Cutting the Dragon's Tail

by Lynda Chidell

  On the local scene, things had been hotting up politically, and violence - until then mainly confined to the north - was breaking out all over the country. Suspected terrorists from Jaffna were being shipped by naval vessels down to Galle, where the wharf warehouses had been hastily bricked in to form a makeshift detention centre. We watched hundreds of prisoners arriving daily, each man chained to the next by the ankle. They were marched off the ships in shuffling lines to be incarcerated in the old warehouses, no more than a couple of hundred metres from our boat. From Tin Hau and the other boats in port we had a grandstand view of the activities. Don, as Godfather of the local Mafioso, was heavily involved in the comings and goings of the military and civilian officials concerned with interrogation and welfare matters. His veranda became the local gossip shop, where rumours - if not actually invented there - were told and re-told with much embellishment. The yachts were virtually put on red alert at one point. Most of us were rather shocked at the way the prisoners were being handled and lodged complaints, on humanitarian grounds, with Don. Thereafter all prisoners were unchained before being moved off the transport ships.

  At about this time Mrs Da Silva wrote a note asking us to join her on a cultural expedition to Colombo, and also to a tea and rubber plantation. We wanted to go to Colombo anyway, in order to finalise our travel arrangements for August. The opportunity to join another of her progressions through the countryside slotted in very neatly with our own plans. David went up to Colombo under his own steam a couple of days early and arranged to meet up with us there. I remained behind to close up the boat for the few days we would be away. I had to be up two hours before cock-crow to meet the bus at the customs post at the harbour entrance. Our first stop was at an old and very important temple where David was waiting to join us. He had with him a young Englishman whom he had met in the hostel at Dehiwala, who was interested in the possibility of joining us for the onward voyage. By then we had decided to forget about the very tempting alternative of proceeding eastwards to Thailand. There were just too many maintenance jobs to be carried out on Tin Hau. The more we heard about Larnaca Marina in Cyprus, the more we were coming to realise that this was the place to go to for such work. So we made the decision to continue with our original plan of heading for the Mediterranean via the Red Sea. Cyprus would be the destination, and our departure from Sri Lanka would be in December when the winds changed.

  Our next stop was the Colombo Museum. Most of the halls were of no interest to me, although there were several exciting special exhibits. One of these was a magnificent and very large collection of musical instruments of Asia. The other, which was positively outstanding, was the children's puppet museum. If I had only known of these two exhibits at the outset I would not have bothered trailing round the rest of the museum.

  After the usual traveller's lunch we headed for Colombo Zoo which, while of a fairly high standard as such places go, was really rather sordid. I really don't appreciate seeing animals cooped up behind fences and bars. The main attraction was the trained working elephants that gave demonstrations of their skills for visitors. We never did see them, however, because rumours started circulating that a curfew was being imposed in and around Colombo as a result of the imminent arrival of the Indian Premier, Rajiv Gandhi. He was due to sign a peace accord to end violence in Sri Lanka. Mrs Da Silva made some enquiries to try and verify the rumours. Finally, we decided to cut our stay in Colombo short and head for the tea plantation, where she had arranged for us to spend the night.

  The bus crawled through the southern suburbs of the city. Roads were very congested because everyone wanted to be somewhere else on hearing the threat of curfew. Eventually we made it out into the open roads and were on our way heading south-east for Horuna, a so-called 'low tea' area. We arrived on the estate which had been our destination around sunset, to be greeted by the wide open arms of our host and hostess Tudor and Jo Jayawardene, an utterly charming couple.

  Tudor was the director of twelve governmental tea and rubber estate projects in the area, and lived high on a hill in a huge bungalow overlooking one of the tea plantations. We were ushered into a cool room with a high ceiling, furnished with two double beds and with its own en- suite bathroom. We felt like two very small peas in an overly large pod as we rattled around in the sumptuous quarters we had been allocated. After a bath and change we joined the others on the front lawn for pre-dinner drinks. Dinner was a very lavish Sinhalese affair with a waiter for every diner. The company was stimulating, though we'd have liked to have had more time to have enjoyed it. Everyone goes to bed so early in hot climates!

