Hydration lessons in Paradise, Police Station, PizzaBong, Ralph the Muscleman, Bureaucrazy, Cake and Kandy

The morning after our last post, I was sleeping when Alice woke me up - in desperate need. She had been kicking up a fuss all night, complaining about being too cold even though it was extremely hot in the room. We switched beds so that she would be further from the fan and I would be closer to it (I was boiling). I dozed off to sleep almost as my head hit the pillow, but Alice was up most of the night in either a state of shiver or sweat. I offered her my sweatshirt trying to shut her up, but she informed me she was ALREADY WEARING IT! No respect for other people's property... So in the morning she thought she was feeling better so she got up to go to the bathroom, unfortunately she was not feeling better. The result of her bathroom adventure was a tumble from the toilet, collapsing and hitting her head on the sink in front of the toilet. She got up out of the dirt, sand and water all over the floor and said "Daaaaaave, I'm siiiiiiiiick." She then went and laid on the ground outside in an attempt to cool down while I went to fetch the next best thing to an ambulance - a tuktuk. I then gatherer Alice's things, picked her up He-man style and through her into her awaiting chariot. We negotiated a price to the nearest clinic, and were there within a few minutes. The waiting room was full, but because of some lingering sense of colonial inferiority the locals let Alice cut ahead (of sick women and children). The doctor asked Alice a range of questions about what she was putting into her body, what was coming out, and how frequently. The interrogation proved too much for poor sick Alice and she threatened to throw-up on the doctor. Fearing her vomit he ushered us out of his office into a little room with a small bed for Alice to lay on. Alice collapsed herself down, put her arm over her face and was overcome by her illness. She only had the energy to moan and groan. A little nurse came in and prepared a saline drip. The doctor then came in, disinfected her arm, popped a cap off a syringe and jabbed it in Alice's arm. As official supervisor, I was initially satisfied with the level of sanitation up until the point where the syringe was secured in place with band-aids pulled from the rusty bed post, but I figured no biggee since she'd had her tetanus shot. Also of note was the gecko crawling on the bed, and the fact that people from the waiting room kept coming into the cramped little room and staring at Alice. The doctor prescribed a few things (what we don't know as there weren't any labels on anything) and told Alice that she was likely dehydrated from having cycled 70kms and gone to yoga twice in the past 36 hours. He also gave her some suppositories and asked me if she would like to have it now (in the office, in front of the peering crowd) or back at the hotel. Concerned for her dignity I said she would take it back at the hotel. When I went back into the room to tell Alice about the medications the doctor had given me, she said "can't he give me the suppository now?" Apparently Alice didn't realize what the process involved and I told her "I think it would be best if you did it yourself." The tuktuk man kept coming into the office asking for money because he was tired of waiting, but the doctor told him that he had to wait. When we finally made it back to the cabana less then an hour later he reneged on our initial deal, demanding more money, but nevertheless tried to secure future business with us offering us his card. Alice threatened to vomit on him, he took off. Alice courageously returned to the scene of her fall, shoved some stuff up her butt, and within a couple hours was as good as new. The lesson in all this? We'll leave that for you to comment upon... I'm just glad my friend is healthy again.


Alice looking less than healthy

The following day I woke up early to go surfing with this Johanes and it turned out to be a day full of adventures. We went to Whiskey Point, and as soon as we arrived Johanes had a collision with an old Kiwi man. Both came out with broken boards, but the old guy had a huge gash in his leg and needed 5 or 6 stitches to patch himself together. On our way back into town to get Jo's board fixed-up I stopped at a bank machine because both Alice and I were out of money. I went to three different ATMs but they all said that I had exceeded my daily withdrawal limit - but I hadn't taken any money out for weeks - alarming. I also tried to use my Visa, but it didn't work either. I had accumulated a few debts that day as we had switched hotels and needed to pay upfront. I was a little bit flustered (Alice says frantic). We pushed on back towards our hotel, but on the way we saw Jo's two German roomates, Julia and Leah. The tuktuk man pulled up beside them trying to scare them, but as we pulled up we noticed they were really upset. We asked what had happened and they told us that a man on the beach had just approached them, pulled down his pants, and started playing with himself and trying to rub up against them. They got in the tuktuk, and we went to the police station to report what had happened. The police were more than useless as one by one another policeman would come into the office, the story was retold, and by the time we finally went out to look for the guy more than an hour had passed and it was likely that he had moved on. Eventually it was time to go out on the hunt, and two police piled into our tuktuk. There were seven of us inside including the driver, as well as two surfboards on the roof. we must have been quite the sight. We looked around, didn't see the guy, asked some locals, but nobody was of any help. The policemen told the girls that they should have wrestled him to the ground and brought him in since there were two of them and only one of him - the girls weren't impressed. They were also told that they should have taken a photo of him, and if they see him again try to get his photo. The girls were even less impressed.



Johanes

After switching hotels we discovered a new restaurant through the friends we made who were staying at the new place, the Sea Ryder. This restaurant we kept going back to was called Ruwangi's. It had a brand new outdoor clay pizza oven, an Indian board game that was kind of like pool and shuffle board all mixed into one, and claimed "The Best Rice and Curry Ever!!" A curious accompaniment offered by the owner with every meal, that is if he wasn't currently using it, was a homemade bong made out of a Coca-Cola bottle. We kept coming back day after day because the food was really good. Really really goooooood, man. The pizza had fresh buffalo mozzarella that the owner traveled into the hills to acquire. The food was also really cheap, and the atmosphere was nice because there was always an ipod belonging to one of the many Israeli or Japanese guests, plugged into the speaker system. Ruwangi's will be missed.

