Kalutura
More or less synonymous with rush and reed
ware, Kalutara situated only 43 kilometers from
the city of Colombo is the entrée to
the world of white sandy beaches some of the
best in the world offered by Sri Lanka. An easily
accessible area, the town is only an hour drive
by bus and a half by hired transport but an
hour and half by train.
Most visitors approach this destination from
the north, and will behold first not the town
but the sight of the imposing white dagoba of
the Gangatilake Vihara as they traverse the
bridge across the Kalu-ganga - the Black River.
On the main road is the Gangatil Vihara where
you will note many vehicles pull over and stop
alongside this dagoba where the drivers rush
quickly to light a lamp, walk towards a small
Buddhist shrine with a pin-kate, or till, to
place their offerings to ensure the success
of their journeys. The Vihara has a hollow dagoba
(Buddhist shrine) with an interesting painted
interior.
With its wide highway and endless rows of brightly-
advertised shops it is difficult to imagine
that the town's history goes back to the 11th
century to the time of the South Indian Prince
called Vickramapandya who made it his seat of
government. It didn't last long, though,
for a year later he was murdered.
About 200 years after that, the maritime stretch
between Kalutara and Bentota was planted with
coconut on the orders of King Parakramabahu
II. Since then, this region has been largely
dependent on the coconut and its many by-products
for trade, both internal and external.
One of these by-products is toddy, the fermented
sap of the coconut flower, which is the favourite
alcoholic beverage among Sri Lankan workers.
Along the coastal strip of the Kalutara region,
and indeed all the way from Colombo to Galle,
observant visitors who look skyward will note
the two sets of rope running between the palm-leaf
crests of the coconut trees. These are used
by toddy-tappers to travel precariously - like
tight-rope walkers, but also holding on to a
rope above them - between trees. The process
begins with the binding of the buds of the coconut
tree to prevent them from flowering. Over the
next fortnight, the buds are mysteriously knocked
upon twice a day with a bone. At the end of
this period the tips of the buds are cut and
a pot is fastened to collect the dripping sap.
By using his rope network in the sky, the average
toddy-tapper can harvest more than 100 trees
every day, emptying the sap into a clay pot,
which he empties into a large container by periodically
returning to earth.
It was the spice trade that made Kalutara famous
a few centuries ago. The Portuguese, Dutch,
and British in turn built fortifications here
to guard the river entrance to the interior,
where the spices, in particular cinnamon, grew.
Today, however, the town is most famous for
its mangosteens, which are in season from May
to July, and sold at the roadside in inviting
purple-black heaps and in addition, some of
Sri Lanka's finest basket ware can be found
at Kalutara's Basket Hall.
Kalutara is also the centre of Sri Lanka's most
successful rubber-producing district which is
one of Sri Lanka's three main export crops.
A few meters inland will lead you to the unmistakable
plantations with their formal rows of silvery-trunked
rubber trees. The first rubber trees were grown
in Ceylon in the late 19th century from seeds
smuggled out of Brazil in bales of cotton. The
seeds from these initial trees were then dispersed
throughout South East Asia, thus providing half
a dozen countries with an economic mainstay.
But it is Sri Lanka and Malaysia that produce
the major portion of the world's supply of natural
rubber.
If you do have the eye for photography you will
be interested to learn that Kalutara was the
home in the late 19th century of Julia Margaret
Cameron, a notable woman of the Victorian era.
She was one of the very first portrait photographers
and had pioneered several techniques, such as
soft focus and harsh lighting, which heightened
the expressiveness of portraits. She took up
photography only in 1863, at the age of 48,
yet within a decade she had become a central
figure in this new medium and had photographed
many great figures of her time, including Charles
Darwin. Then, in 1875, at the height of her
fame, Cameron and her husband vacated their
home in England and sailed for Colombo. They
remained in Kalutara until their deaths in 1879,
and are buried in Bogawantalawa. Some of her
pictures can be seen at the National Museum,
Colombo. Much of her best work, however, is
housed in some of the world's major photographic
museums. Kalutara is a coastal town some 35
km south of Colombo.
Thus Kalutara is all in one a colonial turned
modern town increasingly attracting the tourist
whilst acting as an entrée to the beast
beaches of the country. As you pass through
this busy never forget to drop an offering at
the Gangatil Vihara or taste the ripe mangusteens
that will make the rest of your stay most treasured
and precious.
