Perfumed paradise is Sri Lanka’s beach resort, a gem glittering in dust shadowing the breath and laughter of poverty. Shacks nestled against one another, spilling into rain blue Indian Ocean. Our hotel smiles upon the beach: delicately arranged deck chairs, tables of flowers, white tablecloth. Sea winds dance. A thin, hatted dark man approaches shouldering a baby monkey. The narrow leash whips as monkey leaps and scales the nearest wide-eyed blinking tourist. Jumps shoulder to shoulder, scurries around your neck, amused and kindly nibbling your flesh with tiny rubbery teeth, harmless. The man asks to pause for a photo shoot. “It’s my job, sir” he pleads as you demure, withdrawing your eyes.
Looking over the railing, I watch a man and woman lying on their stomachs on the sand, propped up on their elbows, murmuring to one another as the gentle ocean ascends their legs, then shyly retreats. From the woman’s tanned neck dangles a crucifix. With little effort my eyes drift over her shoulder to alight on her magnificently sculpted posterior, bikinied. I shift in my chair, then consider again the couple: they wile away the time like children in quiet tropical bliss, how reduced are our intentions. Vacations gild long empty hours, fulfillment attained just snuggling on coastline. If the breeze sweeping off the ocean is cool, you slowly bake until brown. If the winds cease, you overheat. The equilibrium is upset: you rise and dunk your body in the water….
Travel is strange. It’s imagined and anticipated to be stopping daily grind, stepping into a wondrously alternate universe. Familiar patterns are suspended midlife, and the journey begins: the world alights with magic. Contours are tinged with starry glow. You can cross through a large bustling city like Columbo clogged with traffic, dulled commuters, sneering shopkeepers, beggars’ outstretched dirty palms, but in your born again glee the city bursts with vibrancy. Your unforgettable experience is their daily grind. But travel isn’t passive: you have to do things and see things and pay money to visit things to insure your experience is meaningful, and the more exotic, the more memorable. To completely fulfill your travels you must experience anything and everything a city has to offer, you think.
These words originally were penned in a notebook at six in the evening at an open window of our hotel in the village of Kegalla adjacent to the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. Carrie naps behind me. Directly below my window drifts a shallow brown river. Boulders span its width like submerged mountain ranges, gentle rapids swirling around them. The opposite bank is peopled with coconut palms, banana trees, mounds of thick lush grasses. Running dark green hills beyond are heavy with trees and darken as the sun quietly sails west across a damp sky. I move to our balcony where earlier in the day a gentle stampede of elephants rolled through the narrow street by our hotel. Crowds had gathered at the restaurant porch above where packs waddle into the river from the orphanage at the other end of the village. We had leaned over the railing and watched them saunter into the currents, and with lumbering grace the elephants submerge in the cool waters. Initially, the herds tightened, stand knee deep milling around. Their rhythms are measured like puffed astronauts strolling the moon. Then they relax, flap their ears gingerly, contentedly.
At one point a small contingent of elephants, after deliberating a few minutes, breaks off and ventures toward the far steep muddy bank. Murmurs of concern rumble through the remaining herd, a mix of censure and admiration for these renegades. The breakaways rush the far shore with the spirit of Luther with hammer in hand. Ashore, each finds loose dirt to scoop up and spray the sky like orange rain, or they just plop and roll gloriously in muck. They’ve returned to the wild, coated in war-paint, and the rest of the herd knows it. A complete breakdown of order ensues: new converts, trumpets blowing, storm across. The original rebels parade victoriously across the far shore in shades of rich golden mother earth. Ears flap happily the same way I imagine the ears of Crusaders did returning from Jerusalem. But the second and third fronts go beyond: they’re up there rustling the tall grasses and carrying out surveys of jungle terrain. Most of the original herd has joined the new congregation, and only a few old stalwarts carry on the old faith by remaining in a deeper pool and shower and bathe. I glance down the river. A woman wading near shore slaps her laundry on boulders. One family of elephants, including a very small one, after finishing necessary explorations, make for the river. The rest of the family bounce down from the high bank through a gully cut out of the side. But the young one missed the exit. He frets back and forth along the high bank. Most of us closely follow the developing story, cautiously sipping our beer. The young one runs wildly, he can’t get down. Concerned, an older midsized elephant trots toward the high bank, catches the young one’s attention, then with a signal head nod sprints back toward the river, glancing back to see if the young one took the hint. The young one begins to worry, and so do we. He keeps rushing back and forth. So the older one again goes through the same ritual, head nod, jump turn and race for the river. Finally, the young one finds the gully, and rushes to join his family. Cheers erupt all around.
As the afternoon wanes the handlers call out to the community to return home. Pleas are ignored. One large bull elephant is on the other side committed to ripping bark samples from a banana tree. Finally, resigned, the families begin booming up the path as we wave a fond farewell….
As I said, travel is strange. There’s something both welcome and troubling when the afternoon winds down, as these words are penned. You may or may not have slept well, may or may not have drank festively the night before, and so the giddy energy of coffee and new adventures pumped into your recovery starts to slump. Nap beckons. One thought is that this downtime is wasted; travel’s exotic spell dissolves under a dull grinding sun, but you aren’t doing anything, and you’re supposed to be (paying for) doing something. Nevertheless, if you nap, seeping into your rest is the gnawing suspicion that you’re not getting your money’s worth. You leap off the bed, grab the Lonely Planet, determined to find something to do which you wouldn’t ordinarily do back home, however mundane. So a crowded, muggy, smelly 40-minute bus ride later you’re buying a guided tour through a factory for handcrafted shoelaces made from dried coconut palms....
Isn’t it odd getting to a town, dropping your bags at the hotel, then wandering toward the center of whatever it is you expect to experience in the town? Like the “essence” of a city, for instance. Walking and walking believing that at some magical moment a flash of memorable experience will seal your commitment, time, and money’s worth. You head for the main square, say, and the beautiful architecture and cathedrals and outside café tables and people ring your soul’s bell. But still, it’s never the essence, whatever that may mean. I suppose it’s like walking into the center of a forest. After walking in awhile, you begin walking out the other side. Life is like this. I suppose death and the afterlife are too. Back on the river in Sri Lanka, standing at the railing with glasses of wine in hand, Carrie and I welcome the soft warm evening. There’s something strange upriver. We peer and wait. Thousands of dark large bats are fording the river. They spread across the twilight sky and swoop over our hotel for a solid fifteen minutes, silently. Cut out of night's black veil, they quietly sing the end of day. And the desert blue stars blink, recording their song.
