Oops, in Sri Lanka I was doing a good job of writing these blog posts while the information was fresh in my mind. Now I’ve been back in Turkey about a month, but I still want to write about the end of this trip. I knew before I went to Sri Lanka that the snorkeling wasn’t very good, but I brought snorkeling gear with me and used it as an excuse to hang out at the beach a bit at the end of my bicycle tour. If you’re into surfing or kite surfing, that’s a better excuse to hang out on Sri Lanka’s beaches than snorkeling. Many locals say that the 2004 Christmas tsunami destroyed Sri Lanka’s coral reefs, but Aja, the friendly owner of the Green Turtle Snorkeling Center in Polhena, told me the reefs were in poor shape even before that disaster.
My first beach in Sri Lanka was Tangalle, and my first glimpse of the ocean was this, locals painfully and slowly hauling in fishing nets:
A young man came over and tried to get me to help them. I laughed and told him I’d been riding all morning in the sun, and the only thing I wanted to do now was rest in the shade and drink a mango juice. It was a good call as an hour later they were still at it pulling in the net. The young man came back, this time trying to sell me marijuana.
My first snorkeling in Sri Lanka was at Paravi Wella Beach in Tangalle, busy over the New Year holiday:
My original plan for Sri Lanka had me going up into the mountains a bit after finishing the Cultural Triangle part of my tour. Unexpectedly my bicycle was destroyed, and the cheap new one that I bought, well, did not like going uphill. Seriously I use the small chainring even on flat roads! It’s an effort in the easiest gear to go up short, moderate grades. There is no way I could pedal that thing up into the mountains.
As an alternative I based myself in Wellawaya and rented a scooter for two and a half days. My first day was a short shakedown ride to get used to the scooter and make sure I was ready for a long day in the mountains. I only climbed to about 300m, but I did get views of the mountains that I’d explore the following two days.
Even though I headed south away from what’s considered the Cultural Triangle, I continued to visit cultural sites. Don’t worry this will be the last blog about old stone Buddhas and old stupa (we hope). I knew, however, that I wasn’t getting away from potential elephant danger right away. At this point in the trip I was still rather scared of forested areas. I was much happier seeing cultivated fields:
Many people ask which one they should visit — Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa. Well, you’re coming all the way to Sri Lanka so you should go to both, of course. On the other hand there’s certainly not time to see everything. As I was going from site to site in Polonnaruwa, I felt like I was just going through the motions, not getting much out of it. Anuradhapura is much more interesting, I thought. However, I had been attacked by an elephant only two days earlier so, well, I wasn’t in the best of spirits. Then after a few hours at the site I came to Gal Viharaya. Wow, of everything I’ve seen in Sri Lanka these three Buddhas probably impressed me the most.
I should also add that visiting Polonnaruwa made me feel like a foreigner more than anywhere else in Sri Lanka. There are multiple entrances to the historic area. Locals (i.e. Sri Lankans) come and go as they please, but foreigners can only use one entrance (and must purchase an expensive ticket like at many sites in the country). More annoying than that was having to wait until quite late for the ticket office to open. Locals can enjoy the early morning cool weather but not foreigners. There are even separate toilets for foreigners and different fees for littering (5000 lkr vs. US$33)! Weird and overall not a happy feeling.
Ok, now for some positive aspects, I hope. Let’s start with some photos.
This is hard to write — not because I’m sad, but because I’m scared.
When I read about bicycle touring in Sri Lanka before coming here, it was stuff like friendly people, quiet roads, good scenery. I did read warnings about dogs, and the dogs definitely suck here, but it’s probably not worse than Turkey or Greece or Romania. If elephants were mentioned at all, it was usually something like, “oh, and you get to see elephants too!” They’re often referred to as “gentle giants”. I was actually hoping to see some.
For example this website promotes mountain bike trips on the — I am not kidding you — “Elephant Attack Trail” near Trincomalee, “a jungle trail that takes you through the dry forests frequented by the gentle giants of the country”.
In Africa I bicycled near elephants 5-10 times in Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia. In Botswana, in an area with lots of elephants, we pitched our tent as far from an elephant track as we could, and then one walked by while I was making dinner. At a campground in Zimbabwe, elephants crossed the electric fences every afternoon to eat the fruit trees. The guards tried to chase them off by waving, clapping, and yelling. Not once did an elephant ever take a single step towards me. Gentle giants indeed.
With this background I had no idea I was walking (or literally cycling) into a major human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. In the first half of 2021 in Sri Lanka an elephant killed a person on average every three days.
I wish I had known this before. I saw the elephant from far enough away that I could have turned around. When I got too close (I guess), the elephant turned toward me and immediately started quickly walking directly at me. It was unprovoked (by me) aggression that I never saw in Africa. I have learned since that it’s not unusual in India as well.
The incident happened very fast. I guess I just dropped my bike. The elephant came toward me two or three times in total. It stomped on my bicycle, tore off the bags, threw them around. My beefy Tubus rear rack was split into two pieces like it was made of toothpicks not steel.
I was on a two lane paved highway. People came from both sides quickly but were too scared to come close until the elephant calmed down. An empty pickup arrived. My stuff was thrown in. I got in back, and we sped off. 4km later we were at the Bakamuna Police Station.
I am physically fine. It’s been ten days since the attack, and it still makes me tremble and feel nauseous when I think about it.
The police were helpful. I was in shock. They took me around town, and I bought a new bicycle. Mine was almost completely destroyed — frame bent in multiple places, all four brakes and brake levers broken, the rear derailleur was flattened. I salvaged a surprisingly small bag of parts.
I actually rode the next day to Polonnaruwa, and I put off a rest day for ten days, until today (Christmas Day), because I figured I just needed to keep going. I’m lucky to be alive. Scared too.
When my bicycle was stolen nine years ago, I wrote a nice tribute to that bicycle and the places it had taken me. The similarities in these two events ends with a lost bicycle. I’ll replace the bike — that’s the easy part. Now I’m working on recovering mentally, learning something (I hope), and being thankful to be alive and uninjured. In that vein here are a bunch of photos that hopefully show what’s good about Sri Lanka.
