Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Arrival in Columbo, Ceylon – March 22,1970 at 0800 hours.

Dancers of Ceylon that met the ship.  I’m sorry the picture is poor, but it was an incredible welcoming!!! We were dancing on the rails to their rhythms.  

Colombo, the capital of Ceylon was named for a Portuguese man who landed there in 1517…CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS!!! I know you’ve heard of him. 😊

The Rotary Club of Colombo invited us the next day to spend a day with their families. They boarded the SS Ryndam and we had lunch with them. Host members met us and we went to their homes to spend the night. It was wonderful with some learning experiences.

We had tea at the homes of the hosts at 6:00 PM, at 7:30, we had a Sundown Dance at the Galle Face Hotel. So far so good! We had Dinner at 11:30 PM by which time, we’re starving!!! Then we spent the night at their house. You can sleep anywhere immediately at this time of night.  Breakfast in the morning was hard boiled eggs in curry. I didn’t want to be an “ugly American” and ungrateful. So, I actually got one down. The egg didn’t taste like any egg I’d ever eaten, and curry gags me – even the smell, but I DID IT. They were providing the very best breakfast they could for us. We bowed and thanked them profusely, then we were dropped off at the ship to do our overland excursions. 

Sundown Dance at the hotel.  

This is Chanis and Family – the family I was blessed to stay with for a night. Their house is a mansion!!! All marble floors, 2 huge open staircases going up and winding around. Just beautiful. The father is a doctor and they had 3 children. 22-19-10 years old. The little boy (10) is in 5th grade and is really cute. They took us to the zoo where we saw the elephant dance. The girls never go out unaccompanied - even on a date! They must have someone with them. The dress for formal wear is the saree, but usually they dress western. They took us to their best nightclub. They hired the best bands in Ceylon. The bands were great! They had a talent contest. Incidentally, 13 is the age to get into nightclubs here. Everybody really lets loose there. Carmen, one of the kids on our ship, got up and sang, and she’s FANTASTIC!! The place really went wild!!!

Every place we go, they always bring out cokes. That’s an international drink and I think that’s all they think we drink. I saved the bottles from each country with the writing in different languages for baby brother, Steve.

Ceylon is an island in the Indian Ocean separated from India by the Palk Strait. It’s had a long and violent history. The Muslims believe that Adam and Eve lived there after they left the Garden of Eden. Buddhists believe that Buddha stepped into heaven from the island. In early times, the island was called Lanka.  It is now called Sri Lanka. Ceylon has NO winter and no marked change of seasons. In 1970 life expectancy had doubled in the last 45 years. That was because malaria, smallpox, cholera, and plague were eliminated with more modern medicine.

In 1948, the British Colony of Ceylon was granted independence as Ceylon. In 1972, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and its name was changed to Sri Lanka

We went to Tiger Balm Gardens. It has statues showing Chinese history. It’s not as impressive as I had imagined it to be. One thing that was neat though was the three gods – one is longevity; one is prosperity; and one is success. When you want to be wise and live a long time, you pray to Longevity. When you want money, you pray to Success. When you want lots of kids you pray to Prosperity. 

Reclining Buddha in Tiger Balm Gardens.

This is the God of Happiness in the Tiger Balm Gardens.  He does look happy!  

We went to the Botanical Gardens – one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I loved it!!!! They had orchids from the size of a dime to great big ones.  We walked through the jungle, and, is it ever thick!!!  My pictures were too dark to share!!  Monkeys were running around all over the place.  We also saw a cobra dance for one of the men with a basket.  My picture is too dark to see.  I loved the experience of walking in the jungle.  It is incredible that you cannot see the sky at all.  You can hear the birds and the animals, but they are hard to see.  It is eerie and exciting.   There were greenhouses make out of natural leaves!!! 

Beautiful orchids. 

There are lots of kinds of coconuts. There’s some you eat and some you just drink the water from. It tastes just like water with a slight coconut flavor. It’s clear like water too, not like the milk from the eating ones. Besides the white milk ones give you diarrhea. ISH!!! Did you know there’s 3 kinds of bananas? Green, yellow, and red. Yellow ones are the only ones you’ve ever seen. Really, they’re the best tasting, too! We also saw what’s called a double coconut. You can’t eat it or drink it. They just use the shell for bowls.

