People - the Sri Lankans are welcoming, relaxed, friendly and fun-loving. They make great hotel employees because of it.
Fellow visitors - in the main nowhere near as nice (no surprise there I guess?!) but a few are worthy of mention:
- the couple from Aberdeen who told us they "detected an Antipodean accent" (SERIOUSLY guys - come on???!!!!!!);
- the young couple who jumped out of a tuk tuk outside our hotel just as we were leaving it to ask us what the hotel was like and ended up telling us a litany of woes on their time in SL and how much they hated it. This included rooms with nests of spiders and hundreds of said spiders running around the room, rooms without windows and crawling with cockroaches, reporting the Kandy police to the police...... You probably get the picture. In fact the whole Kandy thing was so bad they'd jumped into a tuk tuk and come all the way to Negombo in it. Just shows how bad things must have been, it was a 4 hour journey and for those of us who have ridden in a tuk tuk, 4 MINUTES is plenty long enough.
- and a rare and wonderful thing, an American older couple outside America who were a delight to talk to. They'd worked in the Peace Corps, had no time for their fellow Americans who hadn't expanded their horizons and - more importantly - their minds. They seem to spend more time out of the US than in it and you name it I think they've probably been there. She was a Texian by birth but had got over that - she seemed to be a Democrat politically. I know more about her than her husband as Dave was talking to him. Lovely couple, a few years older than us.
Food - spicy, spicy, spicy!! Soon got the message about meat - tough unless you managed to get the occasional chicken breast, but the fish and seafood - heaven!!! I think I'm all seafooded out by now, though.
Drink - local gin mmmm! Generous doubles at £1.60 a throw. I've had Ascot Dry Gin and Rockland's Dry Gin, both extremely drinkable. Tonic water is Lion, the same producer of the local beer. Not Fevertree, but better than Schweppes.
Hotels - of the four we stayed in, I like the Camelot the best (see picture below). We're in the new wing, very modern and it's really nice not to have to climb 2 or 3 double flights of stairs!! Hey we live in a bungalow remember!
Business Class Flying - BLISS
6 comments:
Cheered this winter up considerably the blogs have been most entertaining and Sri Lanka was and is on my list. Don't hurry home its ruddy freezing. Ray And Maggs have not been seen since before Christmas ! Happy journeys again !!
How nice to read such a concise report "PissedontheGin' instead of ......,well enough said.
The poor old Aberdonians are lucky to see the light of day for most of the year so forgive them if they were a bit off the mark with strange accents... Are you sure you understood what THEY were saying .. most people south of Dundee don't !
Even the wife is now calling me Sillyass. Must have words with Ginge.
Sat at the 1st Class lounge at Sri Lanka airport right next to the free help-yourself bar waiting for the flight home.
No Hum! Back to the rain ....
Sorry Sillyarse, you must give Passthegin a bigger part of the blog writting, most entertaining. Especially the food and drink bits very informative.
Did those poor people from Aberdeen try and converse with Sillyarse after drink had been taken?? Alcohol does funny things to accents. After too much fermented apple juice I go from lucid to complete New Forest bollocks, so it's an easy mistake to make.
Welcome back to the land of bleak.....
Lots of catching up to do after our trip to Barbados and beyond, so apologies for not sharing the journey real time. We've been home a week and this is the first time I have got to the PC. I'll enjoy the PCs and probably see you before I have time to comment.
At last I have caught up on your adventures. Thanks for sharing your stories- excellent blogging. I wish I had been able to do similar on my last trips but have at least got a hand-written journal and many, many photos.
Where next?
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