April 18 To Sinharaja

After breakfast leave for Martin’s Simple Lodge, Sinharaja for two nights. Afternoon, birding at Sinharaja Rainforest. A UNESCO World Heritage Site for lowland endemics and mixed species bird flocks. According to a study of the mixed species bird on average 42 individual birds occur in the flocks, which makes this world's largest mixed species bird flock. The mixed species Bird flock study of Sinharaja forest has been continuing since 1981 and is considered as the World's longest studied bird flock study. Birding highlights include Red-faced Malkoha, Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, White-faced Starling and Scaly Thrush.

Up early as we had a 5 hour drive to get to Sinharaja and to do some birding in the afternoon.  The shower at the Villa was itself a work of art (yes, part of the room is open to the sky)

 On the first morning Frances had been having a shower when a Palm Squirrel ran across the top of the wall!

While having another huge breakfast our attention was drawn to a family of pigs trotting through the adjacent, vacant, block.  At a more delicate level we spotted this butterfly having its breakfast.

In fact the drive was going to be slow, as there was much traffic on the roads due to everyone going to visit their families for New Years. This seemed to particularly infest the roads with 

• tuk-tuks (here called 3 wheelers) on the one hand, driven surprisingly slowly – but then it is difficult for something powered by 150cc (basically a lawn mower motor) to drag a family of four and a few sacks of rice along at a great speed – and 
• buses driven at great speed and no respect for sanity - let alone traaffic laws.

Travelling at a fair speed (faster than tuk-tuks but slower than buses) were competitors in bike race led out by a series of cars full of people screaming at the traffic to get out of the way. Most of the bikes were more like M Poppins than C Evans but plenty of sweat was flying.

We went through a number of towns

including stopping to try to get some bread and also beer. Here we made a BAD decision and only got 12 cans of Three Coins (at Rs 100 ~ $A0.80 per can). An interesting aspect of the shop was a sign prohibiting photos. Why was this so- we thought the shops interesting but who would object?  This is a smaller shop featuring among its products references to another movie franchise

There were many adverts for TAFE type colleges, quite a few of which mentioned studying to work in Australia.  Frances noted one for the "Academy of Sugar Craft"

Back on the road with a few stops for interesting birds including Honey Buzzard and Crested Serpent Eagle.  Then we got to the place where we swapped vehicles from our van to a Jeep to cart us up a rather basic road to Martin's Simple Lodge. Some commentators on this Lodge had expressed concern about the road,

but I think I would have taken the Subaru up it with little problem and no damage. Whatever, we made it - included a stop to gawp at a Black Eagle out in the valley - and after settling in went out for a birding session with Hettie and our Forest Dept guide Chandra.

This went pretty well and a number of species were recorded. I reckoned that from 3pm we were entitled to regard it as no-carbon birding so this becomes another green day.
 I didn't take any bird images but this orchid was very spiffy:

There were a few "home comforts" out in the forest including well designed shelters

 and a well designed, but leech infested, dunny.

When we got 2km out it started to rain. In fact it poured down and we all got thoroughly wet except Frances who was wearing rain pants. The road effectively transformed from a dusty track to several modest streams within about 10 minutes.
We were also all, except Chandra, wearing Leech Socks which are supposed to keep the little suckers at bay (or at least visible so they could be flicked). This seemed to work for most of us although Rob got well sucked and bled for about 4 hours. (Chandra was not fussed by the leeches: she seemed to feel them creeping around and flicked them off wioth a handy twig.)

Evening meal was enhanced by some of the beer purchased earlier and was quite good although the food was a little blander than we were expecting.

Bird of the Day: Black Eagle

Other Vertebrate of the Day: Ruddy Mongoose

Pattern of the day:  the table top at Martins.

Bad taste of the day:  leeches (The leeches probably rated the leech socks as bad taste of the day!)

