March 31st Easter in Mokokchung

Ao Nagas are the tribe whose settlements are spread across the Mokokchung district. It seems that the major tribes are in their own districts. The sixteen main tribes of Nagaland are Angami, Ao, Chakhesang, Chang, Dimasa Kachari, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Lotha, Phom, Pochury, Rengma, Sangtam, Sumi, Yimchunger, Kuki and Zeliang. The Konyaks, Angamis, Aos, Lothas, and Sumis are the largest Naga tribes.

 Tribe, clan traditions and loyalties play an important part in the life of Nagas.  Our drive yesterday, our excursions  today, and our long drive tomorrow to Mon have all been along the Saramati mountain range which separates Nagaland from Myanmar(Burma). Yesterday we drove through territory of the Rengma and Lotha tribes but did not stop to visit villages.The area where they were burning the fields was in Ao territory.With today being Easter Sunday we had a lovely Easter sunrise (4:30am) chorus of appropriate hymns that David recognized even though they were being sung in the Ao language from the Baptist church below our hotel.  Today we went out to the villages of Ungma, Longkhum, and Mopungchuket.

On reaching Ungma we went first to see the village log drum and also the morung which had a stone out front with writing in the Ao language script, which uses Sanskrit letters. The Angami tribe uses the Latin alphabet. Log drums are whole trees that have been cut down and then hollowed out. They served a variety of functions, including inter-village communication, warning a village in case of attack, and ceremonial purposes. Log drums were mostly used by the more northerly Naga tribes, such as the Ao's and the Konyaks. The Angami's don't use log drums.

We heard a familiar choir song coming from the large village church so we went inside and had some reflective time in the church at the back while the choir practiced. Many villagers were coming to church in their traditional dress, different in color and weaving style than the Angami.

Weaving has been a traditional art handed down through generations and the different tribes have different styles and colors that they use in their weavings. The Ao Nagas clothing used to serve visually to distinguish the warriors and commoner class. The Ao Naga warrior shawl is called Mangkotepsu. This is exclusively worn by the men folk. In the past a man had to earn the right to wear this shawl by taking human heads in warfare, through acts of bravery and by offering by feasts of merit as proof of his wealth. Anyone wearing it without the credentials was taken to task by the village council and had to pay heavy penalties for violating the code.

Ladies waiting to go into church

The white strip in the middle carries the embroidered symbols of bravery and courage and the sun, moon and stars signify the resulting fame of such warriors. The animals depicted in the strip resemble the physical power and the valor of men. The hornbill is a revered bird whose feathers are used for decorative purpose in ceremonial costumes. The bison  indicates the wealth of the wearer because only the rich people could rear these animals. Other symbols are depiction of weapons and shields used by Ao men during warfare. We were shown into a home with bamboo floors where a woman had some shawls for sale. Unfortunately the previous weavers we had met were so exceptional Leslie had no interest at all in the products being offered, which were much more modern versions of the old and now using metallic threads etc.

Detail of Mangkotepsu Shawl

Man with traditional bowl haircut and shawl

The Ao Nagas were the first tribe to convert to Christianity. The American Baptists Edwin Clark and wife Mary operated among the Ao Nagas starting in the early 1870s. The Ao are sometimes referred to as the "Brahmins" of the Nagas, as, because of the missionaries, the Aos were the first Nagas to receive English education and therefore became rather more prosperous than some of their neighbors. 

In the second village of  Lengkhum we had tea with a lady who showed us her traditional clothes and the quality was much better than the previous village. The colors of the shawls were different in this village, these being a bright blue and the red skirt being striped with blue. The basket types also vary by tribe. 

Ao Basket rides very high on the head

We had lunch back at the hotel as it is Easter Sunday and nothing was open. We were busy enjoying our wireless Internet while we waited the hour for our food to arrive. After lunch we drove to the village of Mopangchuket. The town was previously known as Impur where the one of the first

Man's knives for forest and other work

missionaries, the Clarks from Boston came to open a Baptist Church. The village is famous for the Ao tale of two lovers Jina and Itiben, a tale similar to Romeo and Juliet . A library cum museum cum guest house (as the sign says) was opened specially at our request. It was interesting to see the different items there including a teapot of  Dr. And Mrs Edwin Clark. We were back at Hotel Metsuben before dark and enjoyed a hour or so of Internet before dinner.

Detail of weaving for Ao women's skirt and shawl

Tomorrow we have a 7 - 8 hour drive to Mon where we will be staying at a home stay. Given the accommodation for the next 2 nights will be small buckets of boiling water we will enjoy another shower here before we leave.

