Twenty meters down
“Have a look here, Miss” – I leaned against the wooden railing and looked down – “The shaft is 20 meters deep. They work down there in half-an-hour long shifts. Than they are taken out. We have to pump water out every two hours. It is damp down there. They have a candle that warns them against gases. We have to change location of the mine every seven, eight years, when we can’t find any more gems. The last one was just few meters from this one” – our guide waved to the right. I peeked from underneath a roof made of palm leaves. Indeed, there was a shallow hole in the ground nearby. “We fill them up after we stop using them” – I heard the guide behind my back.
The mine
We have just walked ten minutes into the jungle, leaving our air-conditioned car behind. The driver joined us to have a look at the mine too. So we were there, being showed around by someone who might have been the owner or maybe manager. “Here, this is how raw moonstones look like” – he led us to a small table. As we were looking at the gems, one of the miners was panning muddy-looking substance in a small water basin. He found some and put them on the table without a word. He’s fingers were a picture for “worked to the bone”. I am still not sure what his face was expressing: resignation, thoughtfulness, oblivion – it was hard to tell. As we turned around he was still pottering in the gemstone on the table. I still have an uneasy feeling that I should have spoken to him, acknowledged his existence somehow…
The workshop
We left the mine and proceeded to the workshop. In one part the workers were using some chemicals to grind the gems and then were finishing them at the flame. In the other part – much darker for some reason – two craftsmen worked on rings, earrings, pendants – we could see it all in the shop next door. That and much more.
We walked out without a purchase “The gems weren’t that stunning” said my friend and I nodded, somewhat absent-minded, they weren’t. We asked the driver to go to the mask museum and I realised I forgot to ask the question: how did those miners get out of the shaft? There was no ladder, no lift. There was a bucket going up and down though.
(According to wikipedia.org Sri Lanka produces the highest quality moonstone. According to indexmundi.com and wikipedia the rate of unemployment in Sri Lanka is 6%. According to the U.S. Department of State “[the] minimum wages [in Sri Lanka] are insufficient to provide a decent standard of living for a worker and the standard family of five, but the vast majority of families have more than one breadwinner”.)
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- Panning for moonstone
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- The shaft
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- Half an hour spent on the surface is spent on operating the bucket lift
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- Grinding workshop
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- Making jewelery
Monsoon rain
I have been talking a lot about monsoon season here. I thought I will show you how it looks in practice: got a good opportunity to do so, as I managed to capture the rain cloud as it was moving through the city.
Here the movie:
And here the link in case the upper one doesn’t work:
Enjoy!
Twelve rupees away
Temple of Reclining Buddha
The driver got back to the car, beaming. “She said the temple is 12 rupees away from here”. We looked at each other a little lost. “As far as 12 rupees will take you. On a bus”. “Oh, I thought, that can’t be too far”. The temple we were looking for was home to 35m-long statue of reclining Buddha, one of the longest and oldest in the world. Twelve rupees turned out to be good 5 km, partially on asphalt, partially on a grit road across the jungle. We passed some cinnamon trees on the way. Later during the day we would also learn how cinnamon sticks make it from the trees to coffees and Christmas decorations. But now all we cared about was seeing the statue and whether suspension is going to last until the end of the day.
Temple of Reclining Buddha
Setting off in style…
The three of us set off form Colombo at the “break of dawn” – around 7 am. We had tight schedule for one day, or at least so it seemed. The trip was rather on the posh side: travelling in air-conditioned car with a driver, with lunch planned in one of the hotels on the way. Needles to say, the car had even hotel logo on the side doors. “Oh, well, so much for trying to blend in”, I thought. It turned out that having a driver was both blessing and necessity if we were to see what we wanted to see. The temples were off “main” roads and Rodrigo (yup, native Sri Lankan) had to stop at least dozen times during the day to ask for directions.
Reclining Buddha and tour of his life
Back to the winding road and the car. We finally managed to find the right crossroads and arrived to the temple.
Statue was magnificent! It also helped that we have stopped in a different temple on our way up and got a short tour of Buddha’s life story and few more bits and pieces that help in understanding what it is that we are looking at. I now know he was a prince, actually have wife and kids. And actually died, or achieved nirvana, at the age of eighty… I always thought it was earlier on. Anyway, it was a delightful start of the day and we arrived at the temple of Reclining Buddha in great moods.
