Sunday, January 27, 2008

When I'm 64

The green water of the Indian Ocean looks musical from the wooden balcony of this resort.

Young Reshad appeared at 10:30 with his grey BMW and a blank CD. The idea was to write some good music from my collection, so that we can play the ‘right kind of stuff’ in the car during the 3 hours drive. We were off to Mirissa, a little known beach in south and my new friend, Reshad was the guide.

There were a few jobs to be done. First things first, I got the music happening on the excellent sound system of the car. Then we stopped at a local Cargill to pick up a few essentials like half a pack of Lion pints, the local beer; toothpaste and toothbrush and some bottles of water. We were set.

Galle Road, which was taking us to the destination, is laced with the sea throughout, and its water keeps changing its colour as you go down south. The transition is from Blue to Blue-Green to finally Green.

At one of the many beaches that we kept hitting on our right hand side, we saw fishermen pulling the rope which brings the afternoon catch. We stopped over to watch. Lion gave me company. Young Reshad was happy with water. The colour was Blue-Green.

A quick lunch of very spicy Prawns at Hikkaduwa, a popular beach got our stomachs right. Lion was still giving me company. Another half an hour drive and we reached Mirissa Beach, our destination. The water had turned Green.

There are two interesting aspects about this shell-less beach. The sweet aspect is that it’s largely frequented by the geriatrics from all over the world...old men, women, couples are the sorts you will say your ‘Hellos’ to, while walking on the wet sand.

Then, there is this ‘adventure’ aspect...the water here is popular with the surfers! So, if you see young people on the beach, you can guess confidently that they are surfers.

A splash in the green water, a solitary walk along the coastline, making use of the camera, finishing off the J&B, conversing with Reshad about his life, climbing up a nearby mountain-island in the wee hours of the morning, continuously listening to Rhiannon, Sara, Gypsy & As Long as you Follow, giving yoga tips to back-ache troubled Reshad, and now, writing this post were a part of my stay at this resort.

The drive back was largely uneventful, except a very spicy Sri Lankan lunch and Reshad getting caught for over-speeding and then bribing his way to Colombo in his big vehicle.

ps: Thats what I meant by the description, 'GREEN' water...or, is it BLUE-GREEN...or, is it simply BLUE?

10 comments:

Shek said...

Neat pic!

Reminded me of the good times there :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnotype/246634117/

meraj said...

shek,
youve got some great pics there, too my friend. sadly, my stay was too short...next time im doing at least three days there.

Gaurav Sethi said...

m - had your post with my morning fruit bowl. That's a very good picture, and the less than 1000 words that follow led me to believe - 1) you are always being driven around, either by taxi drivers or Reshads 2) you can be the next Indian ambassador to Ceylon. 3) Lanka Sri, here I come!
PS: Ian Anderson hails a "Taxi" in which song?

meraj said...

naked,
the song is 'taxi grab', i think from the album 'too old...'.

thanks for appreciating the picture.

Anonymous said...

Quite refreshing.

Shek said...

forgot to check 'email follow-up comments' :P

lived in SL for a year and a half. traveled around like crazy. the best 18 months ever!

let me know if you need help deciding where to head next time..

cheers!

meraj said...

i will surely need that help in a while, shek...thanks!

Bhaskar Khaund said...

u missed one detail in this absorbing account : ME turning green ;-) u having a mighty good trip fo sure
good to see u on Mac finally ! i remember u saying , back at the Y , that they reminded u of Abba !

Gaurav Sethi said...

i have no memory of that, don't ask me Y. m, ca later.
ps: yah, there’s Mac in Abba, good o/s to have.
or was it abba in mac? sorry, I can't write the two b(s)back to back! Thanks for the fleet(wood) moment.

meraj said...

yeah Bhaskar...remember that conversation. trip a lot on Mac actually...Rumours is an all time favorite.

they have this lovely cover of this little known Beach Boy song called 'Farmers Daughter'.

cheers!