Read on

April 23: Nuwara Eliya

After breakfast leave for St.Andrew’s Hotel, Nuwara Eliya for two nights. Afternoon, visit Victoria Garden for Himalayan migrants Kashmir Flycatcher, Pied Thrush Indian Pitta and Indian Blue Robin. Other highlights include Yellow-eared Bulbul, Sri Lanka Hill White-eye and Dull blue Flycatcher.

Today was a relatively relaxed start as we didn't have to leave until about 8;30. As Frances and I strolled across to the breakfast facility we were greatly amused by the antics of a bunch of Grey langurs (ie monkeys) playing around in the bushes and then leaping – with loud thuds – onto the rooves of chalets.

As it was still before opening time we went up to the observation deck to look out over the lagoon. That was a nice view, but what really caught our attention was the sunbirds feedng in the trees below us. Due to the hour and their position they were catching the sun beautifully and really stunning us with their looks. The purple rumps stood out like neon signs – which presumably is the intention!

Once esconced for breakfast we were most amused by a squirrel invading the next table - fortunately unoccupied - and stealing the packets of sugar.

Heading off down the road there was a minor kerfuffle amongst the local dogs and accompanied by a larger kerfuffle in the local Muscovy Duck population. It was later apparent that the cause of this was the need for the assembled stock to remove a fairly large Rat Snake from the area.
There was some excitement when some birds were spotted on the roadside these were Brahminy Starlings (a lifer) and Rose Starlings (added, in a poor sighting, to my life list the previous day after many years of wanting to see one of these birds).  Even on this occasion the image of the Rose Starling was not worth reproducing, but the Brahminy was more obliging.

Our progress was temporarily interrupted by a herd of cattle.  They were a pretty ratty bunch of beasts but did show the 'hot wire brands' rather well.

 The next interesting sight, some kms down the road was a large colony of fruit bats circling their roost tree. (NB: we had seen horseshoe bats flying through the eating area at Martins Simple Lodge.)

As we drove along there was some confusion about distances. It then emerged that the modern, authoritative distance markers were in kilometres, but there were some old Colonial era, markers still showing the distances in miles. Sri Lanka adopted metric measures in 1975 (about the same time as Australia).

Every village seems to have a vendor of clay pots for buffalo curd. They keep them piled up, which caused some small confusion for a while. Buffalo also crossed our path – fortunately, with one exception, not literally by being dead beside the road. A rather more significant road hazard than a dead 'roo. As an aside it is a miracle - due to the concern of the local drivers - that the whole country is not covered with dead dogs: their preferred spot for a sleep is about 60cm out in the road, but thus far we have seen none flattened. (That continued throughout the trip.)

After a couple of hours we turned on to the road up to Nurawa Eliya.  Up was definitely the word as we then climbed steadily for the next two hoirs . We stopped for a look at a large waterfall, linked to the story of a local king stealing a bride from Southern India.  This is not a Bollywood yarn but a very old legend. Most picturesque with specular green-winged dragonflies decorating the rock at the bottom.

 

The best snap of a sari was this one of a lady at the falls.

We ascended the road somewhat further and called in at a tea house (elevation 1014m), where we were sponsored, not by the letter T but the letter P.  This image shows the roads weaving up and across the steep hillsides.

On on towards Nuwara Eliya. Sights seen along the road included:

• Ganesh sitting on a oil drum outside a Hindu Temple; and
• Buddha sitting in the back of a truck.

There were temples of both Hindu

 and Buddhist persuasions all over the place as well as the occasional Christian edifice.  This roundabout, seem dimly through the customary rain, was an attractive part of a rather crummy town.

In an agricultural sense there were many many acres of terraced hillsides covered with tea plants or, particularly as we neared Nuwara Eliya, vegetable fields. As we had left the low lands some of the rice paddies had been flooded – whether by intent or just as a result of the rain was not clear – and the water was cascading down through openings in the walls.

After reaching NE and checking in to the St Andrews Hotel we headed off to look at some grand buildings (see the Buildings post) Victoria Park to check for Himalayan migrants. They seem to have migrated already as despite an hour or more searching we failed to find any. There were a number of interesting signs observed by Rob, Carol and Frances who decided that looking at the garden was more interesting to them than scouting a polluted creek.

