Trial by bus
Getting a bus back to Kandy and, more importantly, seats should not be a problem, seeing that we were staying opposite the bus station at the eastern terminus of the Trinco-Kandy service. However, there were no private buses that morning and all seats in the CBT bus had been taken over an hour before it was due to depart. People had draped their luggage and children across the benches, leaving the odd granny in charge who would raise a forbidding hand as soon as we glanced in her general direction, then gone off to get provisions. We were lucky to find a metal storage box to sit on next to the door, but we had to get up periodically for items to be added or removed. By the time we were on the move, the bus was packed even tighter than the one on the way to Trinco.
“Relax,” I said, extracting my foot from underneath the sandals of a burly guy standing on top of it:”It will get better at Kantalai!” — It didn’t. Nor at Habarana or Dambulla.
Still, the trip was kind of fun as all the small stuff: other vehicles (from trucks downwards), dogs, people even little old ladies were bullied off the road as the driver ground down on the accelerator, horns blaring. We were back in Kandy before we knew it. No one was more relieved than John. I had been unsuccessful in my attempts to sell him the charms of Trincomalee.
“You made it sound like heaven,” he said: “But I thought it was hell.”
S and A had already returned to Colombo where Rob would join us for the New Year. Until then, his work as a waste disposal engineer kept him busy, so we decided to go back to Colombo by train. After all the discomfort we had experienced, John figured we deserved some first-class pampering. I do not normally travel first class, the only time I had ever done so was by invitation. I had not enjoyed the trip as my benefactor kept me up for the entire journey, trying to convert me to Islam. However, our experience on the crowded buses had eroded my socialist convictions, such as they were. We were more that prepared to cough up an extra 100 rs or so each to travel in spacious comfort for a change. So Rob phoned the station. The first class carriages were booked up weeks in advance. He shrugged resignedly. “There is no shortage of passengers. There is a shortage of rolling stock!”
So it was to be the bus again. We left Rob the bottle of single malt whisky which I had taken along for whoever would provide a special favour on my journey, in this case it would have been the captain of the ship. Rob was definitely the more deserving recipient.
Kunara, who had visited the house for a tutorial, drove us to the bus station. On the way we got stuck in traffic at the inevitable road works. As we waited, an elephant sauntered by majestically, carrying branches between his tusks and his trunk, led by his mahout. Evidently, the two of them were employed in the effort to clear the vegetation for the road works. It was a wonderful sight but I desisted from taking a picture. That would encourage the kind of exploitation which led to elephants being chained up by the roadside as tourist exhibits.
At the Goods Shed from where the Colombo buses were leaving, there was a queue of several hundred people in front of a single empty bus. The driver’s seat was also empty. Nothing happened for half an hour.
Thankfully, we were not the only ones to get flustered. A few impatient business people and a solitary monk had entered into negotiations with a minivan driver and after a while they waved us over. At 200 rs the tickets were more expensive than a first-class train ticket would have been but that was, well, relative. Relieved, we climbed on board.
The trip back was a white-knuckle ride. With the wind lashing around my ears and adrenalin surging through my veins, I was having a great time. John stared fixedly ahead, his face a picture of horrified fascination. I hoped he would not pick up any hints for driving back home. Somehow that is different. In Sri Lanka it is customary to overtake two cars side-by-side in the face of on-coming traffic, the drivers hooting and indicating at each other. If there is a blind bend coming up, it is mandatory to wait with overtaking until it has been reached. The other passengers, used to the local driving-style, were dozing peacefully or glanced boredly out of the windows. They became briefly animated after a particularly close shave with an on-coming bus then fell back into their stupour.
Back home, S and A had swept a heap of dead cockroaches out of the door, it seemed the cockroach wars were finally over. The place was habitable again. Gizmo had been joined by another cat, slightly smaller, who might have been his brother. But while Gizmo was by now fully domesticated, purring contentedly in A’s lab, the other cat never entered the house and kept his distance. He remained nameless.
We settled down for a few days of well-earned rest and rehabilitation.
Tags: The Whales of Trincomalee, Tag Index
Denni