This week at our monthly coffee morning, we invited the local Foreign Affairs Police to speak to the expat community. This arm of the local police force is there to work with the foreign community on all the range of issues that you could imagine and they have officers in each station that will come to the scene of a crime or accident to liaze with the foreigners to ensure that every ones rights are met. We thought it would be informative to get the word out about them and that the expats would be able to have their questions and concerns addressed. Before, during and after the talk, it was clear that we all are enamored by Taiwan and are happy to live here. The place is cleaner than it should be, the people are welcoming to us and it is safer than any other place any of us has been. I feel OK about the women in my life buzzing about town unaccompanied...I said OK, but not happy about it. There is good reason it just got voted number one by expats as the most livable city. And while some of us (me) will complain about the weather (not their fault) and food choices (no accounting for taste), one thing we all agreed on and bitch about constantly is the driving habits...and we let the representatives for the police know about it. I did feel a bit bad for them as we would not change the subject and really had no other concerns or complaints. A couple of our more empathetic members tried to argue that it is a cultural thing, but I call bullshit. Since when is running red lights and screwing over your neighbor by constant illegal and dangerous cutting maneuvers an OK cultural trait. Betty has always argued that they are informed by centuries of having to push to get enough to eat, but that is what evolution is all about. I argued it is not a cultural thing but an enforcement one. The laws are on the books and they have cameras everywhere. The police said that by law, they cannot use those to write tickets but did say there was an education plan underway. Also, they are using their resources to focus on drunk driving but I wonder what causes more accidents and deaths?
Travelogue time...we spent 8 days is Sri Lanka over the Chinese New Year break. It is a decent haul to get there (5 hr to Singapore/4 hr layover/4 hr to Colombo...same on return) and due to work being done at the Colombo airport, all flights arrive/depart between 10p and 1a. The first thing we noticed about Sri Lanka, and something that we had never seen before, was that all of the stores leading from Customs out to the arrival area sold major appliances with the most popular being refrigerators and washing machines. Dozens of stores. We were told later that this is due to the many Sri Lankans that travel overseas, mainly women to the Middle East, to work in factories and in homes. The law allows them upon return to buy a certain amount of stuff duty free and since they are loaded with cash, and that regular import duties run near 300%, these are popular items to buy.
Our collective knowledge about Sri Lanka going in was low. I had a friend in high school from there and everyone called him Coolie (which I learned later in life was a derogatory term for an unskilled Asian migrant laborer...1983 was such a much more openly acceptable racist time, sorry). I also knew that they had a long civil war, but was not as well versed on it as I should have been. I read about it before hand and this Wikipedia entry details it well. 25 years of brutality from 1983 to 2009 that went criminally under reported in the west. Add that Sri Lanka was hit extremely hard by the 2004 tsunami in the midst of it and was wondering if there was gonna be any there there.
My research led to the conclusion that we couldn't navigate around on our own efficiently. Public transportation was both slow and unreliable and driving was not a consideration, so we enlisted the help of a tour operator (Rainbow Tours, ask for them by name) to craft our visit and hired a driver for our stay and were delighted we did. Our driver/tour companion was named Wasantha and he not only spoke English very well, but knew his stuff. I would be following along with my research and he not only nailed all the facts, but embellished them with local knowledge that made the countryside come to life. By the end, I felt that we would consider him a friend for life.
For brevity, will refer to Sri Lanka as "LK" going forward. In crafting our itinerary, we had to make some choices as you can't see it all. It is almost twice as large as Taiwan (13,794 sq mi to 25,305 sq mi) with the same population (roughly 23 million). For reference, Washington state is 71,000 sq mi with 7 million souls. We chose for a couple/three days to tour their cultural triangle. I had assumed that being a few miles off the coast of India, that it would have been part of that country, but it has been an independent entity for most of its existence. Buddhist from the most ancient of times, there are several ancient cities with their centers in relatively good shape.
One afternoon, we visited Dambulla Cave Temple, which have a bunch of Buddha's in caves dating back to the 1st century BC. Was an opportune time to refresh our knowledge of Buddhism, which still makes the most sense of all religions this writer's mind.
We also dove into the mid-history site of Polonnaruwa, from around 1077AD. I have to say that I don't get off on the ancient sites as much as I do the history that goes into them.
That was roughly it with the historically religious sites. One could spend a month visiting all of the ones in country but you'd have to be hard core to do that. I found them interesting and would recommend that you spend a day or two there. As the crow flies, they aren't very far from one another. about 60 kms, but the problem is that the roads are not great. There is one highway that runs from Colombo to the south coast that is 100 kms long, but the rest of the roads are all 2 lanes (one each way) that are effectively wide enough for 3 vehicles. That means that drivers are constantly playing a game of chicken passing each other one way while the drivers are doing the same going the opposite direction so you always going head on with another vehicle before diving back into your lane. I said constantly, right? It makes for slow going and you can travel about 20-25kms an hour, so a 60km drive takes about 3 hours. It is an art form out of necessity and one that I could probably master but was glad we had an expert driving us.
The roads themselves were in surprisingly good condition. I had expected worse after 25 years of civil war with much of their money going into that, but Wasnatha told us that the President that ultimately ended the civil war was a good one and he resurfaced all of the roads in the years following the conflict. He was very favorable to that president as he also built schools and a lot of infrastructure and complained about the current government, which is a coalition one, that has been proving ineffectual. Wasantha was good in telling us about politics and did not hide his affinities. The civil war was between the majority (75%) Sinhalese, who came 3000 years ago from northern India, and the minority (25%) Tamils that came a bit later from the southern part of India. Not going to get into who was right or wrong on the conflict, but what we heard often was that the Sinhalese, especially the men, were lazy. Did not hear that from Tamils but from the Sinhalese and foreigners who were happy to volunteer the thought. After we did the cultural thing, we headed into tea country and all of the workers at the plantations were Tamils, most of which were imported by the British from mainland India, to do the labor intensive back breaking work.
