After nearly three weeks in India, it was time for us to depart. There had been a lot of ups and downs, mainly ups in Goa and downs in the North. We have discovered that there is not one India, but the place varies from city to city, state to state. Emotions can run high here, especially in the jam-packed North. What we are seeking in our grand adventure is more what we found in the South, and hope to find on the island country of Sri Lanka.
Austin was kind enough to give us a lift to the airport at 5am for our early flight, along with a Goa magnet as a departing gift. Farewell friend, hopefully our paths will cross again soon.
After five hours of total flight time and a three hour layover in the Indian city of Chennai, we landed in Bandaranaike International Airport, which serves the Colombo area, the capital of Sri Lanka. As is the case with many other airports, it is nowhere near the city itself, over an hours drive.
We had read online that Colombo is a dead city, so we decided to stay in a Michael Jackson themed boutique hotel called This Is It, located ten minutes away from the airport in a town called Negombo.This Is It was the name of Michael Jackson’s final tour, and the subsequent documentary showing behind the scenes of the rehearsals and preparation leading up the final tour. For those who forget, Michael died a couple weeks before the first concert.
The owner of the hotel, Jerry, chatted with us for the better part of an hour and told us a bit about the history of Sri Lanka. Formerly known as Ceylon, the population is approximately 21 million, 70% of whom are Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim, and 6% Catholic. There are two main ethnicities: Sinhalese (Buddhist), who live in the south and central parties of the islands and make up 75% of the population, and the Tamils (Hindus), the largest minority at 11% who live in the north and east of the island.
Until 2009, a bitter 26 year Civil War raged on in Sri Lanka, with the Tamil Tigers fighting to create an independent state in the northeast of the country. In the end, with intermittent assistance from the Indian military, the Sri Lankan military put an end to the conflict. Over 100,000 people died in the war, at a cost of over 200 billion USD, a sizable amount in such a small country. The wounds are still open today, with both sides still jockeying for political power.
The long-lasting effects of the Civil War have left the country vulnerable, opening its doors for infiltrators to contribute to the chaos. On April 21 of this year, 2019, Easter Sunday, a series of coordinated suicide bombings were carried out in a number of churches and hotels in and around Colombo. With Christians and tourists as the main target, nine Muslim suicide bombers from a local militant faction with ties to ISIS, killed 259 people and wounded over 500 more. There is a debate whether these bombings were in response to the Christchurch, New Zealand shooting only weeks before. Reports came out afterwards showing that the terror group had been stockpiling weapons for months before, questioning the link.
Historically, terrorism in Sri Lanka had been conducted mainly by the Tamil Tigers, who are Hindu. so it came as a surprise that the Muslims were responsible. In the following months, questions about the purpose of the attacks have been left unanswered.
A further plot twist was discovered when the Indian government made it public that they had warned the Sri Lankan government of a potential attack several times, including the morning of the attack.
Negombo is a waterfront city on the west coast one hour north of Colombo by bus. Aside from a lagoon, fish market, and a prison, there isn’t much to do or see there. We spent our first full day in Sri Lanka walking the streets and taking in the sites.
We visited the first of many Buddhist temples we will see this trip.
It was important for us to visit San Sebastian’s Church, which suffered the greatest loss of all the attacks. In the middle of Easter Mass, a suicide bomber walked inside the church during prayers, and detonated the explosives inside his backpack. 93 people were killed, 27 of them children.
Our original plan for visiting Sri Lanka, as it so frequently does while on the move, changed with hours of arriving. We planned on going south and touring the beaches, but the weather was crap. Our Germans friends, who had arrived days before, texted us from where they were staying the south to confirm this. Instead, we would head north in hopes of sunshine. First, though, we spent the a cool, cloudy day in Colombo.
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