On one of our visits to Unawatoona, I introduced David to Asvajit - he Buddhist monk. During the course of conversation that afternoon, we learnt that there was going to be a meditation retreat up in the hills at Nilambe, near Kandy. It seemed to us that we had nothing to lose by joining the retreat. Neither of us knew the first thing about Buddhism, and we saw it as a rare opportunity to find out. It was also a chance to have a few nights away from Tin Hau (we had only had one night off the boat in sixteen months). I had practised a form of meditation as a means of relaxation for many years, but had never taken it beyond the physical plane. We'd no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
We set off on a Friday morning and walked the two miles into Galle where we met the other participants at a pre-arranged rendezvous. We boarded the minibus which would take us all to Nilambe, stopping in Colombo to pick up the rest of the party. After Colombo it was all new territory for us, and very interesting too. The journey took twelve hours, with frequent stops at watering holes along the way. Lunch was provided at the home of a friend of one of the party. The route wandered through paddy fields and tea plantations as it wound ever higher into the hills. The air became crisper and cooler.
We arrived at our destination at half past five in the afternoon. David and I were sent off in different directions to our sleeping quarters. The latter consisted of concrete blockhouses subdivided into tiny cells. Each cell had two concrete benches along the walls, which served as bunks. The only other furnishing was a grass mat for each person to sleep on, and an enamelled candle-holder. There was no electricity, and no wardrobe to hang clothes - just a hook on the wall above each bed. I shared with an American girl for the duration. The ablution facilities were nearby in another concrete blockhouse. They comprised one shower (cold only - no hardship, as it was all we had on the boat anyway), one Eastern style loo (footpads with a squat-hole, tap and bucket for flushing), and one Western style loo (missing its cistern and ball valve). David told me afterwards that his loo wasn't as good as this and he had suffered the additional problem of having to remove large leeches from his legs whenever he went there in the dark. It took a few minutes to unpack my belongings and head off to the kitchen, from where we were guided into a long hall with concrete benches along the four walls. The floor of this room was covered with thick rush matting and there were loads of scattered cushions on the benches. There were a number of Buddhist converts and several Western tourists, who had enrolled for courses at the centre, already meditating at one end of the room. These people had been at the centre for a week or so and seemed quite at home in their lotus positions.
After our first session of instruction - where, quite frankly, we hadn't a clue what was going on - we returned to the communal kitchen. We were served a meal of dhal (lentils), bread and sweet milky tea by the light of the woodfires and a number of candles. Another session of meditation followed before we retired to do battle with our grass mat covered concrete bunks. An uncomfortable night ended at a quarter to five in the morning, with a quick visit to the blockhouse at the bottom of the compound and a stumbling climb up to the meditation hall. I grabbed the nearest thick cushion, slithered into a sleeping bag and nodded through the entire session of meditation which lasted just forty minutes.
The next stage was walking meditation' accompanied by mantra, the chants used to calm the mind and provide the right atmosphere for successful meditation. A further fifty minutes of silent meditation followed - silence punctuated by growls from tummies protesting at the long wait till breakfast. The morning meal was a thin porridge bulked out with soya flakes and bananas and the inevitable sweet milky tea. Community work followed. Nobody was assigned a task, but all were expected to do something useful in the way of cleaning, gardening or preparing food. We endured four days of a routine like this with only the occasional lapses (or bouts of rebellion). David was rooming with a Sri Lankan freelance journalist who was fascinated with our lifestyle, so much so that he tried several times to conduct whispered interviews during the meditation sessions. David was reprimanded like a naughty schoolboy for this misdemeanour. The meditation finally came to an end and during our final session in the hall an initiation ceremony was held for two Sinhalese men who were officially entering into the Western Buddhist order.
We rose early on the day of our departure, meditated for a short spell, then ate breakfast before we sank thankfully into the comfortable seats of the minibus that was to take us home to the boat. The route of our return was even more beautiful than that of the outward journey and on the way we visited several of the ancient temple sites near Kandy. The most interesting was the Rockhill Hermitage at Wegirikanda. We climbed up a steep hillside in order to visit the hermits. There were dozens of small caves hewn out of the rock. Each cave was the home of a solitary monk. One of these men spoke a little English and was kind enough to tell us how he had become a monk in later life, on retirement from the merchant service of Sri Lanka and was now living as a hermit in a cave with a skeleton for company. His abiding fear was of his eventual death. The skeleton was providing a focus for meditation which, he hoped, would help him overcome this fear. Our interesting chat with this very worldly monk ended when we were called to the alms house in the valley for lunch. Altogether, it was a most enlightening weekend. Though we did not feel drawn to Buddhism, we like to feel that our experience gave us a deeper understanding of the people and their beliefs.
