My first three days in Sri Lanka bordered on the boring, and
uneventful. Despite my research into the state of affairs in Sri Lanka, I was
quite reluctant to leave the city of Colombo, assuming that, as its capital
city, it would be more than capable of providing a week’s worth of culture and
entertainment. I soon found out that it was more like a day – of what was
filled with culture, but on the other hand hardly entertaining.
I did find out from a lot of Sri Lankans that Australia is
performing pretty badly (understatement of the year) at the Ashes, and they
struggled with the concept that I was from Australia, considering the fact that
they recognised my face as Asian.
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| Train and tuk tuks by the beach in Colombo |
I ended up exploring a bit of Colombo though, and started
making a stop motion picture that I hope to share with you all by the end of
this trip. Pettah market, again, was full of culture, but scored a generous 1
out of ten in terms of entertainment and pleasure. The market was for locals
and reeked of diesel fumes and dried fish, and one old woman spat at a girl I
was with, an action that highlighted the atmosphere in the place. It was as
though the locals didn’t want tourists in a place that was their own (Which
could be completely true, considering that I too despise busloads of tourists
taking photos of lampposts in Sydney). A look on tripadvisor would later
confirm that it wasn’t that great of a place to start my journeying. The people
at the hostel advised me to go to another part of Sri Lanka to explore a bit
more, and I decided to head down south to Galle, an old Dutch fort turned
seaside town.
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| From Galle Fort |
While Colombo was definitely not made for travellers, Galle
is a place that seems to thrive on the tourism of locals and foreigners. And
with places like this comes the inevitability of the tourist trap. And as
someone who’s been on the road for 4 months, I feel ashamed to say that I was
too full of pride to assert myself out of the situation.
It kicked off when I approached a tuk tuk driver for
directions to a guesthouse that someone at the hostel had stayed at the night
before. A man came out from the side of the road and started asking questions,
friendly enough. “Did I need a place to sleep?” “Where am I from?” “How long
are you staying in Sri Lanka?” All the while leading me to where I thought
would be the guesthouse I was talking about. He then proceeded to tell me that
all guesthouses had booked out rooms or ridiculously expensive rooms, and led
me to a dinghy villa where he showed me a room and asked if it was alright. I
said that it was, not having inspected it properly. I promptly left my clothes
bag in the room, locked it and after paying for it, left to explore the old
fort. The man left with me, not because I requested it, but because this was
what he did for money (unknown to me at the time). He showed me around the
fort, presenting me with historical detail that I didn’t really care for, and honestly
couldn’t understand anyway. Later on, he presented me with a story about his
daughter and how he had to take care of his family. Whether it was true or not,
it was an inevitable guilt trip asking me to pay him for his unannounced and
unwanted tour around Ye Olde Fort Galle. At the end of the trip I realised that
I didn’t have enough Sri Lankan Rupees to pay the amount that he requested, and
so he asked for other forms of currency. I, wanting to just go by myself, relax
and read a book, obliged, partly to get rid of old Kumar, but also because his
guilt trip actually worked.
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| Walking on a precarious ledge with my "guide" Kumar |
And so, having been left on a street in Galle with no
directions to go anywhere, I started my adventure.
I went for a casual walk around the other side of the fort
that I had not been shown before and came to rest on an outcrop of the fort
where I sat on the edge (with a 20 metre drop below) and read my book, feeling
the wind blowing in my face and listening to the sound of the waves crashing
below. There is a certain sense of serenity that comes with sitting somewhere,
where the slightest of touches could leave you falling to your death, or at
least multiple injuries. A feeling of balance and trust that you are steady
enough to be still and safe.
I left after two hours, a hundred pages, and a lot of Sri
Lankans who had apparently never seen an Asian man in their life and wanted to
take photos with me (maybe I’m just ridiculously attractive). As the sun set on
the fort behind the clouds, the sky turned into the intense purply-orange blend
of colour that you only see in sunsets and sunrises, and soon turned to
darkness. I watched a group of young Sri Lankan youths dancing to others
singing and clapping along with a Sri Lankan song blaring from the speakers of
a tuk tuk. I was considering joining the dance but then I remembered that my
dancing is reminiscent of that of a log. Instead, I decided that I would go and
appease my tastebuds and found a nice rooftop restaurant above a much nicer
guesthouse than where I was staying and ordered rice and curry – something simple
to enjoy. Or not. Half an hour later, the waiter came out with an empty plate,
A platter of rice about 30 cm long, a bowl of papadums, and 8 different curries.
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| mmm dat sunset |
Another 2 hours later I was finished and bloated. As I
entered my room with non-working fan, moth eaten sheet and dirty blue walls, I
thought to myself that something like this is absolutely inevitable.
It is an inherent and intrinsic part of travel, it is something that has to be experienced.
When I asked Dennis why we’d been pulled over, he gave me an
answer that was so ridiculous I just had to laugh: The police had seen me as we
cruised past and thought that the combination of an Asian and a Black man was
suspicious, and they assumed that Dennis, my friendly guide, had kidnapped me
and the others. A somewhat racist judgement, but the police officer was also a
native African. As we sat laughing about the situation, the conversation turned
to more serious issues about the lingering racist sentiment from many white
South Africans towards the black South Africans. The racial divide set by
apartheid had not yet been conquered and the difference in socio economic
standards was still very evident – especially in the slums of Soweto. 
Eventually we arrived at the Lion Park and I got to do a
mini safari, seeing springboks, impalas, hawks, giraffes, wild dogs, cheetahs
and of course, lions. They were a lot bigger than I expected, especially
because we got very close to them. I would spend time describing them, but I
figured pictured would be more effective, you know, pictures are worth 1000
words ;). 
