Low Gear
Appreciation
I think the main thing I’m going to take away from this trip is an appreciation for the things that I have and the life that I live. It’s been really great just getting away from home and getting away from everything that I take for granted in my day to day life. Yeah there’s a lot of stupid day to day stuff that annoy me and that I wish I didn’t have to deal with but at the end of the day I live a pretty great life full of things that I really appreciate and love. A little list of things that I miss right now:
Family
Sarah
Coffee
Cooking
Working out
Veggies
Big Salads
My Knife
My bed
I realize these are all pretty simple things and that makes me happy that I can find such joy in the simplest things in life. I also realize that I don`t miss work; I love my job and all but work is work.
I also appreciate the world that I live in and the possibilities that it offers. I can continue training and educating myself for a better and bigger future for myself and continue challenging myself for a more worldly me. I`d venture to say that the majority of the people on the planet don’t have that luxury, whether from external forces or from internal forces within themselves that prevent them from making those changes or make them unaware of the power they do have to change.
Stepping Outside of Yourself
There’s one thing I wish I could do on this trip and that’s step outside of myself and my cultural confines and see things from the perspective of a Sri Lankan. I’m extremely interested in how the majority of Sri Lankans view us westerners and you’ll never get a straight answer from the people themselves. Many places you go people hassle you to buy their stuff or pester you if you need a taxi or tuk tuk ride. You’ll be walking down the street and you’ll hear someone yelling “hello!” and you’ll look over to see a guy next to a 3-wheeler tuk tuk asking “tuk tuk?” This gets pretty annoying pretty quick and as a westerner when someone yells hello to you its instinct to turn and say hello back. The tuk tuk drivers and shopkeepers come across as a bit stupid and airheaded with their constant “hello, tuk tuk?” and “hello, come see,” but I’m curious as to their perception of us westerners; perhaps they view us the idiotic cattle who’s attention is easily obtained with a basic tactic of saying hello or feed on our politeness of always saying hello in return to bait us in. Will never know…
Lone Male Traveller
Being a lone male traveller has its advantages, with regards to safety and security, compared to being a lone female traveller or a family travelling together with children or even a couple travelling together. Yeah I have to keep my wits about me but I can take some liberties as compared to other groups of people. Basically put, I’m not as vulnerable as others but it’s that vulnerability that allows other people to be open and open up to other people in different countries and cultures. As a male I’m not easily approached by Sri Lankan women, children and even men. Women on the other hand have the benefit of being able to converse and exchange with both segments of the population. Make it a couple and it’s that much easier. Add children to the mix and you see families from the different worlds mingling, exchanging and opening up. As the lone male traveller I feel I’m rather cut off from those experiences and cultural exchanges because I am not as vulnerable as others.
Haggling
One weird thing about Sri Lanka is that people don’t really haggle all that much. I’m used to elsewhere in Southeast Asia or China where haggling for goods in the market is part of life and part of the culture. Here you go to the market and show an interest in something and begin the haggling game, asking for a better deal or offering less money and people won`t hear any of it. If the price is 600 rupee, it`s 600 rupee. I`ve seen shopkeepers walk away from people looking at their goods after telling them the price. Meanwhile the usual taxi rides and tuk tuks are negotiable and oddly enough the rooms in guesthouses are open to haggling too.
Tipping
Another area of confusion is tipping in Sri Lanka; some restaurants expect tips, others you don’t meanwhile you pay to go on a tour and then there’s the expectation that you’re to tip the tour guy but what was the ticket cost for then? We paid to go on a tour of a tea factory. The tour guide was very friendly and knowledgeable but towards the end of the tour went ice cold on us. In hindsight we figured we were supposed to tip him. And how much do you tip? Is it a percentage or what? On top of that a number of places put a 10% surcharge on your order. Isn’t that for tips or is that taxes? Confused.