Before I go into tea talk, I have to call out a thing that we chose not to do based on time. As we were driving, we passed by many natural parks. They are littered through the country and are almost all interconnected so that the animals can follow their migratory paths. The main attraction are the wild elephants, but a few have leopards and other wildlife. We'd see scores of safari jeeps, the kind where you stand up in the back, going to and from the parks. There are corridors between the parks so you can drive past them, with electric fences up so the animals and cars don't run into each other, but on occasion, an elephant would be warming himself near the roadside for us to see.
For time, we elected to bypass them, mainly cause Betty has been on several in Africa and I'm not that into it, but to other travelers that may be going, wanted to call them out as being completely accessible and worth the trip if it's your kinda thing.
As we drove, nearly everywhere were roadside stands selling that areas food treats. Bags of chilies, sweet corn, which is boiled in salted water, and such. My favorite stop was when we got the big bag of chili cashews (so good). Betty loves coconut milk and she was enamored by the King coconut stop.
None of us had ever seen them before and upon later research, discovered that King coconuts are indigenous to LK and billed as being the best tasting. I'm not a connoisseur, but Betty agreed.
While LK is close to the equator, had assumed their agriculture would be limited in scope but was amazed at the variety of things that were grown there. They import grapes and apples, but other than those, all of their food is grown on island and they are self sufficient in that respect. As we'd drive, Wasantha would point out a farm and tell us what was grown there. In one hour span, I jotted down peppercorn, teak, morning glory, rubber, mango, papaya, jackfruit, cashew, yam, roseapple, coca, cloves, coffee, cinnamon, beats, palm oil, and of course, coconuts. A new one for me was the rambutan, which is a giant lychee. Yummy inside and the shell is a vibrant red fuzzy delight. Enjoyed a couple at breakfast.
The food in LK, as with everything else there is like India's well behaved younger sibling. Tons of curries but without the variety of their Indian counterparts. And also without the accompanying Dehli belly...none of us got sick once. They like it spicy, and maybe they dumbed it down for me at times (which I told them not to), but I didn't find it painfully or unnecessarily hot. Asked if they had a super hot pepper and was told there is one they refer to as a "Cobra" pepper. I would ask for it later at places we stayed/ate and the people would look at me and laugh. Not sure if they were laughing at or with me, but never did get to taste one. We had a lot of great stuff but the thing I will remember most was the night I ordered an appetizer called Devil cashews. They "deviled" a bunch of things, like potatoes and chicken, and these were cashews fried with onions and chilis...so effin' good.
The first couple of days, the driver would stop at a restaurant for us to have lunch, which were typically buffets of curry and local treats, but once we discovered that there were roadside stands that sold samosas and roti (which is flatbread stuffed with spiced eggs/veggies/meat), we wouldn't settle for anything else. We could feed the whole car for 5 bucks. Genius.
One more specific food call out...hoppers at breakfast. It is a pancake made of rice batter and coconut milk made into a bowl shape. For breakfast, they drop an egg in and cook it in the pancake. We had a few and liked it, but at the last place we stayed, they brought it along with sides of caramelized onions and spicy chili chutney. Oh my...
OK, one more bit of food porn. We saw something called curds and treacle on menu's but didn't order it. We were given it as a dessert a couple of days in and fell in love. Water buffalo curds (love that beast) along with a treacle honey. I always thought that treacle was refined sugar, but native to the area they have a "treacle" tree called caryota urens that produces the stuff naturally. A damn fine dessert or breakfast dish.
Was obviously wowed by the food offerings, but the local agriculture was not just for ingestion. Had read about their Ayurvedic medicine. In short, this is the Indian subcontinents version of Chinese medicine and has been developing for 3000 years. We stopped at an ayurvedic farm place for an informative tour. We were taken around and shown the different plants and were provided descriptions as to what they combine into treatments for various ailments. This place offered 45 different products that helped with things like migraines, constipation and menstrual cramps. The menstrual cramp potion description reads, "Lady Tonic, cures menstruation disorders, stops white discharge improve the feminine health and makes ladies happy during period by remedying the pains and unpleasant sensations." They had one (#14) for hair removal and the dude wanted to show us how it worked. I joked that it would be good for my hairy back and he insisted on trying it out on me. I took off my shirt and he applied the cream all over. Had to walk around topless for 20 minutes (I know...) and then we stopped for him to rub it off. Have to say that it worked. He rubbed it and sure enough, it came off in clumps. Betty took a video of the process, which I will never share with anyone and the kiddies were appropriately grossed out. During my topless period, the guy pulls me aside and shows me #6, which is good for the pecker-oo. I asked if it lasted 4 hours and he laughed and said 'no, only for an hour'. I was reading the instructions on how to use it and it said to "apply and gently massage on penises". I asked who should do the application and he smiled knowingly.
I ended up buying two products. # 21, which is said to relieve arthritis, and # 29 that is supposed to cure psoriasis. I suffer greatly from both of these ailments and am supposed to apply them daily for one month and afterward, they are supposed to go away forever. Immediately felt buyer remorse but damn, finding a solution, especially a natural one, to these annoying maladies would be a miracle. Started the treatments when we got back and so far...mixed results. Knees are still quite achy but my head psoriasis seems better. The knee thing smells and feels like menthol icy hot, but the head cream smells like shit. Not fresh stuff, but more doo doo that has dried. Regardless, will report back to you in March (and hopefully beyond).
Think I am going to put a bow on this one and finish up next time, but if you are interested in what they have to offer Ayurvedic-wise, please find below.
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