30th March, 2013 Kohima to Mokokchung (140 kilometers in 6 hours)

We enjoyed checking our email and the internet before having breakfast and leaving our new hotel, with hot showers, TV, in-room coffee-maker, etc. We took a quick look at one of the local markets and then visited the Kohima War Memorial. This hilltop memorial commemorates the defeat of the Japanese invasion of India, their 1944 “March on Delhi”, also called the “Stalingrad of the East”. The cemetery contains 1,420 Allied war dead, mostly British but with some Indian and Canadian dead as well, who died in the siege of the mountaintop or in the surrounding actions. In addition, a memorial is also placed for 917 Hindu and Sikh Allied dead who were cremated.  A tennis court’s lines are still marked where it was the center of the fiercest battle of the siege, and we were impressed with how well the whole memorial was kept up by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Before we left Kohima the guide stopped and had many copies made of our passports and India visa page as these would be needed later on in our travel in Nagaland.  As of last year travel permits for foreigners were no longer required. We were able to just keep driving today through at least eight check points that were set up on the road. Our guide for Arunachal Pradesh  that will meet us in a couple of days should have obtained the travel permit that we are required to have to enter that Indian state.

We then left on our dusty, bumpy road to Mokokchung, averaging only 23 kilometers per hour because of the bumps. There were multiple stone works along the way which were all run primarily with manual labor – men cutting large boulders into stone blocks that could be used for building as well as carrying blocks over to a crusher to get smaller pieces produced.  We saw 23 hunters with guns, including 9 hunters waiting for animals to try to escape a large forest fire the village had set for their slash and burn agriculture. They were apparently after porcupines as well as birds and other small animals.  We only really saw one bird – an lovely Indian roller on the whole drive. The drive is along the mountain ridges and snakes and winds forever.  We passed a crowd of people who had captured a small hill boa about 12 feet long but not too fat – not dangerous but good eating we think.

We reached our Hotel Metsuben in Mokokchung, the main city of the Ao Tribe, at about 4 PM. Our LP guide book states “the only place to stay with considering is the superb Tourist Lodge".  Our hotel is not mentioned, but it does purport to have internet in the lobby, but there is only hot water at certain times of the day, TV only comes on at 6 pm for a few hours etc.   The wireless that is advertised is nowhere to be found. We handed in some laundry as we will be here for two nights and had dinner at the hotel. Our tour includes breakfast and dinner at the hotels/guest houses.

We have tested the internet and it is working so we have uploaded this.  We had to laugh those as in looking at this padlock and key we have for the room door it says Tourist Lodge--- the name was changed about 5 years ago but I guess LP didn't come back through to check how the place was doing. Also we have been carrying our own wireless network router since we got it at Christmas and today it came in handy as this hotel is not wireless but we can fix that.

 

March 29th on to Kohima the capital of Nagaland

We were up early and ready to leave by 8am. We drove into the village and parked below the Baptist Church while we waited for the guide to come join us. It was interesting to watch everyone headed off to church for Good Friday. All were wearing the traditional Angami shawl which is red, black and green. Women can substitute the red color for pink. The older women were dressed in the Angami skirt which, like the shawl, is woven of cotton and is really very plain and comes to mid calf.

Arriving at Kohima in a little over an hour, along the steep hill slopes of terraced wet rice cultivation, we unfortunately found the museum and the war memorial closed because of Good Friday. Interesting as this is not a Government Holiday. We took our next best options and drove south Kisama Heritage Village where the annual Hornbill Festival of all the Naga tribes occurs in December. The village has a representative selection of traditional Naga houses and morungs (bachelor dormitories). David enjoyed playing the various log drums that were in several of the morungs.

Detail of Women's shawl

We then continued down the road to another Angami village which had a 20ft stone engraved commemorating that this village had been converted to Christianity 100 years before in 1905. Mission activity by Baptists and Catholics have left their mark - 98% of the tribe are now Christian and of those 80% are Baptist.

We met an old classmate of our guide who just happened to see him from her Grandmother's house as we walked by.  We had just finished having rice wine (not Leslie) and freshly cooked liver (again not Leslie) at another family's house. In that house the older couple had not covered to Christianity. It was interesting to note that this village was not wearing the carnelian (orange colored stone) necklaces of  Khonama but rather some blue green stone but the beads were the same shape and worn the same way.

Angami clothing

This delightful classmate invited us for tea and snacks at her Grandmothers. Leslie mentioned she was interested in weaving and out came the most outstanding pieces of Angami weaving. The grandma and the aunt are very skilled weavers - fast weavers too! They could weave the shawl in 4 days.  They had included many fine designs in their skirts and shawls and noted that they were in the old style before Christianity came to the village. The grandma was busy dressing us and a lovely time was had by all. The traditional Naga snacks were served which included land snails, pork rind, and some other worm like creature. The guide informed us how to bite off the end of the shell and spit that put before you then sucked put the snail. Both David and Leslie declined this kind offer.