Nuwara Eliya
I spent a couple of days in Nuwara Eliya where about the most exciting thing I did was went to a tea factory. The place smelled amazing and got to see the basics of tea processing. It was a quick tour and kind of lousy but it was free. I was asking the tour guide a number of questions but she obviously didn’t know the answers and was obviously annoyed by me questions. The tea factory there was pretty touristy but it was free and they had free tea at the end of it. Nuwara Eliya was pretty nice and a nice change from the heat but not too much to see and do there and not a lot of food choices, which seems consistent to Sri Lanka thus far.
Ella
From Nuwara Eliya was a long train ride to Ella, a tourist town in the highlands. It was only about 75km tops to Ella but the trains are slow moving here, which is alright as the rides are usually a bit romantic and extremely scenic. Ella is a tourist town in the highlands but at a lower altitude so it’s much warmer than Nuwara Eliya. It’s pretty scenic here, surrounded by mountains and strangely touristy. It’s a lone strip of a town full of restaurants and guesthouses and not much else. It seems to be set entirely up for tourists. There is some hiking in the area but nothing major. The restaurants are pretty good though and it’s been a nice change. I took a cooking class, which was pretty solid and went to another tea factory. This tea factory was closed when we went to it but the guide gave us a tour anyway, which was probably for the best as the last one we went to was really loud. It was a pretty solid tour, I learned a lot and the guy had answers for all our questions. In retrospect I guess we should have tipped him; alas. Other than tea and cooking I just chilled out in Ella, did some reading and writing and worked out a bit. I found a nice place to stay and am enjoying the view while lying in my bed of the mountain (hill). I’d be tempted to do some more hiking but my calves are still sore from climbing Adam’s peak.
Biggest Fear
The biggest fear I have while on this trip and travelling in general is being bored. I’m so used to filling my days with something that I enjoy: working out, cooking, Sarah, work, my many DIY hobbies and projects and self-study…I’m fearful of getting bored without them. I’m 2 weeks in country and 2 weeks to go and I’m fearful that at some point I’ll be somewhere with nothing to do. It’s a funny notion really because on the other-hand I want to slow things down for the rest of my trip, spend more time in fewer places and just chill. I’m sure I could probably spend a couple days just sleeping in, working out and reading. From here I head south to the beach country and I’m hoping to find someplace comfortable to do just that.
Busses
Another thing on busses in Sri Lanka is their tackiness, the loud music and insane driving.
On most buses you’ll see the driver has decorated the front of their windshield and dashboard with tacky lights, trestles, and the guaranteed religious ornaments. This is typically a plastic Buddhist ornament of sort, often multiple statues, some somber, but most lighting up like a Christmas tree. From a western point of view, most of it is all very tacky and somewhat freaky. You’ll find this tackiness in a lot of places actually; temples, shrines, the side of the road…
On top of the tackiness of the busses is the loud blaring music. For some strange reason it’s within Sri Lankan culture to put huge speakers on busses and crank music as loud as it can go. You look around and it’s not like people are dancing, nodding their head to the music, humming along or even enjoying it really; it’s just there being blasted nonstop. So earplugs are a must on any bus ride and that’s almost not enough. The last bus ride I took the music was still loud even with earplugs. I was shocked how loud it was when I took them out at our destination.
Add to all that you have drivers who are peddle to the metal speeding up to around 80km/h, overtaking other vehicles on blind corners, swerving into other lanes on turns, driving oncoming traffic off the road and then slamming on the brakes to pick up a person signalling for a pickup. All the while the music is blaring, the tiny plastic Buddha is flickering away and the driver is constantly blasting on his horn. It’s kind of like a video game actually; swerving to miss obstacles, slowing down enough to pick people up all while the clock is ticking away.
Beach
I survived the last bus right and now I am typing while sitting on a beach in a town called Tangalla. The water is a bit rough here for swimming but the place suits my needs right now; beach, sun, warm weather and chilling out. I have a feeling this is how I will be spending the majority of the my remaining time here in Sri Lanka.
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