The hotel that we switched to was awesome. There were hammocks everywhere, it was right on the beach, there were well used common areas frequented by the super cool English couple (Janine and Eddie) and Roded, from Tel Aviv, who we hung out with as much as possible after our first meeting. There was a really funny local guy named Ralph who was the hotel caretaker/housekeeper/tea-maker/gate-locker. You never knew when Ralph was going to either lock you into the hotel, when he would go home for lunch or dinner, or when you'd be locked out after going for a surf. Janine showed us how to break in by hopping the fence, but it was surreal to literally be trapped in or out at various times. It is like, "we paid for this?" Ralph was really funny, short, smiling, and in love with himself. When he wasn't sweeping up he would sit in front of a mirror gazing at himself (in the middle of the common area), stroking his side burns and goatee. Ralph had a huge collection of different haircare products that had been abandoned by former guests and he would always have Alice smell him whenever she walked by. "You like, yeah? You like for male? Or female? No?" I asked to take his photo when we were leaving and he posed for a few shots, flexing all of his tiny muscles in one, and posing like Jacky Chan with his fist in front of the lens in another.

Alice went out for a walk one afternoon, with plans to head along the beach towards Pottuvil, the nearest town. Halfway there, she was swarmed by three girls who demanded with little giggles that she hand over her earrings, ring, iPod and shorts. Alice laughed at them, let them listen to music for a while, then attempted to extract herself from their clutches. Unfortunately, it started to rain. The girls grabbed her hands, and made her run with them to their house where she was sat on a stool surrounded by children shouting, "English please, English!" She obliged and tried to ask them what their names were, how old they were, etc. Then they made her sit on a mat on the ground, more kids arrived, and a book was produced. They spent maybe an hour reading out of this grade 4 English book. More people kept arriving, babies, mothers, and a couple fathers. They served tea, and asked to sing songs. Finally, thinking that I might be worried about her, she pulled herself away and they chased her down the beach quite a ways. I however was not worried, I was surfing, and had no idea she had been gone for hours. Some friend...

After saying that we were leaving the next day for about a week, we finally left Arugam Bay and boarded a bus for Colombo, sadly. We stayed 11 nights and had only planned on staying 3. It was a quite a place. The bus ride was uneventful for the most part. I had hurt my foot surfing and it was so swollen that it barely fit in my footware, and old women kept standing on it because the bus was so crowded. Alice, the master sleeper, was passed out on the bus crammed between people with bags at her feet and on her lap. She was wearing V-neck which allowed the man standing up in front of her to have a fairly good view of the goods below. I saw his eyes enjoying the buffet, and glared at him. He caught my eye and looked away, but went back for seconds as soon as I looked away. I got philosophical and started considering my obligations in such a scenario. I decided I had none, and figured "have a good look guy." Of course I told all of this to Alice later, and she was not pleased...some friend... But seriously, what was I supposed to do. Order her to cover up? I'm a modern man, and Alice is an independent woman. She can dress how she likes, and if that means that the occasional man will peer down her blouse so be it!

Dinesh and his Sir met us in Colombo, we went for tea, and then arrived at Dinesh's Sir's mother's house. The house was like an abandoned antique store, filled with relics including china, ornaments, and gaudy English paintings, all covered in a thick layer of dust, spiderwebs, and ants. It was a beautiful house, but in general disrepair as Sir's mother lives in England, and has so for quite some time. Her two sons stay at the house while on business in Colombo, but they both live in Dinesh's village 3 hours away. We stayed for three nights, quite comfortably, in rooms that Sir had removed the dust and ants from. He cooked for us, and the food was very good. We drank tea several times per day, also good. In return for all of his generosity, Sir asked me - not Alice - to give a private English lesson to two of his well to do students in Colombo. The lesson was two hours and by the end of it I couldn't come up with anything new to talk about. We talked about everything and when it was over they tried to touch my feet, but I told them it wasn't my custom so I was spared the awkwardness.

The downside of being at the house was that it was on the outskirts of Colombo and we had to take an hour an a half bus ride to get into the city to get our travel documents in order. We spent on average 3 to 5 hours on the bus each day going from office to office trying to get forms stamped. I am still without a passport, Sri Lankan visa, or Indian visa. Technically I am an illegal alien in Sri Lanka as of today as my new passport won't be ready until the 7th, I can't extend my Sri Lankan visa without my new passport, and I can't even begin the process of getting an Indian visa without taking care of the other things first. A big thanks to Dinesh for helping us navigate the streets of Colombo, we wouldn't have managed without him. He waited for us everywhere, never complained, and gave up days and days of his personal time to help us.

Adrian put us in touch with his friend Ingrid who works with CIDA in Sri Lanka, and may be the ambassador's wife (we can't recall). Ingrid invited us to this bar night at the old Canadian embassy where Canadians in Colombo get together once a month to drink wine, eat pizza and pretzels, and listen to Celine Dion. We had a lot of fun (and pizza), and I was able to speak with the Canadian High Commissioner's assistant who shed some light on my passport situation and put my mind at ease. We were also given free reign to poach from the little collection of books amassed in the corner. We now have enough books to keep us busy for the next few weeks; Good books are difficult to come by, yet with long bus rides and an ever diminishing interest in speaking to one another Alice and I are always in need of something to read.

We have now retired to the serene hills of Kandy where we are filling ourselves with cake and rice and curry. Kandy seems to be the most livable city in Sri Lanka, and we both agree that we could live here. It is not too hot, the streets aren't insane, it is beautiful, and every fifth shop is a bakery.