  We awoke, after a refreshing sleep, to the news that there was an island wide curfew. Only vehicles with special permits would be allowed on the road.

  Tudor was a man of influence. He disappeared after breakfast in order to try and sort out some means by which we could continue our journey. It was becoming clear that the best thing would probably be to abandon our sightseeing and head for home if we could obtain a travel permit. Tudor accomplished this and we set off along country lanes, now deserted because of the curfew, to rejoin the main coast road at Bentota as close as possible to 'home'. A few miles south of this point we reached Ambalangoda. We were stopped by a police blockade at this point and told we would not be allowed to proceed further in spite of our travel permits. Rioting was still in progress and it would not be safe to go on. Our driver turned the bus about and attempted to find a route round the back of the town, but found our way barred there too. There was no option but to return to Ambalangoda which, being on the main road, was likely to re-open first. The town was quite sizeable, but was a ribbon development strung out along the coast. It had a number of hotels but all of these were at the southern end, and there was no way we could get through to them. The police were unable to say how long we were going to be held up, but said it could be quite a while.

  We obviously had to try and find some form of accommodation. Mrs Da Silva made for the Buddhist temple not far from where we had pulled over and was offered refuge in the temple grounds. The bus was moved from the blockade and driven under the palm trees at the temple to be hidden. Buses were a favourite target of the rioters! The thirty-five occupants, including ourselves, became refugees under the protection of the high priest. This worthy gentleman opened up the 'Pilgrim's Rest' for the children of the party, provided us all with sleeping mats, and even found a couple of pillows for David and myself.

  Mrs Da Silva organised the group into foraging parties, sent off on foot to try and buy or scrounge foodstuffs to supplement what was carried on the bus. What she had was quite considerable anyway, but she obviously foresaw a siege of some duration. David and I climbed up to the inevitable Dagoba and were invited to join two very young monks for afternoon tea in their cell. They were desperate to practise their limited English and were determined to make the most of the opportunity afforded them by our stay. By the time we returned to the camp a substantial meal of rice and dhal had been prepared. It was gratefully scoffed by all. We paid a moonlit visit to the temple well to bathe before bed. David spent the night being violently sick. We weren't sure if it was the food or a tummy bug.

  There was no change in the situation that day or the next. By this time we were fretting a bit as we had only four days left before we were due back in Colombo to fly to England. We begged and pleaded with the police to allow us to walk the twenty or so miles to Galle along the beach. They refused to have anything to do with our idea. However, they did agree that if the situation had not changed by the following day they would escort us through themselves in an armoured vehicle. We had to be satisfied with that and we went off to while away another day in the company of some locals who had befriended us. They took us round the neighbourhood, visiting homes of their relatives and friends where we had the chance to meet the local medicine man, a cinnamon farmer, and a group of tea packers. We were served tea in exquisite cups of the finest china with a watermark depicting a regal figure which they
believed to be Queen Victoria.

  By the third day quite a few more refugees had arrived, some on foot from Colombo - from where they claimed to have escaped with their lives from burning buildings. Others were the survivors of buses which had been set upon by rioters. There were also a few stranded tourists who had been making their way up from the south, stopping for tea or a simple meal with us before moving northwards. It did seem odd that people were managing to get through from the other direction. We went to see the police again. They were still saying it was not safe to go through on our own but that they would help us the following day. In the event, at six o'clock on the Friday morning, the curfew was lifted for a short while and we were allowed to get away as soon as the barricade was raised. The road was only partially opened up and our driver had to exercise extreme caution. Burnt out hulks of buses littered the route, as did burning piles of palm tree trunks and smouldering tyres. Telephone poles and lines had been brought down and pylons turned over. Along with railway lines and sleepers, these had been dragged on to the road. Bulldozers had been used to shift great boulders off the beaches and on to the tarmac too. All of this meant that it took us almost two hours to reach Galle. Shortly after we arrived the curfew was reimposed. We felt vastly relieved to be back, though we still had the problem of how to get ourselves to Colombo for the outward flight if the situation remained unchanged.

