around the world in eight months
TRANSCRIPT
Around The World in Eight Months – Series II
Welcome to the Jungle
We are now in the fifth week of our travels around South East Asia and preparing to travel to Thailand.
We are now in the fifth week of our travels around South East Asia and preparing to travel to Thailand.
Arriving in Sri Lanka, the children and I had no idea what to expect. Taking in the sights when we left the airport was incredible. We saw coconut trees, banana trees and rubber trees. The roads were terrifying at first sight. There were families riding on bikes with no helmets, children riding pillion, ‘tuk tuks’ (three wheeler rickshaw), cars and buses, all of which were complemented by ‘street’ cows (as my five year old called them) and ‘street’ dogs.
On first impression, the roads appear to be incredibly disorganised and life risking ventures. However, after a week in Sri Lanka we see that the roads do, in fact, involve an incredible system of inter vehicle acknowledgement. Sri Lankans don’t tend to stop at roundabouts or at junctions (actually ‘tend’ is the wrong word – they don’t, full stop) but since the other road users know this, then they give way and the traffic effortlessly merges. The concept of being ‘cut up’ doesn’t exist in Sri Lanka. It is merely a system of accommodating fellow road users. Within a couple of weeks I feel safer on Sri Lankan roads than I do in the UK.
It is at this point, and very early into our travels, that we shrug off our first deeply entrenched UK perception of road fear. In the UK, we would never go anywhere without the kids being in the right car seats – buckled, with buckles checked (and usually re-checked), anything sharp, (with the potential to remove an eye or limb) removed in the event that we crash etc.
In fact, within a week of being there, Neil and I sit in a tuk-tuk whilst our children hang off the back of a moped in front. The tuk tuk drivers find it amusing to allow our youngest to drive the tuk tuk (thankfully not on the main roads and just on the tracks) but the police however are very effective in Sri Lanka and it’s not long before our tuk tuk driver is pulled over.
It really is a change of state. To go from being parents who are obsessed about car and road safety to relaxing in this way feels almost liberating. It’s becoming apparent to me how we live our lives with a sense of ‘fear’ in the UK, most of which I’m sure is good but it certainly doesn’t allow for a relaxing life.
Neil with his sons
A good example is a visit to a snake farm as soon as we arrive, at what transpires to be no more than a hut, a man appears a couple of feet away from us carrying a cobra and puts in on the floor in front of us. As it rears its hooded head in front of us hissing and spitting, our tuk tuk driver runs away screaming, I recoil into my chair practically hyperventilating and the children ready themselves to run over to it. For anyone who has not been close to a cobra, (without protective glass), the experience is exhilarating and terrifying.
The snake handler takes delight in telling us that the snake still has its venom. An expert in snake handling (slight breathe of relief at hearing this on my part), he is called to homes / areas in which a cobras arrive unannounced and obviously without an invite. To protect the snakes, he removes them and either returns them to the jungle, or as in this case, he keeps the snake to exhibit for up to six months before releasing them back into the wild. If their ability to spit venom is interfered with then the snake is unable to function in the wild and hence it’s essential that the snake returns fully intact. This sends the tuk tuk driver further down the drive way.
This guy is an expert. He handles the snakes superbly and I admire his expertise greatly. I later discover he’s an academic doctor in this field and is part of a long line of family snake experts. Although he’s clearly had a few run ins in the past which are apparent in his hands. It’s only when we leave to go and shake his hands that I notice that his thumb is completely deformed and twisted and that two of his fingers are missing. All part of the job! He seems almost proud of these wounds.
I’m not dismissing the UK’s commitment to health and safety but it’s entrenched in anything and everything that we do. This same experience would never have been available in the UK. The snakes would have been in aquariums with thick sheets of protective glass and it’s unlikely that the children would have experienced such an ‘up and close’ master class with an expert of this calibre. Equally the experience would have been commercialised; a café selling the types of food that very few people are happy for their children to eat and a gift shop selling endless plastic gimmicks. This experience was simple, incredibly educational and without the commercial trappings of so many of our UK attractions.
To sum up our experiences in Sri Lanka to date, the Sri Lankan people are
probably the most lovely and friendly people that I’ve met anywhere, the beaches are out of this world and
incredibly clean, the food is fresh and healthy but just be prepared to be taken
out of your comfort zone with a few aspects such as the roads.
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