The local bus services in Sri Lanka are an experience not to be missed. Most of the vehicles are twenty-seaters, excluding the driver and conductor. The bus stops are a matter of local knowledge rather than officially signposted points. One would wait at the stopping place till a bus came along and prayed, while waiting, that the vehicle would not be full. It was not a case of missing the bus if it was, but the fear of being the fiftieth passenger crammed into an already bulging bodywork, or being held in the wide open doorway by the conductor who was likely to stand outside with his arms and legs spreadeagled around the luckless passenger's body to keep it aboard! A bus conductor would never admit to his vehicle being full - no matter how many bodies were clinging to the open doorways or roof racks by their fingernails. Travel within this crazy system was very reasonably priced. A few pennies would transport one quite some distance. The buses were not scheduled, but ran very frequently so were pretty good for getting about, particularly between towns. David and I would more often than not forego the pleasure of such a ride when going the two miles into Galle town - preferring to trust our own two (or four?) feet. If loaded down with shopping or such then we would either go to the bus station for the 'big bus' - a vehicle with forty seats and no overcrowding, or take the Bajaj for the return journey. The Bajaj was no more than a three-wheeled scooter with a saddle seat for the driver and short bench seat for two passengers. A perambulator like canopy structure was pulled over to protect riders from the sudden onset of a tropical downpour. It provided a colourful though comparatively costly way of getting about.
Shortly after our return from Nilambe, I took David down to Habaraduwa to meet Mrs Da Silva and her family and see the batik factory. We arrived about midday and were pressed into staying for an impromptu meal which consisted of all sorts of locally grown goodies and the most wonderful succulent prawns caught in the sea just in front of her home. The afternoon was spent browsing through all the work being done in her batik factory.
Mrs Da Silva was Indian by birth, and a trained nursing tutor who had worked for many years in Delhi. It was there that she had met and married her husband Dr Da Silva. They returned to his country after their marriage and settled in Habaraduwa. For many years they had battled to start a family without success. Mrs Da Silva was known for her gentle caring ways and was looked to for help in dealing with the problem of abandonment of teenage girls by their families. To solve two problems she started up the batik factory which was manned by and run on behalf of these girls. They did all the work and they reaped the benefits. Over the years their home had grown to encom
pass a huge dormitory where these 'orphans' lived, and the factory premises where the most amazing designs were brought to life on fabric. Two of her girls had shown enough promise for her to have extended their training to a course in Indonesia. Six years prior to our arrival in Sri Lanka, the Da Silva couple's prayers were answered when a foundling baby arrived on their doorstep and was eventually legally adopted by them. They made a vow the day Sulani became theirs officially that they would make a pilgrimage every year, on her birthday, to the temples at Kataragama to give thanks for their child.
David and I were very honoured indeed to be included in the group making the pilgrimage in 1987. The annual procession began from the Da Silva home, where close friends and family assembled the day before. By this time David and I were being treated as members of the family and no special concessions were made to our Western way of doing things; for example there was no cutlery at meal times other than a spoon for soup or liquid dessert. We were expected to behave as they did and we really appreciated this. A forty-seater bus was hired and had been packed with food and drink for the journey. The Sinhalese have a wonderful way of travelling about their country. They take their own provisions wherever they go, but never stop to prepare or eat food by the wayside. Everyone in the country, it seems, has a friend or relative living in each town or village. It was customary to drop in at the homes of whichever friend happened to live along the route being followed. There one was welcome to use the facilities of the home for washing and refreshing before joining the resident family who shared the travellers meal. We met and enjoyed the hospitality of many families when travelling with the Da Silvas on some of their frequent forays into the countryside. Our trip to Kataragama was such a one as this and we found it fascinating. Mrs Da Silva went out of her way to ensure that we saw all the sights, with side-trips to tiny cave shrines and scenic viewpoints en route. The most notable of these took us to the rock temples of Mulkirigala. Here, the vihara (temple) is actually a series of caves reached by climbing successive flights of steps cut into the hillside-rock. The nature of the caves dictated that each shrine had a reclining Buddha as opposed to the more usual sitting or standing ones. The higher one climbed, the larger and grander the shrines became. Each shelter was decorated with the most elaborate hand painted patterns - not unlike bright modern floral wallpapers. At the summit, perched on a huge rock, stood a small whitewashed dagoba (a reliquary), from which there was a superb view of the surrounding countryside. Dagobas, incidentally, appear dotted about all over the country. Generally they are domes with steeple like structures perched on top and, more often than not, painted white. There is almost certain to be one at every temple, but there are many wayside shrines which consist of nothing else. The largest we saw was on the main road half way between Galle and Colombo, and there were few Sinhalese motorists who did not stop to say their prayers when passing.
