Pore to Singapore and back

VINOD

At Pore they are building the new Outer Circular Highway across the Malabe-Godagama road. For the past couple of years I have watched its progress, from the day they started filling the marsh for the service road. Construction work has been steady. It was held up a little at the beginning, when heavy rains and floods impeded work. However, since then the contractors appear to have caught up and one can now see embryonic ferro-concrete columns emerging out of the marsh, over which the road will fly. As an aside, the planners have, unfortunately, not seen fit to include an exit to the highway at Pore. Every planned exit from the Outer Circular, at Kottawa, Kaduwela, Kadawata and Kerawalapitiya, feeds onto bottlenecks: on the High Level, Low Level, Kandy and Negombo roads, respectively.

New motorway

The Malabe-Godagama Road, on the other hand, is relatively free of traffic. It feeds the Kaduwela-Colombo Road at Malabe, the Pothuarawa Road, which goes via the new Army HQ at Akuregoda, to Pelawatte and also the Talawatugoda-Hokandara Road and thereby the Parliament road.

The steady progress I see on the Outer Circular Road had not been visible on Sri Lanka's first motorway, the Southern Expressway. It had been bedevilled by delays, both in the planning stages and during construction. It was finally opened - not fully complete - by the President last Sunday.

I had been meaning for some time to travel on the new motorway. I finally did, on Monday and it was well worth the wait. Having filled up the petrol tank of my trusty Maruti Wagon R at Aturugiriya, I drove to Makumbura, Kottawa where the entry point is to the Southern Expressway. The High Level Road is a bit messy here, as the new flyover, meant for it to cross the Outer Circular is still under construction.

Unemployed labour force

I had read that Japanese electronics had been utilised for the collection of tolls, so I expected an automated toll gate. However, it was manned by an affable young man who gave me my ticket and a set of instructions. Having manned booths is probably a good idea, given that our drivers are not used to automated toll gates and since we still have a fairly large unemployed labour force, it makes sense to employ human beings.

From then on, it was like entering a different world, as if I had gonefrom Pore to Singapore. A road, clearly demarcated into two lanes, neatly bounded by shiny steel crash barriers; and traffic which actually obeyed the rules of the road.

It took me precisely 58 minutes to get from Kottawa to my intended exit point at Baddegama. I did not drive fast, averaging about 80 km/h. Of course, there were few vehicles on the road, and the ones that did - with a single exception - stayed on the left lane.

People are apprehensive of driving on the new motorway - that there may be more accidents, because drivers are not used to it. After all, the 100 km/h limit is rather high,

one thinks - until one translates it into the equivalent 63 mph. I am used to driving on the normal roads of Sri Lanka, where all drivers but me are self-centred, illmannered louts who couldn't care two hoots about the rules of the road. So driving on the Southern Expressway was particularly restful.

Breathtaking scenery

I would have fallen asleep except for the breathtaking scenery. The way is slightly elevated for much of its route, so one has a better view than on regular roads. I saw Adam's Peak away on the left shortly after passing Kahathuduwa.

Once past the marshlands of Raigama, beyond the Kaluganga, one drives past verdant hills, forests and plantations. Some hills have been cut away, revealing the granite, down which drop miniature waterfalls when it rain.

However, once I debouched from the motorway at Baddegama, reality hit me once more. The exits were well signposted but the roads immediately after were not and I ended up on a dreadful road beside the Ginganga.

I later went back to Kurundugahahetakma on the ordinary road and drove down to Galle on the Expressway, which took about 20 minutes at a leisurely pace. The road back along the sea was, needless to say, chaotic

and my average speed was closer to 20 km/h than to 40. Driving back to Colombo on Tuesday morning, the man at the toll both informed me that the ticketissuing machine had broken down. He laboriously wrote me one by hand - which caused an equal delay at the other end. Back in Hokandara, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, although I had done 320 km, my petrol tank was half full.

Way to paradise

Usually I run empty after 400-450 km. My mileage included a total of 230 km on the Expressway, the remainder on ordinary roads, so I reckon I would have saved about 4 litres. Modern road vehicles are designed optimally to travel uninterruptedly on motorways at more than 60 km/h, which is when they return their best economy figures. They do not do well in heavy traffic which moves at an average 40 km/h - which is the norm for Sri Lanka. Of course, the Wagon R is very thrifty on petrol. On a larger car, the saving would be greater. As it was, my total expenditure on tolls was Rs 850. =I saved Rs 600 in petrol, so in fact I only paid Rs 250 in order to travel in two hours and 20 minutes what would normally have taken me an aggravating 6 1/2 hours.

An expatriate friend said of the new road, quoting Joni Mitchell that 'they paved over paradise'. Not true, really. It is more like opened the way to paradise. I am just waiting for the rehabilitation of the South Coast Railway line to be completed so we can travel by train at the designed 90 km/h once again.