Achieving bliss in Sri Lanka

By Stephen Dau

updated 9:00 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2005

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - - My parents, all four of them, have just arrived in Asia. The Sri Lankan summer heat has wrapped around them like a wet, woolen blanket during the hour-long drive from Bandaranaike International Airport. Perspiration still drips from their foreheads and drenches their T-shirts as they stand in the cool marble lobby of the Mount Lavinia Hotel, just south of Colombo.

All of them -- my mother, father, stepmother and stepfather -- were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania. Mom is from Penn Hills; Dad was raised in Mt. Lebanon. None but my father has had a passport for longer than a year. The others obtained passports and have come to Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as the country was called until 1972, for my wedding.

On the other hand, my future father-in-law was born in a tiny Muslim village just south of Galle, which is itself about 40 miles south of Colombo, near the southern tip of the island. When he left for England in 1962, he could not have thought that 40 years later such a conglomeration of foreigners would be imported to his homeland to celebrate his daughter's marriage, nor that at least three of them would have to obtain passports just to do it.

The building in which my parents now stand, the Mount Lavinia Hotel, is on the southwest coast of the island known as the "tear of India," a description that as much reflects Sri Lanka's recent history as its shape and location off India's southeast coast.

The Mount Lavinia is famous, at least in this part of the world. It was built in 1805 for the British governor, Thomas Maitland, who called the 27-room mansion "a small but comfortable house." The building alternately became a holiday residence, then a hospital. Turned into a hotel in 1877, it quickly gained a reputation as one of Ceylon's finest. It has hosted the likes of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, King Leopold of Belgium and D.H. Lawrence. It also served as the hospital set in the movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai." The Mount Lavinia maintains tradition. Eggshell columns, dark, wood-trimmed verandas and pith-helmeted doormen evoke the country's Colonial past.

Slide show   Alluring Asia From Seoul to Shanghai and Thailand to Tibet, Asia’s diverse cultures and landscapes are a traveler’s dream! more photos

From behind a potted palm across the lobby, my brother and I secretly observe our parents, who flew in two days after we did, and we remark sarcastically that they seem to be handling the cultural adjustment well. Mom looks wide-eyed with panic, while Dad is in near-frantic conversation with a Sinhala-speaking bellhop. "... But I know my sons are staying here," he says.

We walk toward them, and Mom looks relieved to see us until she notices that Matthew's hair, which is long and curly, has recently been dyed orange. We speak almost in unison: "Welcome to Sri Lanka."

The strange thing about this day is not my four parents arriving together. The strange thing is that they are here at all, given that until two months ago, it was uncertain that any of them would be on hand to witness me heading down the aisle.

Until recently, Sri Lanka has been wracked by a vicious civil war. Then there's the fact that, except for Dad's trip to visit relatives in Germany, they haven't ever been outside the United States.

Then, on Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 made an 80-foot crater in the ground about 30 miles from the house where I grew up and where my mother and stepfather still live. It was all a little too much for Mom, who felt compelled in the months leading up to the wedding to say to me, repeatedly, "If the wedding is in Sri Lanka, I just wouldn't count on us being there." I think it broke both our hearts.

TOURING COLOMBO
"Sure, they shot our elephants," says Saminda, driver of our tuk-tuk -- half motorcycle, half golf cart. "But they did some good things, too."

Matthew and I are trying to get from Mount Lavinia into the center of Colombo to buy our wedding clothes, look around, maybe shoot a game of pool. Saminda is driving us through the smoke- and traffic-choked streets and telling us about the British.

It's three o'clock in the afternoon, which didn't really mean anything to us half an hour ago, before we started our journey, but now we know it means that school has just let out. Traffic is at a standstill as any of the hundreds of white-and-blue-uniformed children who are not walking down the side of the street are being driven by their parents through the middle of it. There's little to do but sit and talk politics.

"They were just trying to make money from the ivory," Saminda says of the British, his flip-flop dangling off one toe. He operates the tuk-tuk with a pair of handlebars, scooting into any open space he can find in the chaotic traffic. "Anyone else would do the same thing. But they also built this road, and many others, all the railroads, and many of our big buildings."

MORE FROM ASIA TRAVEL

Asia Travel Section Front

Tokyo crowned gourmet capital of the world Yoga brings cultural immersion, self-knowledge Cheap and offbeat Singapore Record tourism in Tibet despite bans from '08 riot See the best of Shanghai on a shoestring Opening up the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ to the world Bangkok’s surprising touch of India Forget the shuttle, take the helicopter Top 10 luxury hotels in Asia Not-to-miss Japanese experiences Asia Travel Section Front   Add Asia Travel headlines to your news reader: