We're up,

and the suspense of how the crab trap fared is killing us. How many can fit in there? how many can we possibly eat? It's our last day at the house; we'll be heading up to Colombo to the boys' new apartment tonight, so this is our only chance to take plunder of the lagoon.

The trap is marked with a piece of styrofoam bobbing 200 meters out. The night before we had seen the evening's fishermen in long, skinny boats near our buoy, waving burning palm fronds to dazzle their catch. I wonder if there's a fisherman's code where you don't mess with other people's lines and traps.

We zip out and haul up our trap. and...And...AND..... No crabs. Flopping insultingly inside though, is the ugliest fish I have ever seen. It is some obese pokemon-conjuring creature that looks like a cross between a deflated blowfish and a grey sock filled with lard. Sigh. Not entirely disheartened, we continue out to the opposite end of the large lagoon to try our hand at some oyster gathering near the gates of a military base. With two eagles circling overhead and a nearby sign that says "people fishing here will be shot on sight" in Sinhalese, we take turns leaning out the boat with blue rubber gloves and a metal pick, chipping giant, monstrous, supernaturally massive oysters off the submerged rock and tossing them into a laundry hamper. We get, like, a billion. We come back to the trap, let the little abomination free, and head back more or less victorious to eat juffles (grilled sandwich of homemade wheat nut bread, melted cheese, shallots and chili), pancakes, fruit, mango juice, and tambali (king coconut) juice.

After a good afternoon of freelance work, we are off to visit a local tea plantation. Their most precious tea (pure white tea) uses only the tiny topmost sprout of the tea plant, and is untouched by human hands, harvested by virgins (!) with golden scissors and being caught in a golden bowl. Before we get too impressed, our guide informs us that the scissors ad bowl are only GOLD PLATED. Charlatans! A 15 minute walk up to the processing building takes past rubber trees, papaya, mango, saffron, hibiscus, cinnamon and fresh green pepper. Seriously, how insultingly fertile is this area of the earth? The whole setup is allegedly organic, relying on fluorescent wild parrots to the pest work (virgin fluorescent wild parrots?). We take a quick tour of the processing plant, full of 18th century scales, conveyor belts and lots of whirring, toothy, open-faced machinery which has no doubt mangled uncountable limbs in its lifetime. We taste over 25 kinds of tea, slurping from a long row of teacups with a tiny spoon. Mysteriously, all of them tasted exactly like tea. I bought some tea.

Later at home I work wincingly on some more web stuff, my ginger, polar-white back now lobster-red from a morning at sea. Suddenly, there is a cry from AT in the yard. I run out in my bare feet and simultaneously experience the sight of a band of grey monkeys whipping around the treetops of the leafy yard and the sensation of a scorpion stabbing the shit out of one of my toes. Ok, well I didn't exactly see the scorpion, so it might have just been a really aggressive ant or one-toothed viper, but I am now wearing sandals at all times. We trail the moneys around as they make crazy leaps from palm to palm, but I am warned to not stand directly under them, as they are purportedly active pissers with amazing face-aim. Before heading in, AT hacks a limb off a prehistoric sized aloe plant, and my back is quickly repaired.

We have a drum jam with AT's parents.

Our last dinner consists of predictably fresh, giant prawns crusted with garlic, sesame and green onion, a nice salad, homemade bread toasts, and of course, our oysters, again served raw and broiled topped with chili, shallot and parmesan. I think of the legendary hospitality of my friend Eric, who always treats me to fresh oysters when I visit, and wish I could teleport him a plate of these self-caught behemoths in reciprocation. One is seriously bigger than my entire palm, and Barnaby finds not one, but two small pearls in the ones on his pate. What is going on here!!!!!!??????

Alas, all 5 star resort-ish things must come to an end, and it's time to head back to Colombo. It's a bumpy, 40% chance of death nighttime ride, so we elect to stop halfway and have a beach-side lager under patio lights with the ocean lapping happily to our left. I'm looking forward to describing the boys' place and the bustling, mind melting craziness that is Colombo, but it'll have to wait for the next installment. Gooood niiiiiight.

Music: Outrunners: Blazing Speed and Neon Lights with You