It's safer by elephant . . .
• Rosemary North in Sri Lanka

---

The trains and boats and planes that once moved people to sing have lost their allure. Package holidays, by definition, are not exclusive. This planet is not lonely enough. Now the discerning multi-millionaire takes the shuttle. Not the British Airways shuttle to Paris. The space shuttle. Tourists without the twenty million dollar return fare may like to remember that a single will only cost ten million.

Statistically, space travel is infinitely safer than more down-to-earth methods. Not a single tourist has died in space, but ferries sink, cars crash, bombs are planted on buses, trains tumble into ravines. As Dennis Tito embarks on his own 2001 space odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke's fantasy has become reality.

Tito may be the first tourist to boldly go in search of a holiday truly out of this world, but in the Third World, twenty-first century travellers still opt for traditional forms of transport. Arthur C. Clarke himself, who obviously knows a thing or two about space travel, has not booked himself on the next space shuttle. Think about it: confined to a small metal capsule for weeks, with nothing to do but eat three square pills a day; no exercise except for occasional games of softball with a pee-bag. (A pee-bag is much like a bean-bag, but it isn't full of beans.) Arthur C. Clarke is content to stay at home in Sri Lanka.

Lush and fragrant, Sri Lanka is an island of intense beauty set in the Indian Ocean: an ideal holiday destination. You can relax in the soporific luxury of hill country hotels, explore religious and architectural relics scattered casually across the island, or get laid back with beachcombers and backpackers snorkelling the south-west coastal strip. You can enjoy a wildlife camera safari hunting tigers, or for a real adrenalin-rush adventure holiday, you can tour the island using traditional transport. Trishaws used to cluster round the exit at Colombo Airport, jockeying for inside position. Trishaws are tricycles with a double passenger seat beneath an overgrown pram canopy, pedalled by unfortunate trishaw-wallahs, struggling through sweltering heat with loads of excess baggage-laden tourists, filling me with post-colonial guilt. Now trishaws have arrived in London, where they are unsurpassed at cutting a swathe through gladiatorial city traffic. Will the next refinement be the addition of knives at tyre-level, to slash the journey time? It could give a whole new meaning to being carved up on the roundabout . . .

In Colombo, trishaws have been superseded by a sort of taxi which looks like a milk float mounting a motor scooter. Less exhausting for the driver, but for everybody, more exhaust. Environmentally unfriendly, but faster and more fun. Think dodgems with no bumpers. Think stock car racing, but with less protection than sitting in a supermarket trolley. Nobody waits for a clear space in city traffic; they just pull out and pray. Sri Lankans are very religious. Self-drive' seems to be the safest option. "Not possible" says the car-hire manager, standing beside his sign advertising 'self-drive cars available at very low cost'. He explains that 'self-drive' in Sri Lanka means hiring someone else to drive your 'self' around. "It is safer that way." He wags his head. "Rural roads are paved with potholes. Some big enough to swim in. The risk of drowning in a pothole is quite high in the monsoon season. Some potholes are invisible until your vehicle plunges in and all your axles will be broken. Tourists in Sri Lanka always hire drivers with their cars." I insist that I prefer to drive myself around the island. He smiles and says that in Sri Lanka, around the island is not possible. In the north and east are many tigers.
Wonderful, I say.
Not possible, he repeats. Tigers are very dangerous. In the south it is safe. No tigers. But in the north are many tigers.

I abandon the self-drive plan, indulge in visions of touring the island in an open-air observation car pulled by a steam train, trundling through jungle. Mount Lavinia station is a relic of colonialism. Outside is a pillar-box knee deep in creeper. The postman has forgotten to collect this year. Nothing has changed for fifty years. Do trains still stop here? A few passengers are camping with tarpaulins and complicated picnics involving small stoves. Some are asleep, which is not reassuring. The train is late: Sri Lanka was a British colony. Finally, with great fanfare, an antiquated sky blue diesel engine of transcontinental proportions approaches. This is not the train of my imagination. Passengers cling precariously to the outside of the train, flattening themselves against the side each time it passes a bridge. Can I handle that and a camera? I am lucky. I find standing room by the lavatory. As the journey progresses, I realise why some Sri Lankans prefer to travel outside, in air-conditioned comfort. Signs discourage but do not prohibit it: "Footboard Travelling Is Dangerous Be Inside And Make Others Too Comfortable". The journey costs seven rupees: six pence return. Tickets are cheap, trains are packed. Snacks which look like slices of technicolour mango are served with salt. Trains are egalitarian, with no first class, but clergymen are in a class of their own. Special spit-free compartments exist for them.

