Colombo, Sri Lanka

While I have been spending most of my time in Sri Lanka in the country areas, yesterday my hosts took me downtown to show me the new Port City now under construction.

At lunch with Cmdr. Ravi, the number 2 officer in the Sri Lankan Navy.

This area is being developed by the Chinese on over 400 acres of mostly dumped up land. It's right across from old Colombo and beside one of the controversial container ports.

According to Dr. Damith, in 10 years this area will be Asia's predominant financial center.

Now, the only section in operation is the small beachfront entertainment area, but many people have started to visit and enjoy it already.

Love of ice cream is international, so this shop is at the entrance.

You can get a good view of the city center from there.

This is the old parliament building. (It's the only place I have seen the Sri Lankan flag, (so far) for it's the Buddhist flag that's predominant elsewhere.)

You can go to the top of this building and get a view of most of Colombo. It's called the "lotus building".

According to Wikipedia: "The lotus flower is a sacred symbol in Buddhism, representing purity, enlightenment, and awakening. Its ability to bloom in murky waters and rise above the surface symbolizes the potential for spiritual growth and transformation, even in the face of difficult circumstances."

(Because of the predominance of Buddhist symbols here one, may get the impression that this could be a theocracy. 

This is not at all so, as every religion is openly practiced here and Buddhism, though powerful in the culture and religion, is not involved in civil government.)

The exercise area is already in use. It includes a jogging lane and a cycling lane.

When we left Port City, we walked a short distance to the Navy Officer's Mess Hall for lunch.

 Only families and friends of senior Navy personnel are allowed there.

The Navy symbol.

Damith's friend Ravi is the head of the civil engineering division of the Sri Lankan Navy and the second highest officer in it's ranks.

That's the emblem outside the dining room. I suspect it's been there from the colonial period.

The mess hall is right across from the lighthouse.

Sections of Colombo near the train depot, remind me of downtown Kingston (Princess Street area) where everything is available in the shops and on the sidewalks.

Reminds me of the Princess Street area in downtown Kingston.

When I looked at the name of the street we were standing on, it was Prince Street.😁

After a lovely day of enjoying the downtown area, it was back home via the local train which was as crowded and rickety as a New York's subway!

Their rail system is one segment of their highly efficient transportation network that seems to facilitate their 22 million population very cheaply and efficiently.

(The population in the capital Colombo, is some 3 million)

For a cost less than $500 Jamaican, I took the train (by myself 😊) on a 7 hour trip to Anuradhapura! 

The criss, brand new coach.

Admittedly, the coach I traveled in going up, was old but at least had reclining seats and foot rests. 

The coach I returned in was brand new and criss, nicer than any I have ever seen in Amtrak, the US 's main train service.

I am really impressed with their cheap, efficient transport system made up of rail service, public buses, (they charge half the price of private buses and give tickets as you pay), private buses, millions of taxis and ride-share vehicles using tuk tuk (aka three wheeler), bikes and cars.

 More on that anon.

More memories in pics.

This is a man made beach!

Riding elephants, hugging tigers and all that

This elephant participated in a cultural show

I fell in love with Thailand years ago, when in the mid sixties,  I saw the movie "The King and I" (1956)starring   Yul Brynner.  When that movie was made, they used the old name for the country, Siam.

It wasn't until 2018 that I got the opportunity to visit that fascinating country and my first surprise was seeing how many big companies still retained the old name Siam. 

My greatest anticipation as I prepared for the trip, was to ride an elephant, something I had often seen in movies and which looked so sexy.

Well I am on cloud nine, as not only did I ride an elephant, as  uncomfortable as it turned out to be, but also I fed one and even hugged the trunk of another after seeing the very enjoyable and  professional (must see) cultural show "Siam Niramit."  It was to the delight of all of us that as we left the theater, we were met by and engaged with the entire cast, including the elephants which had performed.

Riding elephants  through the bushes and  through a river

 However, I was able to do something else in Thailand which I would never have dreamed of in my craziest moments, that was was to interact with real live beautiful big cats........ five tigers no less.

