First week.

I would have liked to document a day by day progress, but as I lead a fairly mundane existence at the best of times we’ll just condense things as space requires. In any event my first week in Sri Lanka was marred a tad by the effects of jet lag, an allergy to the mosquito bites causing my joints to swell and trying to adjust to the incredible heat and humidity. Let me just comment here on how much of a difference it was to my usual residence of Calgary Alberta… at home it can get so dry that even cactus plants get dehydrated – maybe I’m exaggerating a bit (okay a lot), but it’s just an analogy, so in my first week in Sri Lanka it felt like I was being steamed alive. At first my skin felt it was about two sizes too small which made the simplest movements stiff and awkward, the slightest effort would result in heat exhaustion or light dizziness, but still with all that was enjoying my time of… adjustment.

So with that, doing anything during the beginning of my stay was accomplished through great mental effort and a bit of leading around by relatives. As well I should note that I was going full force into the local lifestyle without the benefit of A/C and a very good mosquito repellant (Off! sports cream works well in Canada but the mosquitoes here treat it like an aperitif) – so the average tourist would probably fare much better as the environmental and cultural shock to system would be minimal.

Now as to my experience the first week and a few impressions, I do have a few interesting tales to tell; firstly my uncle (who is know in the family as a bit of prankster) had been preparing for my arrival a few days before and the local children were curious and asked him what he was doing, to which he replied that a visitor from Canada was arriving – the children immediately assumed it was a ‘sudtha’ or white person and got excited at the prospect. Of course instead of correcting the children on their misconception, he proceeded to play on their imaginations with stories of how the ‘sudtha’ needed things to be very clean (hence he managed to get some of the kids to help), as well ‘sudthas’ could only eat certain foods, were very tall and giant in stature… etc, etc.

So the next morning I woke up and shortly after breakfast, and a bunch of kids came around to see the strange ‘sudtha’... I probably looked a bit strange to them but was obviously no white person. Which was taken in good humor that they had been tricked but were still curious and tried talking to me in Singhala- unfortunately I had a rather limited vocabulary. Still I managed to play a few games and even taught a few card tricks to them, though jet lag set in pretty fast so only after a few hours took my leave and zonked out again.

The next few days were more and the same, gradually getting accustomed to the climate and picking up a few extra words of Sinhala here and there. Also visited my other uncle and by some rhyme or reason became President of the Rajagiria Udayana Community Association. In fact, there is a bit of a rather lengthy background story to this that would take knowledge of my Uncles’… eccentricities to fully appreciated, but for now just assume there is quite a hilarious story behind the whole thing.

Unfortunately the same uncle had chest pains that same night and had to be taken to hospital, though he was cleared by the doctors a couple of days later. We were a bit worried as he is getting on in years but was in regular form in no time - a mixed blessing, but a blessing none the less.

Here I would like to share a few of my observations and general impressions, firstly Sri Lanka is a hot and humid country... okay old joke, actually the country is in far better condition than I imagined. I had only my experience as a lad of twelve to go by, and in comparison the country has changed quite a bit. Firstly the roads and infrastructure and in much better condition than they were previously, but more importantly there is a greater sense of national pride and confidence. While I wasn’t as aware of everything at work in the country when I was 12, I did notice that people really didn’t seem to care or had very little hope in the future. At that time the LTTE terrorists were stronger and there was also another terror group called the JVP and between the two, traveling by bus or going to market was a life threatening endeavor. I am giving a very bereft description of the situation which I hope to rectify at a later time with a thoroughly researched essay on the topic, already have a bit of documentation but the issue is so complex that it’ll take a bit of time (a slight understatement).

Though getting back to the topic at hand, another thing I noticed is the odd prevalence of western culture – and I mean odd in that it shows itself in ways I really couldn’t anticipate. For example, it was interesting to hear the orchestral themes to a few movies on the local TV stations, but their implementation left me scratching my head a bit – the theme to ‘Superman’ being used to showcase a political talk show, and the ‘Back to the Future’ theme used to introduce a nightly news program. As well the use of advertising, for some reason it was deemed a good idea that every half hour no matter what the program is in the middle of, a short ad will appear with the change of time for example your watching a debate when all of a sudden there is a beep and a graphics screen with 7:30 pm flashing and then a quick commercial of whatever company sponsored that intrusive ad – and the show itself kept on going while the ad ran!

Heck even government security signs have commercial support, it does seem quite silly and almost reminded me of some moments in the movie Idiocracy (brought to you by Carl’s Jr.), but there is one difference. The people here just use the ads for money, and loyalty to the company providing them is almost non existent, now to explain why would take a lecture on the cultural psychology that I really don’t want to get into but suffice to say, while the ads here are more intrusive I doubt they really do as much damage as to people in say Canada and the US. Again I’d like to go into that further but for another time.

