The Monkey at the End of the World

Philosopher Monkey Likes To Philosophize

All photos below - not in order - were taken either on the train between Kandy and Ella, in Ella itself, or on our hike a few hours away from Ella at World's End and Horton Plains National Park. The monkey above is enjoying the view at World's End.

I"m kind of going backwards in my chronicle of our Sri Lanka vacation, but that's just how the desire to write struck.

We left Kandy by train - the Kandy-Ella train being extremely popular among foreigners for its scenic backdrop, and being a nicer train than most in Sri Lanka (we saw some other trains in various stations), most likely because it is so heavily used by foreign tourists. And the views are stunning:

















But the train is also the beginning of Foreign Tourist Saturation (which I realize I'm a part of, I don't deny my own culpability). The train has a few locals on it, but the vast majority of passengers are foreigners transiting from Kandy to Ella on this famous rail route. They take so many pictures - as I did - that they're practically taking pictures of each other:



Ella town...well, let's just say I could take or leave the place. I really enjoyed our stay in the mountains but not because of the town. That said, I chose it specifically because if the weather was bad, a tourist-filled mountain town would probably provide other diversions, even if those diversions were drinking tea and souvenir shopping. And the weather was often pretty bad - it rained for a portion of every single day, so it wasn't entirely a poor decision. However:



Go ahead and enlarge that menu and enjoy the "Spagatti Bololesis" and "Frid Rice", and reflect upon a restaurant named, ostensible, for a director of weird and violent movies, printed in a Haunted House font, on a tiki hit painted reggae colors.

We did not try the "Spagatti Bololesis", and I found the local food in Ella - we didn't go all the way to Sri Lanka to eat pasta - to be...meh. There were no good views from the town itself, the weather was crap, and the stores and restaurants were weak-tea backpacker joints. I was not terribly impressed. It reminded me yet again of a reason to love Taiwan (let's say this one is #30):

Not too many tourists. It's getting to be a problem, and to some extent I do wish the rest of the world would cultivate a better appreciation for the charms of Taiwan - its night markets, its seafood, it's stinky tofu, its mountains, its coastline. It feels like the last undiscovered gem in Asia. On the other hand, I wouldn't want Taiwan to be dotted with little Ellas, or little Mirissas (that wouldn't happen: Taiwan doesn't have the beaches. I was not impressed with the beaches at Kending, and that's among the best Taiwan has. You have to go to Penghu to even come close to what's on offer in Sri Lanka, Indonesia or the Philippines).




I wouldn't want the festivals - both temple fairs and aboriginal festivals - to become performances for tourists. I like 'em authentic. I don't mind battling a crowd of local would-be photographers but I would mind battling an even larger crowd of people with no emotional investment in the performance itself. I can accept Old Streets and towns like Lugang cashing in on their heritage by appealing to domestic tourists and the occasional Japanese who wander through, because they are popular with locals. I wouldn't want them to become backpacker hovels where every other old shophouse sells banana pancakes, and the stinky tofu, oyster omelets and brown sugar cake aren't as good because the proprietors figure that foreigners don't know any better.

I like that there is no Khao San Road in Taipei. I want it to stay that way. I like that mountain towns in Taiwan, such as Lishan (my favorite), aren't overrun with tourists and what infrastructure you find there is for locals.

The two things that made Ella wonderful were our hotel, and our hike in Horton Plains National Park. The hotel was outside of town, about a kilometer along what is basically a hiking trail, and built so that most of it was a sheltered outdoor cafe setup with stunning views through Ella Gap:







We'd go out, do some hiking or walking, get stuck in the rain, and come back cold and muddy. Then we'd change into comfortable, dry clothing and sit in the cafe area - the rooms open directly onto it so it's like an extension of one's room - to drink tea and eat coconut sambal sandwiches. It was truly a gem. I could have spent a couple of days just relaxing there and not going out.

We then hired a car and driver to take us to Horton Plains. Hiring a car with driver is not difficult in Sri Lanka, and not terribly expensive. It'll cost slightly less than chartering a taxi in Taiwan (something I've done when I've wanted to visit areas without good public transportation, but as usual was not willing to drive. I do not drive and will not drive in urban Taiwan, which is one reason why I live in Taipei. You might get me behind the wheel in the countryside, though). We shared the car hire with a German couple to cut costs, and they were very pleasant hiking companions.









The trail is at about 2300 meters above sea level - not so high that you'll get sick, but high enough that hiking uphill causes you to become slightly more winded than you might normally feel. Only slightly, though. The land is classic moorland - chilly, foggy, scrubby grassland reminiscent of northern England and parts of Scotland.



