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After the daytrippers have gone.
This entry was posted in Asia, Sri Lanka and tagged Asia, Britain, Buddhism, Ceylon, Colonialism, Glorious dead, Hill country, Horse, Nuwara Eliya, Poverty, Sri Lanka, Tea, Tea Plantation. Bookmark the permalink.
You peered into the bleak reality. Something most tourists have no desire to do. Your memories may be melancholy, but at least they are authentic.
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Yes, it made for some sad thoughts on the journey back to Colombo, which is a pity as I really wanted to see the Hill Country and I’d hoped it’d have been as nice as the rest of the country. But I suppose that every place has its Milton Keynes after all.
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As Julie said, travel sometimes gives us moments of bleakness and despair, a sadness born from the weight of history that we can’t quite shake off, even when we are trying to “enjoy the vacation.” This is an area I have wanted to visit myself; I wonder how I would see it? Or if the weather that day, or the presence of fellow tourists that day, or the mix of local residents seen that day would make a difference?
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Hi Lexi! I didn’t have the same feeling about Nuwara Eliya for, say, Ella, despite it being clogged with tourists (at the end of the day I passed the time nodding at those who were as sunburnt as I was, it was a sort of a brotherhood). I think that the real ‘deal breaker’, to say it like Trump, was because Ella wasn’t a parody of an English parish village, as N.E. was.
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An especially well-written piece. Colonizers around the world have left similar legacies, certainly here in the States, where we walk every day on land once freely ranged by a native population that’s been — essentially — exterminated. A core part of traveling is seeing faux versions of a preexisting culture commercialized in mundane and patronizing ways.
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Thanks Brad, it’s a very poignant comment. I was thinking about this sort of thing – how a civilization essentially overlaps/wipes out a preexisting one – earlier today whilst watching a TV series, “The man in the high castle”, where a Nazi New York and a Japanese San Francisco are portrayed, and look absolutely nothing like they do today. Quite a strange sight.
Fabrizio
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So much of travel is seeing a place through its colonized layers or seeing a romanticized version of its indigenous culture. The authentic part of it remains up to us to establish when we make connections with the people and the topography. Beautiful post and I agree about tuk-tuk rides, they are “always perched between success and catastrophe.”
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Indeed, and that’s a bit sad, don’t you think?
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Yes, I do, though it hasn’t hampered my desire to travel.
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Neither it has done with mine, just… it’s a bit like going to a restaurant and then you find Jamie Oliver’s ugly mug beckoning you from the menu. After you’ve paid.
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