The 1st temple on our way
The night of two temples
Post that should have been written good week ago or so…
It was a quiet place
On the way back to the hotel we noticed there is another temple – a lot bigger one! Also a Buddhist one, comprising of two or three buildings. A lot more going on as well – prayers, discussions and – a highlight for me – an elephant! We walked around quite a bit, didn’t want to disturb the prayers so only peeked into the main building. As we were about to leave the guy who was feeding an elephant waved at us and handed us two loaves of bread. Feeding an elephant is a very strange experience: one is so close to huge, huge animal which is also very tender and delicate. And has one of the biggest tongues I’ve ever seen
It could well be an end of very exciting evening for me, but my colleague insisted we check out a nearby Hindu temple as well. After all, the initial goal of that night was to see Hindu celebrations! It was a good idea. As we approached the temple it became obvious there is something going on…
It was all lit up and people were rushing inside
We entered and became witnesses of an extraordinary spectacle. It was an end of some week-long celebration of one of the deities. Each of deity’s family member was carried around central altar in a procession, than deity itself as well. As various statues were carried around people smashed coconuts on the floor and soon the whole temple floor was covered in coconut juice. Sticky stuff, I’m telling you!
Coconuts everywhere
Than priests carried on with nomination of new priests and the ceremony ended. I think it must have lasted at least an hour and a half. Can’t tell for sure as I’ve lost track of time. I was trying to remember as much as possible, take as many pictures as possible and get out of the way as much as possible. Quite challenging multitasking
We were invited to join the community for huge dinner, but as it was served on the floor out of palm leaves we decided to turn down the invitation. As politely as we could of course. Nobody felt offended, fortunately.
Quite extraordinary of a walk that started at quiet, not very exciting temple at the lake. One never knows what is waiting just around the corner!
Little bit on mornings and evenings
Mornings start with muezzin’s prayers right after my alarm clock goes off: there is a mosque few hundred meters down the road and those guys have some powerful speakers! Apart from that it is relatively quiet, traffic starts around eight and goes mad instantly! Sounds of hooters are to be heard throught the whole day! I think the concept of driving here is pretty much similar to concept of cycling in Munich: I need to let everyone know I am coming, because some of them are clearly using this road by mistake. Or, if not, than I will hoot at them anyway, just to be on the safe (sic!) side…
Evenings, so far, are usually marked with monsoon rain at some point. Recetly: around nine one can be almost sure to see the wall of rain. It is nearly a solid wall, only wind manages to have an influence on ist’s solidity: when it blows hard enough rain comes in waves. Sometimes it rains during the day as well. Those clouds are usually easily spotted – they are where one can see only a gray wall, nothing else – no horizon, no buildings, no anything – just plain gray. Amazing view.
So much for the weather and times of the day…
Frankie: my silent companion
I have a silent comapnion here: a guy with constant smile on his face. He is incredibly helpful when I feel low, when I am stuck and can’t focus . Also a good ice-breaker, as everyone is asking about him – no wonder, with such a smile! His yellow, soft, round and called Frankie. He has also proven quite useful with working on some pre-climbing skills like strength of my grip. I always make sure he’s in my bag, rigth next to laptop, notes and water.
Here’s his picture:
Frankie
THANK YOU PAI!
Art in the morning and some less captivating things
Couldn’t help myself, watched it, and watched it, and than watched it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo I think they call this type of art “captivating”.
Besides that I did some shopping today. I ended here without a backpack which makes travelling around a bit tricky: unless I want to drag a suitcase with me – now, that would be interesting 
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I got something that looks a bit like “1st day at school experience”. Well, why not? Other options included backpacks the size of suitcase or close or laptop bags. It is where I got ti that is interesting: Pettah market – one of those places where just about anything can be bought and streets are defined by types of wares one can find there. I think the tuktuk (or three-wheeler) driver simply took me to his friend’s stall since we passed quite a few before parking. And before nearly colliding with another tuktuk and overtaking a minibus with 5cm margin on both sides. No, we couldn’t just wait behind, after all we were in a mad rush to… welll to a backpack stall for a lack of better idea.
As a result of that experience and the fact that I’ve spent previous hour looking for DVD’s and books (Got ten DVD’s and two books. Nah, I don’t think I will be able to watch them and read them all either!) I’ve decided to visit the market itself on some other day – I only need to practice my strong will first – otherwise I could probably easily walk out of that area with multitude of semi-useful things plus a cow. Or at least a chicken. While staff in our hotel is really nice and helpful, I doubt they would be very happy…
Sunny Saturday everyone!
