Christmas in Kandy
Kandy, the final stronghold of the Buddhist kings and home to the sacred relic of the Buddha’s tooth (‘sweet tooth’ jokes abound) nestles by an artificial lake at the foot of the highlands. Here in the hills, it was markedly cooler.
The town’s location means that Kandy catches both monsoons which, according to S, turns it into a tropical version of Wales, with leaden skies and perpetual rain — at least over Christmas. After the blazing sunshine of the last days, this would make a nice change.
We drove through the university campus at Peradenyia and ascended the narrow road to Mahakande, a village about 5km north of the campus, where Rob’s house was nestled next to a forest of tall pines, overlooking a valley.
Here at Rob’s we all looked forward to some home comforts. There would be a hot shower and bath and John had brought at least a dozen pairs of dirty socks along because Rob had a washing machine. Clearly he was hoping not to have to hand-wash any clothes at all during this trip. However, it turned out that there had been no rain in the last few weeks and, just as in the UK, this had triggered water rationing. Up here in the hills, there was no running water at all. The sky was pregnant with fat gray clouds and rain looked imminent, but dancing in the rain would be as close as we would get to having a shower. Or washing our clothes.
In the afternoon we went to town to pick up the Christmas turkey. We managed to park next to a small square among bustling crowds on the corner of the esplanade along Kandy lake. Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, was just down the esplanade in the religious complex. Rows of stalls lined the square, selling amazing assortments of temple flowers. Large numbers of beggars had aggregated in the area begging for alms from the pilgrims and backshish from the tourists. A woman was lying on the side of the walkway, quietly keening to herself. She took no notice of her surroundings. I could not guess what despair or loss consumed her, but it was obvious that there was nobody here who could help her. People gave alms, but pointedly ignored her anguish.
We left the scenery behind to trudge up Trinco Road in search of the turkey shop. That took a good half-hour. In these crowds and the traffic, any notion to indulge in a bit of sightseeing quickly lost its appeal. Instead, we had to concentrate on our shopping, amassing sausages, sweets, vegetables, spices, preserves and soft drinks along with our turkey. On the way back, we passed a shop called ‘Lanka Medicinal Wine City’ right opposite the square where I bought a bottle of Aybrook & Mason’s ‘Old Reserve’ arrack (the best!) for our Christmas tipple.
We finished our excursion with some frantic last-minute shopping in an covered marked minutes before closing time. There was a pharmacy. I bought some disprin and slyly asked about ‘tranquilizers’ which earned me a funny look from the pharmacist. Eyebrows raised, he informed me that in Sri Lanka, valium is available only on prescription. I was seething. It should not be such an embarrassment to ask for medication which I clearly required. It angered me that the pharmacist had the audacity to assume I was after valium for a cheap high; I was well aware of how addictive the drug is. Inconveniently, it meant that, if things did not improve after Christmas, I would have to see a doctor. A told me that one of her relatives is one of the top surgeons in the country. I didn’t need a top surgeon to prescribe me valium, but I was in a good mind to return to the same pharmacy and slap this guy’s prescription on their counter just to make my point.
As we drove back through the city at dusk, hundreds of fruitbats rose into the sky and glided towards the forests in the hills, lazily flapping their wings.
I had been feeling queazy all day and had to retire at the sight of food at dinner time, not even joining in a round of drinks which the others regarded as serious. They were discussing what kind of tropical disease I had contracted from my many mosquito bites. I told them to shut up. The incubation times did not add up, so I was pretty certain it was just the histamines.
Christmas morning dawned under a cloudless sky. Just as in Scotland, the weather appeared to be untypical for the time of year.
We were introduced to some new Christmas customs. Maria is a Burgher, an English-speaking minority which claims Dutch and Portugese ancestry and has its own culture and traditions. As soon as we had gathered around the breakfast table, she placed a steaming cake in the middle. It looked like one of the cakes familiar from my childhood in Germany. It was a Breudher, a light yeasty fruit cake which tasted rather like a moist Pannetone, traditionally eaten in Burgher homes on Christmas day. Somehow it was a very European treat.
In a corner of the lounge, a large pine branch had been decorated with baubles, garlands and cards. Colourful streamers were suspended from the ceiling. Outside, palm squirrels scurried up the trees and monkeys could be heard in the distance. Music was blaring from a Hindu tempel down the road. This Christmas proved to be quite a surreal experience.
The morning’s entertainment was rounded off by a group of macaques who were playing on the telegraph wires and trees in the garden.
Eventually, they came over to the house where they sat on the roof and window sills, looking at us with strangely human faces. We tried to whoo them closer, but the monkeys kept their distance, torn between curiosity and wariness. Later S saw some children throw stones at them. He nearly flew at them in a rage but Maria told him to calm down. The monkeys tend to raid people’s gardens and a lot of the people in the area depend at least in part on the food they grow. Thieving macaques might be cute to us, but to the locals they are a pest. They would probably have been shot if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the people here are Buddhist. As it is, humans and monkeys co-exist. Uneasily. One of the older males had a plastic snare around his waist, partly embedded in his skin.
The turkey was delicious and came with all the trimmings, including roast potatoes and gravy flavoured with Sri Lankan spices. There were no Brussel sprouts and nobody missed them. The meal was rounded off with a traditional Christmas pudding which S and A had brought all the way from London.
To help us digest, we went for a walk down into the valley through the layered forest and spice plantations. Among the plants, we soon lost sight of the blue hills beyond. The jackfruit trees stood out, growing vertically up the slopes to an impressive height. Some of the spiky fruits drooping down their stems were the size of sacks of potatoes.
After the drought of recent weeks, the river that crossed the valley was just a trickle connecting a few pools between the rocks. Women from the houses up the hills had gathered around the largest of these and were bashing their washing against the stones while chatting avidly. We caused quite a stir when we walked past.
I kept a lookout for snakes and scorpions, worried about picking our way between the shrubs and rocks with only sandals on our bare feet. Sure enough, I found a small snake skin in a crevice. I warned the others to be careful. When we reached the road, we were confident that the danger had passed due to the vibrations caused by the traffic. That was until I spotted a ratsnake skin right by the roadside. It was the most complete skin I have ever seen, including the eye-holes, and it was nearly three metres long. I carefully peeled it away from the vegetation. It was still moist and smelled faintly of the snake that had recently shed it. Thankfully, ratsnakes are harmless. By now I had learned that there are 80-odd species of snakes in Sri Lanka, but the vast majority of them are not poisonous. Only five are dangerous: The russel viper (Daboia Russellii), the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus), the Indian cobra (Naja naja), the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus) and the Sri Lankan krait (B. ceylonicus). A further dozen or so are poisonous but not lethal. However, there is no room for complacency, Sri Lanka has the highest per-capita rate of snake-bite fatalities in the world. Poisonous snakes tend to be sluggish and are often disturbed by people coming too close or even stepping on them. And some, such as the krait, prefer to seek shelter around human habitation, including the inside of shoes and sleeping bags.
On our way back up a sandy path winding between houses on a steep slope, we heard thunder grumbling in the distance. It seemed the rains were immnent. I spotted a vaguely familiar plant with serrated leaves and tiny purple-ish flowers and stupidly put a bit into my mouth.
“That isn’t quite like mint…” I began.
A took it. “Its Maduru thala,” she said: “This literally means ‘mosquito plant’. Its a natural insect repellent. People used it in the time before coils.”
I was lucky that it wasn’t poisonous. We picked a bunch for the table in the lounge. The heavy clouds and increasing humidity would bring back the fat black mosquitoes which had so plagued us in Negombo.
Denni