• Refrain from playing in the park;
• Refrain from plucking the flowers;
• Refrain from removing the plants;
• Behave decently.

Surprisingly there were no jobsworths around to enforce these rules.

There are a couple of images of the gardens taken by Frances.

and one by Rob (which also says something about the weather)

 We went back to another spot near the Grand Hotel where Hettie thought the migrants might be lurking. They weren't but we did spend a little time watching a Velvet Nuthatch, which is a cute little bird.

I then decided to give battle in the Bale Bazaar (sort of collection of factory outlet shacks for Sri Lankan clothing factories) to see if I could get a more waterproof jacket. Many stalls from which the boys were keen to sell me their stuff. All was said to be waterproof and all was Gore-Tex. None of the labels mentioned that trademark but instead said things like 100% nylon on the label. Rob commented that it was very easy to sew in a label, but I reckoned it was even easier to just say something. The final insult was when one of the boys said his offering was 9000Rs (about $A75) and didn't even counter offer to my suggestion that I only had 4000Rs!

Back at the hotel - where this view of the town was taken

 and dinner happened. A waiter tried to serve us two entrees but having eaten one I was keen to move on my “Asian Spacial” featuring vegetable biriyani and grilled paneer. Very tasty it was too.

As a point of interest, at Yala there were several honeymoon couples. At Nuwara Eliya a couple celebrated their 29^th wedding anniversary.

Bird of the Day: Brahminy Starling

Other vertebrate of the day: Squirrel stealing sugar;

Pattern of the day: Sari

Bad taste of the day: the spiky hair style at the next table.

Read on 

April 27: Gardens and Tooth Temple

Morning, visit Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, the largest and finest garden in Sri Lanka, covering almost 150 acres and stuffed with a bewildering variety of local and foreign tree and plant species. The area around the entrance is largely given over to small- scale flora, including an orchid house, a spice garden and a tiny rather unimpressive Japanese Garden. Afternoon, visit Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy, which is an object of veneration to Buddhists and the most important sacred relic in the country. Also do a city tour.

While I have tried to reduce the volume of this post by putting many images in special posts it is still pretty big.  Sorry (well not really, it is a lovely town).

After the drama of the previous day this one dawned most peacefully.  I think I had the best nights sleep of the trip so far.  Rob had a good enough kip that he went for a run, spotting our driver washing the van en route.  We went for breakfast in a rather plush area:

Some other photographs of the dining arrangements at the Citadel are on the food page.

Our replacement guide, Nandana – referred to, at his invitation, as Nanda – fronted at 9am to take us around the Kandy Botanic Gardens.  Before we got there we passed some wedding houses where the rich of Kandy were marrying off their kids.  This was pretty spectactular!  Most of the images are in a special page, but here is a taster

 I have little idea why all this stuff was going on at 9:30am on a Saturday - but it did mean mean we could pass on the evening cultural extravaganza, having seen the real deal.

The gardens are rather large – about 150 Ha – and seemed to be set up for a number of purposes .  Most of the specimens are well labelled (a major lesson for ANBG) and the colour of the label indicated key attributes (green being for medically important plants. Unfortunately when Nanda explained this I was distracted by the behaviour of a bunch of Middle Eastern Yoicks who were behaving like stereotyped yoicks who have escaped from the doctrinaire minders i.e. disgracefully (see below).

I questioned the labelling of a Queensland Kauri Pine, thinking it was a misprint of NZ Kauri.  Uncle Google assures me the Sri Lankans had got it right.  Various birds were heard and a few seen.  We also found a large colony of Flying Foxes which were the likely source of the flock seen flying up the river past the hotel.

I will confess to being very slack and not recording the full details of everything we saw.  I do know that the first two images are of the Cannonball tree - so named because the fruit from these flowers resemble those weapons.

This is the whole tree:

and here is a sign commemorating the planting of one.

Some other flowers were recorded:

as was a turtle (in life, its neck had pretty orange spots - these may be visible in an enlarged image)

The others went to a jewellery workshop while I stayed outside to photograph the chaos on the street.

