Sri Lanka - Getting Away from Silence

It was time to move on, I long for joy and interactions with people more on my own wavelength. I stop by Kandy for the day, indulge in an ayurvedic retreat centre for a few hours, then head for the Bodhi Tree, the very tree Buddha found Enlightment, I feel excited, thinking that maybe one day Buddhism will find a place in my heart. Nuwara Eliyah is my new destination – hiking, tea plantations, mountain biking, the vistas. It’s pretty here, but not as many ‘wows’ per kilometer as the Hilmalayas and the Balanese hills would offer. I go hiking for 7 hours around Nuwara Eliyah with Raja. He takes me to a daycare centre where the tea plantation workers drop off their children. I’m horrified. There are sarongs hanging down the ceiling with infants inside them, stranded by their necks to prevent them from moving, the piss stench is overpowering. The caretakers yell at the older kids, there are no toys for them play with. Perhaps brain development is not what they want here – the smarter they get, the harder it will be to keep them at these plantations when they grow up. I do not find any better way to console myself than getting them boxes of biscuits and chocolates from the nearest store.

Again, these parts of Sri Lanka are deprived of tourists. The only other person I get to travel with is a German girl. Her definition of being a strong person differ from mine, so we end up in a few heated discussions about men, women independence and relationships. I cut my trip short and move on to the beach, hungry now for parties, meeting people and letting my hair down. It’s the 31st of December today after all.