Yala
Church, Then a National Park Safari
I learned by visiting with my brothers in Christ who meet in the South part of Colombo that there are small Churches of Christ in various places all around Sri Lanka. These churches were mostly the result of mission work undertaken from America in the 1980s. But when I arrived in Sri Lanka, I was only aware of the one congregation on the South side of Colombo. I had met a relative of one of the members of that church when I was visiting the congregation in Hong Kong. Most of the churches I attended on this trip, I learned about via word of mouth.
I had a long drive to reach Colombo from Kandy in time for worship, and only a vague idea of where the church actually was. I had asked the brother I was in contact with a couple of times, but did not have a specific address. I only knew that it was relatively close to a well known hotel. I asked for a GPS pin, and then had some place more concrete to drive toward. Traffic was light, and I arrived early. I had expected the trip to take four hours, but I arrived in three. I approached the marked point down an extremely narrow one lane street. High walls with closed gates lined my path.
As I drew near, I did not see anything that looked like a church building – only closed gates I could not even see through. I passed the mark, still nothing. The street was far too narrow to make a U-turn, so I continued until I hit a larger road, and found a place to park. I sent a message to my contact. He sent me back to the same point, but this time a woman had opened a gate and beckoned me in. I parked in an enclosed grass yard, and was welcomed into a meeting place.
The sister who let me in was a member who lived next door. The church has been meeting in this place for quite some time. It is a dedicated church building, but there is no sign or public access. There will never be any walk-in traffic. Christians here do not live in fear of being prosecuted or killed for their faith, but they still have to meet in semi-secrecy. Churches are apparently constantly harassed by the predominant religious groups, or simply by citizens complaining of problems. The local Christians blame much of the problem on Pentecostals, whose services created a noisy ruckus, leading locals to believe Christianity in general was a loud nuisance.
So long as they remain inconspicuous and unobtrusive, the Church of Christ in Colombo faces no serious threats. In this circumstance, they seem doomed to near term stasis and eventual decline. For now, there is a small group meeting there, no more than a couple dozen people. The fellowship was good, and I learned some about the history of Churches of Christ in Sri Lanka. The Christians there are proud to be for the most part autonomous at this point. There are many small churches in different parts of the country catering to differing ethnicities and languages.
(Continued)
There was no fellowship meal after church. People went their separate ways soon after services concluded. I had purchased a safari in Yala National Park for Monday, so I needed to drive to Tissamaharama to stay the night. It was the first low stress driving experience I had in Sri Lanka. There is an expressway between Colombo and the South part of the island. Although I had to pay a toll, it was worth the fee to drive without white knuckles. The speed limit was 100kph, which is only about 62mph, but it felt like I was in a rocket ship, compared to the crowded lanes and unpredictable traffic I had negotiated the previous several days. I arrived at my motel early enough to get checked in and visit with the friendly hosts.
After a short rest, I began to walk toward town to find some dinner. The business area of town was a little over half a mile off. I met a Spanish tourist couple who were waiting by the lake’s edge for sunset to see the birds and bats. They were talkative, and we had a nice chat. The young man was from Tenerife, and the girl from Menorca. They both highly recommended visiting their homes. The young lady spoke more English, so much of my conversation was with her, though I shared thoughts in Spanish with the man as well. I waited there with them to see the bats, then they joined me for supper in town. They were also looking for a budget meal.
The South part of Sri Lanka is home to a rather large variety of fruit bats. They often have wingspans of over a meter. They are reminiscent of the flying monkeys from the old Wizard of Oz movie. At first, we spotted them hanging upside down from trees along the shore of Lake Tissa. At dusk, they started to rouse, then really began to swarm around as bats do. We saw some birds as well, but in the low light of dusk, it was the bats that made the impression. We continued to visit as we walked through town in search of an inexpensive meal. It was an especially nice evening, and it had been a good day. It was the first day since I had been in Sri Lanka that most of the people I spoke to were genuinely friendly, not just trying to rook me out of some more rupees.
A Toyota Hilux rigged with an open air safari viewing compartment mounted high above the bed arrived at 4:30 in the morning to pick me up. A German couple also staying in my motel was waiting outside at the same time. It turned out we were unknowingly waiting for the same safari tour. In all, there were six of us in the group. We had a married couple from Hong Kong, the German couple from my motel, and a super-energized twenty something Indian-English girl, who ended up being my default seating companion in the safari car as the only other solo traveler. She was a hoot – equally full of energy, opinions, and – well – just everything.
My travel companion had grown up in England. Her father was Indian, so she had a desire to go visit India (before arriving in Sri Lanka). Her father warned her against going to India, but she had been curious and wanted to go. Her after-action report on India was that her father had been right, and that she NEVER wanted to go back! She had spent a day or two in so many different places, I couldn’t imagine how she could have enjoyed any of them. I could tell just from talking with her, though, that this was just her style. She did everything at ninety miles a minute.
(Continued)
As with all other attractions in Sri Lanka, Yala National Park costs a lot more to visit if you are a foreigner. Our entry fee (aside from the guided tour, which is mandatory), was 11,000 rupees (just under $37). Yala isn’t free for Sri Lankans like the historic sites are. It costs them a whopping 150 rupees (50 cents) for adults and 50 rupees (17 cents) for children. Maybe I was just used to it by now. More likely, I had seen enough stupas, but I had not yet been to a wildlife park. I shelled out the money and enjoyed another day visiting freely with other tourists, none of whom were out to scam me.
We had to wait in a very long line to get into the park, and once we were in, it was apparent that there were far too many safari jeeps for this to be anything like a remote expedition. There were traffic jams throughout the park. We did see lots of animals, though. The driver and his deputy would radio back and forth with the other guides. When any guide anywhere in the park found a noteworthy animal, every single safari rig would scurry for that location to get a look. We saw hornbills, white bellied seagulls, toucans, ibises, an oriental darter, painted stork, green bee eater, crocodiles, elephants, spotted deer, peafowl, monitor lizards, some animal that looked a bit like a fatter ferret, and the prized sighting: a leopard. The only difficult to spot animal we missed was the endangered sloth bear. It was a crowded, but successful foray into Yala National Park.
We were done by early afternoon, and back to the motel. I had decided to just spend my last few days in Sri Lanka hanging out at Galle. There was a colonial fort there, some nice beaches, sea turtle rescue centers, and I was able to secure a very nice room for several days. I needed a bit of a break. I could explore those things around Galle at a casual pace. The only other decision I had to make was how I would get there. I could take the leisurely but not particularly interesting expressway back toward Colombo and get to Galle in about two hours, or I could drive the coastal route and arrive in about four hours. I opted to try to see something new at the cost of the extra time. All I really bought myself was a stressful, longer trip. I never have been able to resist the chance at seeing something new. In this case, I learned only that there wasn’t much else to see that way. It just took a lot longer.