Kataragama itself is the religious Mecca of Sri Lanka. Set in an enormous, fenced off parkland we found Buddhist temples, Moslem mosques and Hindu temples side by side. Before entering, many of the pilgrims bathe in the river near the park gates and shed their travel-stained clothing for fresh, snowy white garments, ready to enter their chosen places of worship refreshed in body and spirit. Those with less time simply wash hands and feet at the pumps situated near the shrines. Just before we went in, many of our party bought garlands, oil and incense to offer up inside. These offerings were taken first into an outer temple for blessing. On bare feet we made our way along a beautifully kept shale road to the main Dagoba, where the offerings were left for the Gods. David and I each left a beautiful lotus blossom as a mark of respect and token of thanks for being privileged to witness such an important event in the lives of our friends. Although we did not understand much of the ritual, it was, nevertheless, a moving experience.
We had arranged to leave the party after the visit to the temples, because we had met and made friends with a couple who lived and worked on the sugar estates up at Pelwatte. Nick and Julie White had invited us to spend some time with them at their home on the border of the Yala national park. Mrs Da Silva dropped us off at the Traveller's Rest in the village of Kataragama, where we were to await the arrival of the Whites later in the day. Nick and Julie's home turned out to be a very comfortable colonial-style bungalow, with a lovely view of the highland foothills and a pretty irrigation lake in the foreground. It did not take us long to settle into their guest suite and make ourselves at home. We had a delightful week of being waited on hand and foot, and driven around to see the nearby towns of Buttala, Wellawaya, Ella and Bandarawela. What struck us forcibly was the marked difference in the cleanliness of the countryside in this region compared to the steamy coast. There was also a distinct lack of tourists, beggars and touts. We visited one of these small towns on market day and were intrigued by some of the gambling games being run in the streets, especially a form of roulette with a home made wheel which must have been biased!
We returned to Galle a week later, refreshed and ready to begin the long task of getting more complicated jobs done on board Tin Hau. The journey home was undertaken in a Ceylon Transport Board bus. It was a vintage Leyland - no doubt held together with chewing gum and hair grips - bursting at the seams as usual and being driven like the proverbial bat out of hell. We disembarked at Matara at lunch time and had a wander round before continuing to Galle on a more modern version of the same vehicle. One thing we had never seen before even though we had driven through the area was the stilt fishing at Welligama. The shallows are a veritable forest of forked stakes set in the seabed. Fishermen wade out at low tide and perch themselves in the crook of the fork. There they remain throughout the high tide, catching fish by handline. Anything they catch is dropped into a keepnet or basket floating in the surf at the base of their stilts and is collected at the next low tide when the fishermen climb down from their perches and wade ashore.
Back on board Tin Hau, we proceeded to tackle the aforementioned list of jobs. The timber frames round our portholes were rotting and had to be replaced. Sri Lanka is a good place to obtain brass and bronze articles, and there are lots of small foundries hidden away just waiting to be asked to carry out any work. It took David a while to find one he considered competent enough, with pricing suited to our budget. Eventually, with the help of Don's son, Indra, he succeeded. We were asked to supply a good wooden template. This was not difficult as we had a spare frame for each size of porthole on board. The order was placed in May and delivery was promised by mid- to late June. Meanwhile, the hatches, made of the same wood as the original porthole frames, were also in dire need of replacement. For these we ordered local timber on which we worked ourselves. To prevent future saturation of the wood, we decided to coat the whole with fibreglass a very messy job, especially in the humid atmosphere.
David spent a lot of time continuing what he started in the Seychelles - the hunt for manufacturers of powered automatic steering systems. Having sailed Tin Hau seven thousand miles, he felt we knew her well enough to be able to install an autopilot. Letters flew back and forth between ourselves and companies in various parts of the world who made such goods. Unfortunately, the more we learned, the more confused we became. David was also in correspondence with the manufacturers of our radar, which had not performed as it should from the day it was installed. Though well beyond its guarantee, the manufacturers, Mars Electronics, had agreed to check - and if necessary replace - whichever of the parts they suspected were at fault. We received detailed directions for the removal of the relevant bits and planned to send them back to England. The echo sounder was still in England after having been sent back from the Seychelles, so we had to arrange for its collection too. Routine maintenance of all steelwork on the boat was carried out in parallel with these other jobs.
As in Africa, time meant little to the local inhabitants and we were very frustrated with the delays that held up our work. David had a few component parts made up for the installation of a new exhaust system for the g
enerator to make it possible to use the genny in a big sea. After the inevitable delays and various modifications, Don's mechanically minded son, Moditha, came aboard to fit the new system. A few trials showed that this was going to be a great improvement and we would no longer have to worry about possible flooding of the generator motor.
By this stage we began to realise that getting everything we wanted in the way of new equipment from abroad was going to involve a lot of tedious dealings with bureaucracy. Our attempts to return our faulty radar bits and bobs had required very patient hours with the authorities. We had been considering a possible holiday flight home in October, but decided in July to return earlier than that and combine it with the opportunity of sorting out our purchases and returning with them to Sri Lanka ourselves. We set a tentative date for flying back to the UK in early August.
Cutting the Dragon's Tail Page 20