Navatha Hamu Wemu

Hi dear friends,

How have you been? I've had a good week and I'm going to make good my 
promise to tell you all about the play part of Sri Lanka.

Beach

One thing about Sri Lanka (SL) which I found interesting is that all the action isn't concentrated in the main capital city. In fact, Colombo is the least place you want to stay in during a trip to SL. First of all, it's an island, so you are surrounded by beaches of various kinds no matter where you turn, but some are nicer than others. However, there are some places famous for their beaches - Tangalle, Trincomalee, Galle to name a few. My best laid plans to get to the beach were cut short by rain but some of my colleagues did before the rains so I'm sharing a nice picture courtesy of one of them.

My teammates and I made the 3 hour trip (one way) to the Pinnawala elephant orphanage. That was a good one. At the orphanage elephants whose parents have been killed one way or another are brought up. We took part in the bathing of the elephants and I got right next to one! History moment, lol. Visitors get the opportunity  to feed the elephants as well, with fruit and milk. I saw one and two year old baby elephants.

Elephant Bathing

Further up from the orphanage is the city of Kandy which I promise myself to get to if I ever find myself in SL again but that didn't happen this time. It's got a nice lake and a gold encrusted temple where what is said to be the tooth of Buddha is kept. It's a big thing for Buddhists and there is an annual celebration when an elephant carries the tooth around once a year.

Yala national park is worth a visit if you're into animals and all that. It's got the largest leopard density in the world I'm told. Whale watching happens in Galle but requires an overnight stay because the boat leaves at 6 am to take you out 40 km on the Indian Ocean to see them.

I also went on a tour of Colombo, couldn't resist the red double decker buses. Colombo has its own charm, and it was interesting to see all the old government buildings and monuments. The independence monument, the monument to the Indian peace keepers who died in the war to protect SL, quite a few lakes (Beira was nice) scattered around the city and Ape Gama, a recreation of a typical Sri Lankan village so many years back. Apparently, it's not only my Yoruba people that used a grinding stone (olo) to grind pepper back in the day.

Temple of the Tooth

Colombo City Tour

Interestingly, Sri Lankans are also into batik. Their men traditionally wear a sarong wrapper that's made from batik and even the Sri Lanka saree, which is slightly different from the Indian one is made from batik as well. There's a Batik village on the way to Kandy. I still can't get over the fact that the women wearing saree leave their tummies uncovered, irrespective of how many folds they have, lol. Funny though, most of the women don't have that many folds. Most of them have relatively flat or only slightly rounded tummies. It's a beautiful attire and I just had to get one but I'm definitely going to have my tummy covered when I wear it.


One draw back to living in or visiting SL is that cost of living is really high. Just to illustrate, to refill a bottle of dispenser water which we buy for about N400 at the most in Lagos goes for Rs1,000, which is about N1,600! So food and housing are really expensive but the government ensures that the basics - education and health are completely free. University education is free, though less than 20% of qualified people benefit from that due to limited capacity.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka also suffers "brain drain". After educating its citizens free of charge most of them go away to the UK or Australia and such places where their income can spread further than it would in SL. This has led to a skills shortage in the country.

There is a habit of the Sri Lankans which I found quite tough to get used to. First of all, being a visitor makes you a "target" and I don't mean that in criminal way. Practically everybody, (and I'm not exaggerating) asks you where you're from and almost interrogate you if you allow them. From the tuk-tuk driver, to the hotel personnel, to the man that catches your eye on the road? They have no concept of personal space and privacy and will probe you as much as you allow them.

They start off by asking where you're from? What brings you to Sri Lanka? What do you do? If you are Nigerian but school outside Nigeria like I do, that starts a whole new avalanche of questions. Did I mention they are persistent? There was a gem sales event hosted by the government and at least 3 people, whom I met on the road took 5 minutes of my time trying to convince me to attend. They have nothing to gain by your attendance but they have a fierce price in their national heritage and apparently the Sri Lankan gems are one of the things they are really proud of. I had to be almost rude to tear myself away from the first person that tried to get me to go there. I was like - Na by force?

Going on to Food, I must confess that I acquired a taste for curries in the past week and a half. I particularly like that they eat at least 2 or 3 different forms of protein with each meal. So, a typical meal is rice (a staple) and fish + chicken curry at a minimum. Being an island, SL has all manner of sea food. Cuttlefish was one I'd never heard of before. I love prawns and I must say that I ate more in this week and a half than I've done the in the last one year.

Egg Hoppers

Another staple that I fell in love with is hoppers. This is a Sri Lankan staple that is eaten either in the morning or night or both. It's basically made from rice flour and coconut milk, like a very thin wafer and is done either plain or with half done egg in the center. It's shaped like a spread out funnel and is eaten by hand, with a curry and two condiments that I wasn't brave enough to try. I'd go back to SL just for the hoppers alone.

So, as you've guessed by now, I had a really good time in Sri Lanka and that's why I say "Navatha Hamu Wemu", meaning See you again instead of goodbye because I definitely would love to visit again. So I'm back to work now, need to earn a living after all that expensive Sri Lankan living, lol.

Have a great week everyone, Navatha Hamu Wemu next week.