Poetry in slow motion - Colombo 2002

In my last post, Lost in Manama, I made reference to the second Manama resembling much of what I have experienced in Colombo, Sri Lanka, therefore this post starts where my association with Colombo began, in the winter of 2002. This was my first visit to a developing country and the comparison from a European perspective was unavoidable and my first impression was one of complete culture shock. Not in so much the people, but the daily patterns that give Colombo its life. Colombo is defined by traffic, from people walking on the road, elephants, bicycles, all manner of vehicles that operate on the basis that as long as the wheels rotate, it is on the road. Road rules as understood from driving in the UK? Forget it!

Here the rules are completely different. Mirrors, not used, in fact nobody even looks over their shoulder when joining traffic. It seems that the unwritten rule is that everybody gives way without exception. That is until you get to a junction, crossroads or a roundabout, then nobody gives way, so it becomes a matter of forcing your way into or across the traffic. The local taxi, a three wheeler known as a trishaw or more popularly a 'tuk tuk', the name derived from the two stroke engine sound. These seem to be protected by an invisible force field, and their drivers know no fear, they drive across oncoming traffic, they will fit into the smallest of gaps and will overtake in the face of oncoming traffic, avoiding collision by no more than a whisker. Indicators are rarely used, truck drivers will use them to say that it is not safe to overtake, sometimes accompanied by a hand gesture that means 'get back'. In other cases indicators may be used because it is the only light that works on the vehicle.

It seems that the entirety of the road surface is occupied, and people seem to possess a sixth sense of what is happening around them. Let’s start with the pedestrians: there are no pavements or side-walks, depending on where you are from, so walking takes place on the road, barefoot in many cases. Never hurried, never trying to avoid vehicles, just serenely walking along whilst the chaos of moving vehicles takes place around them. There are then pedestrians will all manner of hand carts, carrying anything from fresh fruit to cooking pots. I did mention elephants; it is not uncommon to see an elephant or two on the road, with one man sitting on the shoulders and a few more walking alongside. A cart drawn by a bullock, loaded with produce plods along at its own pace.

Cyclists are a whole other class of road user, riding a bicycle that would most likely be seen in a museum in the UK, single gear, rod brakes, usually with a lamp iron on the front and a rack on the back. A family will travel on a single bicycle, man riding, wife seated side saddle on the cross bar, child on rear rack, and the smallest child seated on the handlebar resting their feet on the lamp iron. Moving at little more than walking pace it is a testament to the laws of physics that they able to maintain balance at all, more often couples ride on the same bicycle, male and female and sometimes just male, but the passenger always rides side saddle on the crossbar. There are many combinations of cycle, bicycle with large wooden board fixed to the handlebar with copious amounts of lottery tickets stapled to the board. Tricycle rickshaws, tricycle carts fully loaded with what appears to be far too much stuff to be propelled by pedal power, there are hand cycles, a kind of wheelchair with a crank fixed to the armrest, and a chain drive to the wheel. Different cycles, moving at different speeds passing pedestrians and animals, are being constantly passed by all the other vehicles. Motorcycles, no big bikes here, due to a national restriction on engine size set at 250cc. The same family scenario as the bicycle family occurs on the motorbike too, and curiously it seems to be only the man that wears a crash helmet. Here the format differs slightly, as the wife will usually ride pillion, eldest child on the fuel tank, and smallest on the handlebar resting their feet on the front light.

Tuk tuks are everywhere, speeding past the myriad of pedestrians and cyclists, and in most cases driving in amongst them in a constant game of dodging the pedestrian to one side and faster moving vehicles to the other. The air is heavy with dust and exhaust fumes punctuated by the ever present Beep! Beep! of car horns, which usually means ‘move over’. Buses: invariably a yellow single decker, with a list to port. The door is on the left side i.e. ‘port’ the bus is fully loaded, overcrowded would be an understatement, it goes without saying that the seats are fully occupied, sometimes with passengers seated on the laps of others. Then there is standing room, in fact the gangway is so tightly packed it is a wonder that anyone is able to get on or off the bus. The door is open, with people wedged in the doorway, and one or two hanging off the wing mirror, which explains the list to port. All the buses seem to have been modified so that there is no silencer, and clouds of black smoke are pumped out into faces of those not riding on the bus, judging by the facial expressions, nobody seems to mind, they just carry on moving, minding their own business.

Trucks: Leyland trucks, familiar in the UK during the 1970s are still going strong, some original, some manufactured in India form the backbone of freight movement, restricted to 35kmh, they chug around fully loaded with anything from fresh produce, timber to motorbikes, usually with the loading and unloading crew sitting on top of whatever is being transported in the open back. The back of the truck is usually built of timber, and painted in bright colours and adorned in patterns derived from flowers. Agricultural vehicles invariably join in with the fun, tractors towing trailers, even something resembling a rotavator towing a trailer a la 'The Good Life' is not a rarity here. Cars: this is a mish-mash of old and new, old from Europe, new from Asia. Mark I Ford Escort is still going strong, along with Morris Minor, Austin Cambridge, and VW Beetle from the 1960’s, it seems that they do not rust here, so have long outlasted their European counterparts, some have been manufactured in India at a later date of course, so would not be as old as their long dead cousins. Toyota Hiace vans and minibuses are almost as numerous as tuk tuks, invariably painted white to reflect the heat and form the backbone of family transport for the more wealthy. Some roads have no markings so the position of the middle of the road varies depending on the volume of traffic moving along that ‘side’ and where there are road markings two lanes will easily become more than five.

In Colombo the perception of time is based on the understanding that there is a an hour window for any specified meeting, for example if you say you are going to meet at 10am, you could meet that person any time from 10:00 to 11:00, because if the clock says it is 10.59 it is still 10am. Based on the traffic it makes sense because there is never any guarantee that you can arrive when you intend to, and can easily be held up for an hour. The main road into Colombo is lined with all manner of buildings, offices, shops, hotels which are not hotels in the sense that there are rooms where you stay overnight, but are more akin to a cafe or a bar. A crowd of people occupy a corner where two roads intersect, all intently gazing into the shop, it is a TV shop, and a cricket match is playing.

Cricket is everywhere, from a group of kids playing a match on any spare patch of ground they can find, to the billboards on seemingly every street adorned with the familiar faces of Sri Lanka’s cricketers advertising anything from soft drinks to financial services. Beyond the shops that line the side of the road is green, fruit trees: mango, papaya, banana, coconut, king coconut. Between the trees are paddy fields, cattle graze on the verge of the road because everything else is cultivated. There is intensity to life that takes place on or alongside the road that I doubt I will find anywhere else, it feels like the city is in constant movement, a state of chaos in slow motion, where everything is happening at once but without conflict making Colombo a vibrant and colourful city where everything happens on the road.