This was so absolutely enthralling that I dedicated an entire blog to the experience at; https://joanmyviews.blogspot.com/2018/10/beyond-my-wildest-dreams.html

However, I still  have to share some photos below!


Many of the other things I saw and experienced in Thailand were certainly exciting and educational, but clearly, in only a week, I saw too little.

My first outing was to take a tour on the majestic Chao Phraya River, which runs along a large section of the banks of the extremely well developed and modern city of Bangkok.

What immediately struck me on that trip, was the great efforts made by the authorities to promote the idea that the King, Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodinradebayavarangkun is held in high esteem, by flooding the city with his portraits.

However those of us who follow international news, cannot be fooled, for it is really the army which runs that country and this even caused the present king's retroactive ascension to the throne in 2016, to provide much amusement worldwide! 

This present king is the only son of King Bhumibol Adulyadej who was highly beloved and revered. He ruled that beautiful country for 70 years. 

However, by the time he died, his son and heir was twice divorced and had already become a notorious playboy, living mostly in Germany. Thus, the generals did not think he had the type of  character acceptable to become king.  He was therefore not allowed to be sworn in for months as he had to be rehabilitated! 

The royal palace can be seen from the harbor

Also, as he no longer has a wife, the photos of the  young, beautiful royal matriarch that you see all over  the place, are actually those of his mother, who is now 87 years old! 

Despite the fabulous palace,  and the opulence I saw at his country home plus all the trappings of wealth  and power of the monarch, the real power remains firmly controlled by the army, something I was reminded of on reading an English version of the "Bangkok Post." In an article in that publication in early October, it was reported  that demonstrators were detained by the military for "Attitude Adjustment."  This when opposition activists tried to petition the king to move the National Council for Peace and Order!

The politics of that country therefore belies its liberal appearance but since I was a mere tourist, I will move on!

As we toured the harbor, I was struck by how much sections of some buildings along the banks seem to be suffering a similar fate as many in Venice, where rising waters are creating a real danger.

A week  is much too short to determine how religious the Thai people really are,
but the proliferation of beautiful personal shrines which adorn almost every street and the exotically adorned, gold plated gates you see at many entrances of many communities and buildings, gives the city such an attractive look.

And the food you know is out of this world. I did get one shock though when I bought what I thought was a boiled egg in the street, only to find a baby chicken inside. I hear it is a popular food there but it turned me off of eggs for two whole weeks!

Private shrines similar to this are all over 

Apart from the food, fauna animals, as one who revels in history, my other real thrill was visiting the former kingdom of Ayutthaya, a UNESCO heritage site which lies less than 100 kms from Bangkok.

To get there, we traveled in a minibus organized by a tour company, so shared space with other tourists from South East Asia, mainly the Philippines, China and Korea. That is when I was fascinated to learn that the lingua franca in the region is really English. I had previously assumed that persons in the region knew and communicated in each other's language as happens in Europe. For, after all, their written word looks very similar to my untrained eye!

Ayutthaya has a proud and fascinating history and it is amazing how so many of the "ruins" remain in such sturdy condition, considering that kingdom was established from the mid-1300's.

This had been one of the main kingdoms in ancient Thailand and it remained powerful, influential and wealthy in the entire region until 1767 when it was destroyed in a war with Burma.

The kings of Ayutthaya operated as absolute monarchs, deriving their authority from Hinduism and Buddhism, so evidence of the dominance of these two world religions are everywhere.

For me personally, the education in Buddhism was very important from the perspective that there is no one image of Buddha as I had preciously thought, but several including the black Buddha and a reclining Buddha exist. 

The Thai alphabet is definitely influenced by Sanskrit

(I also suspect that the reason why the Thai alphabet looks more like Sanskrit than the Chinese type alphabet that one sees in most other south east Asian countries, is because of the immense influence that Hinduism had on the development of the country.)

SOME IMAGES FROM AYUTTHAYA

The black Buddha in the back is highly revered

The reclining Buddha

The ancient palace is undergoing renovation

Thailand is a country which has in excess of forty rivers, so it is not strange that a great deal of commerce is conducted on water, called floating markets. The largest and most famous is at Damnoen where I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice portrait of our own Bob Marley on sale.