It's been nine days -- nine uneventful days -- since my last post. Once again, I resort to my travel journals.
In August 2004, Pascal and I traveled to Sri Lanka, a trip organized by a British travel company. Besides the two of us, there were two other travelers, both Americans -- neither of whom we found particularly agreeable company. Aside from the company of our fellow countrymen, however, the trip was enjoyable, and Sri Lanka itself was fascinating.
Sri Lanka is densely populated, and not exactly typical fodder for "adventure travel." But we were inspired by our rail trip from Kandy, up and up into the mountains, through the hillside tea plantations, until we reached the British colonial hill town resort of Nuwara Eliya. Our group stayed at the St. Andrew's Hotel, a hotel reminiscent of days of British rule.
The high mountain air must have inspired in Pascal and me (and only in us) a desire to hike, and specifically to hike to the top of Adam's Peak (7,359 ft.), probably the best known hiking opportunity on the island. Adam's Peak is considered more or less sacred by Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and some Muslims. Christian legend says that the "footprint" on the summit is that of the apostle St. Thomas, the apostle to India. Other religions ascribe it to Adam, to Buddha, or to Shiva.
The reception clerk at the hotel was appalled at the idea, and even more appalled at our desire to be atop the peak by sunrise. But he agreed to give us a 1 a.m. wake-up call. We were picked up by a friend of our local guide, and my journal continues:
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We were picked up promptly at 1:30, and we drove for the next 2 ½ hours on deserted one-lane roads through dark mountains and forests. We met hardly any other traffic on the road during the entire drive.
Our driver finally let us out of the van and pointed out the general direction of the trail, assuring us he would still be there on our return. Bearing flashlight and headlamp, we bravely set out into the void, feeling like Frodo and Sam leaving behind the cozy safety of the Shire.
After a false start up the first unlikely path we encountered, we pulled ourselves together and launched out on the correct trail at 3:50 a.m.
At first all went well. We soon came to a fork in the trail, however, and both forks looking plausibly like the correct choice. Actually, both were -- a fact we didn’t discover until we followed the right-hand path for about a quarter mile and discovered that the two parallel paths joined back together again. Meanwhile, we had wasted about 15 or 20 minutes trying to make a choice, confounded by the fact that all signs in the area were in Sinhala – aside from occasional advertisements, of course, in English.
The early stages of the trail were not difficult hiking, but the experience was made eerie by various shrines, dagobas, and Buddha images that loomed up, palely illuminated, in the dark night. Eventually, the horizontal stretches between short flights of steps became shorter and shorter, and the climb became more serious. And vertical.
As we reached the point where the climb was virtually an uninterrupted stairway, the fog thickened and the wind began howling. My flashlight revealed only a short stretch of the long stairways ahead, which disappeared into streaming swirls of white mist. The howl of the wind was at times ungodly. We both were disconcerted by the metallic flapping sounds of a broken sign clanging in the wind, a fog-muffled signal seemingly warning us to turn back.
We agreed that if unquiet spirits walk anywhere on earth, they were probably afoot on this very trail, a trail that ironically was considered holy by the peaceful Buddhist pilgrims. (And I don’t recall Pascal’s offering me any words of spiritual comfort from the depths of his Buddhist heritage!)
At this point, in fact, Pascal let out a blood-curdling scream. I flashed my light ahead and saw a dark formless object shuffling down the stairs ahead. Like some ghastly object out of an Asian ghost story bearing down on us, carrying no light that would indicate it was human. Turned out, in fact, to be two hikers who had separated from their party without reaching the summit, and were staggering back down the trail. (Why in the dark, I have no idea.) But for a moment, they scared the wits out of us.
A bit later, we ran into the other two members of their party at a rest stop, with whom we did the final climb, taking another ten minutes or so, to the top. We reached the summit at 6:05 a.m., quite pleased with our time of 2 ¼ hours.
The gate at the summit was locked and would not be opened until 6:30. But the authority figure – whom I had mistaken as some fugitive from the hippie 1960’s, wearing a Save the Dolphins t-shirt – invited us into his small humid hovel where we met other climbers who had arrived before us. Our host served us all hot tea.
We were finally admitted to the summit shrine. It was a little anti-climactic, because all possible views were obscured by the dense fog. We waddled around devoutly barefoot in the cold, while the other more pragmatic hikers stayed bundled up in hiking shoes or boots. But it was satisfying to stand at the spot where Buddha’s foot first touched down on the soil of Sri Lanka. Or was it St. Thomas? Or Shiva?
The hike down was much faster and easier. (Don’t let anyone kid you that it is harder to go down than up!) And because it was now light out, we could enjoy the beauty of the scenery and get a better feel for some of the things that had seemed mysterious going up in the dark. Back to the van in 1 ½ hours, including time for photography, and then a very scenic ride back to the hotel, past incredibly enormous waterfalls (Devon Falls and St. Clair Falls) thundering off the opposite hills down into the valley. (Pascal slept like a babe all the way back!)
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Our two fellow travelers were appalled at the very idea of our night climb. For me, at least, it was a high point of our visit to Sri Lanka. The hoped-for sunrise never appeared, but the dense, mysterious fog that obscured the sun made the climb even more impressive and memorable.
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