Tonight we leave India. Today I have decided to stay on the ship although we don't sail until 8 pm tonight. It seems a travesty to say I am India'd out but that's what it feels like and it is their customs and immigration procedures that have done it.
Going back to our first day. Jeannie and I took a toc-toc (three wheeler) from the port gate into Chennai. It was exhilarating: here we were two "children of the Empire"(!) as we call ourselves, whizzing along the Chennai roads in this tiny, vulnerable but aggresssive little vehicle. The hot wind was blowing through our hair, the colours and noise on all sides and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Our driver, Naveam, was intelligent and knowledgeable and we had a delightful morning shopping, followed by a truly Indian lunch of Tikka Masala with Naan in a truly Indian restaurant where no English was spoken and the patrons' languages were Tamil or Simhalese. Naveam ate with us and the food was delicious. After lunch we went back to the ship. Naveam was to arrange an air conditioned car to take us to the airport for our flight to Colombo the next morning. George's FDP had been successful so we had a happy evening on board with friends, all of us leaving in different directions the next morning.
True to his word Naveam produced an old air conditioned car driven by his 'brother' (India is know for its wildly extended families!) at the port gate. The drive to the airport was a long one right through the middle of the city, the traffic appalling, but we were getting used to it and there were only comparitively few gasps and 'oh my God!'s as we narrowly excaped death en route. Our driver did in fact knock a cyclist off his bike and we saw our Sri Lankan holiday bite the dust, however a watching policeman appeared and berated the cyclist and we went on our merry way...wondering?!
An hour and a bit later we were enjoying the comfort of a beautiful, air conditioned International airport with all mod cons except for the squatter toilets...you might imagine Westerners would be catered for in such a place...but no. Never mind. We had been greeted on entry by Kingfisher (airline) reps and taken care of from the word go. By the way I highly recommend this airline should you ever have to fly in this part of the world. The food on even an hour's flight is fantastic, the air crew helpful and friendly and there is a feeling of comfort and security at all times. We got hooked last year flying from Chennai to Kochi.
We had a delicious Indian lunch served and no sooner had been cleared by the staff of at least four, than we had landed and were soon on Sri Lankan soil. We were met by Dulip, the driver whom Janneke had arranged to drive us on the 4 hour journey to Galle in the South of the country. He was holding up a piece of cardboard with "Maggie & George" written on it.
The drive for the first hour or so was still through the streets of Colombo...it is a HUGE city, much more organised than an Indian one and it seemed minimally fewer people swarmed the streets, the colour and noise though were at the same level of decibels! About two hours into the drive we saw the palm studded coastline ahead and were happy to once again see the ocean, frothy white waves crashing on to massive boulder like rocks. The sky turned grey and deep pink in the gathering sunset.
The car was air conditioned and comfortable, a new one which Dulip had bought to build his chauffeuring business for tourists. Christmas promised to be busy he told us happily. His daughter had trained in Abberdeen, Scotland and now runs a Montessori pre-school in Galle. His son lives in London and doesn't seem yet to want to return to Sri Lanka.
We passed crowds of people on the roadsides strolling and crowding in to Budhist temples. The women and girls wearing white...it was the festival of the full moon which we gathered happens every month. The frangipani trees and bushes were in full flower which I love to see. This coastal road was packed with interest and activity and I thought as I have so often before on this voyage how removed we are in the West from a feeling of true community. I think our little home town of Dundas has found a sense of it in the celebrations which happen every year...the Cactus festival and Buskerfest. Our own King street is then filled with noisy (not at the Indian level I must confess!), happy crowds enjoying the dusk. The full moon rose in the sky and reflected on a shimmering sea.
We drove the last miles of our journey in moonlit darkness. We arrived at the Tattersall's lovely home after driving up a narrow hill in Galle and doing a sharp bend through a high gate and up a gravel driveway. It was dark by now and it was great to be there at last. After a warm welcome from each of the Tattersall family, especially 8 year old Findlay who is a charming, self possessed young man, we sat down to a delicious dinner. We were pretty exhausted and were happy to discover that Jeff and Janneke favour early nights!
Jeannie and I shared their beautiful, large, airy guest room on the far side of the open air dining room (open on two sides) and the huge bed, over king size I think, under a white mosquito net, looked inviting. George slept in the main house and we all slept well. Jeannie and I awoke about 7 am and lay talking about our lives over the years...we decided we had been almost too busy to do so on board the Explorer! We found Jeff, Janneke and George reading and drinking coffee on the stoep which we could now see overlooked a lovely garden with flowering tropical bushes and trees..and Findlay's soccer ball on the lawn!
We enjoyed breakfast prepared by Jeff in the dining room. It was great to eat a tropical fruit salad which we had been missing on the ship where we are given an unending diet of melon and canned fruit. Later we too sat reading on the shady stoep whilst Jeff and Janneke caught up on their work.
We picked Findlay up from school at 2 pm George, Jeannie and I travelling with Janneke in her car, (which she drives with enormous confidence in the narrow, crowded streets), before going to the Amman Hotel in the Galle Fort for lunch. The school is quite beautiful, on top of a rise, an attractive white house of very Sri Lankan architecture with thatch roofed open air classrooms behind and below, in one of which Findlay was finishing a Taekwondoe class...memories of Liam and Bryn my grandsons doing the same. As soon as he was ready Findlay put on his helmet and joined his father on his motor bike, riding in front of him. Not a sight we see often in North America!
We had a wonderful lunch sitting on the veranda of the Amman Hotel in the Fort. Although it was hot and humid there was a lovely breeze in the shade. We were served "curry and rice" with side dishes served on the same plate....delicious but daunting on a hot afternoon. The stewards wore smart white brass-buttoned suits and would have looked at home in the Savoy in London!
