Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /home/customer/www/thepoet.me/public_html/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598
Coco del Mare, Seychelles
Those Robinson Crusoe days in the Seychelles stretched out and soon almost two months had slipped away. I had made friends with Mike, a Seychellois’ living down at Bovolion Beach, then spent a couple of days across at Praslin Island where the Coco de Mare grows. This is the largest nut on the planet, snuggled in a small valley and a major attraction. The attraction being the Nut itself. The form as you can see imitates the hips of a woman with all the connotations you can imagine, the male part of the plant a penis. God does play jokes.
Next stop Colombo, Siri Lanka, my visa had run out of days and my travels were pushed forward to the next destination. On the spluttering three wheeler taxi, we bumped into the city, dark stormy clouds hustled in over a city still choking in the smoke of extinguished riots. The projectiles hurled between engaging parties in the night and days before, caused us to swerve, then bump heavly as we hit the odd one. Smashed shop windows, piles of acrid smoldering tires and a chaos and filth which retrieved childhood images from a picture book description of hell.
Uups, paradise and hours later this!
The Colombo Guest House greeted me with my first chai, the proprietor a fine Singelise gentleman call Pundit showed me through the sagging and moulding Colonial Lounge into my bed room. “You´ll be having a jolly good stay, no doubt!” he chimed in a broad sing song accent and disappearing behind the ripped heavy red velvet curtain. Falling with an exasperated sigh and a solid thump onto my spring less mattress, the upward gaze was fixed by a dangerously wobbling ceiling fan , a nearby gecko with its head raised in alarm and unconcerned, a huge black spider came shuffling down the wall in my direction.
Sri Lanka, I had arrived.
Part 3. Surfing in an Elephant Park