Serendipity and Great Sex

My name is Rhythmic, I am something years old. I like Sri Lanka. I like it because of scenes like this. I like it for many other reasons too.





That's the introduction bit over.

If you're a regular you'll probably be aware that I was in the motherland a couple of weeks ago. I've bombarded you with photographs, stories and deeply meaningful intelligent analyses of the whole Sri Lankan political situation.

Here's another of the stories, except it's more of a thing really, just a narrative.

One of the things I did there was to travel down south for a few days' of pure relaxation and rest. Only when the opportunity came up I realised that it was such a long time since I had been in Sri Lanka and travelled out of Colombo. I have come there for so many short trips in the last couple of years that I just haven't had the luxury of a few weeks there and the time to get out of town.

So, after the necessaries had been organised and the car had failed to turn up at the allotted time and a different one had been organised, normal stuff for Sri Lanka, I set off.

I don't know if you people who live in Sri Lanka have the same feelings as I do about this but, one of the things I love is to just travel around Sri Lanka and look out of the window. Any journey there has an abundance of interesting features and sights for me, from the vegetation to the cars to the people and the landscape. Most journeys conjure up all manner of emotions for me. There are childhood memories that crop up at the most innocuous times, there are memories of the girls when they were younger, of my parents and my brothers in those days when we'd go on big family holidays together.

There are some less happy times to be remembered too, like driving back to Colombo from Kandy in July '83, probably the single most fearful time of my life.

The journey down south is one of those specials for me too. The trip from the centre of Colombo to Mount Lavinia is always a bit of a chore, the traffic to be negotiated at almost any time of the day is just a pain and getting to the point of the Mount Hotel always seems like a major milestone for me. But after Mount the noise and the dirt, the fumes and the smells start to dissipate as the metropolis fades and gets left behind, the landscape gradually changes into the timeless Sri Lanka of travel brochures and dreams.

This was only the second time I've travelled down south since the tsunami and I was still left gasping open mouthed at some of the devastation and the sheer power of water. I know much has been fixed, cleared and tidied, but there's still so many signs of the disaster and they'll break anyone's heart a little bit.

I felt as if I was experiencing a bit of mental turmoil though, to see some of this damage yet to also enjoy the unparalleled beauty felt like I was being disloyal to the people that lost so much. Would those who lost homes, families, lives and livelihoods ever look at the landscape and feel the beauty or would they hate it for the sadness it caused? It just doesn't seem fair that such a stunning visual feast can also be responsible for causing so much tragedy, but that's the natural world I guess.

Yet I continued to marvel at the sights as they revealed themselves to me. I watched as the ocean changed colour, from the greyish non descript colour that it appears in Colombo, the one I can't describe, to the blue gently lapping waves with the palm trees in the background with their colourful simplicity. I saw how the building and office blocks gave way to simple dwellings and 5 star hotels. The brisk manner of Colombo people, the hurriedness of their walks was replaced by people who looked more relaxed, who carried themselves with an air of calmness.

Grey became green or blue, it was as if a polarising filter had been stuck in my eyes and everything looked more colourful and bright. Even now, as I'm writing this I can feel the sensations I experienced, all my senses were working overtime, as those XTC chaps once said.

I could taste the sea, I could see the beauty and smell the saltiness and freshness. I could hear the waves and I felt an overwhelming sense of tranquility. I felt passion for Sri Lanka, for its landscape and its beauty, for the tranquility of the countryside and also for the excitement of Colombo.

Once I got to the hotel there were plenty more treats in store, but that's for another day and another post.

The sex bit?

Oh yes. Well I was reading a thing about sex the other day and it said that great sex is not just about getting to the point of an orgasm, more that it's about how you enjoy getting there, the beauty and joy of the journey itself, rather than just the fun of the destination.

And that's one of the things about Sri Lanka for me, the journeys can be as good as the destination.