-4 hour trip from Bodhgaya (and you can outrun the Naxalites in a taxi - lol!)

Relaxing? I don't think so. The driver was burning down the highway like he was on crack or something, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging kids, beggars, chooks, cows, bikes. And people just step out onto the street - worse than Bondi Road! Then I took a good look at him - he looked terrible, pale, bleary eyed, yawning. Then, while still cruising at 120 kms/hour I noticed he was starting to nod.

- Are you OK??

- Oh, yes sir, just tired because i worked all night.

- You mean you've had no sleep at all?

- Right sir.

- STOP THE CAR!!!

"Then take me to the nearest train station". Hmm; no trains until the next day....... We were stuck with each other for the further 2 hour white knucke into Patna, with my beady eye on the dial and the needle not going over 80.

Behar is one of the "backward states", one of the poorest in India. Think piles of fragrant garbage and worse, severe air pollution (not as bad as Calcutta) cow pats everywhere (watch your step) - they haven't hunted the cows out of the city like in other places.

And the cycle rickshaw still rules. English appears not to be as widely or well spoken as elsewhere (just my observation) Not sure of the literacy rate but this usually parallels the English fluency.

Stayed at the Maurya Hotel - Patna's finest (don't get excited as Alison Deitz would say). Its a typical "classy" Indian hotel, dark, not too grubby with lots of funky features and plenty of the ubiquitous "tip collectors" hanging around. Indian hotels always have lots of tip collectors around the place. They are stationed on every floor, to render immediate assistance. In reality, they seem to do little except hang around their desk or spy on the guests, make a lot of noise and collect tips for such services as pushing the elevator button. The phone on their desk ran hot, day and night. When it rang it played a muzac verse of "Oh! Susannah". Loud. More or less of it depending how far they were from the elevator button.

Went to the museum. It was great. Its got a terrific collection of statuary from all Indian ages and places. Lots of Buddhas, cause Behar is the land of the Buddha, and they had lots of great Rajput and other paintings and artifacts. Late that day I took in the view to the Ganges, and over the city from the "Beehive", an enormous granary built by the Poms in the late 18th century to guard against further famine. I

I found the folk of Patna to be particularly friendly and helpful, helping me bargain with rickshaw drivers, offering travel and other advice. Indians are curious people, and no less so in Patna. They love to find out all about you and don't hesitate to ask any question. And they like Australians because our cricket team is number one. I've had to learn the names of our whole team. Not knowing at least that is like not knowing the name of the prime minister!

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya is in Naxalite territory. Naxalites are Maoist bandits who terrorise much of the north east, Bihar and Orissa in particular. I was warned by many people on the train from Calcutta not to take the 15 km trip from the station at Gaya to Bodhgaya after dark because of naxalite action. Well, the train broke down halfway through the journey and I thought we would't make it before nightfall. However, after a couple of hours, (and I'm sure, much form, chit and requisition signing, shuffling and swapping) a new engine arrived and we were off again. We pulled into Gaya just at sunset; whew.
Halfway to Bodhgaya, the taxi door fell off.......it was well dark by the time we got to BG. (shrugs)
I'd wanted to visit the Barabar caves on the other side of Gaya - these are the caves where Judy Davis was "raped" in the movie "A Passage to India", but I didn't have time to organise the mandatory armed escort.
Bodhgaya is where the Buddha attained enlightenment 2500 years ago. This startling event is commemorated at the Mahabodhi Shrine (above) in the centre of the small pilgrim town. The town itself has nothing else to recommend it. The shrine is not particularly large, and by Indian standards, simple. It has the central stupa seen above and a smaller shrine behind where a descendent of the famous Bodhi tree still props up the back wall. Unlike most Indian temples which have a kind of carnival atmosphere, its a quiet place. You can hear the birds sing and the monkeys swinging in the trees. At night, monks from all the different Buddhist countries and traditions take it in turns to chant in their own particular styles as pilrims pad their way (relatively) silently around the shrine.


Next day I took a taxi 20 kms to the caves where Buddhaboy stayed for years, meditating his way to enlightenment before descending to Bodhgaya for the final act.

Here's the exterior of the cave.


I was the only one there (low season; 40 degrees) so I sat in the cave for half an hour taking in the vibe. It was cool, quiet, peaceful.
And the view out to the plain was magnificent.





















Skeletal Buddha in Cave.

Calcutta, Part 2.

Calcutta. Capital of the British Raj for the majority of its tenure in India. And there is more concentrated evidence of the Raj in Calcutta than any other city. There are grand old Victorian buildings all over the place, in particular forming the borders of the central Dalhousie Square (renamed BBD Bagh, but still called Dalhousie Square by the vast majority) To the left is a snap of The Victoria Memorial, and below is the "Writer's Building" in Dalhousie.