At Colombo, clergymen and pregnant women are invited to demand assistance with luggage. There are exhortations not to jump off bridges: "Use Footbridge And Provide Your Safety". Commuters swarm across the platform. Without riot gear there is no possibility of a seat. I abandon the train and hire a car. With driver. Rajasamanitha is flexible, friendly, more valuable than a credit card. He explains the difference between tigers and Tigers: tigers only kill to live, Tigers live to kill. Four legs good, two legs bad. He knows the necessity of respecting roadblocks, when to refrain from photography. Rajasamanitha understands survival in Sri Lanka. As the road unrolls down the coast, exotic names fly by: Beruwala, Balapitiya, Ambalangoda. Resorts erupt at intervals, separated by swathes of palms. Long narrow boats with outriggers and straw hats lie resting between the trees. Some are shading piles of coconuts; tendrils of vegetation creep across others. Beneath the palms, people live as their ancestors lived, harvesting coconuts, weaving, fishing. The trees provide everything they need. Coconut flesh to eat, nutritious milk. Oil for cooking or skin-care. Husks are used like grow-bags, palm leaves woven into roofing and wall panels. Coconut fibre makes matting and textiles. Tree-trunks are hollowed into boats, used as firewood and carved into furniture or souvenirs. The prosperity of the coastal strip is explained. Coconuts are ubiquitous and free. Beside the road are numbered barrels. I think milk, my companion thinks beer. Rajasamanitha baffles us, saying both are right. Suddenly he stares upwards. High above, a monkey is performing amazing feats, half hidden by palm fronds. I reach for my camera. As I watch, he moves between trees, standing upright, arms held high. "Collecting toddy" explains Rajasamanitha. This I cannot believe. I focus my zoom-lens on the monkey. It is a man, doing a high-wire act, milking each tree like a rubber-tapper. Forty feet above the ground. With no safety net. Toddy is a sort of beer made from coconut milk. Barrels are carried on thatched bullock carts, meandering across the road as drivers refresh themselves en route. Even bullocks lose their mournful demeanour towing the toddy home. Rajasamanitha explained its popularity. For every five hundred rupees you invest, you reach a state of total alcoholic collapse more quickly with toddy than any other beer. Also, toddy can be turned into arak, a spirit popular for its fiery strength and flavour, very useful for clearing blocked sinuses and cleaning engines.

The fascination of toddy is not that it tastes like an old puddle. If a drink contains as much sediment as the Ganges, its nutty texture has little appeal unless you have watched someone risk his life to collect it. Toddy is not for the air-conditioned wine-bar tourist. Toddy is for travellers in coconut groves, using a cracked coconut shell dipped into a leather bucket. Toddy production is now a major commercial opportunity instead of a bootleg-type operation. Toddy is marketed and distributed with frightening efficiency. If this trend continues, toddy will lose its charm. An international industry will be born, with financial implications unimaginable for the man on the high-wire, milking coconut palms. Franchised Toddy Bars in Toronto and London. Toddy sold in ring-pull cans; the inevitable palm-tree logo. The Campaign for Real Toddy will protest that hygiene regulations and bulk handling processes have destroyed the flavour. The Sri Lankan government will tax toddy production and exports. Consultants will conclude the harvesting method is inefficient. Scientists will genetically modify palm trees: trunks only three feet tall will facilitate milking by machine. Sons of redundant toddy collectors will become tax collectors. Old men will tell wide-eyed grandchildren how once they walked from tree to tree, forty feet above the ground. Rajasamanitha seems equivocal about the future of toddy. Eventually I discover that when his head waves from side to side, he is not shaking it but nodding agreement. Even body language is different here. As we drive south, learn more about Rajasamanitha. He tolerates sacred cows blocking the road, but objects to bullocks. Bullocks do not have babies but sacred cows, he explains, might be mothers like his. It is important to respect mothers. Dodging bullock carts is a difficult skill, particularly if you are not driving. I am a bad backseat driver. Most of the drivers are asleep, bullocks plodding stolidly onwards. Rajasamanitha tells me this is normal by mid afternoon and hoots the drivers as he passes. They shake their fists in appreciation.

Bullocks are not the only obstacles. Bicycles wobble into the road, laden bins full of pineapples, or a collection of cane cages each containing a live chicken. Sometimes things drop off and roll across the road. This time it's a pineapple. Next time it could be a child. Rajasamanitha is driving six inches behind a family who apparently are moving house by bicycle. If I ask him to stop so I can swim. Rajasamanitha refuses. "Not this beach. Very smelly" he says. "Many houses, many drains. Not nice sea." We grind onwards through heat and dust until I see a beach with no houses. I ask Rajasamanitha to stop. "Not this beach", he says. "Many stonefish hide in sand under the sea. Stonefish will kill you." The bicycle family escape. They wobble on unharmed when Rajasamanitha stops beside a postcard-perfect beach. In a sea gleaming like boiling mercury, are three herons: perched on spindly legs, fishing. With rods. Remembering the 'monkey', I look again. "Stickfishermen" Rajasamanitha is triumphant. "Good for your photograph. Better than swim." I suggest to Rajasamanitha that we could travel more slowly tomorrow. "More slowly means your journey will take longer", he tells me. "But it is much safer", I plead. He looks severe. " You want safe? Tomorrow I show you Sri Lankan travel. Very slow. Good for your photograph. Very safe." Despite his promises, next morning Rajasamanitha drives faster. Miles inland, he does a handbrake turn. We skid to a stop. When the dust clears, I see nothing but sparse jungle. "Follow", he commands, disappearing into the trees. I follow hesitantly. "Very safe. You go with mahout." He leaves me with a man in a sweat-stained loincloth, who hands me into a howdah, a basket perched precariously on the elephant's back. It lurches off its knees. I nearly fall out. On an elephant, you are flying. Very slowly. You feel very safe. You hover at leaf level, as if in a hot air balloon. Now you have time to see. Lotus flowers float in pools far below. You feel out of this world. Tito is welcome to his space odyssey. It's safer by elephant.
© Rosemary North

< Back to Index
< About the Author
< Reply to this Article