It's a circular trail that's approximately 9 kilometers in total, maybe ten. You walk four or five to World's End, where the moorlands just...stop. They go from being rolling plains of grass to being a steep cliff quite literally immediately, with no warning that the landscape is about to change.



The view is stunning if it's not foggy - as you can see, we got something of a view, but we didn't get the full deal. So...instead, enjoy the cute monkey. The "Philosopher Monkey" at the top of the post is also looking out over the cliff, called "World's End", to give you a better idea of the view.

On a clear day you can see straight to the coast. We weren't so lucky.

We were so cold, so wet (it rained pretty hard on our hike back), so muddy and so achy when we got back that I changed into soft, warm pajamas immediately and refused to make the trek into town. We spent the rest of the day in the cafe area of our hotel drinking tea and resting our tired muscles.

Ella had a few other good things, too: a few hikes and walks to temples and scenic spots:



And a couple of good photo opportunities:




I don't regret going, not for a minute.

Of Shoelaces, or Reason #29 (?) to Love Taiwan

 It's almost impossible to see in this photo, but at the very end under the white boat in the distance, there's a solitary woman sitting on the beach in a little bikini.

During our last few days in Sri Lanka, we stayed in the southern beach town of Mirissa. While not nearly as touristy or over-developed as places like Bali, Phuket, Ko Samui or Boracay (or Goa, which doesn't even have great beaches), and not even as developed as Sri Lanka's own Hikkaduwa or Unawatuna, it still had tourist infrastructure and that vague beach-bum-rich-Westerner "a dash of reggae with a hint of banana pancake" cultural undercurrent, which I don't particularly care for. That meant a lot of Westerners - especially Europeans - prancing around in tiny swimsuits.

On a slight tangent, can I just say this? Mirissa is a pretty place, but it looks as if it used to be stunning. What was once a soft beach of golden sand and blue topaz waters has become a thin strip of beach in which, on the main tourist drag, all the palm trees have been razed and in their stead you can find guesthouses, tiki-hut restaurants and bars blasting reggae (?) music, and line-of-sight sea views from hotels across the road. Down the road is at least one "surf club" that I swear had a sign saying "foreigners only". Ugh. It's really sad. You can't keep people from the beach, and to some extent you'll get local backlash over the lack of development if you try, I wish there was a way to preserve at least some beautiful beaches from the tanned hordes, the sunburned locusts, from descending and totally fucking up the place. Can't they all just go to Bali and Phuket and leave the rest of the world's beaches to people who don't want to tear it all down to build tiki bars?

Our hotel is behind me, but you can't see it behind the palm trees, which is why I liked it.

And yes, I realize the irony in that sentiment, and yes, I did try to pick a hotel that blends more naturally with its environment -  one that didn't raze all the palm trees for a direct line to the beach.

While there, I was reading Pankaj Mishra's Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. Mary Roy's (mother of Arundhati Roy of The God of Small Things fame) line in that book popped out at me as I read it at an outdoor cafe: "I think white people are a curse on mankind. Wherever you look, they are busy causing destruction to something or the other. And they think themselves so superior to everyone else! They are really awful!"

I could find some things to debate about that line, but sitting in Mirissa as reggae (!) thumped in the background and I looked over where palm trees should be, and couldn't help but think she was right, and then blame myself for being part of the problem.

This all used to be palm trees.

Anyway, back to the main point.

At one point, we were preparing to snorkel off a far quieter beach beyond the one in the photo here (the boat beach here being far quieter itself than Mirissa's main beach), and two young foreign women were taking sexy pictures of each other playing in the surf or laying in the sand. Neither was wearing very much, especially the one in the little black bikini that I am pretty sure was made entirely of shoelaces. And not very many shoelaces.

My first thought was "She shouldn't be wearing that...not a good idea."

Now, here's the thing. I don't personally care what she wears. I don't think it reflects on her character (except to show she's perhaps a bit clueless about her surroundings, but then, in that case every other foreigner in Mirissa is just as bad). It doesn't make her a "bad girl" or someone who deserves scorn or ridicule. I support her right to wear whatever she wants - as much or as little as she wants. In the West I'd say her even wearing that little doesn't give anyone the right to victim-blame ("Well look at what she was wearing, she was asking for it!") if she's harassed or assaulted. It doesn't really bother me that she wants sexy pictures of herself on a tropical beach.

(I did think it was funny that to get to our snorkeling spot we had to walk behind her, so some of her photos will include a pair of t-shirt wearing pasty-dough white dweebs with snorkels - is there anything dorkier than a snorkel? Even the word is dorky - waddling by, but that's because if I got sexy pictures uploaded to my computer only to find a pair of tummy-fatted nerds shuffling behind me I'd find that hilarious. She might not find it so funny).




My second thought was "Why would you think that? You have no right to judge her based on what she's wearing."