We went to the Tiger Oil House of Jade that had all kinds of statues and things made of jade. The interesting thing to me was that there were just two watchmen there and everything is just out in the open. No one would ever think of taking anything he said because something which is art is for everyone to enjoy and a thief wouldn’t think of taking it. I was impressed with the honesty of the people. Can you imagine that in the USA?? They had a statue of a tiger and a leopard on either side of the gate. That’s because Mr. Haw and Mr. Paw gave the jade to the museum. In Chinese, Haw means tiger and Paw means leopard. They were the two men who donated it. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the tiger and the leopard. 

Tiger oil – we asked what it was because you see it advertised all over.  It’s camphor oil with a little opium mixed up in it. HMMMMM! It’s illegal in USA, but not in Ceylon. In fact, we saw a man smoking opium from his long pipe right on the street. It smells horrible!!!

A park in Columbo.  Note the elephants having a bath in the river.  

This is the Fortress in the Sky from below where the king lived.  He thought he was god so he wanted to be up in the sky.  

This fresco in the Fort is for the King that lived there during that time.

We got to try out riding on an elephant! I’m having a fabulous time!!! I was glad, though, the handlers were right there. I wouldn’t know how to steer one!  

Polonnarraway is the ruins of a very old city.

The green house made of natural leaves.

This is the kind of tree that Tarzan used in the movie! Gee, I wish I’d had this kind of ropey thing to grab on to when jumping off the garage roof!!! You really can swing with them!!!!

A sample of the architecture. Get a load of the old cars. There’s a 400% tariff on imports, so if you bought a car for $6000, it would cost $24,000. NOBODY owns and drives their car. They have a driver!!! The cars are kept up as best as they can be kept because of that horrific tariff on cars.  

On to Fort Seguria. These are the stone steps going up to Fort Seguria. It is a fortress in the sky on top of a huge rock going straight up.  Kings lived there from 473 – 491. Water and food were carried daily up the steps for the kings. You need real strong leg muscles to do this. I couldn’t do it, but today there’s an alternative way to get up there.

This is one of the baths at the fort.  Even the stone is carved.  Amazing!!

This is an entrance to Sri-Maha Bhodhi which has the OLDEST tree in the world (in 1970, it was 2,200 years old).  It supposedly started from a branch of the bo tree under which Buddha was enlightened. I cannot imagine anything that old – older than 1,970 years in which we are living.  

The elephants DO mind their handlers.  It took me a while to teach my dog to sit.  I wonder how long it takes to teach an elephant to sit.  Does he get treats?

These ornamental stone pillars in Polonnaruwa are part of the Tamil and Hindu influence. This one was part of an ancient temple.  There are 1,600 pillars here.  

Off to Anuradhapura –an ancient city whose history is some of Asia’s oldest.  This city was founded in 380 B.C.!!!  It was the city of kings. We had to take off our shoes to enter the temple and go barefoot. They gave us lotus flowers to offer. Carvings on the building are 2300 years old.

My friend and I are sitting on a statue in the burial grounds. It was probably not very respectful, but we couldn’t resist.

One of our guys filling a space with the statues. Visitors like us needed to remind ourselves sometimes that this ancient city is a holy city to Ceylonese.  

These are some of the ruins in Anuradhapura! Remember, they were created in 380 B.C. We climbed inside and it was incredible!  This was even before Jesus was born!!!  It’s a totally different sense of time than we are used to. The USA is not very old compared to this. It’s hard to grab for anyone!!!

We really razzed the bus driver to death. They drive very fast and jerky here - what we would term as extremely careless, but that’s the way they drive. They just lay on the horn and go. If they want to pass and another car is coming - no worry. He who has the loudest horn goes first, but it scares the crap out of you. But…of course…if the other guy is bigger…Confucius says - Better to lose face than the side of bus. We sang songs, everything we could think of on the way to Anuradhapura. We had a good bunch on the bus. The bus driver darn near killed 18 or so cows I swear!!! They run free and aren’t fenced. They’re so used to the cars and people, they don’t even budge when you honk.

We saw the Green Baths of the ruined cities. There’s 2 of them and are they ever huge! No one uses them anymore. They’re all carved out of stone, though.

They still regard the elephant as sacred in some places here, especially the Tamins - descendants from India.

We sailed from Ceylon on March 24, 1970 at 1800 hours! It’s amazing that we saw all of this in 3 days!!!