A Journey to the top

A common sight in Jaffna

boats anchored In Jaffna

I had this plan to go and see Jaffna, but it was a difficult trip to plan on, any way Sashin and myself decided to go and we finally made it(Thank you lord) .
It was after packing my bag we went to wellwate to get on to a super cool bus(the best I’ve travelled in),it was a Volvo never felt a jerk throughout the 400 odd km,

I slept on its floor till about puthlem just to make myself in a lying position (hehe).
Woke up once or twice it was nice to see the land I’ve never been on(even though it was dark).We got down in Jaffna at around 5 am walked around the town(a bit)And went into st johns College. We were welcomed by the wife of the principal, She truly gave us a warm welcome, We had breakfast with the family it was a super-hot seeni sambol and rotee, loved it though.

After eating we were given two bicycles I called it “my harley” Sashin!! “Surprisingly” was good at riding and we finally ended up at thelipali(about 15km from jaffna)only to be stopped and told “you cannot go any further”. We were indeed disheartened that we couldn’t vist keerimalai on our bikes,we slowly started our ride back home, it was tiring but we finally came home(by this time we have already done about 32 km on our two bikes)

We were tired and we headed straight to a siverr kadde and had parrata and surprisingly it had beef

Btw forgot to write our first ride on our bikes was to jaffna fort,it was truly a nice bit of ruins<wink>.Ah then drank sheven-uf(as he said it),a drink made up of orangers,honey and of course a bit of human body sweat,actually this man’s eye was infected and swollen(sorry)and he was tearing, actually he wipes it and uses the same hand to squeeze the oranges “I know it’s part of the recipe which adds the flavor” hehe.

Another thing I forgot is that in the morning we were taken around school by jehu WOW the school was such a worth watching piece of land(truly better than many schools I’ve seen(except trinity of course),he was a nice Guy just like many other helpful people(in jaffna)

Our day ended with pizza backed by ranee which was far better than pizza hut, the hospitality shown by our host family was truly wonderful,

The night passed by with me and sashin playing speed,Sashin was quite good but lost all except one,I had a peaceful night, woke up to the screams of sashin,the toilets were ok(We had to squat though),I didn’t mind squatting at all it was part of the exciting package. But later i found the BEST TOILET (ever),but was not fortunate enough to do it myself. This was when we went to point Pedro, taking a bus which took us about 1 ½ hours Ok as we went to the beach I was amazed to see the sea so bright and so calm, boats anchored all over the place it was spectacular, any way it was at this beach I saw the best toilet ever, it had no Door or a Wall or a Roof but just the soft sand under you, and a panoramic view of the sea and the brightly coloured sky above you,

We spent some time getting our feet run over by the gentle soft wave, and then headed back to jaffna, overlooking never ending plains and cultivated land. We were tired but we tried going to casurania beach but was confused by so many helping hands, we headed back but for the sounds of The De Lanarold’s, we heard them sing it was simply lovely music, they were wonderful later joined them for a little bit of sing along,

The best evening of our trip was coming up, we walked into a fishing village(little bit unfriendly)but surly plenty of smiling faces , there we met a small boy called Marko who Said hi to us. Walked along the lagoon up to the fort, the boats gave such a nice colour to the sea and the skies, enjoyed every step I took, Gods creation is truly a great hand work which none could even think off.

It was getting dark so we headed to the city ate dallo kothu, bit to expensive, any way when we came to the principals quarters we met Jay(a son of a former principal from Canada)he was yet another person who had a wide smile and a inviting heart(truly jaffanian(hehe I’m wrong on the that word I think).We had a time of worship learnt a Tamil song too, it was truly a great day.

I had to take some of my sleeping time to be on facebook,but I was entertained by sashin’s karettee moves(don’t worry sashin I do it too),Our final day came I was sad we were leaving, packed our bags and went to the market. Finally got into a vavuniya bus and on to the Yarl Devi train, looking at some wild life and the ripped paddy fields, this journey was truly amazing.

