Sri Lanka Diaries: Part One
If you’re expecting this to be a tale of many cities and adventures that will leave you on the edge of your seat, read on.
Background
In 2007, I decided to add some spice to life by travelling to a new destination on my birthday every year. In keeping with that decision, I chose Sri Lanka for my 25th. Apart from being close to southern India, the culture is similar too and therefore less likely to spring unpleasant surprises.
Arrival
So, I found myself at Bandaranaike International Airport at 1 a.m. on October 6, 2008, wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into. “Not to worry,” I thought to my very Indian-ised mind, “Lonely Planet to the rescue.” By that time, I had managed to figure out a Sri Lankan bank ATM, gotten small change for the large denomination currency notes and learnt that the post office counter had phones I could use to make local calls. So I flipped through my ‘trusty’ Lonely Planet Sri Lanka guide to find Mr. Srilal Fernando’s number in hope that he would be able to pick me up instead of me having to take a taxi to his guesthouse in Negombo. Alas, the phone rang and rang and rang some more, but to no avail. He must have gone to sleep, tired of waiting for my phone call that was due an hour earlier. I couldn’t help it if my flight was delayed!
Anyway, I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to reach him, especially when I needed to find a bed to sleep on, pronto! So, back to flipping pages, I went. I called up Hotel Silver Sands next, and as luck would have it, the phone was answered and a room was available! Ka-ching! What made this success sweeter was the fact that there was already someone on his way to the airport to pick up other guests – three Dutch girls – who would be staying at the same hotel that night. It didn’t take this blessed someone long to find me at the post office counter and point out the three Dutch girls I was to join on my ride to the hotel in Negombo. So I tottered off with my collection of luggage to wait with The Three Dutch Girls, while the blessed someone went to retrieve his Japanese van from its parking space.
The Three Dutch Girls
In the small talk that ensued, it was established that The Three Dutch Girls were travelling for four weeks in Sri Lanka and they were doing it to celebrate their friendship – a friendship between ten girls (the others were slated to join them later). When one of them stated that I was brave to be travelling alone, I sought to inform them that I was used to not having much company while travelling and that I was travelling to Sri Lanka to celebrate my birthday. No sooner had the word “birthday” escaped my mouth than The Three Dutch Girls erupted, gesticulating wildly, unable to contain their amazement. It turned out that I shared my birth date with one of them. I turned 25 that day. She turned 25 that day. Sri Lanka was the place to be for people turning 25 that day. Could I have had a more interesting welcome to the erstwhile Serendib? I think not!
The Blessed Someone
Soon we were in the slightly drunken blessed someone’s Japanese van, with him trying his best to impress The Three Dutch Girls in Sinhalese-like German and I, taking in the delightful new surroundings. What is it about men from the Indian subcontinent and their compulsive need to impress women from the white lands? I have yet to come across a brown man who doesn’t try to be someone else in the company of white women. I would have found this sort of social interaction amusing were it not for the fact that I seemed invisible to the now not-so-blessed someone. Oh well, as long as I wasn’t the one at the receiving end of Sinhalese-like German. Besides, I was having a pleasant time observing how well-maintained the roads were.
It was 2 a.m. before I finally had a hotel room to myself but strangely enough I wasn’t tired by then. Maybe it was the feeling of wondering whether I had actually made the journey from Chennai to Katunayake to Negombo or whether it was just a dream that I would wake up from soon. I took a hot shower to make sure it wasn’t a dream and finally settled into my mosquito net covered bed for my first snooze slightly southeast of India.
