No Fixed Abode: Flip flops and faith

Mon 25 Apr 2016 - Adam’s Peak

The reason everyone comes to Dalhousie is to climb Adam’s Peak, a pointy mountain with a footprint shaped imprint at its summit that is claimed to belong to Adam, Buddha or Shiva - depending on one’s faith. Convention has it that you start the climb at 0200 to allow you four hours to reach the summit in time for the ‘amazing’ sunrise. Having always found sunrises and sunsets overrated Glenn opted to leave at 0400 - in time to climb in the cool before the sun came up but late enough to miss the rush. Yvonne opted to stay in bed.

At 0400 when his phone played its cheerful alarm tune Glenn crawled out of bed trying, unsuccessfully, not to wake Yvonne. By 0415 he was on the way down the main street in the light of the almost full moon. As well as being a ‘must do’ for western travellers the climb draws hordes of devout Sri Lankans each pilgrimage season with thousands turning up on poya (full moon) days, especially their lunar New Year. So much so, in fact, that the route up is now a floodlit concrete staircase comprising over 5000 steps lined with shops selling food, drink and toys - used to reward (bribe) children for completing the climb.

Today was neither a poya day nor a weekend, another busy time, so Glenn was expecting a nice empty path for his, relatively, late ascent. While he met few people climbing there was a constant stream of people coming down who must have made the climb during the night - energetic youngsters, tired children, encouraging parents and knackered old folk. While Glenn was wearing his high tech fabric clothing and trekking sandals, swinging his alloy walking poles to the cadence of his footfall and carrying his airflow rucsac on his back the locals walked in flip flops or bare feet carrying shopping bags and toddlers in their hands and wearing an array of saris, sarongs and jumpers. The lure is clearly strong.

The path starts as a gently sloping track of mud, rock and concrete but after a km or two makes a sharp turn to head up the first of the stairs. From then on it is an unrelenting slog of continuous steps, all with different sized treads and risers, which means staring at your feet the whole time.

Although aiming to be at the top after the sunrise Glenn had got himself into machine mode and flogged up the climb much quicker than expected and, to his surprise, he was just below the summit as the sun peeked over a distant mountain ridge. Not bad as sunrises go but surely not enough to elicit the chanting and praying of the locals.

After snapping a few photos Glenn made the final push to the temple at the top. The last section of the stairway is narrow, very steep and segregated into an up and down side. As he joined a queue of locals, some of the elderly be physically pushed from below by younger relatives, he noticed a policeman trying to direct a surging mass of bodies that was trying to leave the temple and begin its descent. By bad planning the people had taken their shoes off at the top of the ‘up’ side so were now having to cross the line of ascenders to reach them. You can imagine the carnage. Not wishing to make the same mistake Glenn placed his shoes in his rucsac when he belatedly reached the top.

The temple is a typical Sri Lankan hoch poch affair and was rammed with devout locals all chanting in time to the drummers who were beating in the new sun. As they paraded around a circuit of the temple followed by, what Glenn deduced was, some sort of offering that the crowd all fought to touch. Interspersed with this surging mass was sprinkling of tourists who were just trying to admire the view, especially the shadow of the peak that is cast on a cloud bank on most days.

By now the throng had subsided and begun its weary trudge back down the steps and after another lap to take photos in each direction Glenn joined them. The stairs at the top were much emptier now and he made steady progress using his poles to ease the pounding on his knees that so many previous reviewers complain of (“couldn’t walk for days”).

Bar the odd people jam the descent was relatively swift and easy and Glenn found himself back at the hotel at 0830, knocking on the door to get Yvonne out of bed so he could jump in the shower and get some breakfast.

We spent the rest of the day planning our trip to South Africa, which is now only days away, and booking the first few nights accomodation. Luckily we have been sent a brilliant google map by Carol and Philip, our South African friends in Florida, that shows a suggested itinerary with various places of interest and has become our bible.