Thursday, August 2, 2007

A quick Summary of Sri Lanka

Below I depart for India for 3 months (which possibly means no updates till November!), I thought I better write something about Sri Lanka, of which I spent a good ONE solid month there.

The intention was quite clear
1) Experience Ayurvedic Treatment
2) Teach English in a rural school
3) Experience local lives
4) Surf at Arugambay
5) Enjoy the Hill County scenery and climate
6) Evade any LTTE related bombs or aggression and come back in one piece!

Glad to say I achieved all of them and possibly more!

Few key things to note:
1) Sri Lankans are very friendly and accommodating people. No problems asking people around in English, even though they might not really understand, they are more then happy to ask around and assist you.

2) They like to come and talk to you! And its the usual questions most of the time. So, pardon me..I was a bit pissed at some point of the trip as I just wanted to sit alone and have my meal!

3) Power cuts happened at almost all the 6-7 places I stayed throughout! Some took the whole night and day to recover, others a few minutes to an hour. Totally unpredictable. Keep the torch nearby!

Highlights of the Trip
1) Bathing in a local's house, which is next to the National Reserve. Apparently, elephants do casually stroll by once a while. Btw, the bath was completely open air with a shower head attached to a tree. I was quite conscious indeed on who was around me, despite it being around 9+pm at night and it was almost complete darkness around me.

2) Teaching English in the Rural School -> The children were an absolute delight and constantly trying to "grab" me for the next period as they had many free periods due to shortage of teaches. We played some cricket together, they plucked some "tangerine" (don't look like what I know, but at least this is the translation given to me) from the trees (literally a 10yr old kid scaling a tree up 2-3 storeys in the air!) and sang lots of English nursery rhymes..haha

3) Being proposed on a lonely stetch of Arugam Bay while I was walking back in near darkness. Here is how the conversation went when I passed by a group of late teens.
Teen: Konichiwa..(BOW DEEPLY) *notice exaggerated emphasis on word*
Me: No no, me not japanese
Teen: OH!? Where are you from?
Me: Singapore
Teen: AHHHH....Singapore, I LIKEEEEEEEE!! Can I F#%@ YOU??!!

Figured A) they could have learned it randomly and just using it without knowledge what it meant, B)they know what it means and just playing a fool, or C)they really know what they mean and mean what they say. Either way, just kept quiet and continued walking back as calmly as possible.

4) Experiencing the power of WAVES! I did think about the Tsunami quite abit during the 7-8 nights I was sleeping by the coast, both the West and Eastern site which were all hit by the Tsunami in 2005. After experiencing the waves (surfed and got thrown about riddiculously), and the underwater currents (2 different directions while the wave was retreating) when just standing in knee depth water, my respect for nature has gone sky high indeed.

5) Having a free roller coaster ride while sitting in the cheap but life threatening public buses. The bus hardly stops completely, even when picking up or dropping passengers and having secured the prime seat right at the back, I had a couple of "BUTT in the air 30cm above the seat" moments indeed while enjoying the F1 speeds and scenery.

6) Seeing the Room To Read work in Sri Lanka, visiting 2 pre-schools, 1 primary school,1 library and meeting 64 scholarship girls! Photos here. Coming back more committed than ever that education is one of the ways to reduce poverty around the world. John Wood, founder of Room To Read will be in Singapore on 14th September for a fund raising event. Please email me at tayandy06@yahoo.com.sg or drop me a comment if you would like to meet this incredible man (whom I sadly have not and will not have a chance to do so during my travel this year!)

7) Set up my own mosquito net in my final 4 nights in Colombo. OK, no biggie, but to me...was nice! :) Sleeping with spiders and lizards and frogs around me was also quite cool...And chewing the betel nut/leaves. Not my favourite, but still an experience indeed!

8) Hearing Ajit (my travel agent)speak and sharing stories of his business, the corruption in Sri Lanka and the Indian tourists and business opportunities. Truly a mind-blowing evening at a very nice Irish Pub with one of the most fantastic live bands! I would highly recommend you going through Ajit to planning your Sri Lankan adventure! I "used" him for the first 10 days or so, and it was perfect.

Please do drop your comments and if you would like more "crap" while I'm travelling in India, do let me know! For the record, I should be doing the following courses:

1) Vipassana Meditation Course (10 days)
2) Basic Mountaineering Course (28 days)
3) SSY Yoga Course (8 days)
4) His Holiness Dalai Lama's teachings (3 days)

amongst abit of travelling around Mumbai and the north western area of india!
Some of the additional stuff to see and do include:
1) Desert Safari
2) Visit of the "Rat Temple" -> Yes, they worship rats there and they are all over
3) Trekking in Leh -> Little Tibet of India
4) Appearing in a Bollywood movie -> fingers crossed they need a "chinese" face, a chinese brothel owner or pimp or gangster maybe?!?!
5) Meeting the author of Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts. Incredible book, 936 pages long about Mumbai, a convict, the slums and the war...touching, heartwarming, inspiring..they're making a movie soon and Johnny Depp is the star! Apparently, Gregory was spotted in Mumbai already as filming is due to start soon!

OK, enough crap for today, I still haven't packed with 1 hour to get out of house!