The train journey was exciting, an argument right throughout has been “who is cleaner” I actually was on the losing side(never mattered),it was all because sashin had a extra shower than me, any way I levelled it by having a shower in the train hehe. The wind blowing into my chest and right over my face was truly exciting,

Our Journey ended up at maradana station, happy to have done the journey with sashin. Thank you Sashin for being a part of it, And thank You LORD for the wonderfull mother land Sri Lanka

Few Friends I made-Deborah,Anoge,mauree,Mr Daniel,Mr mauren,marko,Seyen,Thiru,Solomon,Jehu,Wesley,Jay,Ishan,nuwan(thank you all)

Nothing like the great outdoors to ease our souls

We started planning this trip long time back, we all badly wanted to go. Dinuk ayyia and all the others chipped in with the planning and preparation. Any way it was a bad start Dinuk aiyya had to stay back to look after his grandfather, and to add to that some hala bulu all because of me(I’m sorry guys).Any way we started packing our bags at around 2100 hrs which went on till 0100 hrs.

Any way thisal aiyya and I packed our clothes into one bag, I carried light wearing the same denim right along, but should say Pradhan aiyya had the lightest personal belongings, he had his whole bag filled with the food stuff, in the mean time dinuk aiyya was running around to get things right. One bag needed some stitches pradhan aiyya did half of it but was sleepy to do the rest(mind you it was late and he has had many sleepless nights before), any way I started doing the other half only to wake up and see a gentle laughter from pradhan(I know I stitched bad hehe).

Every body arrived at pradhan’s house and we were good to go, rushed into the railway station bought the tickets and we were soon heading to kandy, shopped for some meat and toilet roles, ah niru akki broke her shoes after getting them mended we started our way to wathegama in a slow bus my self and pradhan was used to this, but I’m sure the others hated it hehe. From there we hired a van up into the mountains of modolkalle.

As soon as we set foot on our camping site we did feel the adrenaline rushing through our veins it was such a nice country side to be in, walking in between lush tea leaves and the knuckles range just out of reach but well in sight to see God’s amazing creation, there we met Sugath who took u to the camping grounds, we pitched our little sweet home. We needed a fire going to cook our lunch we were so lucky to find a few logs, I started to cut them into pieces while pradhan straight away stated a fire going, niru akki/watch dog ;) did not let us come into the tent. She kept it all clean and tidy the bed was perfectly made which lasted two nights.

Any way by this time our lunch was ready to be served it was prima noodles, it was so yummi. We had a whole of three hours of day light to be spent, so we walked up the hill, walking up the un even rocks, brushing our way through the tea leaves into a pine forest we came. They said it was the twilight forest (never watched that silly movie),the wind gushing through the trees which made the loud roar brought in a chill and straitened my hair(sorry fur ;)) hehe. We walked though it and into the tea plantation with the sky above looking clear with only a few clouds letting us look down from the worlds end into her mighty Victoria she is massive. We had a bit of laughter looking down at some “beef” grazing on the pastures down below, we wished we had them for dinner or at lest some mutton ;)

We headed back to camp after our walk my self, thisal aiyya and pathum aiyya went out in search of a bathing spot and found the coolest(coldest I mean). Water gushing in through a small tight spot to fill this amazing pool, it was crystal clear until we ran in(of course) with howling screams, screams of warmth they were it was fantastic. We couldn’t stop screaming it just came in from our gut, we dried our selves and went up to lend our hand in cooking, thisal aiyya and niru akki were such great cooks they prepared the chicken and it was “finger licking good” hehe, pradhan build the fire while the rest chipped in with help with the rest of the proceedings. We had French fries too(we know what we re talking off ;) ). It was a great dinner we had together seated around the fire, I loved the chicken and ate very part of flesh it had(rare occasion).

After which we stepped into our clean sleeping area thanks to our mighty watch dog ;), and spent some time playing uno the rest of the tent was laughing at my humble set of card pack never mind:). I can’t remember the scores but rememer pathum having the whole card pack in his hand(a bit of exaggeration). We slept well since it was slightly cold we got up one or twice.

The sun shone into our tent bringing in the news of another new day, we had milo hot milo that was. After which my self and thisal aiyya went into our super cool bathing spot, since we didn’t have tooth paste and hadn’t brushed our teeth last night we had to brush the:(. So we took a piece of chalk coal and brushed our teeth I of course used a bit of soap too hehe. After our bath we walked up to the tent, after a little while we were ready to hike up the mountain and into the misty forest.