Larger than life Rice storage baskets

Other information gathered is that land is the most valuable property one can own, followed by livestock. This property is generally divided equally among sons and daughters. The youngest male in the family inherits the parental home, which also signifies that the latter is responsible for taking care of the parents in the old age. They are Indo-Mongoloid so their facial features are much different from the southern Indian peoples.

27th & 28th March 2013 Chennai – Kolkata-Dimapur (Nagaland) –Khonoma

Wednesday morning we rose at 4AM, waited for a complimentary taxi ride to the airport until 5AM, and were so tired that when we were offered $60 upgrades to business class for our two-hour flight to Calcutta (now called Kolkata), we took them. After several hours in the  Kolkata airport, we took off for the only airport in Nagaland, Dimapur, and disembarked down the steps and walked from the plane to the small receiving building, where we had to check in with immigration/security because we were foreigners. Our guide (Aphrulie) met us and we joined our driver Bishal in our jeep-like Tata Sumo vehicle, which we will have for 19 days and cover a lot of rough roads. 

Leaving Dimapur at 4PM, we reached the village of Khonoma after dark at almost 7PM, and stayed at Valley View Homestay, where we shared the bathroom with the driver.  The bathroom had no shower or sink or drain, but it did have a toilet and containers of water to flush with.  We were brought some pails of hot water, but were not sure how to bath properly without a drain for the room, and so were quite grungy after two nights!

We ate dinner of rice and chicken curry with our host family, a carpenter, his wife, two daughters and son plus three cats and three kittens who played by the fire.

Thursday - Rising with the sun a t 5:30AM, we ate breakfast at 7AM and were off to see the village of Khonoma, which is a stronghold of the largest of the 16 Naga tribes, the Angami. All of these tribes were headhunters and independent, but the village of Khonoma was known for actively fighting against sieges by the British in 1847 and 1849. It was cool and sunny at an altitude of about 4,000 feet, and has extensive terraced rice fields in the valleys below the village. We saw different fortifications, places for ceremonies, trials by village elders, and for the children to learn Angami culture.

Alder Tree farming for fire wood

Most of Nagaland was converted in the 1800’s from animism to Christianity, and there are several churches in the town, the largest of which is Baptist, although there is an impressive Catholic one as well as several others.  Leslie was interested in women doing weaving with back strap looms. We then drove up the valley to a school where an NGO was holding a week-long seminar to train about 20 people in how to encourage preserving bird life and butterflies, and doing so in a way to encourage ecotourism.  We had a chance to talk to the group about our interests and view the new bird book for Nagaland, which is included in this part of the eastern foothills of the Himalayas as one of two biodiversity hot spots in India, the other being the Kodai area of the Western Ghats, where we had just come from.

In the afternoon we went birdwatching, and saw some interesting pheasants and a green Bulbul with a black head, but without a book, we have not identified much.  The Nagas have ownership of the wild Bison in their territories, and provide them with salt to keep them semi-tame, and we saw a herd of them that were treated almost like cattle.


We had dinner at the home stay around 7pm and got a bucket of boiling water to mix with the cold buckets already in the "bathroom" to try and clean up abit. We read our books and huddled in our cocoon silk sleeping sacks with blankets and listened to the wind howl through the valley. Over the windows and doors they have drilled holes so that there is ventilation.

26th March Kodai to Madurai to Chennai (Madras)

First reflections on visiting Kodai after a 35-year gap: It is a roller-coaster experience of highs and lows to visit Kodai for me – highs when you meet someone who knows about the old days, who puts value on the school experience, when you see the same wild animals still roaming your old hunting grounds, and can still (barely) make a hike similar to Tope, and to see buildings and rooms that have remained the same, like the chapel or quad or our old place in Arcotia. It is a down when you see Kodai students that all seem to be from Bombay or Korea, and who do not say “Hi” or seem engaged in old Kodai activities, when the boys’ dorms are converted to girls dorms and piano practice rooms, when you see the mess made of 7 Corners and Bryant Park and the shops along the Lake Road near the old boat house, and the development of modern townhouses behind Wyadra, the drivers blowing their horns without reason as they circumvent the Lake, and the messy stalls around Silver Cascade and other once-pristine spots. It is great to see old friends like Tim Heineman, or George Penner, and find out about their lives in India, and great to catch sight of Heineman’s old Kodai compound where I learned to ride my first motorcycle, the 1943 Norton we had purchased in Bangalore, and to see the house where various of our staff had lived when they were our teachers. Walking through all the horns-blowing cars on 7 Corners and then down the road to the old Budge were not as evocative – true that everything does seem smaller, including distances between compounds in Kodai. The Ghat Road itself is not too different, although there are some sizable towns besides Shembugganur along the way now including Perumal Malai and a big one above Oothu.

