We have both long wanted to visit Sri Lanka, and we’re really enjoying our time in Colombo! We once spent about a month in South India, which was good preparation for being here (especially the tuk tuks). Here’s what we’ve noticed so far.
Weather
On the south and west coasts of the island, monsoon season is just ending. And, friends, we’re glad we’re only seeing the tail end of it. Last week we were in a restaurant – funnily enough, called Monsoon – enjoying a Dark and Monsoony (like a Dark and Stormy, with alcohol and ginger beer) when we noticed that the floor had about two cm of water on it. It had been raining when we arrived, and it continued to rain, and Monsoon is (we then noticed) located at the bottom of the street. The waiters got buckets and pails and set to work, and by the time we left the water was mostly gone. We tried to take a tuk tuk home (see below) but most of the roads were flooded, so we went waaay out of our way.
People
Everyone we have encountered is very friendly. Indeed, Sri Lanka is good practice for those intending to become famous. In restaurants, we typically have three waiters hovering around us at any given time, trying to anticipate our every need. Often when we are walking on the street people ask us if we need help. This happens sporadically in Southeast Asia – memorably, we were photographed incessantly with and by groups of schoolchildren while visiting Borobodur in Indonesia – but here it is an art form. Out of the blue, strangers will ask us where we are from. Sometimes, but not always, this leads to the proposal of an economic transaction.
We’ve seen lots of the telltale red mouths that indicate men chewing paan (betel nut, common in Southeast and South Asia, with effects similar to caffeine). Among bus drivers it seems to be more or less required.
We have also noticed the head waggle, ubiquitous in India too. As in India, we remain mystified about how to interpret this diagonal, side-to-side, up and down movement. Sometimes it is clearly a yes. Sometimes it is clearly a no. It can signify approval or disapproval, which makes it confusing when, say, your potential tuk tuk driver responds with it to your question about whether he will take you somewhere. (Our advice is to make for the cab and see what happens.) So far as we can tell, people to whom this is a native gesture understand one another, though nobody has been able to explain its semiotics to us.
We can also report that the people of Sri Lanka really are obsessed with cricket. There are several clubs, and you can see people playing just about any time it’s daylight and not raining. (Even though it is not cricket season.)
Language, Money, etc.
There are two main languages in Sri Lanka, Sinhala and Tamil. The first is the language spoken by the vast majority of the population; it is originally a North Indian language. The second is the same as the Tamil language spoken in parts of South India. They are not mutually comprehensible, so people who only speak one or the other usually communicate in English. That English is pronounced very differently from what most in the west are used to, but you start to get the cadence eventually.
Things are fairly cheap here, especially food, and cash is ubiquitous. Not surprisingly, upscale restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, and tourist businesses take credit cards. We’ve had no difficulty withdrawing money, not least because our bank (HSBC) has branches here and we’ve stuck to them.
City
Colombo, guidebooks and most visitors say, is a sleepy town. This isn’t wildly wrong, but you can still get nearly run over by a tuk tuk more than a dozen times within five minutes. What, you ask, is a tuk tuk? It’s a three-wheeled vehicle, common throughout Southeast Asia that will serve as your main means of transport. It’s a bit terrifying to ride in one, because drivers are usually fairly aggressive. But it’s more terrifying to walk on the street and nearly be hit by one.
That said, it’s much quieter here than we expected. The downtown area is packed with people and vehicles, but there are lots of quieter spaces. There are even parks and green areas. And there are statues of the Buddha all over the place, some austere and some lavish. To be sure, there are tourist attractions here, and we’ve been enjoying them. But there are not, in Colombo proper, dozens of must-see sights. Which is why most tourists either stick to the resorts on the coast or go to the historical sights in the centre of the island. (We’ll be doing a tiny bit of each.)
Food
You didn’t think we weren’t going to mention food, did you? The food here is excellent. Very much coconut-based, and full of very fresh spices. Not to mention the delightfully named ‘short eats’, a variety of stuffed, fried pastries available everywhere. We will have a lot more to say about Sri Lankan food. Coffee shops are also surprisingly common, and surprisingly good. And don’t get us started on the tea, which is incredible – it’s Ceylon, after all!
So: lots of interesting things here, and we’re settling in well!
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