Replete, we wandered around the surrounding streets, going into two old churches, Dutch and Anglican. The cemetry head stones bore sad tales of the deaths of infants and young mothers in the 18th century and some dungeons below the Anglican church told stories of prisoner escapes.
Across the road from the hotel were lawns stretching up to protective sea walls, many feet wide which Findlay and George walked along. In Janneke's car we met them further on and Jeff followed on his motor bike. Jeannie and I looked out to sea, relishing the fact that we were standing on terra firma this time, a sea shore studded with curved palm trees, bending away from the winds which had battered them over the years. I was strongly reminded of Zanzibar where at Nazi Moja (one palm tree in Swahili), my childhood playground, only one palm tree had remained standing after powerful gale force winds of a previous century.
The coast around the town of Galle, which is the third largest city of Sri Lanka (after Colombo and Kandy) is beautiful. The boulder-like rocks which I mentioned earlier seem to be a common feature and when the following day we were taken to the Tattersalls' favourite beach, it is recognisable by a smooth, pointed top rock which juts towards the sea on one side of the curved palm fringed sands. On that occasion after picking Findlay up from school we sat on the deck of a weather washed hotel which they frequent, and ate fish and chips and calamari. Findlay went swimming in a fairly rough sea with a strong current and swung happily Tarzan like from a long creeper like jungle rope over the water's edge. I thought then what an idyllic place for any child to grow up and decided it explains my attachment to Zanzibar where as children we spent our lives outside, coming in only to eat and sleep.
It was wonderful for me to be with family in Galle and to see Marjorie's grandson growing into a strong, independent, articulate and confident human being. She would have been so proud. While there I spoke on Skype to Jeff's brother Ian who lives in Bali. He met us in Bangkok on our first SAS voyage in 2009. I had never used Skype before but thought it would be fun to try it from some of the ports we visit so that I could talk to and see my daughters and their families. Unfortunately it cannot be accessed from the ship while we are at sea.
On our last night in Galle Janneke cooked a marvellous meal of roast, organic chicken-s (two-they are very small) and vegetables. It was the most delicious chicken I had tasted for many years and one realises how bland is the chicken we buy in the supermarkets at home. We knew we had to be up very early (3 am) to drive to Colombo for Jeannie to catch her 10 am Emirate's flight back to Nairobi so we all turned in at about 8.30 pm. George first read a bed time story to Findlay after climbing the fairly long ladder to his high bunk bed!
How sad are goodbyes when one is uncertain when one will see friends again. This was true of Jeff, Janneke and Findlay and also Jeannie. We simply had to appreciate what a wonderful opportunity this trip has been to connect with them at all. We now know beyond doubt that the future holds treasures we cannot imagine...unexpected and very precious.
After a fast drive of only three and a half hours into Colombo, we dropped Jeannie off at the International Airport and following a suggestion from Janneke, went to a beach hotel in the coastal town of Nagombo, about a 25 minute drive from the airport. We bade Dulip farewell and went into a refreshing buffet breakfast at the Camelot hotel. We sat under an umbrella in the shade and with a sea breeze beside the swimming pool and again looked out to sea where we had sailed only a few days before on our way to India.
George lost our paper e-tickets for the flight back to Chennai! So we rushed to an internet cafe where I found them in a file on my hotmail. I was just about to print them but at that precise second there was a power cut! Ah well...we jumped into our taxi and made for the airport where they barely registered this disturbing fact and simply looked us up on their own computers and handed us our boarding cards. I have to confess to a melt-down when George first announced the loss! I had memories of our previous visit to Chennai when he had come to the airport, on our way to Kochi, and similarly announced that he not brought the money I had promised to hand to the travel agent on our arrival in Kerala. Again that was not a problem and they happily agreed to wait until we could visit an ATM in Kochi.
We had a smooth and comfortable flight apart from a man who sat just behind us and shouted the whole way in friendly fashion to his friend across the aisle! We were served another wonderful Indian meal although the flight took even less than an hour. I could not imagine any airline in North America doing the same thing.
In Chennai airport we stood in the 'foreigners' queue to go through Customs. We reached a very pleasant man who said we simply had to fill in another form (we had completed one each on the plane) so would we please go to Immigration and he pointed to a door a few yards away. We walked over and as we entered a woman in a bright green sari shouted at me 'You, woman, sit over there!' pointing at a bench. Before I could move she added 'What do you want?' and then nodded to herself and threw two forms at us 'Fill them in' she said. So we did. In the meantime she was shouting in very broken English at a bemused Chinese woman who simply stood, looking at her in shock, still as a statue. Eventually she walked out and we handed in our forms.
Then the trouble began. The immigration woman stared at our passports turning the pages of each one maddeningly slowly, muttering who-knew-what to herself and then she looked at me and said 'You must go to (some street with a mile long name) in Chennai to register!' she repeated this several times getting louder each time. We attempted to explain that it was unecessary for us to register as we had a double entry visa and were 'leaving India tomorrow'. She shuffled the forms around looking helplessly at a man at another desk who was grunting on the phone as he typed on his computer whatever he was being told at the other end. This went on for some time until he suddenly turned round, took our forms off her desk and said 'Go!' Frightened he might change his mind we left immediately rushing to find my back pack on the carousel (it was lying there in lonely splendour) and were relieved to discover that the driver we had arranged was still waiting for us although we were so late.
About an hour and a half later after a hair raising drive through Chennai to the port and going through two more Customs points, one at which women were 'frisked', we were on board the Explorer and in our cabin....home!
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