My last day in Sri Lanka. I'm flying to Bangkok tonight to see a friend and then spend the week in Thailand for the Songkran festival before heading south to Malaysia. With four weeks completed here, I like to reflect. Not necessarily on one cohesive theme but random observations, lessons learned, tallies, mishaps, etcetera.
Sri Lanka has been brilliant, colorful and fascinating. A country rocked by civil war. Stricken by a tsunami that took over 48,000 lives in 20 minutes. A country as small as Ireland but with a population 4.5 times large (it's said to be like having the entire population of Australia live in Tasmania!!). So how could you expect it to be anything but fascinating, colorful, diverse and challenging.
Four weeks in Sri Lanka and I've taken :
1 Taxi
1 Train
3 motorcycles
5 Tuk-Tuks (including the one to the airport tonight)
7 pushbikes
19 buses
and countless kilometers walking.
* I could live off Kottu Roti *
Driving :
Honking a precise art : one must always honk one's horn when preparing to pass a bicyclist, pedestrian or really any vehicle smaller than your own. The timing, length and intensity of one's honk indicates how quickly the other party must jerk to the left. Occasionally, this amounts to the other part ending up in a dirt patch on the side of the road.... likely a safer alternative to the road itself. Honking can also be used when approaching any intersection as a form of "Watch out biotches, I'm coming through."
Alternatively : honk at your friend at the road side stall, in the passing bus or just saying hey. Of course, this isn't confusing with the previous necessary reasons to honk at all.
Overtaking (passing in it's most aggressive form) : if you have 100m between you and an oncoming Tata dump truck, you have plenty of time to pass a scooter, public bus and tuk-tuk. No problem. A heavy lurch to the left and a series of aggressive honks should aid in your endeavor.
Comparison: it should be noted that while the "largest vehicle wins" rule still prevails in Sri Lanka, I'll take driving here over India or South Korea any day.
On Questions :
Interested in gathering the entire male population of a town? Get into a car accident. Interested in playing a riveting game of twenty-questions? Walk down the street.
Sri Lankans (I should specify particularly men) rapid fire off a seemingly pre-set list of questions. "What your name? What your country? You want tuk-tuk? Why not? Where are you going? Sri Lanka good? Where you stay? You want banana? Why no banana? You married? Why no married? No babies? Where you going?"
I took the liberty of inserting my own Shinglish (Shinalese English). The questions come rapid fire, one after another often with little room for answers. I'm well practiced in each of three arts of response : A. Rapid fire honest answers. B. Complete and udder avoidance. C. Fun. I've been English. Spanish. Japanese. Allergic to bananas. Walking to India. Jennifer, Alisha, Rebecca and Trixie. The options are endless.
I've learned:
- That if you turn of the power to an electrical outlet (there's a switch for each in SL), you can trick the three prong circuit to only working with two prongs by sticking a pen in the third. Guess the lessons your mother taught you about not putting anything in the electrical outlet just don't hold up these days!
- Sri Lankans do not get "going for a walk"! Say you ask, how do I get to 'x' waterfall. Your answer will likely be : "take a tuk-tuk top. Tuk-tuk wait. You swim. Tuk-tuk drive you back." When you correct, that you would prefer to walk, the look of confusion envelopes and overwhelms them.
Self Reflection :
I am completely desensitized. Ironically, my mother always told me this, with special regard to movies, television, really anything exhibiting gore or violence. I always loved horror films even as a little girl. But in my "adulthood" (quotations as it feels to be a false assertion of some non-existent reality), it has gone a step further. I am desensitized to the world is seems; its pleasures, pains, poverty, shocking scenes, and stunning sunsets unfold around me without so much as a pause in my quick pace down the road.
Perhaps this is merely years of sensory overload brought on by a crippling desire to do and see more. But now, I find nothing overwhelms me, surprises me, or even more sadly, ever truly consumes me as to evoke some emotional response.
Today, as has been typical per my experience in Sri Lanka, I found myself wandering along a canal. In my midst are homes destroyed, in some state of disrepair, to most's standards unfit to live in. And yet I find myself numb, not outraged or saddened by lives lost, dreams shattere or hardships endured even in the midst of a country recently shocked by not only a three decade long civil war and a devastating tsunami.
I love that I can go anwhere and be comfortable and confident in my ability to adapt, unafraid, unshaken, ready and aching for exploration. Bu now in years gone by, I see I've lost sight of something in my travels. Empathy. The drive for a connection. An emotion undering that fuels the search beneath the facade or the surface to something... more.
In moving on, I'm looking forward to:
- Street food. There's a upsetting lack of street food, much less wonderful street food, in Sri Lanka.
