The Long and Winding Road

Ice cream by the side of the road
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By Dan

Our unplanned pause at Kitulgala at an end, we were back on the road south heading towards our next scheduled destination, the Sinharaja National Park. The scenery along the way was more of the same, with lots of greenery, colorful small towns, and crowds of tuk-tuks on the road. Unfortunately, a few hours into the drive, my mom pointed out to Maxi that the lights on the dashboard seemed to be fading in and out, and the air conditioning wasn’t working. It looked like we had electrical problems, so we pulled up at a little road-side auto electronics shop, where a couple of guys poked around and said the Sinhalese equivalent of, “Maxi, you got problems.” It was thought that we could limp along, but we gave up on our attempted compression push-start about half a mile down the road. So, we settled down by the side of the road, while Maxi jogged back to the auto-electricians’ joint for help. It was the only wide stretch of road that we saw in all of Sri Lanka, so every driving school on the island seemed to bring its students there for practice sessions – for that reason, we stayed well off the road. About 30 minutes into our wait, we all leaped to our feet when we heard the unmistakable sound of an ice-cream truck coming down the road. A guy in a little souped up tuk-tuk made our day with his outstanding variety of ice creams.

water monitor
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After some further on-site tinkering, we were rolling again, but with the clear understanding that under no circumstances could we turn off the van. Working our way through a couple of crowded towns, with the usual collection of paused vehicles, wandering animals, and fearless pedestrians, I thought we were going to be a part of another traffic accident, but we managed to get through things in one piece. The road kept wandering south, and grew progressively rougher as we got off the beaten path. Instead of large tea plantations, we were seeing tiny plots of tea plants in back yards, competing with banana trees and rice paddies. Things were changing a bit, but the scenery remained spectacular.

Our resort
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Sinharaja National Park is another UNESCO World Heritage Site – by the end of our time in Sri Lanka, we will have hit six of the seven in the country. We were all looking forward to spending a night in Sinharaja, and poking around in the jungle a little. Rolling up to the Blue Magpie Lodge, though, we started wondering what we were in for. The setting was lovely, with trees and mountains all around. The staff (of one) had no idea that we were coming, or so it seemed. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to collect his laundry, which was spread to dry on the front steps, and did a lot of head- and other body part- scratching as he tried to figure out what to do with us. It was now about 2 pm, and we were looking forward to some lunch, but there seemed to be nothing available. Fortunately, they did have some slightly chilled beer in the fridge, which helped matters. The generator only runs a few hours a day, so the cold wears off quickly. After an hour or so, we started taking matters into our own hands, and with Maxi’s support we commandeered the kitchen. Ultimately, we did scrape up some food – nobody has starved on this trip yet. . . .

Our beach
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The rest of the afternoon, we spent gazing out at the trees, chatting with a retired British army paratrooper/bird-watcher, and strategizing about how we’d handle the mosquitoes in the evening. Sri Lanka has some really big lizards, who seem to have varying names that I could never keep straight. In any event, we spent some time watching out for a couple that were about 5 feet long and apparently are very clever at knocking people over with their tails, then swooping in for a bite or two with their slightly poisonous saliva. No injuries suffered, though. Evening came early, and despite the high temperature and humidity, we all put on our long sleeves to provide some protection. I think it was about that time, that my dad turned to my mom and said, “Josie, I just don’t think I’m a jungle guy.” For a guy who once referred to my mom as the jungle princess after she got a particularly interesting perm, that was a pretty brave comment. But, I come from a long line of brave men.

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We toughed out the evening with a lot of chuckles, rolling of eyes, and bug spray. Christina reported that her mattress was so hard that she climbed in with Abby. Some of us were going to make sure we got the full Sinharaja experience, though, so Grayson, my parents, and I were up at 6 am the next morning and in a van, bouncing our way up a rotten road and deeper into the park itself. We spent about two hours walking along a dirt track through the forest with a young guide who did his best to find things of interest. Sadly, he had three non-birders in his hands – I’m not counting Grayson yet -- and birds are the main thing that Sinharaja has to offer. We did hear some purple-faced monkeys, which sound an awful lot like the brown and black monkeys we have seen elsewhere, and we saw some very nice frog eggs and two chameleons. Conclusion: skip Sinharaja unless you are really into Sri Lanka’s endemic bird species, and have a really good telescope. But, for people who are working hard to up their World Heritage Site tally, it was an amusing way to spend 24 hours.

School girls
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The Judge family has always prided itself on its map-reading ability, and my mom in particular. If you look at a map of Sri Lanka, it looks like Sinharaja is just about 75 km from our next destination, the southern beach at Dikwella. A major road seems to run straight south. Well, sometimes maps are not accurate. The alleged road was described to us on site as being full of “elephant holes”. Since elephants are sort of the national symbol of Sri Lanka, they don’t throw elephant around as an adjective loosely. For that reason, we didn’t go straight south. Instead, we went west to the coast and then followed it south and east. Our 75 km turned into about six hours of driving, and this was the one day that Maxi underestimated how long it would take. I think he just didn’t want to depress us too much. But, it was a beautiful drive, down out of the mountains through more beautiful jungle, and then along what may be one of the most beautiful stretches of classic tropical beach coast line anywhere in the world.

With memories of the Blue Magpie in our minds, we were all holding our breath a little as we got closer to Dikwella, which is a small town on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka. When we pulled in to the Dikwella Beach Resort, it looked so nice that my mom thought that maybe we were in the wrong place. Fortunately, we weren’t, though, and we settled in for four great nights. There was loads of space in our rooms, the kids had fun in the pool, the food was good, and there was a beautiful beach that had waves suitable for boogie boarding. In fact, Grayson even taught Jojo how to ride a boogie board, and Jojo proved to be a quick study, shredding with the best of them in no time. Christina did yoga on a daily basis, putting her into a blissful state. Maybe the most surprising thing about Dikwella was all of the Russian tourists there. Now that Russia has people who can afford to travel, they are getting out and seeing the world, and Sri Lanka, or at least Dikwella, seems to be on the Russian map. The only downside was the astronomical internet charges, which is why we are pretty far behind in getting the blog updated. Hopefully, we’ll have better luck on that front in the days to come.