Sunday 30 November 2008

Sri Lanka

I'm sitting in a cyber cafe in Negombo, 10km away from Colombo airport, and after almost a week here we're both looking forward to getting out of here. ***WARNING***There's going to be a lot of moaning below but I will actually write about where we've been - honest!

Ok, maybe it's a stupid statement but Sri Lanka is no India. Although the exchange rate is in your favour (163Rupees/pound), the locals and cost of living aren't. Everyone it seems is dying to rip you off. I've had a think about this and I think one of the main reasons is that this is more of a 'tourist trap' country than India.

The whole of the west coast is laid over to lavish resorts where fat Europeans come to spend two weeks and take in the sun and pay little or no attention to the culture the country does have. In response the locals and everyone you meet wants your money. People aren't particularly friendly, and the whole week we have been here it has felt as though we are being royally fleeced of our hard-earned cash.

Another reason I don't like it here is because of the driver and guide we foolishly chose hoping this would be the best way to see everything we wanted in 7 days. Everyone recommends that when you come to Sri Lanka you get a guide - mainly because of the ongoing war with the Tamil Tiger separatists. I would quite happily face a battalion of these militants than spend another hour in the car with Siri.

From the moment we arrived he was rude, he didn't like the route we had planned so chose his own, and he seemed more concerned with getting kickbacks and commission than guiding us. He would refuse to stay in any of the guesthouses we had chosen unless they had driver accommodation (we argued and won though), tried to con us into paying for his meals - which were included in the weekly fee we'd paid, refused to stop the car if we wanted to get a drink and generally was unhelpful.

Now, I'm pretty stubborn at times but compared to Angela (she will kill me for this) I'm a pushover. I tried my hardest to get on with this guy, I really did, but his grasp of English was so poor not even VERY LOUD ENGLISH would get through. But from the start Angela and Siri were at war.

It all reached a head yesterday, when after taking us to a restaurant he'd chosen for lunch, we had to wait for him to finish his food before we could set off! We were paying for this! After driving us six-hours across Sri Lanka to Negombo we'd had enough, we promptly found a hotel and terminated his services(I loved doing it). I was dying for him to ask me for a tip, just so I could tell him to sling his hook, but sensing our rage he left quietly.

Ok. Driver aside what are the sights like in Sri Lanka? Overpriced and overrated. In the four days we were travelling around we saw:

  • Sigiriya's Rock (tagline - 'The 8th Wonder of the World'), well no it's just a really big, quite impressive rock, that you have to risk your life to climb. Don't bother.
  • Dambulla Caves -five caves revered by Buddhists and containing lots of Buddha statues and paintings. There are interesting stories about each one, but the walk up to the caves is steep and you're hounded by beggars and hawkers (I told them I had renounced worldly goods to seek enlightenment and they just stared back at me blankly) so give it a miss.
  • Kandy. Sri Lanka's 2nd biggest city and one of the country's holiest Buddhist sites (and home to the Buddha's actual tooth, which is worshipped like a god, but which may or may not be a bison's tooth). Actually quite good.
  • Pinnewala Elephant orphanage. This was good, lots of elephants, 75 at last count. Highlight: Watching them all stampede down a busy street for their daily bath. This was good but was overshadowed by me being ripped off by betelnut-addicted palm reader - I will live to "96-years minimum, I will be good in business, I will have a boy and a girl, who will be clever and successful, and I would be especially good as an electrician".
  • White-water rafting. This was brilliant. Angela fell out. We both kind of wish we'd spent the whole week doing this instead! We got to swim in the rapids as well (swim is probably not the right word) in just our life jackets and helmets.
  • Adam's Peak. Our plan had been to attempt to climb this famous mountain (2,300m high), but persistently bad weather and stomach upsets forced us to abandon our climb. Bit of a bummer as if you reach the top you can see the Buddha's actual footprint (honest). Nevermind - maybe on our nest visit? or not.

Also, the rain has hardly abated since we landed. We did have a day round the pool today, but as I write this the rain is hammering down outside and we're having a full-blown thunderstorm.

Nevermind though - on to Singapore!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Sri Lanka wasn't what you had expected then. I hope you have a better experience in Singapore. Look forward to the next post. Enjoy yourselves. Kelly B xx