Two Canadian migrants land in Sri Lanka.

I’ve been in Singapore for a couple months now but don’t have too much to say about it. It’s hot, clean, a bit bland, and populated by obedient nerds. School is fairly easy, and they say that English is their official language but I don’t believe them. They are quite nice here, and the food is great, but there’s not too much to say about it. It’s in South East Asia, but isn’t real SE Asia, because squatting young women aren’t cooing “massage?” at you when you walk down the street.

We felt like experiencing some authentic SE Asian culture and so of course went to Kuta beach in Bali. There was some culture here, but it was mostly crawling on the skin of disgusting Aussies with rat-tails so we stuck to surfing and drinking. I surf like a wounded seal would surf.

I quickly realized that there is being in shape, and there is being in Bali beach shape, and that I am in neither. Bali was packed with gorgeous people meaning I didn’t exactly fit in, looking like a pasty white/tomato red member of the Taliban. We went to a bar that had $5 all-you-can-drink Heineken draft for 3 hours, and then 30 min of free vodka red bulls. Needless to say this resulted in us being dragged off dance stages by bouncers. Bali was fun but we weren’t there for long.

Then we went over to Sri Lanka, which blends the stench of death of India with the garbage strewn beaches of Cambodia. It has some nice scenery, very friendly locals, great food and plenty of automatic weapons. The small bookshop we went to had two security guards.

Starting off in Negombo, we took the train down to Galle, which has a nice colonial fort on the water but only needed a day or two. We made our way along the south coast for some surfing (Ryley) and “surfing” (me).

We soon noticed that there were pictures of babies in every tuk-tuk we rode in. Weird pictures. So we asked a local about it and he said that Sri Lankans really liked babies. It’s not a little bit creepy. Look at this gem:


That ain't right. After some beach time in the South we went on a safari at Yala Nature Reserve where we saw buffaloes, wild boar, elephants and glimpses of two leopards. Our guide also pointed out some “jungle fowl” which looked suspiciously like chickens. There were also some jungle stray dogs and I got a lot of jungle mosquito bites. Animal junk is funny.

We were also with some horrible Israeli girls who bitched and complained the whole time. Here is how any conversation with an Israeli traveler goes:

Anyone: [Anything]

Israeli: [Complaint, insult, or something a dickhead would say].

After the safari we went over to Arugam Bay on the East coast for some more surfing and Israelis. Nice surf town with lots of good food and beach. Then we went up into the mountains which was nice because it was actually cool and had great views. We saw some tea plantations and stayed in an old colonial hotel that had a fireplace in the room. We also bought awesome hats and spoke like how we thought British colonialists spoke.

With our matching hats and impressive beards, 4 Sri Lankans asked us if we were twins, leaving me a little affronted and Ryley secretly flattered. We got drunk one night with this German man who kept insisting that Cuba was 3,000km wide, and then almost got into a brawl with a van full of Sri Lanka broadcasting employees, who kept yelling at us that Sri Lanka was “their country!!!”. I don’t even know where to start on that one. The rainy season started when we were up in the mountains though so the last few days of the trip were a little slow.

For the last night, we were in Colombo and stayed at a 145 year-old hotel that cost a bunch of money and had room service and a high tea buffet and HBO and butlers in bowties demanding that they carry our bags. We did not see the city at all. We justify this because Colombo is not a very nice city and shut the hell up we don’t have to explain ourselves to you.

I now feel that I can assess some strengths and weaknesses of Sri Lankans:

Strength - Preparing food.
Most meals we had were great, with many dishes of curries and vegetables and fresh fish or whatever. Also had a really good dish called khottu and BBQ fish on the coast.



Weakness - Getting that food from the kitchen to your face.
Some of the most laughably awful service I have seen. And I worked at Swiss Chalet. One place in Tissa was incredible. If you asked for a spoon, there was no chance you were getting it. But if you said you didn’t want one, your chances improved significantly.

We were the only people in the place and after receiving our newspaper napkins, and glasses that we specifically said we did not want, we ordered breakfast. Right after this we heard some chuckling from the kitchen that we took as a bad sign. 20 minutes in, we caught the attention of the manager. We told him that our taxi was coming at 10:15am. He looked confused. I said that we were warning him, because we did order the cut-up pieces of fruit, and we were worried about missing our taxi. He glanced at the clock on the wall and ran off to the kitchen in a panic. The time was 9:40am. The fruit made it just in time.

Strength: Pricing.
They don’t try to gouge you here. Their first price is generally just a tiny bit over what is reasonable. This may be a weakness actually, as they have not heard of my famous inability to haggle. I almost concluded deals by walking by them and whispering, “I would have paid anything for that."

Weakness: Anything else to do with money or currency.
Try to pay for something that is $7.80 with a bill that is worth $10. Fat chance foreign weirdo. No one has change. For anything. I don’t know what happens to it.

Changing currency is also an experience. We went into a bank, past the guard with the tsarist-era shotgun, and tried to change $300 to rupees, with 3 one-hundred dollar bills. We were diverted to a fat guy, who I assumed must have been a specialist in English, currency exchange, or simple arithmetic. Nope, none of the above. He counted the 3 bills we gave him 3 times, each time taking 2 minutes, and thus 2 minutes too long. Meanwhile he was taking notes on his calculations. Next, after consulting with the woman next to him, who was inputting figures on a computer I swear was fake, he started filling out a form, writing half of my name on it before giving up and thrusting it at me.

Next, he visited the man in a nearby office, and after arguing with him for about 10 minutes, they both came back to me and the office guy asked if I was sure that I had given him $300. I thought carefully about it and confirmed, the $300 being in his hand. We then filled out forms in triplicate, which were held by another employee. We took the forms from the form-holder across the bank to another teller, who informed me that I was missing, incredibly, despite my three forms, the one form that he needed to complete my transaction. More counting and confusion, then I got the money. 40 minutes and 6 employees. In an empty bank.

Strengths: Killing terrorists.
They recently ended their internal conflict with the Tamil Tigers by wiping them out after 30 years of fighting. One Sri Lankan told me it was a world record (ending terrorism). So that’s good.

Weakness: Killing bugs.
Jesus I got eaten alive. Bed bugs, mosquitoes, flies, smaller flies who wanted to land in my eyeballs all day, I was itchier than a stray dog in Thailand. I would have applied Deet with a hose if it was available and dealt with the cancer later.


Yeah so that was September basically. I recommend Sri Lanka, and soon, because now that the war is over and the tsunami damage is being dealt with, there will be a bunch of tourism there soon and it will become more like Thailand. Without the sex tourism, because Sri Lankans aren't the prettiest bunch of people. Especially if you have a foot fetish.

Here is something that is guaranteed to make you smile:




Just an ordinary bus, with a….