Pasikudah Me By
My camera had a small nervous breakdown near Yala East. This is a shitty video screen cap. The rainbow barely shows
We took the bus up to Batti, had parata, beef curry and kiri hodi at Thammy’s in the Fort. Five checkpoints coming in. Took the bus out to Kalkudah, Passikudah. One checkpoint going out. The military is organizing a big show on the beach so we went swimming in, effectively, a camp. Nice guys. Took a jog to the rocks across land that’s been given out to hotels. Kalkudah’s deserted. Not for long.
On the way back I was a hungry hungry hippo. We stopped at Logi’s kade where they were just putting the Kottu on. It came complete with big hunks of beef, one portion was enough to feed three. I highly recommend it. The shop is called Shalini. You literally cannot miss it. For now.
Logi said that Ranil Wickremasinghe and Anura Bandaranaike used to have hotels here, before the war. Gone now, bulldozed over for new developments. Now land has been given out to Gotabaya Rajapakse and Mahinda’s doctor. Among others. Apparently the entire coast we jogged along has been given out to developers.
Which is cool I guess. We’ve been roughing it something special, standing on the Valachchenai bus, smacking my head on the rail of the Batti bus as I dozed off in traffic. It’s not hard to get here but it’s not, like, easy. Once here we just got a room for Rs. 700 at The New Land Guesthouse (065 568 0440). That’s for a triple. Getting a cuttlefish dinner for like Rs. 150.
This place is still tough for girls, or older people used to more creature comforts. Roughing it is fun, but I suppose it gets old at some point, as one ages. If there was more development and, like, street lights that might be good. It just makes it a bit harder to see the stars.
Did you go snorkling? Was it clear?
Who is Mahinda’s doctor? Is it that quack White?
Also, how can the land be given out? Surely, people who owned land had deeds for them.
when did that ever matter?
People who owned the land are most probably in camps….
didn’t go snorkeling and no I don’t think the people who owned land on the east are in camps as Kalkudah wasn’t an active battle zone. They mostly seem to be there
there are other means in which the govt. could have acquired the land; maybe it was ‘nationalized’.
I drove past Pasikudah in late 2005, and my driver started reminiscing about days in his youth that he and his friends used to camp there. He said that stopped a long time ago, because the beaches became contaminated with war remnants. This would imply that at some stage these beaches were a site for war, which could have chased away the then-inhabitants.
my family’s ancestral home in Batti was commandeered by the Army. Instead of fighting for it back, they moved to Colombo and forgot about it. Many others would have done the same.
If the land was ‘nationalized’, then the govt would have paid compensation. The compensation would have been a joke, but still… This is what happened to our lands that were ‘nationalized’ by the ‘Kussi Amma’. Anyway, if you were not paid anything the land is still yours, and worth a lot of money, stake a claim.