The "Arid Zone" Is A Malicious And Despicable Misnomer

The climate of Sri Lanka is a mystery, suffused with perplexing and wicked secrets. Sri Lankan meteorology is a black art of deception and lies, made all the more vile by the frequency with which the dark spells used in its occult science go horribly and unpredictably wrong. You see, despite having the modest dimensions of, say, New Jersey, Sri Lanka has about four completely different climate zones. Traditionally, these are labeled by geographical boundaries, such as the hill country, east coast, etc. This is hogwash. I can sum up the four coasts of Sri Lanka in a single, bullet-pointed list.

• East coast: a back-asswards province with no economy that the government actually pays people to move to.
• West coast: a huge strip of congested, urbanized hell, kind of like India but with fewer trash fires and lamer pop culture.
• South coast: a 200km promenade of fishmongers' kiosks separating the actual ocean from a figurative sea of tedium.
• North coast: a minefield.

In reality the climate zones of Sri Lanka are purely relative areas. Allow me to illustrate. Sri Lanka's four climate areas are as follows:

1. Where you are at this very moment.
2. Where you are going to be in the near future
3. Anywhere you may be lured by the promise of good weather
4. Anywhere you have sensitive electronics.

The forecast for all these regions is rain.

I complain about the weather (yet again) now because I was supposed to be going to an area noted for its dryness, but noooooooooooooo, this is Sri Lanka. Little did I know, I was straddling some sort of magical weather line. The last feeble rains of the monsoon had fallen on the coast and the dry season was upon the isle, so I descended from the perpetually-damp mountains to enjoy the sunny tropical atmosphere. That was when I discovered that the east coast, which people have the gall to call "arid", suffers from the other monsoon, and the very instant that the rains are ending elsewhere, the east gets wetter than a school of tuna in wool trousers. Second monsoon.... I walked right on into it. 

I was in the city of Monaragala, which is notable for absolutely nothing, purely as a matter of convenience heading towards the east coast with a stop at the nearby village of Maligawila, which promised an "Olde Lankan Bricks"-type experience of some grand Buddha statues in the forest. Getting to Maligawila proved to be something of an adventure in itself, a lumbering bus ride through a convoluted and narrow series of backcountry roads and unmarked turnings in obscure hamlets where the only sign of commercial activity was people very slowly bargaining over individual coconuts. I actually like this sort of journey because I enjoy getting a feel for the countryside, wandering around at a snail's pace on old rustbuckets through villages where the passage of an outsider, foreign or otherwise, is enough for the locals to make for a few minutes' conversation  in between examining and commenting upon yams. 

I arrived in Maligawila and sure enough it was primarily a patch of forest with heaps of ancient bricks lying here and there, albeit with one very impressive Buddha statue, and another butt-ugly Buddha statue that happened to be sitting on some sort of Sinhalese ziggurat lost in the jungle. So, for your information, that's what Maligawila has to offer. That and completely unnecessary and unwanted torrents of rain which converted the entire village from a sandpit with a few shacks in it to a swishing mud puddle with a few shacks in it. I took shelter inside the last bus back to the civilized world, and sat waiting for the driver to decide that the roads were likely to be passable again. Since no local in their right mind was going to travel at the time (and, let's be real, probably didn't have anywhere compelling to go) I was the lone passenger on the vehicle, affording me the luxury of stripping to my underwear and hanging my shirt and pants to drip from the luggage racks. Eventually, when the rains subsided and a handful of passengers did get on for a short hop home with their shopping, I got some very curious looks. I explained. "Rain. It is problem." Nobody could find any grounds to disagree with this statement so I was left in the relative comfort of my half-dry semi-nudity, though nobody sat within six rows of me. When, at long last the bus rolled into Monaragala station and I reluctantly wriggled into my clothing for the public slog back to my hotel, I felt ever so slightly oppressed. Damn this weather. As I walked, everybody was looking at me like I was some sort of idiot. "Look," I wanted to say, " I didn't want to be soaked head to foot, but I was in the middle of nowhere when your awful weather came to get me. What was I to do?"... I later realized that I was shuffling through the bazaar with my fly flapping open, exposing a pizza-slice sized triangle of purple boxer shorts with polar bear silhouettes on them.

Around this time somebody explained the oddities of Sri Lankan monsoons to me and I nodded a dripping, mop-like head in comprehension. I quickly decided that I didn't want to go to the east coast all that much, especially since the main highway involves ferry crossings (for readers who don't know, I hate ferries). Furthermore, nobody seemed able to name a single compelling place to visit besides one surfers' outpost and "elephants", which isn't really a place, is it? So, on to the south coast it was, and I gotta say, it has been appreciably less wet here, such that the fleet-footed and alert traveler can sprint back to his hotel room and dry laundry in between showers. I have to do a lot of laundry because there is a lot of sweat and sand, and the only place that doesn't smell like fish is a strange village where people of all religions come to set coconuts on fire... but that is a story for another time. OK, I have to go. The local gem merchants have all figured out what little tourist shop I'm lingering in and if I don't run soon I'm going to be torn about by clawing hands trying to force baggies of "sapphires" on me. It's wild out there....

-GFB