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Just a quick post to say I got back to Canada without incident! I'll put this blog to rest until the next time I dust off my travelling pants and head out into the wild blue yonder.

Nuwara Eliya

Imran and I are back in Colombo, after spending the last 3 days hidden away in a small mountain village called Nuwara Eliya (pronounced nu-REL-iya) in the middle of Sri Lanka's hilly tea country.

Nuwara Eliya turned out to be phenomenal, partially because we had no idea what to expect. The one downside of getting excited about travelling to a certain place ahead of time is that you set up, either consciously or unconsciously, expectations of how the place will be. Inevitably, something about the place differs from those expectations, which can dampen your impression of the place. Which is why, when we arrived in Nuwara Eliya after a switchbacking, cliff-hugging 9 hour train ride, pretty much everything was a jaw-dropping surprise. It was like stumbling onto some undiscovered Shangrila, a corner of the world I never knew existed. I won't do it justice with a blog post, but here's the condensed tale of our time there.

The first thing that hit me was the scenery: huge, rolling hills (about 2000-2500m above sea level) dotted with Eucalyptus trees, and almost completely covered with roughly geometric lines of tea bushes. And man, were there a lot of tea fields. Some of the peaks were high enough that they were partially obscured by clouds, but for the most part we had great sunny weather while we were there.

The temperature was a sharp departure from the incredibly humid, 30 degree weather of the coast. Day temperatures hovered around a perfect-for-hiking 18 degrees, and at night things cooled down quite a bit, which is why it's a good thing we had white-gloved wait staff keeping our beds supplied with hot water bottles every night.

Which brings me to my next point: The Hill Club.

We had decided that we would save money by sharing a room, as opposed to the 2 room configuration we'd been booked into in Colombo, so I popped open my Lonely Planet: Sri Lanka guidebook and found something with a double room cheaper than we were paying for two singles in Colombo. The Hill Club fit the bill nicely. On top of that, it had the added bonus of being a 135 year old stone mansion. It turns out Nuwara Eliya used to be a "hill station" in colonial times, which was essentially a place for rich British guys to take a few days off away from the heat of the coast. It's done a remarkable job of maintaining the feeling of walking straight into Colonial Sri Lanka, 135 years past, from the antique furniture and immaculate, attentive staff, to the mounted trophy game on the walls, and the elephant foot garbage bin (authenticity: unverified). Meals were 5-course prix-fixe European fare, and the prime rib I had for dinner last night could go toe to toe with the finest cut of Alberta beef. All this for less than the price of a night at the Ramada Inn in Canada.

The British have a pretty spotty record in this part of the world when it comes to governance and development, but they certainly knew how to build a hotel (and as a side note, the Hill Club is now locally owned and operated).

During the days we wandered around the village (complete with families of horses roaming the streets, a golf course and a Victorian garden), hiked in the mountains (including a perilous but accident-free trek up into a rare cloudforest ecosystem), and basically wandered around with our jaws agape for 3 days. The abundant water falls and monkeys jumping through the trees might have had something to do with that.

Now I'm going to go grab one last meal here in Colombo (it's the World Spice Festival right now, and we're going to go sample the works of a Moroccan chef who's been flown in expressly for the occasion, once again for less than the price of a pasta dish at Gusto's). Tonight, we start our 28 hour trek back to Kingston. See you soon, Canada!

On Smiles, Head Wiggling and Arrack

Our conference in Matara has wrapped up, and the Canadian delegation is leaving tomorrow morning to head back to Colombo, where Imran and I will strike out for the hill country, and with it... adventure! Adventure and tea.

Last night we had the opportunity to see a pretty spectacular sunset over the Indian Ocean from the beach right in front of our guest house. It was even more awesome because every other night here has been exceptionally rainy and overcast. In addition to the majestic sunset, we also got to experience a bit of cultural exchange, as we ran into a group of local high school kids who were exceedingly drunk on arrack, which is fermented and distilled coconut sap. They were friendly for the most part, and pretty curious as to what a bunch of foreigners were doing wandering around the beach (tourism is not real hot right now). With the exception of one kid who seemed to think I wanted to pick a fight, we got along great.