Travel:  We rose early, had our last Carlton breakfast, turned in our keys to Yvonne and started down the mountain in our small taxi, that had both rear window winders broken, but seat belts that worked.  We passed many Hindus celebrating a Spring ritual of some type.

Milk is in the containers

It was a bit more than 3 hours to Madurai Airport, where we had to wait a half hour to check in, then a couple of hours before our plane left for Chennai (Madras formerly), a flight of about an hour.  We took a cab to our Hotel Mount Heera, which at $50 was OK since it was close to the airport, but due to hotel internal noise and a low-powered AC was probably not the best choice.

March 23rd - 25th Kodai

Saturday we rose, had our luxurious breakfast at the Carlton, then walked around the lake, seeing all the new developments, in particular the traffic on the Bund (now four lanes) and around Bryant Park.  Leslie misplaced her eyeglasses when we went to the Alumni Office to use our internet, and despite all our efforts, were not able to find them.

Kodai Lake

George's Bakery - Bagels anyone?

David’s classmate from Kodai Class of 1967, Tim Heineman, arrived from Bangalore to see David, and we went to George and Vera Penner’s house for dinner with Tim and also David Morris, of the class of 1965. We had a lot of fun talking about old times at Kodai School. Vera is an artist and George has started a bakery (George’s Gourmet Kitchen) producing bagels, English muffins, biscotti and very good sauces and pickles.

Vera and George Penner, David Morris, David and Tim Heineman

On Sunday we rose and headed up to the Penner’s for breakfast and then a light hike with Tim Heineman, plus the Penner’s and their dog, going through  an area called the “white forest” because of the tall white-barked trees. Later we enjoyed seeing Vera’s studio and greatly admired her work www.veradejong.com.  If we could have figured out a way to carry a painting in our backpacks we would have bought one! We had a light brunch with them, then were given a ride back to Loch End, and later met up with Tim Heineman for coffee before he started his 18-hour trip back to Bangalore.



Gaur herd (wild bison) - blocking our path - turned and walked back the way we came

Monday, we had an Indian breakfast and then went up to Penner’s to see his staff making bagels in his bakery.  Our hike with Penner’s and their dog took us behind Wyadra and just below the Observatory, where we ran into a herd of bison heading our way, so we turned back. We also saw a very colorful Malabar Squirrel beside the path.


Malabar Squirel

We enjoyed another one of many delicious cappuccinos at their house. 

Bachman Cottage - our home for a week

Vera's Art Studio

In the afternoon we visited David Morris’ house on Arcotia Compound, the same compound that we stayed in a couple of times when our parents came to Kodai. We also met David’s son Arthur, who is in grade 10 at Kodai.

Thursday and Friday, March 21st & 22nd Oh what a hike!

Thursday, March 21st Kodai – Elephant Valley-Palani Dam-Kodai

Giving the legs and feet a break!

Leaving the cottage at 7AM, we were unhappy to see that our guide had brought an assistant guide with him although I had insisted only one guide, as well as the driver, while the car was not big enough for five of us.  He said no problem the three would ride in the front! We drove 40 minutes just past Perumal Malia and turned left for the fork toward Palani, going down a road that I did not know and stopping at a town possibly called Palangi, with an ecological research station. Our guide Peter said we were at 2,500 feet elevation, which worried me because of likely heat, but in retrospect I think we were really at 3,500 feet at that point. Starting to hike at 8AM, we proceeded down a trail on a steep hillside for some time, constantly seeing old elephant and bison dung, but we did not see any live animals. Thank goodness as Leslie was unhappy with the prospect of meeting wild animals on this narrow trail particularly since she had said she wanted to see butterflies. The trail was rough and it started to get hot by 10 AM, and we learned that were going to the valley below, where our car would be able to meet us – this is sort of the equivalent of the Tope hike that went down 5,000 feet to the plains. Neither Leslie nor I had wanted a major hike down to the heat of the plains, but our guide had not explained this properly. That morning he at first had said we could finish and make it to the car by 1 PM, but he was not saying much now, and was having some trouble with his feet.



Another break with the shoes off - but that is the guide that is flat out there on the rocks!

We were carrying two and a half liters of water each, but it was going quite fast. The track was slippery with leaves and loose dirt in places, and both Leslie and I fell once, with Leslie having several near misses, but without any serious injury. We reached the bottom of the hillside from where we could view a large waterfall that Peter said a boy had fallen from to his death. It was 11 AM, and our guide said we had three hours to go, and we were not sure if he was joking or telling the truth – the latter, it turned out. We had packed 2 peanut butter and apple sandwiches and some date walnut cake for our snacks.

