is also believed that the cobra ‘s head provided shade for the Buddha, and as a result they are always referred to as “the good snake” and there are usually a number who lead undisturbed and very deeply respected lives in the grounds of every buddhist temple. At the side of each temple separate from the main building are a series of small shrines or “devale” which are for people to make offerings and propitiate the old veddah or aboriginal gods that were worshipped long before buddhism had been developed as a religon. It is in a way similar to that of the Roman Catholic church which in its early days had to compete with the ancient Mithras religon of Rome with a pantheon of gods so that Saints were blessed with special powers for helping one in travel, farming or whatever.
We stopped for breakfast at the lovely old resthouse at Ambepussa she had fried eggs, whilst I had the traditional breakfast of hoppers, egg and mild curry ‘kirihodha’ sauce with a fresh coconut sambol. Later as she got accustomed to the spicy food she would be in raptures, but at that time curries and spice were still on the list of future delights.
And so it was she got more and more captivated with the whole living spectacle around, the villages selling pineapples, that were sweet as honey, the pretty girls selling cadju nuts, baskets or general fruit.
We drove on through the languid countryside past Mawanella with its enormous cumbuk trees by the river with their smooth peeling bark and occasional scarlet autumnal leaves, their broad branches by the bridge covered in thousands of flying foxes or fruit bats. For the most part during the day they hang upside down asleep, but there is a continual pushing and shoving for a better perch, periodic screeches and a strong unpleasant and foetid odour from these rather unpleasant animals. In the village there I showed her the little cadjan roofed garage where 10 years earlier with Hugh we had spent an afternoon trying to repair the differential wheel on his red Singer Sports car on our way from Colombo to spend Xmas at Luckyland. As we drove on I stopped at a roadside hut to buy an orange coloured King Coconut to drink. The young man who yawned and cut it for us reminded me of a similar experience Father had at one time that he used to relate.
He had woken the youth up and while he was cutting the nut and he drank the refreshing juice, they had the following conversation:
“ How old are you?” , Father asked.
‘24 years’
‘So why are you just lying down doing nothing, when you could be working and earning good money?’
‘I dont need to, I have 2 acres of paddy fields?’
‘But if you worked hard you could have 4 or 6 acres or more in paddy’
‘ But then what is the purpose?’
‘ Well you would have more wealth and you could relax and enjoy yourself’
‘ But’ replied the young man, with the usual cast iron Sinhalese logic, ‘I am doing nothing now anyway, and I am absolutely relaxed, and I dont want for anything so why do more when there is no need to work.’
Father who was like a dynamo in his ambition, and energy, just could never come to terms with such an attitude, but in the sweltering humid heat of the lowcountry, such philosophies are common and in a way understandable. Words cannot express my unbounded joy of having after all these months of lonely work on our isolated Estate, that at last I now had my Honey with whom together we both had such a beautiful courtship at University, and now at last she was by my side again. It was for me the climax of my life to be part of these beautiful fascinating surroundings, and be not as I had been before, insufferably lonely. Also I was delighted that she was taking all the strange new experiences in without at this stage at least, pining for home.. I think that her scientific practical training and natural curiousity was to be a great help in the huge readjustment to her previous way of life, but also she had that quiet strong resilience to try to make a success of the very great change with my help. And so on to the first sudden climb into the mountains through the Kaduganawa Pass, under an enormous rock that the road makers had blasted through with the spectacular view of the Bible Rock mountain and in the distance part of the wet district of Dolosbage where Father had his first job with a rainfall of 300 inches p.a..Soon we were at the outskirts of the old Sinhalese capital of Kandy driving past the beautiful Peredeniya Botanical Gardens set in 300 acres of a loop of the Mahaweli Ganga River the longest in Ceylon. Kandy has a wonderful relaxed charm all of its own in contrast to the commercial port of Colombo with all its natural bustle. Set in a valley about 1,500 ft above sea level it is not so oppressively hot and has a pretty setting, and with the largest Buddhist temple The Temple of the Tooth overlooking the pretty lake with wooded hills all around.Around the lake are great arching flowering cassias and rain trees shading the edges and giving a cool gentle touch to the picturesque setting.
The Sinhalese to this day refer to it as “Nuwara” or city. The name Kandy is derived from their language as the name of hills. In the early colonial times of the Portugese and Dutch who were settled around the coastal fringes, the Sinhalese word for ‘hills’ was ‘kande’ and was loosely used to describe the hill kingdom and its city, and soon the name stuck from its modified origin. We drove past Peredeniya with its bordering avenue of beautiful Amherstia trees from Burma, probably the most beautiful flowering tree in the world, wreathed in long pendulous deep pink and yellow orchid shaped flowers with their new soft velvety brown leaf shoots hanging down , like soft chamois leather.
