galle

a long day of walking and exploring the port/fort town of Galle has brought us back to our favorite hangout, Funky de Bar’s laid-back beachfront resto-bar. we like the eccentric dutch owner; we like Jayantha, the surf instructor with the long hair and pearly white smile [funniest thing: i asked him at one point in our conversations whether any israelis came through here, and he said he knew a few but didn’t like them. when i asked him why, he replied “too big balagan!”]; we like the Lion Lager beer. we’ve become temporary regulars, watching the same bag ladies saunter by and politely refusing the seashell man with his handcrafted seashell elephants.

last night Ruta snored through the thunderstorm that ravaged our hotel, leaving us without electricity for the better part of the night (ie NO AC!), and a 2-inch pool of water that made me laugh out loud as i splashed about in it on my way to the bathroom in the dark. when we got ourselves sorted in the morning, we hitched a tuk-tuk ride to Galle, a town about 15km down the coast from Hikkaduwa. it used to be ceylon’s foremost port town, switching greedy colonial hands (from portugese to british to dutch) over the years. we walked the fortified rampart walls along the peninsula, as well as traipsed about the half-dozen roads that criss-cross through the town. my favorite part was meeting a couple of young guys on top of a rocky lookout point—one in particular with dreadlocks and a tongue piercing—who asked us if we wanted to see them jump off the cliff into precariously rocky waters 25 feet below. i asked him if he was nuts, and he assured me he wasn’t—turned out they do this for money (3 bucks a jump—how much is your life worth?). misguided youth. i told him i couldn’t afford the bad karma should he kill himself on my account. we laughed a good deal, and parted ways happily.

it felt like family-day in town, with a lot of young kids running around, always eager to show off their english “hello! hello!” and bright smiles when we passed. again, i am astounded by the openness here; everyone gives their smiles freely and generously. i especially enjoyed the longer tuk-tuk ride to and from Galle (we splurged)—the wind in my face, the pavement racing by just inches from my dangling feet, and the endless landscape of beach-palm tree-shanties-people-cows-tuktuks-shops-goat-beach rolling by like the old cartoon backgrounds looping by across the chase scenes. so here we sit at Funky’s, languidly and lazily contemplating the sea (because it’s so much more than just watching)…i am caught between worlds, rooted here by these crashing waves and salty sea smells, but also lurking in the private rooms in my head, dark and musky and full of pregnant promises…it seems i am so far away from where i just departed, and i still have many, many more steps to take on this journey before making my way back, and it scares me how fragile life is and how much could go wrong (and right) between now and then. it seems impossible to venture out all this way, and return unscathed with smooth wind always blowing in my sails…i hope my journey is nothing but safe, but, then again, it wouldn’t be an adventure without the unexpected storms to shipwreck us on undiscovered shores.