 We then returned to the Hotel for a bit of R&R before heading out again for a City Tour to check the Tooth Shrine and various commercial establishments.  And the Kandy Cricket Ground.

The tooth shrine was quite excellent with many interesting statues and carvings.  Most of the images are in a special page.  It is also an active place of worship: at one point we got slightly muddled with the queue to go and view the casket in which the tooth is stored.  At the entrance Nanda pointed out how and where terrorists had reacted to that by using a lorry bomb in 1998.  While there were a few other tourists around the majority of the folk in the Temple seemed to be ordinary Sri Lankans doing their religious observances, or children being educated

which I see as making the place far more interesting than just an historic ruin.

Here are a few images to give an idea of the place.

 This third image shows the votive offerings left by people seeking the assistance of the Buddha (eg in recovering from illness) .

 There were animals around the place.  Some cute

while others such as the inhabitants of this wasps nest are neither cute nor welcome.

After spending the time there we headed off for the city tour.  I got things off on a reasonable footing by acquiring an extra pendrive since I had filled the 2Gb one I was using to back up my photographs.  I lost a few points with Nanda by paying too much for it (1500R rather than 1000R) but it was generally agreed that the shopkeeper could see that he was going to sell me one anyway so I was in a poor haggling position!

The next stop was a Batik factory and retail emporium.  A very nice young lady explained how batik is made and then conducted us to the showroom where we could buy some of the produce.  Frances obliged in a moderately large way (getting a special discount - ie the one given to everyone who doesn't actually beat up the employees of the place).

 Next door to this was a wood products factory in which we were shown the various types of wood used (most of which we had seen growing in the morning) were able to seen the craftsmen creating stuff and were then given a demonstration of the properties of rainbow wood.  Some wood was given a good rasping and the shavings treated with various liquids which changed colour dramatically.  Proving that everything is on the internet You-tube has a video of a similar demonstration plus text of the various things added.

 After acquiring some additional drinking water we visited another important site for Sri Lankans: the Kandy Cricket Ground at which test matches are played.  It is the home of the Old Trinitonians  (I think - it might have been the Old Trininians although the Upper Sixth were unfortunately not seen).  The ground was rather small - I think the capacity was 5,000 and for a Test the tickets cost $50 a head.  This was a strange visit as the entrance we used was a building site and I am sure we would not have wandered in without a local guide and Nanda would probably have been told to go away if he didn't have foreigners with him!  The action on the ground was training for the local hockey teams.

 Street cricket was also happening. Robs photo (1st)  and mine (2nd) capture the poetry in motion of the game.

According to the posters around town Rugby was also popular!

In the evening I decided that a bottle of refreshing beverage from the minibar would be in order.  Using the hotel wall mounted opener I managed to wrench the top off the bottle.  A call to the receptionist resulted in a man coming to inspect situation and another beng despatched with a replacement bottle.  The man with the replacement looked very dubiously at the opener and used it very carefully to avoida repeat.  All done very pleasantly and efficiently.

That evening as we were finishing our meal Nanda turned up at the table saying he had found a Collared Scops Owl in a tree outside the Hotel.  It would have been discourteous of me to not go to look, plus they are cute little birds!  He does everything he can to show us stuff.

Bird of the day:  Indian Shag

Other vertebrate of the day:  Flying Fox

Pattern of the day:  Tooth Temple generally

Bad taste of the day:  The behaviour of some middle-Eastern-ancestry yoicks at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens.


There were a couple of strong contenders who walked the red carpet in category 4.  These were:

• a pair of tennis shoes with 6" high soles seen at the Gardens and 
• the question - fortunately not heard by Nanda - "How long does a tooth last?"

Read on

May 1st: Last day

After breakfast transfer to International Airport. En route, visit Muthurajawela Marshes.

 Being fanatical runners, Rob and I went for another run this morning.  Just for a change we didn't go over the dam but turned right out of the gate.  This gave us a very pleasant jog along a minor road with Sri Lanka waking up around us.