Thisal aiyya who was very fast kept up with our guide but the others found it slightly difficult. I felt terribly felt unfit ah and Niru akki too, any way all of us were not at all bad we walked quite a distance and onto the forest we went , the high trees above you and the misty air around you it was a picture perfect highland rain forest I couldn’t believe my eyes it was wonderful. walking below the arched trees breathing the fresh air it was so refreshing.

We walked our into a small stream, we went with it the water was freezing cold and niru akki’s nails were turning blue hehe. We paused at the sudden drop we were on top of a waterfall it was simply amazing, we only saw below and around the water fall when coming back because it was misty the first time around. We walked along paths where leaches were marching forward to suck our tasty blood, only four leaches bit me but pathum had the bloodiest leg:).we sat down for lunch where we found a warm rock which had a stream trickling by only a couple of feet away. We had salmon and bread for lunch and thanks to my foolish estimation we ran out of bread so we had to eat the baked beans with marie bisckets. We liked our lunch may be not after the baked beans started working out in full swing hehe.

We walked back looking over the thick green mountains brightly colored sky with sheep like clouds it was a magnificent view. And niru akki was so taken away by the beauty around her that she missed her step and fell down on her knees on the rocky surface scraping her legs left and right, she bravely stood up refusing any aid and started walking back to our sweat home(I know you were only trying to doing a zummba move). We all were very tired and sweaty so we headed straight to our bathing spot, it was a nice cool bath we had splashing water at each other and screaming the words of warmth.

After all this we played cheat even though I won it was pretty boring, so we went back to our official game UNO enjoyed every bit of it with yujith aiyya wanting to change the color to purple, Mr Skip(pathum) skipping me on every turn while the good charming pradhan Aiyya being nice to his neighbors and yujith and niru bombarding each other with never ending draw fours while thisal aiya helplessly collects cards from Mr skip. I can’t remember who won but pradhan was well off.

The light was fading away and we needed a fire going to cook our dinner ,pradhan(as usual) set the wood on fire in no time and soon we were gulping magie down our throats,we walked our way to wash the dishes, by this time the backed bean were working at full force, with which we set back to camp with sprouts of laughter here and there hehe, after which we started playin 304 niru akki and myself did pretty well loosing only two(I think), yujith aiyya learnt the game and played quite well with thisal aiiya who earlier played with pradhan.

During this time Mr skip, skipped him self out to answer a nature call, he didn’t come for along time may be even a hour, so the tent got a bit worried so my self and thisal aiyya set out in search of him, when we met him our funniest assumptions was made crystal clear by the answer he gave.
Que - ninda giyada(did u fall asleep)
Ans – poddak withara nindath giya (yes a little bit)
It was so funny, so with pathum ayyia’s return every body was safe and sound and with that we all closed our eyes and had Good warm night ;)

We woke up early next morning after drinking our milo my self and yujith wanted to poop the right way, so with our toilet role into the bushes we went, both dug two holes and into them we pooped. It was great the tea leaves providing the perfect cent, while the bushes covering us just enough the brightly colored sky above and the knuckles range within our site. It was truly the best toilet ever. After all that we had a bath but yujith was missing his tea, so both of us brewed some tea using the buds we plucked the other day, it had such a great flavor and it was the best tea I’ve tasted.

Now it was time to leave, I’m sure all of us were sad to leave slowly packed our bags and we were good to go. Said by to modolkalle and off we treaded our way down along the edge of the mountain with only a foot to spare. Niru akki was closely guarded due to high class performance in the zummba moves on previous occasions hehe. we walked our selves down to the road, and two nice gentlemen let us in into their double cab till wathegama, going in the dikki was a unforgettable experience. We reached kandy by 1300hrs and came into colombo at 1612hrs our camping trip ended but I’m sure the memories will last a life time, we all enjoyed it a lot.

I’m so happy that I was a part of you all(dinuk,pathum,niru,thisal,prdhan,and yujith)
And happy to have done it with you’ll.

Thank you lord for being with us from the start right to the end the end, And thank you lord for the indescribable mother land Sri Lanka