The Adventures of a Rally Roadie

There has been a running joke for this trip: John Boy’s birthday. It’s not that his birthday is a joke, rather, we are all giving him “birthday presents” the he has to carry in his tuktuk for the entire trip, The “presents” should also enhanced the trip’s WTF factor. Paul F has found a stuffed doll of the toddler aged girl that has been mounted on his broom mast. I found a baby’s plastic seat with an attached table which I zip-tied to the road side of his tuktuk. The tuktuk is looking quite silly as it moves down the road though his WFT factor is rivaled by some of the other blinged-out tuktuks.

Rested, laundried and ATM’ed, it’s back on the road to Ella. The rest day in Arugam Bay was just what everyone needed so the departure was early. Time to go.

We head back into Aragum Bay proper and turn left inland toward the mountains. It’s a bright sunny day but not yet hot. A very comfortable ride and as we get farther inland the tree cover starts to replace the rice paddies giving shade that helps keep the temperature down some. It’s a beautiful ride.

Just a few kilometers before our turn to start the climb to Ella, traffic suddenly slows. The traffic is often stop and go but this time all the traffic is very orderly. We (Pinky and I are traveling together) come to a sharp left turn in the road and on the right side of the road there’s an overturned tuktuk that has it’s entire right frongt crushed into the driver’s seat. On the left side of the road, a bus with a severely damaged right front bumper and fender.

There are bus passengers and locals milling about. Sadly, on the right road shoulder some men are carrying a motionless body off the road and down a narrow street. I suspect the body is the tuktuk driver and it appears that the collision was a head-on right front to right front impact.

This is the first serious accident that we have seen though occasionally we’ve seen ambulances on the road lights and sirens blaring so it may be that we have been fortunate to not have seen accidents before. That this is the first accident that we have seen is in itself remarkable. The “rules of the road”, such as they are, seem to be non-existent. All vehicles, large and small, pass wherever and whenever they feel the need without any regard to on-coming traffic.

The exception to charging into on-coming traffic in the opposite lane, not surprisingly, is for buses. The sight of a red or blue bus charging at you cools the ardor of even the most maniacal local drivers. Usually, the mopeds and tuktuks just forge ahead regardless of the traffic assuming that the pass will be completed before the oncoming traffic closes all escape routes. Usually this works out pretty well if not a technique for the squeamish.

This method of driving actually is quite efficient if not safe. Traffic would just slow to a stop without taking advantage of the fact that most of the vehicles are quite small (a Honda CR-V looks massive on these roads.) We pass the accident without stopping. A sobering lesson about the realities of life in Sri Lanka.

Soon the route turns right and starts the proper climb in to the mountains. The lower roads are twisty but the traffic moves quickly. But as we start the proper climb, the switchbacks slow our speeds dramatically. And the occasional car driven by a very cautious local or a tourist renter brings us to crawl up the mountain. This, of course leads to some very ambitious passing attempts. The good news is that the buses and trucks are descending much more slowly, probably to preserve their brakes for the long descent. Certainly not for the well being of the occasional motorbike or tuktuk.

We slowly move up the mountain then around a left turn there are more than the usual cars sopped and people milling about. Apparently, a Mitsubishi truck or Toyota Land Cruiser (I can’t tell which) has gone off the right side (the plummeting downhill side) of the road.

It hasn’t gone far (luckily) and it’s lying on it’s side nose down a few meters from what looks like a bottomless gully. It doesn’t look like there’s is anyone in the truck and no one is moving frantically so I guess that it had happened some time ago. It may have happened quite some time ago because its position begs the question of how to extract it and get it back on the road. That might be worth staying for. We don’t.

As we near the top of the mountain and our inn for the night, the road clogs with parked buses, cars and tuktuks. There is a huge waterfall on the left, Rawana Falls, and everyone stops to takes the photos. This, of course, leads to the usual traffic bedlam. To make matters worse, there’s a policeman enforcing some unknown parking rules. That makes things just a little bit worse but not much really.

We find a couple of open spots to park the tuktuks and walk back to the falls. The falls truly are spectacular. The kind of spectaculer that photos can not convey. You have to see it to get the grandeur of the falls. The falls continue under the road bridge and down in to foliage below. I’m sure that unseen falls continue below.

It’s just a few kilometers up the hill to the Soorya Inn, our stop for the night. We, surprisingly, are the first here. We get choice of room and, more importantly, choice of of the limited tuktuk parking space. (No lugging the gear up the stairs!)

Not much later, the rest of the mob arrive is small groups. The young manager gets everyone situated and then runs for the obligatory “end of ride” cold beers. This requires really cold beer – not that tepid stuff that we get too much of on these trips. It is odd to see the reaction of the Brits, the supposed drinkers of tepid beer, to less than ice-cold beer is quite amusing. The accepted technique since we aren’t driving any farther is to drink the beer(s) as quickly as possible for “medicinal recovery” purposes.

Later, we all head out for dinner. Ella is really a tourist town so the there are restaurants everywhere. Pinky finds the highest rated restaurant on Tripadvisor, the 360 (the name has no connection to any reality we can guess). We head there and get a table for 11 on a raised porch overlooking the main road.

It’s more beer and wood-fired pizzas all around. The pizzas were excellent but that may be because we’ve been having mostly local food or western food as interpreted by the local cuisine. Did I mention spicy!? (That’s for a later post.}

Pizza done and no desire for more beer, I head back to the inn and my bed. (Crank up the air con.) It’s been a long but good day. Tomorrow back down the mountain to a safari park.

Obi