I am on the road at last. I started at about 8 am, when the city was just waking up, so had a pretty easy run until 9, when the traffic started. All I had heard about the tuk-tuk's erratic behavior is true, but the really terrifying ones are the passenger buses, who relying on their big size plow through the street as tanks. I started on the road from Colombo to Kandy, which is a heavily used road. At some point I got to the tail of a traffic jam that seemed to extend for miles. Now, you all know what a mild-mannered and respectful person I am, but at that moment a red haze washed over my eyes, and years of driving through Mexico City came to the surface, honed to a sharp edge by my recent experiences with Irvan, and my inner Indio Necio took hold of my senses and I started weaving through the tangled mess, narrowly squeezing myself through the most unlikely places (and barely missing being squashed between two trucks), scattering tuk-tuks blocking my path, and finally I was through.
The rest of the ride was a cake walk, partly because I branched off the road to Kandy into a less traveled road to the north, and partly because the road was good. Broader than Indonesian roads and with less blind spots, it allows three cars to fit side by side (a feature widely used in Mexican roads to facilitate passing) so only once I had to drive off the road because this idiot was trying to pass a truck and a slower car at the same time. The other factor was the beauty of the country and the drop in temperature as I went up the mountains.
In the last minute I had decided I wanted to go visit Sijiriya, a 5th century archaeologic site. It was going to add 3 hours to my trip to Kandy, but I have nothing but time in this adventure. Sijiriya is shaping to be a big tourist attraction for the region. Some very nice looking lodges and restaurants have been built, and the local communities have joined in extending a welcoming hand by offering village tours, jeep tours to the adjacent national park to see elephants, or visits to their well-tended spice and herb gardens. The region has an overall sense of friendliness and well being.
Sijiriya has a checkered past. King Srump was an evil man, who grabbed power by murdering his own father and making war on his own brother. Pressed by his enemies he retreated to two Yosemite-size granite monoliths. The first one, the Lion Rock, is where he built his castle. To protect himself he built a wall and surrounded it with a moat (to which he added a few crocodiles, just to make sure). The second, the Elephant Rock, has a vast smooth slope on top, which some archaeologists believe was used for cultivating emergency food supplies. I inspected that slope and is bare granite, with not a shred of soil on top, so I think it is unlikely it was used for cultivation. Archaeologists also believe there was a sophisticated system of water works. The palace on its high rock was supplied from cisterns, where rainfall was collected, to maintain a lavish pool for about half of the year, after which evil King Srump would move to the base of the monolith, to enjoy the pleasures of his water garden.
I hired a tuk-tuk to take me around the community, and in one of the stops I was able to inspect the granite that is the signature rock of Sri Lanka. I first noticed it in the highly polished halls of the airport, but have since seen it all over the place. It is a peraluminous granite (that is, the magma had an excess of aluminium) that appears as a very white mix of albite, quartz and muscovite, but the excess aluminium had to go somewhere, and caused crystals of red wine-colored almandine garnet to form. It is in pegmatites within this granite that ruby (Al2O3 with traces of Cr) and sapphire (Al2O3 with traces of cobalt) are found. A very unusual type of rock.
My guide also showed me around the village and the lakes that surround it, and at one spot he stopped, beckoned me out of the tuk-tuk, and showed me a place where an elephant had come to drink over the night. His footprints on the mud were enormous. Elephants are left alone for the most part, but villagers avoid going out at night because an encounter with an elephant always ends poorly for the villager. The exception is at the rice fields, where an elephant can cause a lot of destruction, so guards are perched on the trees, armed with pellet guns, and when the elephants show up they are discouraged from approaching the fields by the sting of the pellets.
Back on the road I climbed toward Kandy. I was hungry and was tempted to stop by the road to eat some durian, but I was concerned that the day was wearing off and I didn't want to come to Kandy at night. Once I reached the outskirts of the town I stopped for a very good dinner, but lingered too long and ended looking for my lodgings at night, which was not fun at all.
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