Listening for the Alien Heartbeat

From Kandy I take the train to Nuwara Eliya (‘City of Light’), an old hill station and a place famous for its tea.  Train, men and beasts shared the tracks, in a show of mutual respect and tolerance.

Train to Nuwara Eliya - Conductor with FlagAfter Armenia, the land beside the tracks is so fertile and so green, the people so lucky, it hurts my eyes.

Train to Nuwara Eliya - Girl with UmbrellaI arrive at the hill station in the late evening.  Smoke rising from a prosperous buddhist town, steps of vegetables leading up the nearby mountain, and the last of the sun at the top.

Nuwara Eliya - Smoke Rising from Evening TownAnd to round out an excellent day, a quick drink of “Foreign Liquor”.

Nuwara Eliya - Foreign Liquor Shop(events 15 Jan 2013)

7 Responses to “Train to the Hills”

  1. wewerenothing

    You are very fortunate to be able to visit that land now. It wasn’t so long ago that it was mired in civil war, Sinhala, Tamil Tigers, blah blah blah. A friend of mine, Jamaican with Sri Lankan roots, did his thesis there and boy, did he experience racism there. It seems if you are a mixed up mutt like he and I are, then you could be as educated as can be and still not as good as the lowliest person in that country. The friend was working on his PhD at the time on yacktovil (spelling? It has to do with ghosts, the belief in them in Sri Lanka) and got turned down for dates because well, he wasn’t a pure bred and so, not even good enough for the girl who cooked the family’s meals. Yeesh!!!

    • alienheartbeat

      I was there just before the civil war also. One thing hasn’t changed. The women are *very* specific about what they want. They (or their parents) put ads in the paper specifying requirements for their husband’s job, salary, house etc. There are also issues of race (Tamil, Singhalese,…), religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim,..) and caste, not to mention social status, height,…

      Getting a date would really require the assistance of a ‘consultant’ with serious expertise.

    • alienheartbeat

      The places are all somewhat seedy looking. It comes from the temperance past, when all liquor was restricted, and ‘foreign’ liquor was almost impossible to obtain for ordinary people – you needed vouchers or something. It doesn’t seem like those restrictions are in place now, but the tradition lives on.


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