  Don Windsor was not particularly alarmed at our absence, but the other yachtsmen had been planning all sorts of wild moves to save Tin Hau while we were gone. They had experienced petrol bombs flying across the harbour and had been quite worried.

  Our trip to the UK started with our cadging a lift to Colombo with an American study group staying at the nearby Closenburg Hotel. We did this to ensure permit-documented transport. We were uncertain whether or not the troubles would allow passage between Galle and Colombo. We left with a day in hand but the situation had quietened considerably. Although the entire seventy-two miles was littered with riot debris, there was no active rioting and we made it through to the city. The Americans dropped us off on the southern outskirts of town and we hired a Bajaj to take ourselves and our luggage to the bus station in the city centre.

  At the station we were able to get a minibus which gave us a hair raising ride out to the town of Negombo which is the nearest settlement to the airport. Negombo is a pretty town built on the banks of lagoons and canals and we managed to find a clean and homely guest house for the overnight stay. David's body chose that inopportune moment to rebel, staging a recurrence of the tummy problem. By the following morning I realised he was in no state to travel and would not be unless I got him to a doctor or medic immediately. I managed to find a doctor who was very helpful and supplied what I required, which included rehydration material.

  David was well enough to go about an hour before we were due to take off. We made it to the plane - an Aeroflot Ilyushin bound for Karachi. It was very comfortable, apart from a tendency to shower the unlucky aisle seat passengers on takeoff and landing. The humidifier system wasn't functioning too well and caused a deluge of water to be released through vents either side of the aisle. The plane was pleasantly underbooked and, as there was no formal allocation of seats, we made sure we were not in the 'shower zone'. We did not see much of Karachi as it was a night stop, but the shops in the transit concourse were full of fascinating goods. 'Make order, Make order,we were told by a weedy looking army officer backed up by burly uniformed soldiers, as he whipped us into a single file on the walk across the runway back to the plane. Several Russian engineers joined us, on their way home after being seconded on aid to Pakistan. They were not very communicative in spite of glasnost and all that. We amused ourselves by trying to spot the KGB agent, for we felt sure that there must have been one around to make the men clam up. The victim on take-off from Karachi was a gentleman with a haircut like a hedgehog sitting in the aisle seat a row in front of us - he had everyone in hysterics when he was caught in the downpour. The man who sat next to me was obviously familiar with this habit of Russian planes because as soon as we had taxied out to the end of the runway he had folded his magazine over his head.

  Our first stop in Russia was Tashkent. It was still dark, so we saw nothing beyond the incredibly scruffy airport. We arrived in Moscow at four o'clock in the morning and were transferred to the Moscow Hilton - actually the Scheremetyvo Hotel, alongside the airport of the same name (one of Moscow's seven airports). We were allocated rooms; all doubles, so single travellers had to pair off. We were issued with vouchers to cover all the meals we would be entitled to during our brief stay. We had been advised by our travel agent in Colombo to ask for the free tour of the city when we got to Moscow. Incredibly, we were the only passengers who had been told this was a possibility, so we really started something when we asked to be allowed to do the tour. In the end they organised two coaches to accommodate eighty requests.