Surprisingly enough say a few familiar ad signs that made a bit nostalgic for home… and made me feel a bit ill – a very strange feeling if you ever have a chance to experience it. Almost curious enough to try the ‘McRice’… almost.

Well tis getting late and I’ve written probably most of the important events, if I think of anything later I’ll be sure to add an entry on the subject, but for now I’m going to sleep -brought to you by Carl’s Jr. (seriously if you haven’t seen Idiocracy go out and buy it right now, ah, who am I kidding… just torrent it, you glorious pirating bastards)

Landfall

So with departure from Hong Kong the flight to Colombo was pretty uneventful, stopped in Singapore for the plane to be cleaned and refueled. Though otherwise by this time too tired to really do anything or take notice of too much.
Although there was free Internet use in Singapore so was able to waste a few minutes while waiting for the plane.
So after about 22 hours of travel landed at the Colombo international airport without incident or any fanfare (strange I know).
Recalling my previous experience traveling to Sri Lanka I immediately noticed a few difference between my past trip 16 years ago and my current one. Firstly we got off the plane straight into the Air conditioned airport building, previously we had to get off the plane to the tarmac amid a sudden and almost bewildering change in temperature and humidity – I remember if felt like being thrust into an oven that someone was cooking water in (actually if you cook it right water can be a very satisfying meal).

From the terminal made my way to the long line for customs, most of the other passengers were locals and they had various parcels (mostly hard liquor) to carry with them. I was near the end of the whole section so about the last one through, the agent just asked a few questions as to the length of my stay and other mandatory questions – got my stamp for 30 day visit and was told I’d have to apply for an extension later – though getting dual citizenship so won’t need too

anyway.

The baggage claim was a little further on and had to pass by what I’m guessing was a duty free section for people to buy last minute gifts for friends and relatives – what surprised me was the amount of appliance stores and house wares being sold! I mean seriously how on earth is someone going to get a fridge from the airport?! For that matter who on earth would even buy a fridge from an airport? At least those were my initial thoughts, the rational part of my tired brain, droned on about customs, importation of goods, local economy blah blah blah.
Picked up my bags with ease as my delay meant that baggage was already processed, so with bags in cart breezed through customs saying I had nothing to declare, fortunately didn’t get checked – I think the customs agent took a bit of pity on me as I was thoroughly zonked out by that point (while fun my adventure in Hong Kong was a bit of a drain).

Walking out into the open I was hit by the heat and it didn’t seem as bad as I remember – though I could also have been in a state of tired shock… for sake of simplicity lets say the former. After looking around for a few seconds in a dazed and confused manner, my uncle saw me and warmly greeting me and took me to a waiting transport (a car is transport… so are elephants – no I did not take an elephant, though that would have been awesome).

After about half an hour arrived at my Aunt and uncles place in Kandana a town about 20 Km outside of Colombo – what surprised me is that it was considered a separate town, when traveling along the main road shops and buildings of all sorts appear without break so for the Canadian born traveler who is used to going for hours with only wheat fields and the occasional surveillance bush (Canadian sitcom reference) on any side of the road it is pretty hard to understand how one town is considered another.

Well getting to my relatives place we just chatted for a while then I went to bed after a much needed shower – also encountered my first super bug, a giant bright green grasshopper… thing that flew in whilst taking said shower. Given my previous knowledge of the creepy crawlies in Sri Lanka I considered this guest to be non-threatening even if it’s legs were quite sharp and pointy as well as the whole thing being about the size of my cell phone.

So ended the first day, since I arrived at about 10:30 pm at night local time, there really wasn’t that much I could see that could leave an impression, but was just glad to have arrived and a warm… make that a bed with a mosquito net under a fan to sleep, or more accurately pass out in. And with that my first few hours in Sri Lanka were over, and I had no real thoughts of anything as slipped into unconsciousness.

Touchdown in Hong Kong

So after 12 hours (it seemed like quite a bit longer) arrived at the bustling city..err I mean airport of Hong Kong – the city is actually a fair ways from from the airport itself. I had heard that the airport was actually on a man made Island but it was indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape so no good photo ops presented themselves.
With legs feeling decidedly cramped and strained hobbled through the airport wondering where the heck I should be and what my next move was, originally I had planned to spend my 10 hour layover wandering around Hong Kong a bit and maybe take in a few sights and window shop – however due to flight delays the layover was now about 6 hours.

