Rakwana – Wednesday, April 20th, 2022
Apr 25th, 2022 by rallyadmin
On the road back up the way we came in. At the round about take a left and head for the mountains. Paul F has a nice route laid out over some nice quite, narrow twisty bits. Clemo has a stop at a snake farm planned. This should be interesting.
A couple of missed turns. Down some very narrow concrete paved lanes. Looks more like some rural parts of Vietnam or Laos. To say that the locals are surprised to see us is a bit of an understatement. Apparently we are not on the usual tourist route. But we eventually all meet up on the side of the road at the bottom of a steep gravel drive. Clemo says we are at the snake farm. Looks like a small hamlet of SL families to me.
Paul B goes up the driveway and then comes back down. Yes, it’s open. Up the drive to a small parking area with only a small house and a small outbuilding. Doesn’t look like a “snake farm” to me though, to be fair, nothing looks like a snake farm to me. We park and a waman, her daughter and a Sri Lankan guide come out of he house. Soon another even smaller Sri Lankan man comes out of the house and heads off into the out building. He’s the snake handler? Apparently, he is.
A few moments later, the snake handler emerges from the building with an 8 foot long spectacled cobra. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cobra
He carefully places the cobra on the ground in front of us and the snake dutifully lifts its head, flares its spectacled hood and, with a hiss, strikes at his foot. That gets the attention of the group. He invites anyone in the group to get a distance behind the cobra so the we can take pictures of the person in the background and the snake fully upright in the foreground.
The cobra goes back to his cage and is replaced by some other venomous snakes which he describes in great detail. He seems very knowledgeable and speaks English well. Then he brings out a small python and invites everyone to handle it. Pythons are very docile unless they are hungry and hunting and watching this snake it’s obvious why so many people have them as pets.
The handler goes over to the young girl, maybe 10 years old, and invites her to hold the snake but she declines only willing to feel and pet it. Her mother, quite the opposite. She’s absolutely repulsed by the snake. She’s probably more frightened that repulsed and surely in awe that her daughter seems to be rapidly overcoming her fear of the snake.
The python goes back and he comes out with a small, non-venomous dark green snake. The daughter quickly takes the snakes and has it climbing all over her hands and arms. Her mother is slowly losing it. When the daughter tries to give the snake to her mother, the mother jumps back. She laughs but it’s obvious that she is very uncomfortable while her daughter is getting more comfortable by the minute.
Soon another python comes out. This one a bit larger than the first and evryone tries drooping it over their necks and shoulders. It active, continuously moving but at the same time very docile. Memo: a well fed python is a happy python. I think.
Then, for the last, another cobra, on the ground, upright and ready to strike if provoked. Cobras, unlike other snakes, do not coil to strike. THey simply raise them selves up to a vertical height of 12 to 18 inches and strike outward and downward toward the victim. This means that it actually easy to recognize the danger area of a cobra snake bite. It is only the distance equal to the height. If the cobra stands 18 inches upright, it can only strike objects within the hemi-sphere with a radius of 18 inches. But knowing that arcane fact is little comfort. As they say, his reputation precedes him.
The snake is put back and we do a bit of Q and A. The first question (of course), “Have you ever been bitten?” “Yes, three times. But I have anti-venom here in case that happens. If I didn’t, I would probably have died before I could get to hospital.” Semper Paratus, I guess. He does tell us that one of the strike caught him on the end of one of his little fingers and the doctors had to eventually amputate a small part of the end of his finger.
We pay up and prepare to leave. We stop by the woman and daughter and wish them well. We also express our sympathies to her. They are Ukranians. I hope that fate treats them well. Whatever happens to Ukraine is unknown but we do know that her daughter’s new fondness for snakes is going to require some work to deal with by her mother.
We get back on the road and head into the foot hills again. The group slowly fragments and after a couple of breaks, Pinky and I are traveling together. The road is mostly smooth with not much traffic. We descend a series of switchback and when the road finally flattens out, go past a school that is letting out. Slowly pass the walking parents and children all in white uniforms.
The girls in white blouses and skirts. The girls wear neckties with some school color (here navy blue and NO open collars here to entice those frisky boys). The boys wear white slacks and cress shirts open collared. All the school children we have seen are dressed this way with the school color being the only difference.
