A Bowl of Stupid

(map of Sri Lanka — for your reference and files)

I've thought long and hard about how to begin this particular post, given the fact that my sister may eventually read it, and she in turn will eventually tattle on me to my parents (just like when we were kids … man, some things never change). The easiest way is this:

I will never NEVER hesitate to ask for directions again. EVER!

As mentioned previously, I headed up here to Kandy to get my Indian Visa - boarding a train in Mirissa (Matara) in the far, far south, that I was told (repeat: TOLD) went through Colombo and then straight on to Kandy.

Yeah, not so much.

I probably should have first noticed something was wrong when the train hit a military checkpoint set up by the Sri Lankan Army to the north of the town of Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. It was only then that I learned — through a series of conversations in broken English, Singalese and Tamil — that I was not on the train to Kandy. Rather, I was on the train to Jaffna.

As in Jaffna, Sri Lanka's northern-most peninsula that is mostly under the control of the Tamil Tigers, the rebel insurgents fighting the Sri Lankan government. As a quick background for anyone not following the latest news on this (i.e., mostly all Americans, myself included until recently), Sri Lanka has been squeezed in the grip of a bloody civil war for the past 20 YEARS — the Sri Lankan Government on one side and the Tigers ('LTTE') on the other. There had been a toothless 'cease-fire agreement' in place for the past couple of years, but that too was formally dissolved just weeks ago after a string of violent clashes between the government forces and the LTTE.

Now, it appears the country is heading back to war. A civil war. A bloody, nasty, unnecessary, ridiculously over-extended civil war.

Fortunately for the surf-tourists, the violence has, for the most part, not extended into the island's southwest area — at least the far southwest, where I was surfing. In contrast, from all reports, the northern area is a cauldron of violence not suitable for tourists or locals alike.

So, through my own ignorance and stupidity, where did I wind up taking a train ride to? You got it — the absolute heart of the Tamil rebellion. Man oh man, sometimes I really do live up to the title of this blog.

Don't get too riled up, sis — I didn't stay there for long. In fact, my stay in the north can be counted in seconds, not even minutes. Shit, I didn't even actually make it into Jaffna proper. Instead, the absolute SECOND I realized where I was — when someone who read English pointed it out for me on the map, at which point I promptly flipped out — I literally jumped off at the next stop, ran across another set of tracks, and jumped on the nearest train heading back in the other directions. No, I'm not kidding. In fact, I may have been screaming like a little girl at the time, but I can't quite remember.

I didn't ask where that southbound train was heading. Frankly, I didn't care.

I had seen how some of the other (ever-increasingly Tamil) passengers were looking at me as I was trying to glean our location, and I had visions of the next days headline:

"In other news, an American tourist was taken hostage today in the Jaffna region. Officials are unsure why this tourist was even in that war-ravaged region, despite warnings …"

So yeah, I ran away like the little bitch I am. And yeah, I'm okay with that.

Any of you war correspondents out there who want to size up — okay, you win the big brass balls award. I'll give you that right now.

No kidding, being in a war zone while you're actually at war is fucked up enough (although I've been prepared to do it). But heading into a war zone just for the hell of it? Man, that's just nucking futs!

Luckily, the trains here in Sri Lanka run almost 24 hours a day, so I eventually found another train heading over to Kandy from the ridiculously obscure area I eventually found myself back down in the south. But what should have only been a 5-6 hour train ride instead wound up taking me about 12 hours.

I'm now in Kandy, but I have to wait a full week to get my visa due to the national holiday on Tuesday. So I've been walking around the lake, up the hills, and around the town. The city is beautiful, despite the massively overt military presence (everyone seems to be carrying an automatic rifle — I've an absolutely comical picture of a sign at an ATM stall with a circle and slash through it, prohibiting not cigarettes … but automatic rifles. I shit you not).

And instead of Tigers, Kandy seems to be infested with monkeys and bats (and the occasional elephant). And I got bit by some guys dog (he was kind enough to run inside and show me the vaccination documents, tho). Hey, the dogs, monkeys and the bats ain't carrying automatic weapons or munitions, so I'm cool with 'em.

They say that every adventure isn't an adventure while you're going through it. Yeah, maybe. But I'm guessing there are easier ways of having an adventure than by inadvertently wandering behind enemy lines.

Jiminy Crickets, can't we all just get along? I mean, really, I only came here to surf. To hell with this, I'm heading back down south until my visa comes through next week.

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