What bothers me is that, even in a touristy area like Mirissa, in Sri Lanka what she - and pretty much every other woman, possibly including myself (I like to think a boy-short suit and a t-shirt over it with a sarong when not in the water is enough, though) - was wearing, well, was inappropriate in the local cultural context. Especially her; at least other women had a bit of fabric covering up the T&A (I can't say I was too fond of the European men's banana hammocks, either). She had...shoelaces. I hate victim-blaming but if she were ogled, catcalled or harassed by local men, it probably would be in part due to what she was wearing - not that that absolves the men.



My third thought: "But what she's wearing is very inappropriate in Sinhalese culture."

And while I support the right of everyone to wear what they want and not be overly judged for it - especially women, who have spent most of history judged more harshly than men for what they were wearing - I do feel that when you travel, there has to be some allowance for cultural standards. I support the fight for all women, worldwide, to have greater freedom of dress (Sri Lankan men are pretty free in what they wear, I'm not too worried about them).


My fourth thought: "But Sinhalese culture still as a ways to go in terms of women's equality."


Perhaps that fight, in countries such as Sri Lanka, is a fight that needs to start with local women. Perhaps a white woman, or any foreign woman, in an itsy bitsy teenie weenie black thong shoelace bikini isn't going to help matters much. Certainly it's not fair to say "this group of women needs to do it for themselves and we're not going to help them" - by all means, get involved in feminism on a global scale, but be aware of the racial issues that your background and ethnicity bring to the table, and be aware that not every strike is an effective one.

My fifth thought: "Yes, but a foreign woman in a tiny bikini isn't going to change that."

Not that I think this woman was trying to agitate for freedom of women's dress in Sri Lanka. She almost certainly just wanted some sexy pictures and wasn't even thinking of the racial and gender implications of her near-nudity.



My final thought: "This is one reason I like living in Taiwan. There's still a ways to go in terms of gender equality - there is everywhere - but at least we have far greater freedom of dress."

I appreciate that I can wear a bikini or a t-shirt and shorts on the beach and not be judged too much. I appreciate that I can wear a sleeveless or low v-neck shirt and not be immediately judged as a bad girl, harlot or outright prostitute. I appreciate that I can choose not to wear those things. People, especially women, are still judged harshly by their dress, but at least I am living in Asia without having to worry too much about overly strict rules of dress imposed on women, with the wrongheaded assumption that the problem is not men's inability to control themselves, but those trollopy women and what they wear which beckons ALL TEH SEXXX.

Protest Time!

The sign says "We're too poor to get married - we're furious!" (liberally translated from "[Our] fire is huge!").

Breathtaking in its simplicity

When I said "let's burn things", I wasn't being entirely serious, but clearly I was not the only one with this mindset.

Photos below - it's late and I have a headache (I blame the airhorns) so more commentary to come tomorrow.

Some basic thoughts though -

- Besides the "A-bian no crime!" people, not a lot of weirdos out. Only a few strange outfits (catalogued below) and only one weird pet (a duck). It was pretty friendly, low-key, Occupy-style. I coulda done without the airhorns though.

- This was the first protest I have attended in Taiwan where I felt I was really participating rather than just hanging out and taking photos - regardless of whether I've agreed with protesters in the past (and I usually have - I've only ever been to one where I truly didn't, the "A-bian step down!" one six years ago, but back then I was too dumb to even know I disagreed). But this time, perhaps because it was an amalgamation of different groups, I felt right at home, and like I wanted to be a part of it beyond just taking photos.

- ...and it really was a conglomeration of groups: the No Nukes guys, the environmentalists, the DPP and TSU, several other associations (Including the Taiwan Professors Association), a Hakka group, an aboriginal group, the anti-Want Want media deal folks, various candidates, and those who just feel a general anger at Ma Ying-jiu, the KMT, the economy, the threat from China, or all of the above. More diverse than your usual protest.

- The whole thing was peaceful and well-organized: police presence was there but minimal and non-threatening. The route was planned carefully and seemed to be predicated on maximizing traffic disruption around Zhongxiao Dunhua and other busy intersections. The organizers had red plastic chairs for people when they got to the Presidential Office. Protesting in comfort!

- This was the largest protest I think I've seen yet in Taiwan - at least it seemed larger to me. I walked the whole thing - Sun Yat Sen to the Presidential Office - and there were people a mile behind me and people a mile ahead, I swear. I stopped at Starbucks for a latte and the bathroom and it was still going by in force after waiting in line for both.

- I appreciate the simplicity of many of the signs. You can have one that details a manifesto of everything wrong with the government, or you can just say "FUCK MA". I like the latter. Brevity being the soul of wit and all. Because hey...fuck Ma.