  The tour was scheduled for ten o'clock. We had time to have a nap, shower and then go down for a meal. When we got to our room we discovered that the hot water was not functioning. It was a cold shower or nothing and the cold water was icy. The bedroom was quite well appointed and the bed comfortable, so we had a good rest. To us the whole thing was positive luxury after some of the places we had been and some of the things we had seen. However, in retrospect, I realise that the hotel we stayed at in Moscow was actually rather rundown. The curtains were hung with paper clips and safety pins. The plumbing was very poorly installed. The food was incredibly basic for a so-called international hotel, and the service was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

  At ten, as arranged, we piled into the coach and drove into Moscow centre to pick up an Intourist guide. We had a really fascinating tour of the city and were allowed to photograph anything that took our fancy. Red Square was paved with red stones; the Kremlin was far more beautiful in reality than I had been prepared for from pictures seen on television. We drove to the University of Moscow with its imposing architecture set in lovely park-like surroundings. We were allowed (unofficially) to get out of the coach for a short stop at one vantage point on a bridge overlooking the whole of Moscow, with the Olympics site in the foreground. By the time we had been up and down all those streets I had read about in spy novels, and passed familiar sounding landmarks like the GUM department store with long queues of shoppers waiting to gain admittance, seen Dzerzinski Square - home of the KGB and its associated departments - and seen the Bolshoi and Tchaikovsky theatres, our heads were ringing. After the tour, we lunched in the hotel dining room and then napped till it was time to go back to the airport. There we boarded the biggest plane in the Aeroflot fleet on its inaugural flight to Heathrow.

  Derek and Frances Chidell were at Heathrow to meet us and take us to their home for our first few days back in civilisation. I cannot describe how wonderful it was to be back in merrie Englande, or describe the culture shock we experienced after so long in what seemed like alien lands. The efficiency, cleanliness and organisation of the most basic things was what struck us most forcibly. Fruit shops had bright and sparkling stock, attractively presented to the buyer. Supermarkets displayed goods we hadn't seen for years because they were unobtainable abroad. Packaging was so appealing we just wanted to buy the product to enjoy undoing the wrappers! The joy of being able to pick up a phone and place an order for a complicated mechanical part that had to be made to our design and to have it delivered to our home the following day was immense. Being able to hand in our defective radar parts at the factory and know they would be sent by courier in time for us to take them back on our return was most satisfying, as was the politeness and helpfulness of those working in other service industries - they could have taught the Sinhalese a thing or three.

  We left Derek and Frances in order to get to Chichester for Margaret's birthday. In fact the cat was let out of the bag because she just happened to phone Derek the night we arrived, so our arrival was not a surprise. Mark cut short his cycling tour of France in o
rder to come home and spend some time with us. We hadn't seen any of the family since Mauritius. Mark, David and I went up to London to meet Tandy, and that morning managed to sort out all the problems we had been wrestling with for months in Sri Lanka. With everything bought or ordered in one morning, we had three weeks we could devote entirely to catching up with friends and family. Lazy days playing croquet on the back lawn, having pub lunches, visiting the theatre and watching the latest movies and tv (latest being anything made in the previous four years!) - in other words, indulging in all the landlubberly activities which were a novelty and treat for us.

  We went to Southampton and saw T'ai Shan (sister ship to Tin Hau) after locating Tony Richardson. It was a very eerie feeling stepping aboard a boat we knew so well, yet not at all. T'ai Shan is a great credit to Tony. We tried many times to make arrangements to get the two junks together. It was not until years later that we finally managed it.

  Far too soon we were thrust back into the heat and filth of Sri Lanka to get on with the business of readying the boat for the long voyage into the Mediterranean.

  We were disappointed on our return to find that the porthole frames were still not ready for installation. You may remember that they were to have been completed by mid-May. Three and a half months later there was no sign of them. It took no time at all installing the newly acquired solar panel and David was able to get much of the Autohelm 6000 installation done without recourse to the yottie co-operative. Most of the work involved the fashioning of supporting brackets, a task made more difficult because the local steel workers could not read drawings. This meant hours over at the slipway workshops, with David interpreting his own drawings for the fabricators. Added to that was the 'ninety per cent syndrome’ - a phenomenon which was peculiarly Sri Lankan. Nothing was ever a one hundred per cent job. The final ten per cent which would produce a perfect piece of work always seemed to elude the Sinhalese.