We Meet a Buddhist Santa Claus

"It may well be that each of Ceylon's attractions is surpassed somewhere on Earth: Cambodia may have more impressive ruins, Tahiti livelier beaches, Bali more beautiful landscapes (though I doubt it), Thailand more charming people (ditto). But I find it hard to believe that there is any country which scores so highly in all departments." - Arthur C. Clarke, 1970

The 100 mile train ride south passed beautiful white sand beaches, small villages with ramshackle huts right on the train tracks and gorgeous fields of coconut palms. 

One of the passengers was a Kiwi and he’d been coming to Sri Lanka for over 35 years. The one year he’d missed was 2004, the year of the Boxing Day tsunami. He said that in this area, the wave hit so hard that a train was carried over a mile inland. Of the 1000 people on the train, only 3 survived. Within a year, that train was repaired and was running again. In fact, he said, we might be on it right now!

After four hours, we reached the small town of Ahangama. We picked this town because there are palmed lined white sandy beaches, no giant, ugly resorts and this is where the famous stilt fishermen of Sri Lanka are. 

Our small four room hotel, the Blue Whale Boutique, is right on the water. And indeed, there were, right off the beach, the stilts of the stilt fishermen. Stilts, but no fishermen. “Where are they?”, I asked Dharma, the manager. “Not the season”, Dharma told me.  “There’s a season?”  “Yes, November and December. But there are a couple of guys on the next beach that will climb a stilt and you can take a photo of them for 1000 rupees.”  “No thanks.”

So forget about the darn stilt fishermen. We had a nice lunch of fresh fish and then headed out for a walk about town with Lea, a young woman from Switzerland, who is staying at our hotel for a “surf camp”.  Surfing is a big deal here and people come from all over the world to learn how to do it. We came upon a fish merchant, who was hacking away at a huge butterfish. Then, we walked out a small road, past a big rice field and all sorts of local people who were greeting us with big smiles. 

When we got back to the hotel we sat on the beach for an hour watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. 

"The people worship idols and are independent of every other state..their food is milk, rice and flesh, and they drink the wine drawn from trees.   The Ceylonese...are particularly fond of bathing, and often plunge into the water several times a day. In this gratification, however, they are often interrupted by alligators." - Robert Perceval, 'An Account of the Island of Ceylon', 1803

The next day was just a “wander around to see what happens” day. We took a tuk Tuk up to the Martin Wickramasinghe Museum.  He wrote over 100 books on poetry and life in Sri Lanka. He was also a great collector of all things Sri Lanka and after his death a museum was created to house the thousands of costumes, farm implements, ox cart buggies, etc, that he had. 

Then we went to a small Buddhist temple, known for some amazing paintings and statues. We were shown around by the monk, an affable fellow with a big grey beard. In his saffron robe, he looked like a Buddhist version of Santa Claus. He had a great, easy going personality and, over the course of an hour taught us some of the stories and teachings of Lord Buddha, which these marvelous paintings represented. All four walls of the temple are being restored, a job that will take about 6 years. 

Walking near the temple, we finally came upon the stilt fishermen. There were several of them posing for a group of Chinese tourists, even putting the children on the stilts to take their pictures. 

By this time we were starving, so we headed to a well reviewed restaurant, Cafe Ceylon. What a great choice!  I had a very tasty fish and chips and Amy had the sesame covered ahi tuna. 

The rest of the afternoon we just hung out at the hotel with the other guests. One of the guests, Hokulani, was from the South Bay and her mother is Hawaiian!  We all watched another beautiful sunset, a fitting way to end our time on the beach.