Kandy, Colombo, Kandy (food, food, food)

The last time we blogged we were in Kandy, about to go to Colombo to pick up my new passport. We took an early morning train that was supposed to be express (but wasn't). Finally the passport was ready, and I had a new lease on life! With passport in hand I went to the Immigration office to renew my visa (my third visit to the 2007 national productivity award winning office - yeah right...), while Alice shopped for shoes. Killing time in Colombo we went to the Majestic City cinema and took in a film - The Expendables - which turned out to be an 'expendable' movie and won't soon be used as subject material in any modern film studies course. That night we made plans to meet Sohanna, an American woman we met at the Canadian monthly mixer in Colombo. We were almost an hour late for dinner thanks to an overly zealous local man who "helped" us find the restaurant out of a sense of Christian responsibility. He put us on a bus, despite our insistence that we would be fine walking, which ended up taking us miles out of town in the wrong direction. When we realized that the landscape was getting less and less urban alarm bells went off in our heads, so we disembarked and sought out a tuktuk man to deliver us to our intended destination. Once we got there, dinner was great, and we met two more new friends that Sohanna had invited along - Tom and Rajinda. After dinner Rajinda stood outside the restaurant and chatted with us about some of the funny elements of Sri Lankan culture. One of the memorable things mentioned was that at certain times of the week it can be next to impossible to find a cheap hotel room in Colombo because young couples, having no place to grab a quiet moment free from their parents' prying eyes, are forced to resort to renting hotel rooms by the hour. This practice is apparently also quite commonly undertaken by married couples for extra marital affairs. We left Colombo by train bound for Kandy, after having Pizza Hut for lunch. Interestingly, places like Pizza Hut and McDonald's are considered fine dining here and it is good for your image to be seen at these establishments.


Me and Dinesh waiting for Alice in Colombo


Alice at the train station in Kandy

We decided to go back to Kandy to apply for our Indian visas, partially because Colombo is an armpit next to Kandy, and because on our previous visit to Kandy we went to an Indian/Chinese restaurant with high hopes of having naan bread - only to be told that the Indian chef was not in town and the only options from the menu were Chinese. The Chinese was great, and we concluded that the Indian would be better, so we had to go back to Kandy! A lot of our travel plans seem to revolve around food (which may be why every where we go locals ask Alice if she is pregnant or just straight out call her fat). (N.B. We'll put a picture up to show that Alice is not in fact fat or any different then when she left - but she may be developing a complex because of the verbal assaults she seems to receive here on the regular.) The Indian was salty, but we were still happy none the less because we finally found naan - after a month and a half of searching (it wasn't great, but it was naan). In Kandy you can't turn around without someone trying to sell you tickets to see one of the traditional dance performances. Each ticket guy says "You have tickets? Buy from me, today special show, not for tourists, real traditional dancing. Today a holiday. Special day." We considered going on our first visit but decided that the 500 rupees a piece would be better spent on another plate of chop suey (again with the food!), however; this time around, a particularly convincing man roped us in to tickets and also managed to squeeze a donation to the Buddhist school out of us. The dancing was kind of cool, definitely entertaining, but definitely not a "not for tourists special day performance". The hall where the dancing was performed was packed with Europeans. More white people then we have seen anywhere, at anytime. We weren't sure where all of those whiteys had been hiding, but it sure isn't where we had been eating chop suey. At this not for tourists event they had several tables full of crap to buy including "I love Sri Lanka" keychains, stickers (a must have for all locals I'm sure) in addition to light up crystal Buddha statues... The man who sold us the tickets was good enough to inform us that we should make a special trip to the temple that evening because as it was the end of Ramadan the president was going to be in town for some ceremony. We were promised we could shake his hand but when we went to the temple at the given time we saw no president, only a malnourished elephant chained to a fence in a parking lot.


Kandy from a hill

We were very impressed with the animal life in Kandy, or as it happened, the lack thereof. We saw more dead dogs in Kandy then anywhere else in our lives. One of them was on the corner of one of the busiest downtown streets and everyone, ourselves included, just stepped over it as if it was no biggee. We saw another dog on the road up to the giant Buddha statue on the hill that looks over Kandy like Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. We didn't make it to the temple because we got lost, even though we asked several locals how to get there and had a map. It was a good walk, but after awhile we gave up and went for cake and I attempted to teach Alice how to speak French. Thanks to my tutelage if ever Alice finds herself in the desert in a French speaking land she will not die as she now knows how to ask for water.


