Best...Vacation Spot...Ever

After the heavy sight-seeing schedule we kept in Sri Lanka, we were really looking forward to the next phase of our trip, laying on the beach in the Maldives. Our flight took us from Colombo to the capital of the Maldives, Male, in a one-hour flight over the Indian Ocean. The Maldives are a group of islands and atolls which make up their own nation in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Locals are confined to just a few islands, and most of the rest of the islands are owned by resorts. For our vacation, Jodi set us up with rooms at the Conrad Maldives Resort on Rangali Island. This was by far the nicest resort I've ever stayed in. I knew we were in for a good deal when we were met at the airport by representatives from the resort and driven to catch our seaplane connection to the island. While waiting for some other guests making the connection, we were given juice and complementary head and neck massages in a plush, air-conditioned lounge. Finally, our seaplane was ready to go and we took a short thirty-minute ride to reach the resort. The plane dropped us off at our resort, which was two small islands connected by a long bridge.

After signing in at reception, we were shown to our beach villa. The villa was well-furnished and comfortable, and best of all was only about twenty feet from the beach.

Despite being fully booked, the resort was spread out just enough to make it feel like you had the beaches to yourself. We spent an amazing three days laying out on the beach, getting spa treatments, reading, and swimming in the crystal blue lagoon surrounding the island. We also tried our hand at snorkeling, and there was a house reef located just fifty yards off of the beach. At night we gorged ourselves at the resort's gourmet restaurants.

Me and Jodi with our sushi igloos.

View of the island from the spa.

With Jodi on the beach.

Swimming Jodi

The over-water restaurant

Romantic bathtub in the room

Sun, sand and seclusion

The resort dhoni at dusk

Finally, after three full days in paradise, it was time to head back to India (or as I like to call it, the anti-paradise). We boarded our seaplane and headed back to Male. Since we had a few hours before our connection back to Colombo and then India, we took a ferry from the airport over to the city. Male itself is very small, with a largely Muslim local population. There's also not much to see, so we just did a quick walking tour around the city to get a feel for it.

View of Male from the ferry.

The Grand Friday Mosque.

After our quick jaunt around the city, we boarded our plane back to Colombo. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed and we missed our connection back to India which caused us to have to spend the night at the airport in Colombo. We finally made it back to Wellington the next day, and we were down to the last few days of our vacation together.

Three Days in Sri Lanka

Our flight to Sri Lanka left at the ungodly hour of 2 am out of Coimbatore. Due to heightened security at the airport, we had to show three hours early, and Coimbatore is over two hours drive from Wellington. This meant that we headed for the airport at around 10 pm and had the pleasure of sitting around the airport with nothing to do until our departure. I managed to get in a few catnaps, but for the most part, Jodi and I were both pretty much fried by the time we arrived in Colombo at four in the morning.

After passing through customs, we met up with our driver for the next three days arranged by my Sri Lankan friend Ruwan. The driver's name was Mr. Dayarathna, though Jodi decided she preferred the name Diorama, so we stuck with that. We drove in from the airport and finagled an early check-in at our hotel. After catching a solid six-hour refresher nap, we had Diorama pick us up after lunch for some city sight-seeing. We arranged for him to meet us at 2 pm, just after our lunch. We were about fifteen minutes late in coming out of lunch, and Diorama was a bit upset with us. This was our first indication that Diorama had his own plans for how this three-day tour was going to happen. Regardless, we set off for some sight-seeing and shopping around Colombo. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and it rained on us most of that afternoon. We did manage to get in some souvenier shopping, but no photo opportunities really arose.

The next day we began (promptly) at 6 am. Our first destination was the Pinnewalla Elephant Orphanage, about three hours from Colombo. The orphanage is home to some 80 or so elephants living in semi-captivity. As you enter the grounds, there are signs everywhere telling you to avoid approaching the elephants and not to try touching them. Of course, if you slip the minders a little tip, they will happily take your picture in the middle of the herd while petting the baby elephants.

The elephants lead a pretty simple life of wandering around the compound getting fed and frolicking in the water. It turned out to be a good opportunity to see a herd up close.

The next stop on our itinerary was another three hours of driving away towards the center of Sri Lanka to the ancient city of Sigiriya. Sigiriya is a rock fortress built in the late fifth century AD, though its exact purpose is not completely understood. The rock is surrounded by gardens, and is full of ancient caves and structures. A modern staircase gets you to the top now, but it is still a good 200 meters of climbing to get there.

L: Jodi and I before the climb R: View of the gardens from the top of the rock

L: Ancient cave frescoes of court women R: With Jodi at the top

After a sweaty climb to top of the rock and still reeling from our early wake-up call, Jodi and I were ready to get to our hotel to shower, eat, and generally bum around for the evening. We met Diorama at the car park and told him we were ready to go. His plan, however, was for us to have our lunch before going to the hotel. When I told him that we weren't hungry, his response was, "Yes, but I am hungry." Of course, he didn't mention that he gets commissions from the guest houses where he takes us to eat, but I'm well aware of how that works. So we wound up stopping so that he could get some tea before taking us to our hotel for the night. On the plus side, we stayed in a fantastic hotel tucked into the wilderness called the Heritance Kandalama. If you're ever in central Sri Lanka, check it out.

