The Elephant in the Window

by Ariadne Vales (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Sri Lanka

It began with a call from a childhood friend, someone who I had know since infancy but who I had only seen in snatched moments from the ages of 10 through 20. She was going to take a year off to backpack through Asia. Her starting point? Sri Lanka— did I want to join her? I didn’t know where life would take me, I was between jobs making a rather unsuccessful If valiant foray into the Art World. Observing people around me striking out into the world, I thought would I always have the unencumbered time to go to Asia with an old friend because we could? I said I would look into it. There was one caveat from my friend: No Plan. I swallowed. Sri Lanka was not on my radar. I didn’t know anything about it, was there a civil war? Malaria? Vast tracts of tea? How did one get there even? I probably am one of the least backpacking friendly type. Itineraries with hour by hour breakdowns? Yes, please, that’s me! But I looked at the flights all the same, and found that Swiss Air was willing to take me round trip to that remote island on the other side of the world for $400. A comical price, domestic flights in the States often run the same if not more. Looking at that flight lit the spark of the old adventure flame. Sri Lanka. The Tear Drop in the Indian Ocean. I called my friend back; meet in Colombo on March, 22nd? She replied, YES, but NO PLAN. I parried. What about a teeny tiny plan? Like a hotel for the first night? I promised it would be the only plan, that and maybe this list of cities that looked cool but which I only found totally by accident when I was NOT Planning. With slight suspicion she agreed that we would find each other where Mount Lavinia met the sea. In an unintentionally chic and minimalist polished concrete hotel. With the flight, and a meeting point settled, I took a quick jaunt to the travel clinic where I dazzled my long suffering physician with my newfound herpetological knowledge. Did you know that Sri Lanka has one of the highest per capita numbers of poisonous snakes? Completely serious I asked if she could recommend an anti-venom kit. She recommended a Xanax prescription. I think she thinks I’m neurotic, not sure why. All in all I came out with one vaccine (Yellow Fever? Japanese Encephalitis?) which was enough for me to sulk for the rest of the afternoon. Ouchie. Assured that I would be safe from most Victorian illnesses, and still unclear on the snake bite front, the only thing left for me to do was take the proverbial plunge by packing and getting on the flight. I arrived into Bandaranaike at 4 am in the morning, and to my astonishment the entire country seemed to be very much awake. I had caught rush hour. It took me 3.5 hours to enter Colombo proper. Fortunately the drive was entrancing. It was an endless parade of technicolored Jesus and Buddha shrines warring in bright flashes of light and paint on opposite sides of the road, the daily migration of school children in their pressed uniforms, and the diversity of bananas (burgundy?) pushed by vendors in wooden carts. This was my first real push into the ‘far east’ and in that first drive there came a sense that I was in a totally different land unlike any I had encountered before. It was humbling. I wanted more. And I got so much more over the course of the month we spent there: some beautiful, some devastating, and some plain weird. By far the most magnificent among these was the lone bull elephant standing at the edge of a rice field. I caught him at a glance through my train window. His ears fluttered unconcerned by human endeavors. I was floored. A real elephant! That moment unplanned and magical, came with the deep sense that life truly is measured by the moments that surprise you and leave you speechless.