Its a fine old city, although suffering terribly from overcrowding and especially from pollution. There are wide boulevards, and the enormous "maidan" or parklands, near the river, which houses the cathedral, the Victoria Memorial, a large Brit Fort William, various and sundry tea houses etc, but most folk go there to play or watch cricket at the Eden Gardens cricket ground at the northern end. There are still rickshaws everywhere, pulled by wallahs slogging away on foot, 30 cents for 3 kilometres.

I did the majority of my sight seeing on foot, however, as the traffic is way too chaotic to travel with those guys. One of my fave things was St John's church, quite close to Dalhousie Square Its one of the oldest in Calcutta. On the wall of my bedroom, Mrs S. had hung an ink drawing, circa 1820, of Sunday morning at St Johns, depicting the arrival of the sahibs and memsahibs in their palanquins, for service. There was an Indian chappie at the head of each palanquin, bearing a huge screen on a pole to protect memsahib's complexion from the Bengali sun!

These three sometime guides (below) charged out of the slum next door and bailed me up. They were so cute in their Sunday best, hair slicked back to look professional for any tourist who might wander onto their turf that I couldn't refuse them their 10 rupees (30 cents lol!) And they were so enthousiastic, dragging me here and there, I had to see everything. One of the most interesting was the rather small "Black Hole of Calcutta" memorial, tucked away as if hiding, down the end of the overgrown garden.

Also interestijng is the Victoria Memorial, it has all sorts of Raj era memorabilia. Did you know that the average Brit family in Calcutta had 110 servants (one hundred and ten). I couldn't believe it. Then I got to thinking about the way it seems to take 3 or 4 people to do any one job around these parts. Railways, banks, museums, hotels; every public facility is full of flunkies, cleaners who don't clean, bowers and scrapers, porters and bearers who seem to sleep most of the time, and peons - lots of peons. Peons are apparently much in demand, the papers are full of adverts for them. Anyway - the point is, no one seems to do too much around here, so when you take into account that homes had one boy who did nothing much other than to fan memsahib, it does seem to tally up.

Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying is in the burbs, right next door (accident or design) to Calcutta's most important, and possible oldest, temple, the Kalighat Temple. Kali is the goddess of death, amongs other things. She is the destroyer - the spooky one with 8 arms who rides a tiger with a string of bloody skulls around her waist. Rather macabre venue for a hostel, but seems to go down well with the locals. Met Sister Glenda who was a jolly soul, showed me around. Place is staffed mainly by western volunteers who do a great job of nursing care for the 50 men and 50 women. Everything is spick and span. There were folk of all ages, some not looking in too bad shape for the dying. Didn't like to ask too many questions (shut up).

Here's the hospite at left.

Calcutta

I stayed at the Fairlawn Hotel in Calcutta. Its a venerable old pile in Sudder street, built about 250 years ago by a Pommie chap who described it as a "pukkah" building. It has been owned since by various other pukkah families and apparently was run as an hotel in the early part of the 20th century by two English "spinsters", the misses Barratt and Clark, up until such time as it was bought by the present owner's family. Remember the movie "City of Joy"? Part of it was filmed at the Fairlawn.
Mrs Violet Smith is quite a character. She was born 85 years ago to Armenian refugees in Dakka, then the capital of East Bengal and now of Bangladesh. She married an Englishman, Edward Smith in 1944 and they moved to Bombay, where they lived on Malabar Hill (pukkah suburb) until they returned to Calcutta ten years later to take over the running of the Fairlawn. (too bad about the picture, but you get the idea - lens cap disintegrated - that's the shadow and another story)
Mrs Smith is a delightful and charming character, quite startling to look at with a little white foundation, over which are drawn two highly arched eyebrows. She wears a dark brown bouffant wig. Mr Smith fell off the twig about three years ago leaving Violet at the helm. She apparently sailed through the transition, cause she runs a tight ship - very much the "iron fist in the velvet glove" style. At precisely 8.30 she descends the stairs for breakfast, after which she sits in state in the garden, greeting guests, chatting with locals and giving a good ear pulling to whichever staff member needs it at the time.












At 12.30 she disappears upstairs and isn't seen again until the next morning.
A liveried waiter bangs the gong and luncheon is served at precisely 12.45 and dinner at 7.45
I reckon the menu hasn't changed since the Brits fled in 1947. We chowed down on such delicasies as mulligatawny soup, fried Bekti (local fish, yum) with finger chips, sweet curry of meat (suitably de-spiced) with fresh chutney and mango charlotte (very good). Her food is famous (infamous?) all over Calcutta, as is she. Now there's Indian food even P. McKee would like, lol!







Mrs S. insists that all her guests sit together (did I mention the iron fist etc?) Actually there are usually a few weak protests, but any dissent is quickly put down by the experienced staff and everyone seems to enjoy the company - and you get to rub shoulders with quite a variety of folk, let me tell you. (more later)






Here are a few suspects.












View of upstairs "sit-out"
















Memorabilia on stairs, Fairlawn.