Travels in Sri Lanka: Anuradhapura, the City of Stupas

From Kandy, we went traipsing (or rather, driving along Sri Lanka's surprisingly clean and well-laid roads lined with Western supermarkets) to the "cultural triangle" comprising several of the country's ancient civilizations. The first was Anuradhapura, the capital of the country from the 4th to the 11th centuries and the site of a powerful and devout Buddhist community. It was both a ritual and an administrative center, but most of what seems to be left now is the ritual--above all its imposing stupas (Buddhist shrines which may contain relics). Since these stupas are not a site of prayer, their beauty is more in the sheer size of these structures, their tightly laid bricks a testimony to the labor of thousands.

Other highlights of this visit were a 4th-century statue of a meditating Samaddhi Buddha, said to have kept Jawaharlal Nehru cool and collected (via postcard image viewing) during his multiple jail visits.

And there was the original bodhi tree which grew from a cutting of the one in Bodhgaya--the place in India where the Buddha is said to have received his enlightenment. It's the oldest authenticated tree on the planet, dating back at least 2000 years, yes did not look a day older than any of the others to our untrained eyes. Strewn with multi-colored prayer flags, the leafy bodhi is attended by many monks peacefully strolling on the premises.

The hustle and bustle of India had left us completely by this point in our Buddhist induction--perhaps it is no surprise that this peaceful, serene religion died out in our adopted country almost entirely, despite originating here.

Yet, as elsewhere in Sri Lanka, due to its checkered Buddhist/sometimes Hindu history, Anuradhapura contains a rock temple with striking carvings from the 4th-5th centuries that are in typical Indian style--one of these was the man with the horse pictured here.

Travels in Sri Lanka, Sep. '11: Kandy

After India, Sri Lanka's ancient capital, Kandy, disappoints at first glance: it is just too clean, too quiet, too unprepossessing. Yet this hill station where the British grew tea and built their colonial mansions, enjoying the cool, leafy surroundings, is saved from genteel tedium by its excellent old temples and natural beauty. The first of these that we visited, seen here in dusky September light (bottom pictures), was the 14th-century Embekka Devale, an isba-like wooden building which presented a strange mix of Hinduism and Buddhism in the form of intricately carved pillars adorned with supernatural creatures. The syncretism was rather disorienting to see after the rigid delineation of Indian temples. (Buddhism came to Sri Lanka in 200 BC from India but Hinduism still held sway among some royal dynasties and in some parts of the country).

Next on our itinerary was the Temple of the Tooth Relic, the most famous one in the city, which has existed in some form or another since the 4th century as a shrine to Buddha's left canine tooth. As with Embekka Devale, the outside building was less impressive than what was found inside it. We attended a prayer ceremony which involved some men with what looked like a serious wardrobe malfunction blowing trumpets in front of the closed shrine and devotees filling the insides of the temple temple with heaps of fragrant jasmine flowers. Wooden carvings--evidently a specialty of Sri Lankan artisans--abounded.

But seeing Kandy means not just looking at its temples--which objectively paled in comparison with India's--but taking in its world-class botanical park, walking in the midst of the local macaques with coquettish golden peaked hairstyles, and being deafened by the screeches of flying foxes--the species of bats that live here. That was enough to realize that Kandy possesses charm in spades.

Catholic and Not-So-Catholic Goa: Our Last of So Many Visits

These pictures were taken during our last trip to Goa in January 2012 where we visited a historic eighteenth-century mansion in Quepem, Palacio De Deao, which the owner lovingly restored with original colonial-era sculptures, palanquins, and furniture. Catering to a company of ten Dalbergians and their associates, he fed us a sumptuous Indo-Portuguese dinner consisting of all kinds of delicacies, including fish in coconut sauce, Goan red rice, and, of course, the famous bebinca, an artery-blocking dessert made of sugar, ghee (clarified butter), 40 egg whites, and coconut milk.