Past the school, up a small rise and down the main street of downtown Kella. And straight into an anti-goverment rally, complete with burning tires, exploding fireworks, waving Sri Lankan flags and a fellow with a megaphone yelling in Sinhalese. I have no idea what he’s saying but I can guess that’s it’s not support for ex-President Gota and his family. The “Gota Go Home” graphitti and chants in English are sending a pretty clear message.
We stop at the blockaded main intersection in town. A few minutes later, an older man displaying some kind of identification walks up to some young men who have gathered in front of us and as he points to us and says something in Sinhalese with only the word “tourist” that I can make out. They steadfastly refuse to let us through the blockade which is so interlinked with stopped tuktuks that there isn’t any way for us to pass if they wanted to cooperate.
A few minutes later, a few of the young men walk up to us and ask where we are going. “Rakwana” “No, go back. Road closed.” Okay. I’ve done these trips to enough strange places that I don’t argue. Pinky and I turn around our tuktuks and head back the way we came. Just below the rise, out of sight of the demonstration, we stop to figure out a new route.
I don’t think the the young men who told us to “go back” meant any ill to us. I think they were just trying to be helpful and wanted to make sure that we didn’t become the issue. There haven’t been any issues in the ongoing protests involving tourists. For once, these protests and demonstrations aren’t about outsiders. At least, they aren’t at the moment. Things can and sometimes do get get ugly for the “tourists”. There is no point in taking some photos, arguing with the locals and becoming a CNN headline. We work out a new route over the mountain range to Rakwana.
Back up the road. Take a right at the first fork in the road and start what turns out to be a very steep and bumpy climb up into the mountains. We soon enter the Hayes Tea Plantation. A few kilometers up the road and take another right at the T junction on to AA0017, a road almost as narrow as the road is wide. Another kilometer and we stop to post to the group to first avoid Kella and second, we’re on this route to Rakwana. In about 20 minutes we’re all gathered back together in a group od 1o tuktuks and on our way.
At first, we weren’t sure about the route we had chosen. The road seemed to be too narrow to be a route to Rakwana. But while we waited for the group, more and more trucks, cars and tuktuks passed us. That gave us confidence that we were on the right road. A couple of trucks stopped to ask if we were okay and we asked if this was a route to Rakwana. They told us it was. On the road again.
The road finally climbed to almost the top of the mountain range dominated by cell and microwave towers. But a beautiful view of the valley below. The road continued on, bumpy and twisty. Finally starting a descent in to a long series of switchbacks through a beautiful dark forest of massive trees.
At the bottom of the switchbacks, a waterfall with a local family bathing their babies in the cool mountain water. Everyone smiling and waving for the camera. The babies squealing as the fathers dunked them in the water. On again for the last few kilometers to Rakwana.
I’m leading a small group of 3 tuktuks and I miss the turnoff for the hotel for the night. I had the GPS route set for the town but not for the hotel. I post a question to the group for the hotel name so hat I can reset the GPS and while I wait for an answer, I get in a very short line at the town’s petrol station to get fuel for tomorrow the last ride of the trip. The line is so short that there is no point in “tourist line jumping”.
In a few minutes, I’ve gotten the name of the hotel and I’m at the pump for fuel. A local boy puts a 40 liter container in the back of my tuktuk and asks if I can get it fueled for him. I’m a bit confused by what he’s asking for so I tell him to talk to the manager and leave me out of it. (I don’t want to stung paying for his fuel or start a disturbance over this.) He says something to the manager and when I’ve gotten my fuel, the manager takes my money and then hands the fuel hose to the local boy who is now in the back of the tuktuk surreptitiously filling the 40 liter container and trying to stay out of sight.
While all this is going on, another local boy who speaks English fairly well tells me what is going on. The locals can only get 2,000 rupees of fuel, about 6 liters at current prices. Tourists, however, can, within reason, get as much as they need. So by putting the 40 liter container in my tuktuk, he’s using my “tourist” status to get his fuel. It looks like everyone but me knew what was happening and was cool with it. No one complained. The local boy was very thankful and life moved on.
I finally, found the hotel with a little help from still another local at the petrol station. These really are very nice, friendly people.
Obi