This was a bit on the uncomfortable side as if I happened to get lost anywhere along the way I would be in danger of missing my connecting flight and that wasn’t too appealing. To slightly complicate matters my boarding pass for the next flight didn’t have a gate number attached to it and the departure wasn’t listed on the board yet… and not knowing the airport too well – you get the idea. Finally after about 15 minutes of wasted indecision (and about 10 min trying to finding a washroom) threw caution to the wind and dutifully lined up at immigration for Hong Kong visitors. After about another 20 minutes in line, got to the counter and presented my shiny passport and boarding pass. The clerk did a slight double take as he noted the departure time on the ticket and asked me to clarify if I wanted to exit the airport (I’m sure he wanted to check to see if I wasn’t another silly foreigner lost in the wrong line, which was nice of him to do), I explained my intentions, not sure how much he understood but stamped an entry visa and sent me on my way.

Now still feeling quite a bit unsure of my bearings tried following the signs for MTR and sure enough saw “CITY TRAIN MTR” signs pointing the way. I changed some of my cash to HK$ and purchased a same day return train pass to Hong Kong it was $100 HKD roughly $15 CAD. The trains arrive every 12 minutes like clockwork and take about 24 minutes to get to the city, given that I still wasn’t sure what gate my plane was at as well as time to get through security I estimated that I had about an hour of gawking time before I had to find my way back to the Airport.

The train was truly brilliant, clean, comfortable, and pretty darn fast. In what seemed like no time at all passed by a few stops and finally at the HK station. Deciding to follow the crowd (I’m being generous here, there were only about 10 people) went up a few escalators and ended up in a mall – oh joy… a very western expensive and pretentious mall… joy. Unfortunately I decided that I only had time to explore the mall a bit so walked around seeing if there was anything interesting or a nice local styled place to eat. Alas if I was shopping for designer clothes or looking to sample exotic ‘western’ food such as McDonalds this would have been a great place to stop by… as it was a bit of a disappointment. With time running out I braved the outdoors in search of anything remotely local, so took a walkway that seemed to lead to a promising location.

Aside from a few nice pictures of HK city, there wasn’t much at the end of the walkway, a few tourist gift shops and a Baskin Robins (they still have those?). The heat was now getting too me and combined with the 12 hour flight I had truly ‘expired’ (see Russel Peters for reference) so went back to the mall which was called the IFC standing for ‘International Finance Centre’. Tried to see if I could find a cheap T-shirt place without luck, then got something to eat at a chique little coffee place called LGB (or was it LGF?) a veggie sandwich and coffee came to about $60 HKD, not exactly cheap or particularly local but decent nonetheless.

With time running out I made my way back to the station and right beside it found the food place I was looking for – a local busy chain kitchen serving rice with BBQ pork, fried cutlets and other fast food goodies, all for less than $30 HKD, *sigh… oh well. I took note of it for any future trips and made my way back to the airport well within time to catch my flight. Even found an overpriced T-shirt to wear for $150 HKD (it was either that or be very uncomfortable for the next 9 hours… or buy the $900 HKD designer shirt), with that my brief yet fun visit to Hong Kong was over, on my flight back definitely plan to spend a few days there seeing the sights and acting liking a foolish American tourist - just kidding ;)

A little side trip...

After about 16 years and some number of months, days, weeks etc. finally decided to travel to Sri Lanka the birthplace of my parents, fine tea, and... I'm note sure what else - hence my desire to go back and discover something about the country of my origin.

Anyway regardless of reasons the trip itself is one I intend document through a written journal and when the opportunity presents itself update appropriate entries to my blog with a few pictures to liven things up.

My trip began in Calgary August 11th (I could have taken a cheaper flight on Sept 11th, but for some reason decided against it). The route I would be taking went from Calgary to Vancouver then a direct flight to Honk Kong, a 10 hour layover followed by a flight to Colombo via Singapore.

First day of journey took the quick flight to Vancouver and discovered that I could get my checked luggage sent all the way to Colombo without having to collect them in Hong Kong during my short layover - a nice bonus. As well the plane going to Hong Kong was delayed by a few hours so had to wait a bit longer than expected - not quite a nice bonus. Although they did provide a meal voucher and did give the whole "terminal" feel.

Took a few random pictures of the art around the airport and found a place to sleep while waiting for the aircraft.

Groggily got up for the boarding call for the Hong Kong flight, ended up with a window seat which I thought was good for taking pictures and was relatively pleased (at the time). The flight left around 6 am Wensday morning and immediately the plane went into "night" mode - I suppose they were set to local time and was preparing the passengers for the time zone difference. They served us a light dinner and promptly encouraged sleep, of course there was a nice entertainment system in each system that included basic 8-bit games and video on demand with movies, TV shows and other programs. I was sitting next to a very nice couple heading to Malaysia for vacation, though was too tired to go into long conversations.

The rest of the trip was uneventful until we prepared to arrive in Hong Kong. Oddly enough found it hard to believe that I was travelling but seeing the HK skyline through the window helped me realize that fact.

That's it for now, I'll next post will deal with HK and arrival in Sri Lanka.