Speaking of international communication, I've been extremely surprised by the amount of currency a simple smile carries here. In Canada, if you smile at someone, you're almost certainly likely to get a very polite, but extremely cursory smile, devoid of much actual happiness. Not here. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I look ridiculously out of place here, but every time I smile at someone, I get huge, tooth-filled, whole face grins that leave no doubt as to the happiness of the wearer. And of course, you can't help but fill your own smile with a similar amount of happiness. It's a contagious custom I think we'd do well to import to Canada.

One more note about social interactions: our traditional up-and-down nod motion for "yes" is used here, but it's sometimes replaced by a sort of side-to-side head wiggle that, to my uninitiated eyes, looks more like "I am extremely uncertain about that statement" than "yes". However, after several days of observation I've determined that it is indeed yes, which is information that significantly uncomplicates my first few attempts at conversation in retrospect.

Now, I've got about 2 hours left before sundown. Time for a swim!*

*Note: the Indian Ocean is extremely rough around this time of year. By "swim", I mean put on my bathing suit and go get my feet wet.

Power Outages and Coconuts

Well, internet access has proved to be pretty spotty here in Matara due to frequent power outages... we sat at the dinner table for 10 minutes last night waiting for the lights to turn on so we could eat. I'm here at Ruhuna University attending a conference of all the project partners here in the country. They are treating us exceptionally well (right now, for instance, I am e-mailing from the vice chancellor's office!). Also, I'm sharing a room with Imran (my fellow Queen's grad student) with a balcony that looks directly out at the Indian Ocean coastline. Not too shabby!

Quick notes:

Yesterday, we went for a walk on the beach and I tripped on a coconut.

I bought a cricket bat!

It is HOT here.

Sri Lankan food: spicy.

My bed has a blue mosquito net that kind of makes it look like some sort of fairy princess bed. At least it's not pink like Imran's.

That's about all I have time for this morning, gotta go do conference stuff! More updates as internet access allows.

Serendib

Back before it was Ceylon, Sri Lanka used to be called Serendib, which is where the modern word serendipity has its origin. I learned that courtesy of Serendib Magazine on our flight from London to Colombo. I had lots of room to read it, too, since the flight was about 2/3 empty. I actually stretched out across four seats and took a nap, fully reclined, in economy class. I hope I have the same degree of luxury on the flight back!

Even though we're still technically on day 1, our trip has been pretty interesting so far. We were stopped at 2 military checkpoints on our way from the airport to the hotel (and passed by half a dozen more already busy with interrogations), but luckily for us our Canadian origin and a friendly smile were all we needed to get waved on. It seems like they're still doing their best to keep the country tourist-friendly in spite of all that's going on here.

Our hotel is very nicely appointed, with air conditioning (which helps fight off the insane heat and humidity) and high-speed internet. It's a nice place to rest and retreat from the noise and chaos of the rest of smoggy Colombo, where the principal form of communication appears to be the car horn.

We're moving on to Matara in 2 days to meet with our university partners there. Until then, I will continue my hunt for a cricket bat. Wish me luck!

Sri Lanka!

Once again, I'm packing my bags and getting ready for another overseas trip! This time, I'm headed to Sri Lanka for about 2 weeks to meet with several universities who are collaborating on something called "Project RESTORE". It's the big giant project of which my master's research is a very tiny part.

I'm leaving Friday, flying to Sri Lanka via London. This trip should be really interesting, as it's the first time I'm travelling anywhere international for non-recreational reasons. I feel pretty lucky to be able to travel as much as I have been recently, so it'll be nice to do something a bit more productive while abroad.

For those of you who haven't yet suffered through one of my hyper-excited descriptions of my research project, I am heading to Sri Lanka to work with local builders and residents of coastal villages to help come up with cheap, effective, environmentally friendly infrastructure (houses, etc.) that will also stand a better chance of withstanding tsunami forces.

Over the next 2 weeks, I'll use this space to keep folks back home up to date on my travels around Sri Lanka. Also, if anyone wants me to pick them up some cricket gear, tomorrow's your last chance to get a request in.