On our last full day in Sri Lanka, we departed the hotel and took a quick stop at the Golden Temple in Dambulla. The Golden Temple is a set of Buddhist temples cut into some caves in the rocks on a hillside in the city of Dambulla. Each cave is filled with various statues of the Buddha.

Modern entrance to the temple complex.

Outside the caves.



Buddhas everywhere...

From Dambulla, we proceeded to our final destination, the city of Kandy. Along the way, we stopped for tea. Jodi and I just had a Coke and some chips, but I noticed that our bill included tea and a cake. This just happened to be what Diorama had during the stop. I didn't say anything, but was beginning to wonder why I was paying for his food when the fee we'd already agreed on included his food and lodging.

Once we got to Kandy, we headed for the home of my friend Ranjith, who offered to let us stay in his house (which was empty while he's attending the same course that I'm in). Diorama wasn't too keen on us staying at a residence (which wouldn't be paying him commission), and he tried to talk us into some hotels that he knew in the town. We insisted however, so Diorama drove us to the house where we met by Ranjith's in-laws. They were extremely nice to us and cooked us some authentic Sri Lankan cuisine for lunch. Diorama roamed about the house like some sort of building inspector, to "make sure it was up to our standards". He also invited himself to eat lunch with us.

That afternoon we headed into the Kandy city center to look around a bit. The town is fairly small and is centered around a pretty little lake.

We also attended a Sri Lankan cultural show, basically traditional drummers and dancers performing Sri Lankan routines.

The main attraction in Kandy though, is the Temple of the Tooth (Sri Dalada Maligawa). This Buddhist temple houses a tooth which is supposedly the only surviving relic of the Buddha. We visited during the evening rituals, and the temple was filled with worshippers hoping to catch a glimpse of the relic (or rather a glimpse of the box that holds seven other boxes, the smallest of which contains the actual tooth). To me, the temple was unlike most of the other Buddhist temples I'd been to, especially in northern India and Japan. Those temples are usually very quiet and meditative. This temple was almost more like a Hindu temple, as there was much noise and general chaos in the rituals.

Outside of the temple

Drummers announce the daily puja.

The faithful wait for the tooth chamber to be opened.

Shrines

For dinner, Jodi and I decided to make a quick stop at a Pizza Hut next to the Temple. We figured this would be a good place to get a quick bite since we had an early wake-up the next morning to catch a flight. We told Diorama we'd be stopping for dinner. He replied that he wasn't yet hungry, but he supposed he could find something to take away for later. How nice of him to concur. This meal turned out to be the final straw in our Diorama Dilemma. First he decided to sit down and have dinner with us. This isn't the usual etiquette for a driver. After getting the hint that we didn't really want to chat with him, he took his to-go order and went down to wait for us in the car. We finished up dinner and got our bill. Sure enough, the weasel hadn't paid for his food and stuck us with the bill. I'd put up with his quirks for the first two days, but this was too much. In the car on the way back to the house, I asked him if maybe I'd misunderstood our arrangement and that maybe he could explain why I was paying him food and lodging in his fee, as well as picking up his checks at restaurants. I think this really embarrassed him, and he promised to pay me back for the food and then sulked all the way back to the house (by the way, he also weaseled his way into staying in the same house with us that night). The next morning we left early for the three hour drive back to the international airport to catch our flight to the Maldives. On the way, Diorama paid for our breakfast just to show how generous he was. If you ever want to live out the Diorama experience for yourself, just drop me a line. I think I still have his number somewhere...

Jodi in India

Jodi's first week in India was supposed to be capped off by the Staff College's Navy Ball. This was going to be a military formal to celebrate the birthday of the Indian Navy. Because of the recent attacks in Mumbai, though, the country observed a week of mourning, which precluded any social functions. Jodi had planned on wearing a traditional sari to the event and she already had a local tailor make one for her. She didn't get to wear it out officially, but I made sure to document the fact that she at least tried it on. Here's Jodi in her sari, with technical direction on how to wear one from my cook Mary.

Hilde (UK), Jodi, Min-hee (Korea) and Lisa (Singapore) play some golf.

At the end of the first week of Jodi's visit, I was officially off for the mid-term break. For the foreign officers this meant three weeks of no Staff College. I thought it would be best to ease Jodi into South Asian travel, so we started with a weekend trip up to Mysore, about a three hour drive to the north. I'd visited Mysore during the first term break, so I had a pretty good idea of what was worth seeing.

Jodi feeds a monkey at Bandipur, on the way to Mysore.

In front of the Maharaja's Palace.

Shopping for tikka powder in the Mysore Market.

Me and Jodi going through the pujas at Chamundiswari temple. Moments later I almost got into a fight with the shoe minder, who wanted us to pay 200 rupees for watching our shoes, a service that normally costs no more than 10 rupees! I gave him 50 rupees.

L: In front of the Nandi at the temple. R: Jodi poses with a statue of some guy killing a cobra

The Maharaja's Palace lit up at night.