Although we were both exhausted, we did see some very interesting birds: Several Green Pigeons, One Crested Serpent Eagle and a second unidentified hawk, many parakeets, several Lorikeets, White-Bellied Drongos, several Fairy Bluebirds, a beautiful Sunbird to be identified, and Leslie spotted the Paradise Flycatcher, as well as an Oriole first. Besides fresh elephant and bison droppings, we also saw some deer droppings and the footprint of a big cat, perhaps a small leopard or a civet cat. We later learned that the area is a natural elephant track on a centuries-old migration path, and that the path is kept trimmed (somewhat) by the elephants and not by humans, although humans have built some bridges (now non-functional) and steps in the 1930’s.

We reached the dam at about 3PM, and still had a half hour of trudging exhausted along a wall until we reached the road at 3:30.  It then took two more hours of driving on a curvy narrow road to reach Kodai, with one quick stop for tea. We took our showers, grabbed some dinner, and went to bed exhausted. While exhausted during the hike, Leslie went through a couple of rosaries as well as many “just beam me up Scotty”, “and where are butterflies?” comments, while David just kept plugging along. We have since obtained a Trekking Guide of 2005 from the Kodai Information office and this hike was noted as the toughest.

March 22nd Friday Kodai rest day
Rising sore, we gave our laundry to the laundry man and hobbled with painful legs to the Carlton to bask in our breakfast.  Then David went back to bed, while Leslie wandered into the various shops to see if there was anything of interest. There are least 3 Tibetan shops here to go along with the 2 Tibetan restaurants. Leslie played on her computer with her QuiltAssist program.  There is no internet anywhere on the campus that we are on, so if we want to use the internet we have to go to the Kodai Alumni Office. We ate at a Pizza place that was okay and went to bed early.  David had barely risen from bed all day.

March 20th Kodai



Tennis courts KMU

We had breakfast at the local bakery and then went over to the KMU, where we found we could use the Ipad to show a few pictures to Ms. Curlin David.  She showed us many pictures of old Kuwait, many old mission friends, and some Indian notables, including the Pillicothai raja (we knew him as Chinodurai when we went hunting with him) and Gemini Ganesh, who called himself “the only movie star who plays all the sports well”.  My father and I had beaten Gemini in tennis in a US versus Commonwealth tournament after I had hit him in a delicate place when he was at the net, after which he stayed back.  We also met the last librarian of KMU library, Margaret, who recounted to Leslie the history of the facility of which she was the last Trustee when it was turned over to the school.  The Kodai Mission Unit (KMU) dates from even before the beginning of the school – the late 1800s. Currently she has the library open for members every Tuesday and Saturday from 11am – 1pm and coffee and tea with biscuits are available to encourage visiting. There were several other expats and Indian nationals there all of a certain age.

Wissy - the older boys dorm

We joined David Morris(Kodai class of 1965), his wife Philomina, and George Penner(Class of 1969) at the Tibetan Restaurant, which was better than the previous Tibetan restaurant (this is the one on the second floor at the end of the shopping strip).  George Penner is going to host/cook for the bunch of us when Tim Heineman is scheduled to come from Bangalore to Kodai to see us on Saturday night. Both David Morris and George come from several generations of missionaries to India, and have been able to get the Indian equivalent of a “Green Card.” George is starting a bagel bakery.



Spencer's Grocery store

For dinner we went to Coaker’s Walk and had dinner at the hotel there, called Villa Retreat, which had a great view. David Morris had organized his 50^th class reunion in January here in Kodai and about 24 alumni of his class and those 2 plus or minus his class were invited to attend. Coming out the door of the hotel, we saw a large male bison coming up from Bryant Park and turning toward Seven Corners, with a big truck blowing his horn while Indians scattered behind their cars.  We decided to take the way around toward the bus station and budge, then come back through Seven Corners to avoid the bison.  There is damage to the fence at Loch End that we were told resulted from bison jumping over. We were also told the dogs we hear barking at night relates to bison getting into the compound and coming near the houses. Once one dog starts then you have a whole chorus going!


the old Quad - classrooms



The flag pole area near the dining room

 

18 – 19th March, 2013 Colombo to Madurai to Kodaikanal

18th March - leaving Colombo

Due to problems in on-line check-in, we called our driver to take us to the Colombo airport 3 hours before departure, and this worked quite efficiently. The problem was evidenced later when the plane was 2 hours delayed, so we did not leave Colombo until 4PM, arriving at Madurai at 5PM, and after an hour to clear immigration, customs and get some Indian rupees from the ATM, it was 6PM when we started our drive to Kodai, driven by Kodai Alumni’s contract driver Jay. We reached Kodai main gate before 9:30PM, but the guards said they had not been given the keys to Bachman Cottage at Loch End, as we had been told they would. We called Yvonne of Alumni Affairs, and she apologized and brought the keys to us, and then we went in to our little cottage and settled in after 10PM.  We spent a cold night because we did not take time to light a fire in the pot-bellied stove, sleeping with our fleeces on top of our pajamas and wearing thick socks as we listened to the sounds of dogs barking most of the night.