The debauch was a continuation of the day before, when Misha and I celebrated the New Year a day late by going on a crab- and line-fishing trip to the Mandovi River, near our Benaulim Beach resort. Incidentally, this was a rustic place filled with endangered frogs, more than one of which wandered into our cabin and remained wide-eyed with wonder. These river crabs were caught by a rather simple method of casting nets filled with beef (chicken gets washed away too quickly, the fishermen explained), and attaching plastic bottles to them to mark the place. After about an hour, each net is pulled out to see if a crab treasure is inside--this has to be done very quickly so not one has a chance to escape. We caught eight in a couple of hours and ate them all heartily the next day. They had the hardest hard shell we've ever encountered in edible crustaceans but were tender and succulent on the inside.

And, with sadness, we said goodbye to the family we've befriended and whose house we stayed at many times on the gorgeous Galbibaug beach (their oldest daughter is shown here decorating their house for Diwali).

Kenya: A Visit to the Samburu Tribe

Our trip to the Samburu Reserve included a visit to the Samburu tribe--these are semi-nomadic pastoralists who live on the park's territory and survive by tending to their cows, camels, goats and sheep and gathering roots and vegetables... They also survive on tourists' visits and sale of trinkets, but who can fault them for trying to make ends meet? Their huts are very primitive since they are dismantled every five to six weeks and are being made of mud, hide and grass mats. The Samburu usually live in patriarchal groups of five to ten families, presided by a hoary village elder, seen on my right in the picture. As soon as we arrived, the elder set about teaching Misha how to make fire from two sticks in the ground, an experiment that failed, putting Dalberg's whole economic consulting team to shame...

Their striking appearance sets them apart from any other ethnic group we saw in Kenya, including the Masai--with whom they share their cattle-herding tradition and habit of drinking cows' blood. This tribe is known for its striking beauty and the bright dress they wear to accentuate it--a red cloth wrapped around the body, tied with a white sash and decorated with rows upon rows of bright bead necklaces.

Like the Masai, the Samburu have an ungainly, yet entertaining dance that basically consists of jumping up and down very high in one place, accompanied by some chanting and knocking of their long sticks into the ground. There are also male and female circle dances which Misha and I both participated in. We left the Samburu village with a wooden comb decorated with a human figurine and some beads and carrying away an impression of a friendly, peaceful people. It may be a false impression--the Samburu are being driven off their precious park land by the government and losing their self-sufficiency. Yet on this perfect sunny day in Kenya, our somewhat cliched visit did not seem to have any clouds hanging over it.

Kenya's Shabu and Samburu Parks, Meetings with Old Friends and New

The feeling of staying at a lodge surrounded by roaming elephants who regularly come by with a light, graceful step to feed at their favorite fruit tree is not easily forgotten.

Our second opportunity to spend some time in Kenya presented itself when Misha had another prolonged trip there in June. It was a few weeks of blessed cool (especially wonderful after Mumbai's sweltering monsoon-breaking weather), organic fruit- and vegetable-eating (the relatively mild climate is conducive to the growth of flavorful veggies and such national treasures as passionfruit, which the Kenyans call simply passion) and a trip to some incredible national parks just outside of Nairobi for a weekend.

Some of the pictures below are from Shaba National Park, a semi-arid desert distinguished by its rocky landscape punctuated by the Gothic flamboyant of its unique palm trees, dramatically etched against the sky at dusk (bottom picture).

Shaba's austere surroundings are distinguished more for their birdlife than their animals. This is an omission that the neighboring Samburu National Reserve, a sprawling, classic African savanna, makes up for with abandon. We were able to commune with our old friends--warthogs, vervet monkeys, waterbucks, baboons busily sifting through other animals' excrement in search of edible seeds, two lions at rest, the silly bustard bird, and the shy duik-duik, the world's smallest antelope. (All but the baboon pictured; I believe I've exceeded my lifetime limit of baboon photos).

And, also pictured here, were the creatures that I've never seen before: the long-horned oryx with its piebald muzzle--one of these, semi-domesticated, lived at our hotel--the cheetah, basking in the sun like a lazy cat, and the gerenuk, the only antelope in the world that can go up on its hind paws, which it does daintily, exposing its white underbelly and hungrily chewing up all the bushes that its less genetically gifted antelope friends cannot reach. There was also a leopard resting in a treetop whom we could only see through our powerful binoculars. Visibly disturbed, he looked out from his position with his huge, angry, beautiful green eyes, wishing that the motors of the cars would quiet down, leaving him alone once again to his rest and contemplation.