I just got back to China from Sri Lanka last night. I went for October Holiday, where everyone gets a week off to celebrate the establishment of the Communist Party. I took an extra week and spent 2 weeks around the island, the first week on my own and the second with my friend Rei.
I started out in Colombo, the capital. I wasn't actually planning to spend much time there because everyone says there's really no point, but I have 2 friends that just moved there, so ended up staying with them a couple days. And everyone (including my friends who live there) are right - as a tourist, there isn't much to do. But when with friends, it can be lovely. We did pretty much nothing. Just had a little wander around, ate, drank afternoon cocktails, watched sunset at the ocean... It was pretty fantastic. Good weather, good company, cold (not so good, sadly) beer, good people, good food. What more could you want? And as much traveling as I've been doing lately (pretty much nonstop since my family came on June 1), this is the first time I've felt like I was on vacation. Every other trip has been super busy or super short or just non-stop, and this was 2 days in Colombo of really doing next to nothing. It was exactly what I needed, actually. It was also lovely to spend time with my 2 friends there. They're actually friends of friends who I've met 3-4 times over the years, and they are a lovely couple, but I've never really gotten to know them that well. It's always just been a dinner or a day together in a group, but we had like 3 days with just the 3 of us, and it was really fantastic. Hopefully I'll get to see them again soon.
After Colombo I was out on my own to explore some ancient capitals. I hopped a 6 hour very local bus with no A/C up to Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's oldest and most famous ancient capital. This place was first established as a capital in pre-Jesus times (that's a technical term. PJT for short), and then was moved a few times around the 10th century, then came back, and then moved again never to return. Now, it's full of ruins. But having been a royal capital, there are very few palaces. Most of what you find are these enormous (and some not so enormous, actually) stupas. They're mostly still in use, with active Buddhist temples attached to them that manage the upkeep. A lot of stuff in Anuradhapura (and the other locations I went) were pretty much lost to the jungle and only rediscovered by British colonialists in the 19th century, which is when they started rebuilding some of the sites. The Lonely Planet makes Anuradhapura sound like a huge complex of temples spread over a plain, so it had me thinking of Bagan in Burma before I went. Sadly I think that got my expectations up too much, because while the stupas are pretty impressive, it really is just a bunch of stupas, not a whole massive complex of temples or palaces. And it's also not that many temples, just a handful spread across the plains. There are a couple areas with some nice ruins in the forest, but for the most part it doesn't even feel that ancient. Also I got really dehydrated because Sri Lanka is SO HOT!
I had left myself 2 days in Anuradhapura, which ended up being too much. So on the 2nd afternoon I took a tuk-tuk to Mihinthale, a neighboring town which has a temple on top of a mountain. This was actually quite nice for a few reasons. First, tuk-tuks are awesome so it was fun to sit in it for like an hour. Plus the driver stopped at this random bodhi tree on the way that was massive and beautiful and impressive, and which I would have known nothing about if not for him. The temple itself was also great, first because it's on a mountain and has great views of the surrounding country. Also I got a guide who explained a bunch of stuff to me and made it much more interesting. But in the end, it was still just a couple of stupas and a ton of monkeys, plus a bunch of foundations for other ruined buildings.
Since my tuk-tuk ride was so nice the day before, I decided to have the driver take me 3 hours to Polonaruwa the next day. Polonaruwa is another ancient capital, which the guide books make less of, but which I thought was much more interesting. It's still just a bunch of ruins, but there's a much wider variety of ruins here. You have a couple of big stupas, but you also have ruins of palaces, Hindu temples, monasteries, cave carvings and more, all in a very small area, which makes it easy to get around and see in an afternoon. Plus the artwork and carvings here are also much more impressive than in Anuradhapura. If you go to Sri Lanka and only have time for one, don't listen to the guidebooks and go to Anuradhapura, go to Polonaruwa instead.
So that was just a quick stop off since it only took an afternoon. I actually expected it to take the afternoon and the next morning, but I was wrong. So then I hopped another tuk-tuk the next day to go to Sigiriya, my next destination which was 2 hours away, where Rei would be joining me. She was only going to arrive late at night and I got there around lunch time, but the only thing to do in Sigiriya is climb Sigiriya Rock. I had to wait for Rei to do that though, so I was wandering around town looking for something else to do and saw a bunch of jeep safaris advertised, which I ended up signing up for. There's a bunch of wildlife in Sri Lanka, but the most famous are probably elephants. I hadn't intended to go see them because I've seen plenty of wildlife and didn't think I'd have time, but in the end I did, so rather than sit in the hotel all afternoon watching TV, I decided to go. I went with this French couple and we took off for Mineriya National Park, just a half hour away from Sigiriya. This is one of the best places to find elephants, and now is apparently the best time to see them because they all gather in the area at this time of year for some reason. It has to do with the change between wet and dry season (wet season is just about to start) and the abundance of grass or something like that, but it means there's hundreds of elephants in the national park. And since it's not high season in Sri Lanka, there's not a million tourists (but there are still a lot of other jeeps around). So we spent a couple hours in the park looking at elephants (and we even saw one just randomly decide it didn't like the jeeps and charge at one, ramming head on into it. I thought it was going to tip over. It didn't. Luckily it wasn't near us, cause that shit was freaky). After that, it was back to the hotel to wait for Rei and continue with the trip, which I'll talk about later.
