Here Comes the Sun 斯里兰卡

Here comes the sun
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
-The Beatles

I am so behind on blogging! To catch up, I will streamline the next few blogs. Streamlining is not my strong suit, but I'll try my best to avoid all the rewriting, editing, rehashing, and flowery language that takes so much time to publish a single blog. No five course French meals. You'll get the quick and easy BBQ dinner with a couple of store bought sides.

So let's go back to December. Let's go back to before this coronavirus craziness started and back before everyone thought people traveling from China are carriers of a deadly disease. (Stay tuned for more on the coronavirus in later posts.)

Just like we do every December during birdMAN's winter break, we left behind Beijing's cold and dry clime for a warm and balmy one. This year we landed in Sri Lanka. Oh, you don't know where Sri Lanka is? Don't feel bad. I didn't know either and neither do most people [1].

Let me help you out. Sri Lanka is an island country located in the Indian Ocean in South Asia, southeast of India. Ok, back to streamlining…

Source: insider.com

Now that we travel with a small child, we play it pretty safe. We no longer go for crazy long bicycling or electric scootering trips, overnight bus rides to far-flung places, mountain climbing, day long snorkeling excursions, or eating food of questionable sanitary standards off the street. Yes, Sri Lanka offers all of these plus much more for adventurous travelers. Our idea of vacation, however, is to plant ourselves in a nice homestay that is conveniently located near a nice beach and plenty of good food. That is exactly what we got.

Basically, we played at the beach in the morning, followed by lunch, nap, dinner, and sleep. Start over the next day.

Shirani Nature Palace (NP) in Weligama was our base. We originally planned on staying there for only a few days, but we liked it so much that-- with the exception of a one night excursion to the jungle-- we ended up staying at Shirani NP for our entire week long vacation.

The homestay is a family run operation managed by the ever affable Lala and his lovely wife, Shirani. They treated us like family. Lala arranged an elephant safari, massage, and recommended good places to eat, not only saving us the hassle of research, but also saving us money. (Of course, he was doing his pals some favors giving them some customers. But everything was honest and we were more than satisfied.) Also the free monkey show every afternoon delighted three year old Dumpling. As we sipped mango juice and lounged in the courtyard, the monkeys pranced from branch to branch and occasionally snagged some snacks from the garbage bin.

Close encounter with the primate kind

Additionally, Shirani cooks up a wickedly, deliciously unforgettable Sri Lankan menu for the front side restaurant. Everyday mouth watering smells wafted out from the kitchen. Lentil curry was an everyday staple, but other curry variations included jackfruit, mango, okra, and dried fish ---all of it amazing. Complement the curries with coconut sambol and coconut roti, and you could die happy. Be still my stomach… I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

We took one overnight excursion to the jungle for an elephant safari. Lala graciously arranged transportation, accommodations, and the safari tour. Elephant viewing is best early in the morning. So we woke up before the sun at 5 am, boarded our safari truck, and took a bumpy ride into the jungle. Our jungle homestay packed roti, egg, and fruit breakfast to go. We saw lots of peacocks, monkeys, and of course elephants! Dumpling had a blast.

So that's our winter vacation in a nutshell. The Sri Lankan people are the friendliest people in the world. The food is outstanding (if you can do spicy!). The weather sublime. We loved Sri Lanka and hope to go back soon.

How was that for streamlining?

Chinese word of the blog: 斯里兰卡 Sīlǐlánkǎ
EnglishTranslation: Sri Lanka

[1] No one knows where Sri Lanka is

Shirani the curry master

Oh curry! Be still my growling stomach

Lala: the friendly face of Sri Lanka

Dumpling makes friends easy!

Life is just beachy

Monkeying around

Fishers of fish

Surf's up!

Safari time

Bee-eater sighting

Stalking peacocking peacocks

This is way better than Disneyland

Island In The Sun 爪哇

When you're on a golden sea
You don't need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain
-Weezer

Last February, we made our winter migration south to the beautiful, balmy, coffee loving island of Java, Indonesia. For one week, we found refuge along a one mile stretch beach called Batukaras. Batakuras was a perfect place to lay on the beach, watch the clouds float by against a backdrop of equatorial blue, admire kids effortlessly surf the waves, and not think about tomorrow or yesterday.

At one point, as we savored a cup of freshly brewed Java coffee, birdMAN said, “We moved to the wrong country.” Yes, we had fallen in love with Indonesia. Not only is the food amazing, the language decipherable, but the coffee was as abundant as the sea has waves.

Whereas some Chinese dishes seem to have more oil and MSG than actual food and the predominant flavor is salt, Indonesian cuisine is fresh, flavorful, and oh, oh, oh so good. As we always do when on holiday, we lived from meal to meal. Morning banana pancakes, noontime guacamole, afternoon lemon refreshers, evening curries--our bellies never went empty. Even now, I dream of gado-gado salad, blanched vegetables and fried tempeh topped with a fragrant concoction of coconut milk, ground peanuts, chilies, and garlic. Indonesia is the birthplace of chicken satay, skewered barbecued chicken doused with a sweet, gingery, and salty sauce. Papaya, pineapple, lemon, and avocado were just a few kinds of the juices made fresh upon ordering. We feasted on barbecued fish, squid, or shrimp drizzled with lime and served with a side of garlic, chilies, and soy sauce while sitting beach side and listening to the waves lap the shores. It was simply, deliciously, entirely flavor heaven.

Meal with a view

I go gaga for gado-gado

As the cuisine is pleasing to the palate, the ebb and flow of the language is pleasing to the ears--and much, much, much easier to learn than Chinese.  Like English, Indonesian is not tonal and written using the alphabet. That means learning Indonesian avoids major difficulties: remembering tones and meaning based on pictographs (Chinese characters). For me, I have to say a new word or phrase a gazillion times to say the tones correctly and convey meaning. Mastering simple phrases like, “How much does that cost?” can be a painful and frustrating.

Not so with Indonesian. The first time I ordered chicken (ayum) with no coaching or hand gesturing whatsoever, the server understood me. What crazy world is this? Some of the words are derived from English, such as taksi (taxi) and resto (restaurant). Furthermore, we encountered several westerners who not only spoke Indonesian, but appeared to be in deep, philosophical conversations with local Indonesians. As Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world, there are many opportunities to make Indonesian friends.

We also found a common bond with our Indonesian friends: a love for coffee. In China, finding a reasonably priced and decent cup of coffee sometimes may feel like an elusive dream. But coffee dreams come true on the island of Java. Cheap and delicious coffee was available 24-7 at every street-food vendor, guesthouse, street corner, and 7-Eleven. How Indonesians feel about coffee may be summed up by Bono (not the U2 pop star, but the civil-engineer-turned-artist/surfer Indonesian we met at our beach retreat): “When I don’t have coffee, I feel like dying. I see a beautiful girl, I don’t care. I still feel like dying.”

Care for a spot of coffee?

A cup of Java in Java

The food, the coffee, the people, the all around pleasantness of Batukaras certainly revived our tired Beijing souls. While we mostly spent the days chillaxin’ beach side, we managed get in some jogging and surfing.  We slept at the comfortable Villa Monyet in bamboo hut under a thatched roof. There we chatted with the surfing-loving staff over cups of Java-fresh coffee, waved off the vicious mosquitoes (note-to-self, must bring mosquito repellent), and breathed in the tropical breeze fragrant with durian, bananas and rain.

Click HERE for more pictures

Chinese Word of the Blog: 放轻松 Fàng qīngsōng
English translation: Relax, chillax

Do I blend in?

Our surfing instructor