After a relaxed breakfast packing was finished and Frances and I headed off towards the lobby to await the appearance of the van.  Even though the wheels of our cases made a loud rumbling, (which I thought of as the mating call of a porter) no bag-grabber appeared until we were within about 20m of the meeting point, so  we had won.  However, the staff at these resorts are very aware of who is who so worked out that Rob and Carol would be along soon and moved in for the 100R bill!

Before we headed off on the serious trip to Colombo Rob wanted to buy a couple of flags so was taken to a Buddhist shop in the main street of Dambulla.  

 While he was engaged in that Frances and I ignored the small shop next door 

and  went spice hunting in the nearby Cargill's Supermarket (the ground floor of Beer Central).

I noticed a series of bright red posters with yellow hammer and sickle emblems (plus a lot of Sinhala script).  This drew our attention to it being May Day and Rob and Carol remembered hearing a lot of info on the TV about where the various unions were rallying in Colombo.  As we set off various buses passed us decorated with banners about politicians and with blue tape out the windows: they were carrying folk down to the rallys and the occupants seemed to be having a good time, judging by the amount of drumming coming from a bus that passed while we were stopped at a rest room.

We didn't stop much on the way down, other than to scope out some ploughing, both modern ...

 ... and ancient, with buffalo.

Also a bunch of people de-husking a huge pile of coconuts.

The husks are used to make coir as well as the flesh of the nuts going in to copra.

Once at the city we swung into the Tamarind Tree Hotel where we had arranged to be day guests.  This meant we could have a swim and in the evening a meal in far nicer circumstances than would be available at the airport.  This was a very pleasant spot and being close to the airport would make a good first night spot if heading North (although it would not be as good as Villa Talangama).

In the afternoon Hettie turned up at the Hotel to say farewell.  He said that he was now fine, but I suspect had been far from fine for a day or two.  He said he did panic initially but realised he had to get back to the village so calmed down and organised himself.  He had realised on the brisk walk back that Rob and I had positioned ourselves to catch him if things went awkward.  This made us think of our late friend Milton who would probably have reacted in the same way (but definitely have had a dead snake to show the doctors).

Then we headed off to the Marshes.  As we got close we found a bunch of Catholic Youth putting up banners and a festive gate structure for their festival the following day.  Shortly after this it became apparent we were lost but after a few phone calls to Hetti and others (and enquiring of some puzzled locals) we got to our boat.

The boat trip was great as the volunteer guide and the boatman worked very well together and were experts in their jobs.  A number of good birds were seen with excellent views of Yellow Bittern

Little Egret

Brahminy Kite; and

a new bird for the trip, Striated Heron

A rather spiffy Water Monitor was also seen.

The canal went under a bridge, apparently built by the British about 100 years ago.  It was rather reassuring to note the modern concrete version on the far side of it.  I probably should, but cannot, resist titling this image "Trouble Bridge over waters".

Back at the Tamarind Tree Hotel there was also wildlife around.  A rat snake was keeping things under control in the garden

while a nicely coloured cockroach was on patrol indoors (note that this is not a criticism of the hotel: welcome to the tropics).

At 10pm Nanda and Bundulu loaded us into the van - another great effort in hanging around all evening while we ate and sat around in the hotel - and delivered us to the airport.  We battled through the check in queue and outwards emigration and settled down to wait until our flight took off at 1am.  There were a couple of interesting sights:

• the "dump your old currency here" box appeared to be funding housing for the security forces (but, optimistically, may have been a deal building houses for people displaced by the fighting); and
• the Sri Lankan Netball team heading off to Singapore.  They were mainly remarkable for the good looks of all the players but the stand-out was their captain who was very attractive and also 2.09m tall (ie 6'10").  Since many Sinhalese struggle to attain 5' she was very unusual looking.  I hope they won!

Bird of the Day:  Brahminy Kite
Other vertebrate of the Day:  Buffalo ploughing
Pattern of the Day: Wooden fringes to fascias
Bad taste of the day: no nominations.

Read on