Ni Dieu Ni Maitre

Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Official, the Lankans are happy to celebrate them all. Not that there haven’t been serious incidents of sectarian strife over the years… ‘your holiday is my holiday’ rules. At the end of February, the weather began to change. The prevailing strong cool breeze out of the west slackened, the surf became calmer and the levels of air pollution, so attractive when I decided to come here, have risen, particularly in the mornings. After somewhat unhealthy readings in the morning and a day of a sky of blue haze all day, the afternoon readings are an AQI of 69… acceptable, but much higher than in February.

Tuk-tuk seat cover. Lankans are not at all anti-American… at least not yet.

Writing this post after several days of very distressing news from Trump and the chumps over Iran… but you are well aware of this, and I’m still on the sunny beach. Reading a lot of international news every day generally fails to depress me, but this latest international fiasco has hit pretty hard. So much for the Nobel Peace Prize for the creator of the Department of War and his clown show of stupid incompetents. Ghastly. Murderous.

High ground is miles and miles inland… Tsunamis occur with low frequency around here, possibly once in a decade. Bicycled over to Nilaveli beach, 10km north of here on a very uncomfortable, smallish one speed. Forgot how difficult it is to climb a hill on a one speed! Not too much to see there at all, although there was a crocodile farm. I was too beat up and exhausted to bother, hoping just to make it back in one piece. Sore for the next 2 days.

This is Sam, half Lankan who lives in England. Had dinner with his wife and lovely daughter later. She lives and works here up in the north. I’m a bit surprised how many people I meet here who are well travelled, knowledgeable and with world views quite similar to my own.

Walking out of a coffee shop after a cappucino, I heard Sonny playing a very good Robert Johnson tune on his slide guitar. “King of the Delta Blues!” sez I. And we hit it off right away. Got invited to a jam session at a restaurant later in the evening and had a fun time there.

His brother plays the harmonica quite well also. These four young folks were quite interested in America, its music and history. Quite fun to talk to, and I continue to impress Lankans and any other interested parties with the fact that I met Bob Marley, spoke with him and shook his hand years ago in Boston. Like pretty much everyone, they have moved on after three or four days here. My hotel owner and his wife invited me up to their place for dinner, and they are going back to Sweden, where they have spent many decades, for seven weeks or so. They have given me the keys to the hotel and the use of their washing machine and kitchen for that period. This is still slack time for tourism here and I am the only guest… The brother in law, Mr. Hameed, will be in charge while they are away.