Ella, Sri Lanka - Home

Peaceful
By the time we reached Ella it was dusk.  Our AirBnB host sent a Tuk Tuk to the train station to fetch us.  We drove down the main drag, perched on the peak of a mountain and not more than a half-mile long and then began a long plunge into an adjacent valley.  As usual, Dodo had booked us a stay in the boonies.  Our AirBnB was a small house built along a roaring river.  This is the view from our balcony.  After we dropped off our luggage, we climbed back up to town on foot for dinner.  It was close to a mile each way and probably a thousand feet of elevation change.

Ella, Sri Lanka - Train Ride

From Hot Soup to Cooler Climes
We came to Sri Lanka to hike and see the countryside.  We were on our way to the village of Ella, which is 3,000 feet above sea level.  There are a few ways to get there - by taxi or train.  For the local experience, we chose the latter.  We booked a second class ticket on a hulking China-made locomotive.  The selling point of second class, though there is no air conditioning, are the big windows that can be opened to take photos.

Colombo, Sri Lanka - First Impressions

Hot and Crowded
The first thing you notice is the heat and humidity.  It overwhelms the airport air conditioning and sticks to you.  Within minutes I felt like I'd showered in olive oil.  While waiting to pass through immigration, I peek outside.  It's early afternoon and the sky is already black, but then the blackness swirls and shifts to blue.  A swarm of crows had blotted out the light temporarily.  Colombo was not our destination, but a means to an end.  We'd soon be taking a train into the mountains to hike.  It looked to be a good plan since this city of five million is a sweaty people stew bubbling under a swollen sun.

Dubai - Al Bastakiya

The Old City is Way More Interesting
There is a tiny part of Dubai which wasn't razed for modernity's sake.  Al Bastakiya sits along a large creek that cuts in from the sea.  It dates back to the 19th century and was, up until the 1960s, how most people here lived.   The government had already knocked down a sizable portion of it when an English architect, who was living in one of the houses, asked Prince Charles to chat with the UAE royalty about it.  Chuck somehow convinced them to save some of it for historical purposes.

Dubai - First Impressions

Setting Down in the Desert

In just a few hours I flew from one of the oldest cities in the world to one of the newest.  The Dubai airport is enormous, the reception hall alone could accommodate a hundred football fields.  If Pablo Escobar were an architect he'd create an airport like this.  It's ancient Rome by way of Vegas: high ceilings, marble floors, large faux marble columns.  White on white to the 3rd power.  Even the customs officer was dressed in white.  He wore a bright white sheet and a matching white hat curled at the sides.  He looked like a cowboy as imagined by Georgio Armani.

Lebanon - Harissa

Pilgrimage

There is no official single religion in Lebanon, there are myriad unofficial ones: christian, maronite, druze, shia, sunni, eastern orthodox and more.  Some of my tour group were proudly christian - speaking about it as one would the weather.  They were excited to ascend to the village of Harissa, to see the 15 ton bronze statue of the virgin Mary.

Lebanon - Byblos

One of the Oldest Cities...

Our tour guide was modest, he described Byblos as one of the oldest cities in the world, not THE oldest, even though it was founded over 10,000 years ago and has been continuously inhabited since 6,000 BC.  It's staggering to think about those numbers.  It's older than all the history I know.

Lebanon - Jeita

What's the Difference between a Cave and a Grotto?
Jeita is a small town north of Beirut in the mountains.  It's known for its Maronite population, adherents to an ancient version of Christianity from Syria.  On our bus ride there, our guide explained that we were on our way to Mount Lebanon to visit the Jeita Grotto.  "I am not, as your guide, allowed to give my personal opinion" he explained, before proceeding to do just that.  "The Jeita Grotto should be one of the seven wonders of the world, but since they have not asked experts but rather took a vote from 7 billion people, 6.9 of which have never heard of a small country called Lebanon....."  His voice trailed off for a moment before he began again.  "We are dealing with this unfortunate event as best we can."

Beirut - Lebanese Sojourn

It's a Complicated Place
How can you possibly wrap your mind around the history of this place?  I could spend the rest of my life here and never figure it out.  Next to the giant mosque is the Christian church, which itself is built on top of the ruins of a Roman bathhouse and across the street from a gleaming new high end mall.