19 March Kodaikanal  - Waking up we found there was no electric power, so no lights or hot water. We walked over to the Carlton Hotel and had a sumptuous buffet breakfast for about $6 each. We ran into the admin manager who had been to Oman and knew a lot of old Kodai staff, and he offered to help us in any way possible.  Heading to the Alumni Office at the old KMU building, we met Yvonne, chatted a bit, and paid our bill for the taxi pick-up and 8 nights in Bachman. We also arranged with a guide named Peter to pick us up and take us on an “easy, not very hot, and not uphill” hike to “see butterflies” for a half day starting early Thursday morning.

Kodai School front gate

 An elderly Indian lady peeked in and suddenly hears I was David Bosch and rushed over to hug me.  She was Ms. Curlin David, daughter of the Golf Club manager Mr. David, and she had worked as X-ray technician from 1956-61 in the Mission Hospital in Kuwait, where she worked mostly for Dr. Lewis Scudder, but also for my father the year he had been there in 1958. Her sister Pauline David had worked for Dr. Thoms and Dad at the Mission Hospital in Muscat. Curlin said she would bring some old photos next day to the same place at noon for us to see.

Next we visited the Archives Office next door in the KMU and met Ms. Suvidha. We then went for a quick tour with Yvonne to see the tennis courts,  gym, old dorms Phelps Hall, Block, and Wissy, all of which are now occupied with older girls, with the boys banned to live off-campus. I noticed that the former boys’ dorms now have steel grates to prevent girls from getting out or intruders from getting in through opened windows, unlike when we boys lived there. Leslie took a picture of me outside the window of Phelps Hall room 10 where two other miscreants and I had jumped out to make our way across campus to raid the girls’ Boyer Hall at 4:30 am in pre-dawn darkness.

Lower Boyer Hall that David raided (the basement) in 6th grade

The KIS graduating class is now up to 120 pupils, so Kodai has expanded substantially, with the younger students being off in a different campus altogether, and KIS absorbing adjacent space in the old Swedish school and Lock End, as well as many of the other compounds around the lake.  KIS also has a lot more staff housing than it did. We bumped into the principle, an Australian named Ian who had been there only a short time.

Eating at the dining hall, we paid 200 rupees each for a meal coupon which entitled us to all we could eat buffet style.  The food was definitely better and more plentiful than in the old days, but I kind of missed the served meals and round wooden tables I remembered.

David's Graduating note in 1967

Later we walked down to Spencers and bought a few items for the cottage. They must have seen our Alumni badges that we had on which are necessary to get onto the campus as they gave us some small plastic containers as freebies.  We then had light supper at Two Brothers Tibetan Restaurant, and went back to light a fire in our fireplace to heat the cottage up for the night. There was no electric power when we arrived at our cottage but it came on again later on. We had already done our “bucket showers” with warm water from electric water heaters,  so that was good. Leslie did laundry and has hung the clothes near the stove hoping they are going to dry overnight (only partial success).

Phelps Hall Room 10 Window opened for 6th Grade Raid
 

David in Block, previous dorm now music practice rooms
 

Bison Warning Sign at School

old clay tennis courts are now hard courts 

March 16 -17 Yala to Colombo to Negombo

We managed to get some internet at our hotel lobby, and then started the long drive around the southern tip of Sri Lanka, past Matara to Galle, the old Dutch port with a major fortress to guard it. The road was mostly quite straight but slow because of traffic hazards, so it took almost until noon to reach Matara and we were not at our hotel in Colombo until 7pm.

We had lunch at a beachside restaurant, watching Western tourists trying to body-surf in the big waves, without much success just outside of Matara . This area is well known for its beaches and surfing, but is also plagued by touts.

We drove through the old Dutch fort at Galle, which was interesting. We looked at a cute old Dutch home that had been made into a museum cum gem shop, and then left to head north to Colombo. In looking at the houses in Galle we noticed that roofs were decorated with fretwork. As Leslie likes the Victorian houses with all their fancy fretwork( "painted ladies") she was forever looking at them from that point forward along the coast. As the Dutch did not go inland this is why she had not noticed the pillared verandas and fretwork facades earlier.

The whole coast here was severely impacted bythe tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, which also hit Thailand and parts of Indonesia. 50,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka, and the evidence of destroyed buildings can still be seen.  Going further up the coast, we reached a spot where we were scheduled to hire a glass-bottomed boat for a look at the local fish and corals, but the weather seemed rough and we decided to keep going north.

It took several hours to reach Mount Lavinia and the famous hotel of the same name, which sits on the coast just south of Colombo and where parts of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was filmed.  We looked around the hotel, took a few pictures, but we think that a new wing has been added where the lawn overlooking its northern beach used to be, while otherwise it seemed the same. We both had stayed here in younger days and it had made an impression.

In 20 minutes we reached our Pearl Grand Hotel, in the business area of Section 3 of Colombo, where we were given a nice room on the 10th floor with an ocean view and good AC. Again it was a very long day in the car and several grey hairs with the driving behavior. We would definately not advise a self-drive holiday here.

Sunday we were up and out the door by 9am, first to pay for our Sri Lanka tour ($1,500 which was for hotel with breakfast, car and driver for 9 days). We then did a city tour and stopped in a couple of shops but purchased no real souvenirs only some fabric for some future project. We drove from Colombo along the Dutch canal, bird watching as we went along until we reached Negombo.

The Dutch built an extensive canal system that runs 120 km from Colombo in the South, through Negombo to Puttalam in the north.  The purpose of the original waterways was to transport the export produce to seafaring ships leaving from the port of Negombo; the cargoes consisting of precious stones, pearls and spices, cloves, cardamoms, pepper, arecanuts and above all, cinnamon.

Negombo is still an active fishing harbor with large vessels that go out to sea for 2 weeks. As it was a Sunday the market was closed. This area is an old Portuguese one so most of the people are Catholic and have Portuguese sounding last names. We spent the afternoon doing laundry, reorganizing our bags and catching up on email and blog.

We have found another interesting free ebook related to the early days in Ceylon.  Robert Knox's An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon is an account of his experiences on Ceylon while he was a captive of the Kandyan king in 1659. He was there for 20 years before he was able to make his escape. The King treated the prisoners fairly leniently and Robert was able to become a farmer, moneylender and pedlar. Now David and I will be fighting over the IPad on our trip tomorrow to India as we have now two interesting books on it to read.
As evening entertainment we watched a webinar related to fundraising and the role of the Board in non-profit organizations. It was interesting. While this webinar attendance was at the request of NCUSAR for all their Board members there were other webinars that looked of interest in relation to Tribal Music Asia's Resonance Project.

March 15th 2013 Nuwara Eliya to Yala National Wildlife Park

Rising early we breakfasted very well, packed up and then had to wait as the driver had not been given his breakfast – finally got off at 8:30 AM.  On our way out of town we continued to see the roadside vegetable stands that we saw as we drove into town. Some of the English vegetables Samuel Baker, later Sir Baker, introduced to Nuwara Eliya in the 1840s are popular vegetables throughout the country today. The Baker's Falls at Horton Plains Park are named for him. Initially Samuel Baker was attracted to Sri Lanka because of his love for hunting, specially the hunting of wild elephants (a very destructive sport) which was very popular among the early Englishmen who came to this island. We have found a free ebook of his  "Eight Years in Ceylon" which is an account of his life and activities in Ceylon. He is an interesting character whose second wife, he had seen in a slave market in Vidin, Bulgaria, and kidnapped her away from the Sultan's harem, which had outbid him at the auction. Quite an explorer whose other claim to fame is discovering and naming Lake Albert in central Africa.

We saw two places along the road related to the Ramayana folklore. One was the Hindu Temple called "Seetha Kovil" (Hanuman Kovil) is found on the way to Badullar. Folklore says that the mighty demon king Ravana kidnapped princess Seetha who was the queen of Rama and hid her in the place where the temple now is. Later people built a temple in that place on memory of her. Further down the road was a beautiful tall broad waterfall where Ravana and Seetha were to have bathed.




Bee Eater Yala National Park

Traveling slowly because of the hills, corners, and slow traffic, it took about four hours to go 180 kilometers, with only one pit stop and a couple of quick stops to view birds we noted along the way. After a lunch, we got into a converted pick-up truck with six seats on an open platform, and drove almost an hour to Yala Park.

Pheasand-Tailed Jacana walking on lily pads

Park has sweet water and salt ocean beach

Driving on the rough dirt track, along with about 20 similar vehicles, we saw crocodiles, two species of monkeys, wild boar, white-spotted deer, larger Sambar deer, mongooses, wild buffalo, monitor lizards and elephants, but we never saw the Sri Lankan leopards that the Park is famous for. Two cars did see two different leopards just a few hundred meters away from us, and one leopard crossed a road where we had been waiting a minute before – but still no actual leopard seen by us unfortunately. The Sri Lankan leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) is a leopard subspecies native to Sri Lanka. Classified as endangered the population is believed to be declining due to numerous threats including poaching for trade and human-leopard conflicts. No subpopulation is larger than 250 individuals.