I already mentioned that while I was in Sri Lanka a bunch of good music came out, and one of those excellent releases was 22, A Million, the new album from Bon Iver. I put them on the blog earlier this year and talked about how excited I was they were making new music, so no need to go into that. But now that the album is out I can tell you about my favorite songs. One of them is the 2nd single off the album (well, 3rd song released, but 2nd single as the 1st single had 2 tracks), 33 "GOD".
Great track. And great album. I'm not sure everyone agrees, though. Well, that's not comletely true. I think everyone agrees it's a great album, but some people are not 100% happy with it. Which I disagree with. People feel like it's a new voice or something, but I don't feel that way at all. People said the same thing when Bon Iver, Bon Iver came out, saying that it was so different and that it took getting used to. I actually think that what Bon Iver has done with both Bon Iver, Bon Iver and 22, A Million is they have successfully managed to evolve, something many bands try and fail to do. So many bands try something new and end up losing themselves and making crap music, but Bon Iver has somehow managed to add new elements and layers to their music, use new tools or instruments or styles, without losing the core of who they are, in my opinion. I feel like pretty much every song on 22, A Million is distinctly Bon Iver at the core. There's still so much of the style and musicality and base layers in each track, and it's just everything that goes around that which has changed, taking in new influences and staying extremely current. But you can still hear the core in there, and it's still very Bon Iver.
Take, for example, 715 CREEKS. This is probably my favorite track on the album. At the beginning, one of Bon Iver's signature characteristics was the layering of the vocals, but there was always a distorted element to it. He's been doing this forever. You can hear it on Woods, off of the Blood Bank EP, and even in The Wolves off of For Emma, Forever Ago. With 715 CREEKS, rather than building up the layers like he used to, he's used autotune (probably better than anyone has ever used autotune) to create a similar effect, keeping one of the most basic Bon Iver characteristics, but updating it. So that's my 2 cents. I think the album is fantastic. I think it's a very clearly organic growth for the band, and the only thing I'm not happy about is how short it is.
I started out in Colombo, the capital. I wasn't actually planning to spend much time there because everyone says there's really no point, but I have 2 friends that just moved there, so ended up staying with them a couple days. And everyone (including my friends who live there) are right - as a tourist, there isn't much to do. But when with friends, it can be lovely. We did pretty much nothing. Just had a little wander around, ate, drank afternoon cocktails, watched sunset at the ocean... It was pretty fantastic. Good weather, good company, cold (not so good, sadly) beer, good people, good food. What more could you want? And as much traveling as I've been doing lately (pretty much nonstop since my family came on June 1), this is the first time I've felt like I was on vacation. Every other trip has been super busy or super short or just non-stop, and this was 2 days in Colombo of really doing next to nothing. It was exactly what I needed, actually. It was also lovely to spend time with my 2 friends there. They're actually friends of friends who I've met 3-4 times over the years, and they are a lovely couple, but I've never really gotten to know them that well. It's always just been a dinner or a day together in a group, but we had like 3 days with just the 3 of us, and it was really fantastic. Hopefully I'll get to see them again soon.
After Colombo I was out on my own to explore some ancient capitals. I hopped a 6 hour very local bus with no A/C up to Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's oldest and most famous ancient capital. This place was first established as a capital in pre-Jesus times (that's a technical term. PJT for short), and then was moved a few times around the 10th century, then came back, and then moved again never to return. Now, it's full of ruins. But having been a royal capital, there are very few palaces. Most of what you find are these enormous (and some not so enormous, actually) stupas. They're mostly still in use, with active Buddhist temples attached to them that manage the upkeep. A lot of stuff in Anuradhapura (and the other locations I went) were pretty much lost to the jungle and only rediscovered by British colonialists in the 19th century, which is when they started rebuilding some of the sites. The Lonely Planet makes Anuradhapura sound like a huge complex of temples spread over a plain, so it had me thinking of Bagan in Burma before I went. Sadly I think that got my expectations up too much, because while the stupas are pretty impressive, it really is just a bunch of stupas, not a whole massive complex of temples or palaces. And it's also not that many temples, just a handful spread across the plains. There are a couple areas with some nice ruins in the forest, but for the most part it doesn't even feel that ancient. Also I got really dehydrated because Sri Lanka is SO HOT!