Kandy Lake

We have a new hobby! Aside from French lessons we now amuse ourselves with a newly purchased crossword puzzle book called "Crosswords for Tea Time". Despite the innocuous name the crosswords are quite difficult and it doesn't take long for us to give up and look at the answers in the back of the book. On the bright side we've learned a couple new words, and also know the stadiums where a bunch of MLB teams play.

Also in Kandy we toured the local market and both picked up some new things. Inspired by Marishka - a British girl staying at our hotel - Alice bought a local dress which can only be likened to a Mui Mui. When we go out walking we get looks from all the locals, either because she looks so good, or so bad. Apparently this type of dress is only worn by pregnant or very old women. Alice is quite pleased as wearing the dress has dramatically reduced the number of offers she receives for marriage and/or impregnation (presumably because if she is wearing that type of outfit she is already married and/or pregnant).

We'll try to add another post tomorrow as we have so much to talk about, but we just wanted to let you all know that we are happy and safe, currently having a great time back in A-Bay. We'll also be adding photos to this and some older posts so check back soon and leave comments if you're so inclined.

Hugs and Kisses,
Dallas

Colombo

Dave has very kindly allowed me access to "our" blog and is allowing me to write this post.

We arrived (with no problems at all, despite Dave's claims to the contrary) in Colombo the morning of August 5. Dave has to renew his passport because it will expire less than six months after we get back to Canada, so after filling ourselves with curry, finding internet and a printer to get the appropriate forms and having passport photos taken, we went to the Canadian consulate in Colombo (a trip that should have taken 10 minutes but turned into a 40 minute tour of the world's embassies because the driver couldn't find Canada) only to be told that Dave could only apply between 8:30 am and 12:30 pm- we were two hours too late.

We staggered back to the hotel, exhausted from sleeping on the airport floor in KL and the heat/ humidity of Colombo- unfortunately our hotel was just as hot and humid- and napped for a few hours before filling ourselves with more curry.
Galle Face Green

The next morning we went back to the consulate office and I sat there all morning reading about the history of Sri Lanka while Dave re-filled out the form he had carefully printed and filled out the night before, ran back and forth to the hotel for ID and money and tried to figure out who he had addresses for to use as references. When he was finally finished we ate more curry and set out for the day's planned activities.

Despite Dave's claims that I am the worst, that I'm always slow and late and stressing him out, he does seem to appreciate the fact that I am able to read the guide book, understand maps and plan activities- if it wasn't for me I don't think he would have left Jakarta- so I do all the planning and he trails along, hurling insults at me. In addition to his complete lack of direction, Dave is quite gullible- while I am much more likely to assume we are being ripped off, lead astray or lied to. For example, after our morning at the consulate we walked to the national museum, located in Colombo's largest park. At one end of the park in the Town Hall, an impressive white house- style building, with the park stretching out in front. We paused for a second to take a picture, and next thing I knew we were on a tour of the garden with the "master gardener", who claimed the museum was not open and we were better off following him around. Granted, he did show us some cool things- a cinnamon tree, a rubber tree that oozed rubber when he broke the bark, a tree full of flying foxes (which he terrified into the air for our benefit), a few nice flowers (a swan orchid), and a few different hardwood trees- then he said "good tour hey? I like dollars, American dollars, or Canadian dollars, you have Canadian dollars?" Dave didn't. He offered the equivalent of $4 dollars, but this was not sufficient for the "master gardener"- he graciously agreed to accept Rp1000 (about $10) as payment for our 10 minute "tour". The whole time I had a suspicion he had been lying about the museum (the guide book had told me otherwise- and it never lies!) so despite Dave's protests we marched to the museum- which, naturally, was open. We spent two hours there learning all about Sri Lanka before staggering home, exhausted again.

Flying Foxes

National Museum

Dave with a cinnamon tree leaf

That night, we watched possibly the worst movie ever. If it wasn't for the fact that it cost Rp215 ($2), there was air conditioning and chocolate, I would say it was the worst- M. Night Shamalan should not make any more movies, Dave and I have decided.

The next day we visited a Buddhist temple, a Dutch Reform church and a mosque. I left Dave alone to meditate and came back to find him meaner than ever- I was covered in bug bites or hives which made me so itchy I couldn't breathe, but all he did was tell me to shut up and quit complaining.

Today we took a bus from Colombo to Hikkaduwa, a small town on the south coast of Sri Lanka.