Tracker pointing out a bird to David

There was very good bird life in the park, with thousands of Green Bee-Eaters along the path, hundreds of Peacocks, several Malabar Pied Hornbills, two Crested Hawk-Eagles, a Fish Eagle, Brahminy Kites, Green Imperial Pigeons, Orange-breasted Green Pigeons,Blue-Faced Malkoha, Indian Koel, Black Robin, Common Hoopoe, Fantail, Common Iora, large numbers of water birds including Common Kingfishers, Black winged Storks, Painted Storks, Spot-Billed Pelicans, Greater and Lesser Egrets, Crested Herons, Blue Herons, Whistling Ducks, Mallards, Terns, jungle fowl and a number of others that we had seen before.



"hunting" for his illusive leopard

The park was like a garden of Eden along the sea shore with lovely yellow flowering trees, fresh water ponds and lakes, and large boulders.  We wished we had stayed another day so we could have gone to the bird sanctuary that is close by.
 

We left the park after dark, reaching our hotel in about an hour, and had a quick buffet dinner, shower, and were off to bed. My step-counter logged that we had done over 5 miles of walking.....really it was registering all the bumps in the road. We had been almost 10 hours in a car today.



Cars grouped together where leopard last spotted



Malabar Pied Hornbill roosting at sunset



Peacock pruning itself in the trees

March 13th and 14th Kandy to Nuwara Eliya

We left the Hilltop Hotel around 9 am and passed by an eye clinic as David had a blood vessel burst in his right eye. While he has had these before, we thought we should just double check and so went to an eye clinic that from the outside we would have never gone in, but actually we were impressed with the doctor who had excellent English and seemed to confirm all we had read on the internet, as well as checked David's left eye that was recovering from surgery. With that and an ATM visit taken care of we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Nuwara Eliya.

Plantation China with emblem

The road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya twisted, turned and climbed almost 4,500 feet, still only a narrow two lane road as in the past. Jade green tea plants covered the mountain slopes and we saw the women tea pluckers busy at work. There were also many beautiful lakes and waterfalls along the way with some stopping for birds along the way. We stopped at the Macwood Labookellie Tea Factory for tea and chocolate cake.

We noticed a different style of sari draping here in Sri Lanka than in India -  by having no pleats about the waist although the head-piece (Pallav) is neatly pleated and thrown over the shoulder, similar to Indian styles. Another distinguishing feature of the Kandyan Sari (also known as Osariya) is the frill at the side. The frill or peplum varies in size and shape depending on which part of the country it is worn, but the sari style as a whole is credited as having originated from Kandy; hence the two names given to this style of sari.

On arrival in Nuwara Eliya we went to see the old British hotel St. Andrews which had an old snooker table and English menu in their restaurant. Following that we went the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club to check out the possibility of trying a round of golf even though we are not golfers, since the walking would be good. Unfortunately rain spoiled any chance of golf, or of outdoor birdwatching in the Victoria Park, so we toured the town and lake. After a good lunch at the Indian restaurant we checked into our lodging Misty Hills Cottage, a two story two bed two bath condo served by a staff of three. Dinner was a home-made chicken dish with fresh vegetables served by a cook and two waiters in white gloves - cost $9 each. We had an early night as we had to rise at 5 AM to go on our hike to World's End.

off over Horton Plains

We had a nice packed breakfast and at 5:30 AM left for the two hour trip to the Horton Plains National Park,  where we started just before 8AM the 5 km hike to The Worlds End. We hiked up and down through an undulating plateau covered with grasslands interspersed with patches of rocky outcrops, patches of forest and lakes with misty clouds rolling by at our altitude of 6,500 feet. The Worlds End is a straight drop off of 2,800 ft. which creates a stunning view if the midst hasn't rolled in.  You need to arrive before 10am to really catch the view. Thank goodness we did make it in time! We did a circle route which made the total hike 6 miles. During the hike we saw Sambar deer, purple-faced langur (monkey). Birds we saw included the Ceylon Blackbird, the dusky-blue flycatcher, and the Black Eagle. We had lunch for the second day at the Grand Indian before heading back to our Cottage for a shower, handing laundry to our "staff", and having a nap.

This is as close as I am getting to the edge Honey!

We enjoyed a typical Sri Lankan meal with the spices left out at our Cottage for dinner and were happy watching the news on TV for the rest of the evening with our feet up.