Observations of a wondering mind, Sri Lanka

As I'm chilling out in the beachside town of Mirissa, I thought I would share some simple observations of Sri Lanka.

Firstly, here are some photos from Mirissa, Galle and the surrounding area...

Turbulent waters It's the monsoon season so it's no surprise that the beaches (in the south at least) are pretty much empty of people. The water level is very high, the waves are rough and sloppy, the undertow is strong and the current is confused. This all makes for an interesting swim. I've been silly or brave enough to have a dip a few times. Waves came at me from every direction. When I try to catch one it just throws me around like clothes in a washing machine. Don't let these photos fool ya, these beaches are violent at the moment.

Smelly good One of the first things I noticed and continue to notice about Sri Lanka is the smell. It's not one smell, nor is it a bad smell (as is often the case in Asia) and it changes from town to town. One minute I'm smelling tea, the next town could be sandlewood, then maybe honey or jasmine or the beach. King of the roads

I thought the buses in Nepal and India were bad. Not compared to Sri Lanka.

So to get on the bus you need to rush, just like the people getting off the bus. Why? Because the bus stops for no one! You have one foot on? Well it's time to go. The ticket man literally grabs you by the arm and drags you on or puts a hand in the back and pushes. Obviously they're overcrowded and personal space is non existent. Having sweaty and smelly bodies pushed up against me for long periods of time is all to common. The worst thing is the driver. I've learned that he gets paid by the distance travelled so the faster he goes, the less time he waits and the more distance he can cover. And the more money he can earn.

So he drives at a breakneck speed and with total disregard for anyone's safety. If he could put a snow plough on the front I reckon he would. If he ran over someone I wonder if he'd stop. He forces everyone to move over and turns two lane traffic into four. Most days I feel like I'm travelling in the bus from the movie speed.

Food, inglorious food The biggest surprise and the greatest disappointment is the food. There are three options, curry and rice, assorted roti or bread. There is a forth option, and that's a combination of the first three like fried rice or Kottu. Kottu is a dish made with chopped up roti and vegetables. It's an ok dish but only served after 3pm. Commonly, when eating at a local restaurant (the cheap option) you could have a plate of bread (cream bun, curry bun and vegetable bun) and roti (egg or vegetable flavour), then select and pay for what you eat. What's not eaten goes back on the shelf for the next person.

That means it's been touched many many times by numerous human hands before it finally gets consumed. When I'm brave/stupid enough to order something different, it normally always turns out to be horrible and far too expensive. So my options are roti and bread or a terribly prepared "western" dish. Oh, and no meat expect chicken or fish. That's not overly surprising but also rarely available. At times my food will come on a plate wrapped in a plastic bag. This is so the plate doesn't need to be washed. Just take the plastic bag off when finished and put the plate back on the shelf. The supermarket or local 'grocer' is also a challenge. There is no such thing as fresh herbs. You can buy curry leaves and that's it. There is also no dairy industry here either. So no fresh milk or cheese or anything like that. You can buy curd which is ok but milk is of the long life variety and cheese is plastic wrapped Kraft. Essentially I'm living on boring stir fried vegetables every day. Yum! There are simply very few options and the quality is poor. No exaggeration.

Bread on three wheels While I'm on the topic of food, if someone asked me what type I see the most I'd have to say bread. Bread, bread, bread! It's not tasty bread nor is there a great variety. White bread is the only choice and it's bland and boring and sometimes sweet. I've never seen bread consumed like I do here in Sri Lanka. There is one cool thing about the bread though, or annoying, depending on how you look at it. It gets delivered and sold via tuk tuk's everywhere and all day. Everyone knows where they are and where they're coming from because they play a terrible 10 second Muzak version of Fur Elise over and over and over again. Good to hear if you want to buy some bread. Bad to hear when it's 6 o'clock in the morning!

Nescafé or bust I was warned about the coffee situation in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan coffee is grainy, bitter and tasteless and if milk is added it turns grey. Sometimes I get a coffee from a "barista" cafe with a Lavazza sign out front. I have no idea what they do behind the counter but they aren't brewing a coffee that's for sure. How can people get it so wrong? And of course it's expensive. Sometimes more than what I pay back home. Most of the time I have to drink Nescafé and I've even resorted to buying 3 in 1 packets for the days when I feel like a coffee with milk. I have said to myself "well, it doesn't get any worse than that" more times than I can remember. On one occasion it looked like my coffee was alive and breathing. It came from a Nescafé machine and when the guy put it on the table it was moving around in the glass in a very unfamiliar and disturbing fashion. Old mates shops As I walk the streets, particularly the back streets, there are these small timber shacks that are operating as corner stores. I think they're awesome. They pop up suddenly and are stashed away in the middle of nowhere. They don't sell much and rarely anything nutritional. Potato chips, chocolate, water, lollies, a fruit and a vegetable and sometimes rice. They're often made out of scrap or recycled timber and appear to be on the verge of falling down. They have a certain charm about them and the owners are typically great characters.

Bury me anywhere I'm sure at one stage the sites of which some people are buried were ideal or made sense. It appears that development has turned some sites into unusual locations. It's really common to see graves in people's front yards, next door to properties, in tea plantations and scattered along roads and highways. They pop up were I least expect them, like next to service stations. These sites aren't home to many plots, just a hand full of headstones at most.

Sri Lanka is a very unique part of the world. And I'm still enjoying it.