This Is What It Means To Be Machangs

When the 26^th of July dawned, it brought with it the promise of adventure. Little did we know how much it would live up to its promise.

We planned the trip to play out in Poronnaruva and Sigiriya over the next two days. Our family spent the previous night at Yolany’s, seeing as we were going to have to leave the house at five o’clock to do the trip, meaning waking up at the ridiculous hour of four.

Yolany and I hadn’t been able to sleep. We fell into the on-and-off sort of state, where we’d jolt awake, stay awake for the next couple of minutes, and then doze back off. It was the excitement-slash-anticipation of the trip, I’m sure. At any rate, I started awake yet again while it was still dark outside. I reached for my glasses and then glanced at the clock hanging by the door of Yolany’s room, but couldn’t see it in the darkness. Mentally groaning, but not wanting to go back to sleep without knowing how much longer I’d have to lie in bed for, I got up and padded to the door.

Thing is there’s a dressing table, with mirror, next to the clock. So when Yolany opened her eyes for what must have been the hundredth time, she didn’t see me trying to squint at the time. No, she thought I was staring at myself in the mirror.

Later, I found out that she had immediately followed this thread of thought:

Oh my God, she’s psychotic. She’s woken up at this ungodly hour to stare at herself in the mirror. She’s going to kill me. How do I get out? She’s right in front of the door. I could run onto the balcony and scream through Yoan’s room for the guys to help me.

“Shimali?”

When she finally worked up the nerve to ask what the hell I was doing, and I told her, she glared at me, told me what had been running through her head (received with much hilarity on my side, considering the time and all), and called me psychotic anyway.

We couldn’t go back to sleep after that. We spent the rest of the night talking about God-knows-what, since we had an hour to kill.

The best part is that when we did get out of bed, rouse the rest of the house, dress and settle in the hallway to wait for the driver, we didn’t leave until 6 o’clock. That’s because Sumedha, our tour-guide-slash-new-awesome-friend, had slept in and consequently ran late. We needled him about that for the next two days, of course.

The next five hours or so was spent travelling to the bungalow that we were renting for the two days.  It was a nice place when we reached. Four rooms, ensuite shower and toilet, beautiful gardens outside, bird trail you could explore, catering staff. All in all, a pretty good place, really.

After we’d run to bag rooms and dump our stuff, we explored the surrounding area. Yolany and I found a field, in which was a dark brown – maybe black, I couldn’t tell – cow. Or possibly bull.

We thought it was a bull, actually, which is why we weren’t brave enough to go pet it or anything. Has anyone watched Song of the South recently? That kid got run over by a bull. Nearly died, too. So. We maintained our distance, taking fail pictures from afar.

Right after lunch we headed off to see the elephants. The jeeps were open, sort of like a truck, only with metal bars that you could hang onto when you stood.

While looking at elephants was interesting, nothing was as phenomenal as the single, lone tusker elephant. They're rare in Sri Lanka, for one thing, and the one we saw had apparently established himself as head of its herd. Also, male elephants are VERY easy to tell apart from the females. Five legs, don't you know. *grin*

The tusker had one hell of a libido, anyway. As we watched in fascinated horror, the thing jumped onto the back of one of the females and...well, copulated. Finished with that one, it wandered around for a bit before doing the same thing to another female. Clearly, polygamy is not an issue for wild elephants. The whole thing took all of under a minute per female. 

My younger cousin, Yomal, kept asking which elephants had five legs. He's twelve, you see. Yolany and I laughed and just left the explanations up to our mothers. Not much we could do.

Yomal's oldest brother, Yoan, was in the other jeep, a bit away of a distance ahead of us. The sad part is that when the tusker did his thing, the entire area could hear Yoan burst out laughing, my brother right behind him. Of course, we were laughing too, but not that loud. Their laughter was proper explosive, to an embarrassing extent. *snort*

Anyway, at one point one of the wild ones decided to chase our jeep. It cried out its trumpet-like cry, swiveled around to face us, and charged. Yolany and I shrieked in delight when our driver took off at once, throwing us back with enough force that we had to grapple to hold the metal edges of the jeep. We were standing, and its difficult to maintain your balance when your twisting around to face the crazy elephant and then turning back to urge the driver faster. The mothers were shrieking with genuine terror, though. 

The elephant slowed down and left us alone once it realized we were faster. It just returned to its herd like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

After that, we continued the elephant watch in relative peace. Our two jeeps decided to race each other to get back to the start, which was shit loads of fun. Thing is, the jeeps had to keep slowing down when we were near any elephants, in order not to startle them into a chase. We thought of the elephants as obstacles, Yolany and I, being so determined to win. 

Imagine, all of us screaming insults at each other as we raced side-by-side, pounding the roof over the driver's head and yelling to go faster, across bumps and dips and getting thrown all over the place, but still wanting more. Racing across the Savannah toward the setting sun, surrounded by wild elephants. Our entire family is more than competitive, so the guys were just as determined as us to make it to the finish before the other.

But tragedy struck. Well, tragedy's too dramatic a word, but whatever. Yolany's mum got thrown and hit her head against one of the jeep's metal ridges, enough that we had to slow down and let the boys go ahead. Yolany and I were disappointed, but nothing we could do, was there?

Luckily, there was a jeep in front of them, so they had to slow down. Ten minutes later, we came across them still on the tail of that jeep, the dirt road being a single carriage thing. We yelled out what had happened, and they looked genuinely troubled. We asked if they could pass us the water we had brought, but that was with them.

Josh stood up with the massive bottle, and I stood up to reach out and get it. The jeep drove off the road and onto the side so that I could get the bottle. I genuinely thought I was trying to get the water. However, Yolany and our jeep had other plans. As I reached out, the driver suddenly floored it, and we jumped ahead of the competition.

What I remember, very clearly, was the look of utter betrayal on Josh's face. Mixed with shock. We laughed about that look for days afterward. I still grin when I think about it.

We won the race. They cried foul, but what could we do? We would have won in the first place if it wasn't for Yolany's mum's head, anyway.

At home, we showered and got into our PJ's, ready for a barbecue. It was nice. Mum kept telling me to play the guitar and sing, but I was too embarrassed to play impromptu in front of people. I pawed it off to Josh and Yoan, neither of whom would sing, although Josh played a bit of Hotel California while Sumedha sang, and Yoan strummed some random stuff.

There were no hard feelings about the race. Everyone was in a great mood, since it had been a great day.

Next day, we went to Sigiriya. I can't be bothered typing it all up. Long story short, we climbed up 1200 steps to get to the top of a mountain that once was the palace of a king. We saw the massive pools where he liked to bathe with his 500 concubines, and we saw some of the original paintings of them that he had, painted right there on the cave walls.

And for the record, 1200 steps is a ridiculous number of steps. The king had to be carried up and down, so he had no problem. But the rest of them? And us? Geez.

We went to Poronnaruva next, which is basically a bunch of ruins from the times of another king. Me, being the awesome rebel that I am *snort*, waited until the tour guide was out of sight before I threw my camera at Yolany and leaped onto a "protected" staircase - barbed wire and all were in front of it, but I edged around it and got the picture, and then jumped back off. No one was the wiser, but I have the picture to prove it.

And conveniently, Yolany left out the barbed wire in the picture.

Anyway, we were tired as hell when we reached home that night. But it was a good trip, with friends and family. 

And, for the record, Machang in Sinhalese means Friend.

Ta.