As a side trip from Mysore, we drove west to the village of Bylakuppe. Bylakuppe was set up as a refugee camp for Tibetans in the 1960s that has since flourished into a full-fledged Tibetan community in the heart of India. We spent the afternoon visiting the Namdroling Monastery, which has a collection of Buddhist temples including the stunning Golden Temple.

After visiting Mysore and Bylakuppe, we were ready to leave India and head south for Sri Lanka...

Jodi Arrives

The end of November brought about two much-looked-forward-to events for me. The first was the commencement of a three-week mid-course break. The second was a visit by my girlfriend Jodi, from St. Louis. This was her first trip overseas, and India's about as far as you go for a first trip. Everything was lined up for her arrival. She was flying into Mumbai on a Saturday night where I would meet her at the airport, stay overnight in Mumbai, and then return to Wellington the next afternoon.

Unfortunately, on 26 November, terrorists attacked the city of Mumbai which obviously threw our plans into some upheaval. Despite two confirmations from the airlines that her flight was still on, the flight was of course cancelled at the last minute. At three in the morning India time, I was awoken from dead sleep by a frantic Jodi with no flight to India asking me whether she should fly to Bangalore, which would get her here just a few hours later than planned, or fly into Mumbai almost a day later. After shaking the cobwebs out of my head, I told her to get to Bangalore and that I'd rearrange the other flights and hotels.

The next morning I made the necessary calls to switch everything to Bangalore. Fortunately, the airlines and hotels were very understanding because of the Mumbai tragedy, so it was relatively easy to change plans. I flew to Bangalore that night, checked into the hotel, then went back to the airport to pick Jodi up after one in the morning after almost 24 hours of traveling.

The next day we flew down to the Coimbatore airport and embarked on the windy two and a half hour drive up into the hills to Wellington. Along the way Jodi caught her first glimpse of ox carts, overloaded scooters with four passengers, and of course, monkeys.

Despite having safely navigated her way from the US to India, the Indian military had one more trick up its sleeve in an attempt to make my life miserable. For some inane reason, clearance for visitors into an officer's quarters at the College requires approval from the Defence Headquarters in Delhi. Apparently the three-star general that runs the College isn't qualified to make a decision so key to Indian national security. Anyway, despite having put in her visitor request two months earlier, the Defence Staff in its infinite wisdom decided to deny her request one day before her arrival. There was no reason given, but it most likely has to do with the delicate Indian sensibilities that can't accept an officer and his "girlfriend" staying together without a chaperone. Now if we'd had a proper arranged marriage, maybe this could've been avoided... Regardless, we were stuck having to stay in a local hotel each night while here at Wellington. So much for Indian hospitality. The Indian military has doused me with bucket after bucket of stupid since I've been here, but this time they outdid themselves.

We were determined to make the best of it, though, and for one week Jodi got a chance to experience some of what I do every day here at Staff College and also got to meet my many foreign and Indian friends. Our actual vacation would begin in week two of Jodi's visit.

Happy Hour at my house in honor of Jodi. L: Me and Jodi, R: Vanessa (Australia), Jodi, Alex (UK), Tera and Hilde (UK)

From Left: Jose and Jazna (Chile), Jeff, Jodi and me...Tera in front

Dinner party: Jodi looks like a giant next to munchkins Nishant (Bangladesh) and Lisa (Singapore)

An Indian Thanksgiving

We didn't have any Pilgrims to celebrate Thanksgiving with, but we had plenty of Indians. Since Thanksgiving obviously isn't celebrated in India, we had to postpone our Thanksgiving dinner until the next night when we didn't have any College commitments. I collaborated with my fellow Americans, Jeff and Tera, to host a Thanksgiving dinner for our friends at my place. We even managed to scrap together most of what you'd need for a traditional Thanksgiving...turkeys (fresh from the market), stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, and even green bean casserole. We had to cook up three turkeys to have enough food for everyone. Unfortunately, Indian turkeys aren't really designed to feed a big group of people. Think big chickens... Anyway, we roasted two of the turkeys in the oven as back-ups. The main event, though, was a deep fryer that Jeff had a local craftsman build for us to deep fry the biggest of the three turkeys. All of our friends were fascinated by this most American of cooking innovations, deep frying a turkey. All in all, we had a great turnout and it turned into a wonderful cultural experience as we introduced our friends from all over the world to the American tradition of Thanksgiving. Although we couldn't share Thanksgiving with our families this year, we were truly blessed to be able to share the holiday with the great people we've become close with during our first six months in India.

Jeff does an ops check on the new deep fryer.

Mary, my cook, and Tera work on the roasted turkeys.

Ruwan (Sri Lanka), Jeff, Riva (Indonesia), and Zul (Malaysia) pose with the deep fryer.

Jeff carves the turkey.

Hungry guests line up for chow.

Guests in the living room.

With Vanessa (Australia)...she put her hair in pigtails and a feather to show her Thanksgiving spirit.

Thomas (Australia) shows Uncle Jeff how Aussie men drink their beer.

The hardcore party people...Vikas, Jeff, Vanessa, Dave, Alex, Tim and Hilde keep the party going.