- Penang Curry. No justification necessary.
- The longest Thai massage of my life. Caress me down. I'm so excited.
Sri Lanka has been brilliant, colorful and fascinating. A country rocked by civil war. Stricken by a tsunami that took over 48,000 lives in 20 minutes. A country as small as Ireland but with a population 4.5 times large (it's said to be like having the entire population of Australia live in Tasmania!!). So how could you expect it to be anything but fascinating, colorful, diverse and challenging.
Four weeks in Sri Lanka and I've taken :
1 Taxi
1 Train
3 motorcycles
5 Tuk-Tuks (including the one to the airport tonight)
7 pushbikes
19 buses
and countless kilometers walking.
* I could live off Kottu Roti *
Driving :
Honking a precise art : one must always honk one's horn when preparing to pass a bicyclist, pedestrian or really any vehicle smaller than your own. The timing, length and intensity of one's honk indicates how quickly the other party must jerk to the left. Occasionally, this amounts to the other part ending up in a dirt patch on the side of the road.... likely a safer alternative to the road itself. Honking can also be used when approaching any intersection as a form of "Watch out biotches, I'm coming through."
Alternatively : honk at your friend at the road side stall, in the passing bus or just saying hey. Of course, this isn't confusing with the previous necessary reasons to honk at all.
Overtaking (passing in it's most aggressive form) : if you have 100m between you and an oncoming Tata dump truck, you have plenty of time to pass a scooter, public bus and tuk-tuk. No problem. A heavy lurch to the left and a series of aggressive honks should aid in your endeavor.
Comparison: it should be noted that while the "largest vehicle wins" rule still prevails in Sri Lanka, I'll take driving here over India or South Korea any day.
On Questions :
Interested in gathering the entire male population of a town? Get into a car accident. Interested in playing a riveting game of twenty-questions? Walk down the street.
Sri Lankans (I should specify particularly men) rapid fire off a seemingly pre-set list of questions. "What your name? What your country? You want tuk-tuk? Why not? Where are you going? Sri Lanka good? Where you stay? You want banana? Why no banana? You married? Why no married? No babies? Where you going?"
I took the liberty of inserting my own Shinglish (Shinalese English). The questions come rapid fire, one after another often with little room for answers. I'm well practiced in each of three arts of response : A. Rapid fire honest answers. B. Complete and udder avoidance. C. Fun. I've been English. Spanish. Japanese. Allergic to bananas. Walking to India. Jennifer, Alisha, Rebecca and Trixie. The options are endless.
I've learned:
- That if you turn of the power to an electrical outlet (there's a switch for each in SL), you can trick the three prong circuit to only working with two prongs by sticking a pen in the third. Guess the lessons your mother taught you about not putting anything in the electrical outlet just don't hold up these days!
- Sri Lankans do not get "going for a walk"! Say you ask, how do I get to 'x' waterfall. Your answer will likely be : "take a tuk-tuk top. Tuk-tuk wait. You swim. Tuk-tuk drive you back." When you correct, that you would prefer to walk, the look of confusion envelopes and overwhelms them.
Self Reflection :
I am completely desensitized. Ironically, my mother always told me this, with special regard to movies, television, really anything exhibiting gore or violence. I always loved horror films even as a little girl. But in my "adulthood" (quotations as it feels to be a false assertion of some non-existent reality), it has gone a step further. I am desensitized to the world is seems; its pleasures, pains, poverty, shocking scenes, and stunning sunsets unfold around me without so much as a pause in my quick pace down the road.
Perhaps this is merely years of sensory overload brought on by a crippling desire to do and see more. But now, I find nothing overwhelms me, surprises me, or even more sadly, ever truly consumes me as to evoke some emotional response.
Today, as has been typical per my experience in Sri Lanka, I found myself wandering along a canal. In my midst are homes destroyed, in some state of disrepair, to most's standards unfit to live in. And yet I find myself numb, not outraged or saddened by lives lost, dreams shattere or hardships endured even in the midst of a country recently shocked by not only a three decade long civil war and a devastating tsunami.
I love that I can go anwhere and be comfortable and confident in my ability to adapt, unafraid, unshaken, ready and aching for exploration. Bu now in years gone by, I see I've lost sight of something in my travels. Empathy. The drive for a connection. An emotion undering that fuels the search beneath the facade or the surface to something... more.
In moving on, I'm looking forward to:
- Street food. There's a upsetting lack of street food, much less wonderful street food, in Sri Lanka.
- Penang Curry. No justification necessary.
- The longest Thai massage of my life. Caress me down. I'm so excited.
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