I had left myself 2 days in Anuradhapura, which ended up being too much. So on the 2nd afternoon I took a tuk-tuk to Mihinthale, a neighboring town which has a temple on top of a mountain. This was actually quite nice for a few reasons. First, tuk-tuks are awesome so it was fun to sit in it for like an hour. Plus the driver stopped at this random bodhi tree on the way that was massive and beautiful and impressive, and which I would have known nothing about if not for him. The temple itself was also great, first because it's on a mountain and has great views of the surrounding country. Also I got a guide who explained a bunch of stuff to me and made it much more interesting. But in the end, it was still just a couple of stupas and a ton of monkeys, plus a bunch of foundations for other ruined buildings.
Since my tuk-tuk ride was so nice the day before, I decided to have the driver take me 3 hours to Polonaruwa the next day. Polonaruwa is another ancient capital, which the guide books make less of, but which I thought was much more interesting. It's still just a bunch of ruins, but there's a much wider variety of ruins here. You have a couple of big stupas, but you also have ruins of palaces, Hindu temples, monasteries, cave carvings and more, all in a very small area, which makes it easy to get around and see in an afternoon. Plus the artwork and carvings here are also much more impressive than in Anuradhapura. If you go to Sri Lanka and only have time for one, don't listen to the guidebooks and go to Anuradhapura, go to Polonaruwa instead.
So that was just a quick stop off since it only took an afternoon. I actually expected it to take the afternoon and the next morning, but I was wrong. So then I hopped another tuk-tuk the next day to go to Sigiriya, my next destination which was 2 hours away, where Rei would be joining me. She was only going to arrive late at night and I got there around lunch time, but the only thing to do in Sigiriya is climb Sigiriya Rock. I had to wait for Rei to do that though, so I was wandering around town looking for something else to do and saw a bunch of jeep safaris advertised, which I ended up signing up for. There's a bunch of wildlife in Sri Lanka, but the most famous are probably elephants. I hadn't intended to go see them because I've seen plenty of wildlife and didn't think I'd have time, but in the end I did, so rather than sit in the hotel all afternoon watching TV, I decided to go. I went with this French couple and we took off for Mineriya National Park, just a half hour away from Sigiriya. This is one of the best places to find elephants, and now is apparently the best time to see them because they all gather in the area at this time of year for some reason. It has to do with the change between wet and dry season (wet season is just about to start) and the abundance of grass or something like that, but it means there's hundreds of elephants in the national park. And since it's not high season in Sri Lanka, there's not a million tourists (but there are still a lot of other jeeps around). So we spent a couple hours in the park looking at elephants (and we even saw one just randomly decide it didn't like the jeeps and charge at one, ramming head on into it. I thought it was going to tip over. It didn't. Luckily it wasn't near us, cause that shit was freaky). After that, it was back to the hotel to wait for Rei and continue with the trip, which I'll talk about later.
I already mentioned that while I was in Sri Lanka a bunch of good music came out, and one of those excellent releases was 22, A Million, the new album from Bon Iver. I put them on the blog earlier this year and talked about how excited I was they were making new music, so no need to go into that. But now that the album is out I can tell you about my favorite songs. One of them is the 2nd single off the album (well, 3rd song released, but 2nd single as the 1st single had 2 tracks), 33 "GOD".
Great track. And great album. I'm not sure everyone agrees, though. Well, that's not comletely true. I think everyone agrees it's a great album, but some people are not 100% happy with it. Which I disagree with. People feel like it's a new voice or something, but I don't feel that way at all. People said the same thing when Bon Iver, Bon Iver came out, saying that it was so different and that it took getting used to. I actually think that what Bon Iver has done with both Bon Iver, Bon Iver and 22, A Million is they have successfully managed to evolve, something many bands try and fail to do. So many bands try something new and end up losing themselves and making crap music, but Bon Iver has somehow managed to add new elements and layers to their music, use new tools or instruments or styles, without losing the core of who they are, in my opinion. I feel like pretty much every song on 22, A Million is distinctly Bon Iver at the core. There's still so much of the style and musicality and base layers in each track, and it's just everything that goes around that which has changed, taking in new influences and staying extremely current. But you can still hear the core in there, and it's still very Bon Iver.
Take, for example, 715 CREEKS. This is probably my favorite track on the album. At the beginning, one of Bon Iver's signature characteristics was the layering of the vocals, but there was always a distorted element to it. He's been doing this forever. You can hear it on Woods, off of the Blood Bank EP, and even in The Wolves off of For Emma, Forever Ago. With 715 CREEKS, rather than building up the layers like he used to, he's used autotune (probably better than anyone has ever used autotune) to create a similar effect, keeping one of the most basic Bon Iver characteristics, but updating it. So that's my 2 cents. I think the album is fantastic. I think it's a very clearly organic growth for the band, and the only thing I'm not happy about is how short it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment