September 2013
Hello and greetings from the Emerald Island of Asia :)
It’s time to catch up on all the emails that I should’ve sent or replied to ages ago.. Hope all is good with you guys.
Since I’m not exactly an update kind of a person, here’s a short recap. I decided to have a break and leave Prague where I worked as a full-time journalist, and take a laid back job in Sri Lanka for some time instead. I arrived here at the very beginning of August, and have been based in Kandy, a sacred town in the hills in the middle of the country.
I work for two small hotels that I’m supposed to run, take care of the guests, and manage five local guys who work here. Which is funny, since none of them speaks much English. But I think they’ve learned a bit since I’ve been here, so everything is a bit easier now.
The original idea was to come here, work a little (equally to the salary, so def not too hard), and have plenty of time for sports and all my hobbies and interests, I also wanted to do more yoga and why not learning a bit of Sinhalese or ayurveda.. The reality turned out slightly different. I should have known that hotels run practically nonstop and so does the work :) But that’s still ok.
The work I don’t mind, the staff guys seem quite happy with me being here, and despite the language issues things have been pretty smooth so far. Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to other personal relations at the place, namely to the owner’s wife who’s been acting kinda weird lately. What can I say.. omg, come on. But hey, everything bad is good for something else, and I began considering moving elsewhere soon, finding something else to do and getting familiar with a new country.
I live as the locals do here in Kandy, and though it’s not always super comfy, I remind myself of my anthropology background and take it as a great opportunity for a field research :) So I’ve been researching all sorts of stuff around the house.. but I think the food and local cuisine are my favourite so far, the food is truly good! (says a picky eater:) The guys are happy that somebody is interested in their daily tasks, let alone a person from somewhere far, far away. Win-win :)
The place is in the middle of a tropical garden. That sounds idyllic, but imagine all the insects that it comes with! Not nice :) Also the birds and/or bugs are so loud at night that I don’t get much sleep without earplugs, and unfortunately I don’t get much of the fresh air either since I keep destroying it with mosquito repellent.
I don’t have much life outside of here, which is another big reason for me to leave soon. There were only two exceptions so far. A few weeks ago, there were grand buddhist celebrations, Esala Perahera, that I wanted to see. I ended up joining a surfer guy from Gold Coast, who was staying at the hotel. We happened to get perfect seats right next to the main temple for free, it also seemed they were reserved for locals only, since we were the only foreigners I could see. The procession (look it up on wiki) was spectacular, drummers, dancers, elephants.. Def worth it. Btw, funny thing was that after like five minutes of talking with the guy, we found out that we know the same person in Sydney – a famous surfer whom I interviewed in Prague. I asked him to send my regards.. I would want to see that conversation lol.
The other exception to my deprived social life was a brief visit to Colombo, the capital. Although just to the immigration office to extend my visa, it was still a good reason to get out of here for a day and half. New adventure, I was thinking – and certainly it was. And while I was at it, I decided to give couchsurfing a proper go, and arranged to stay in a house of an English expat guy (no creepy old dude, a guy my age). Smart and cynical about the country, good company. But to get to the place was a bit of a mission.
Nearest “landmark”, I was told, is the Arpico Supercetre. Little did I know that it’s not a shopping mall, one of a kind, like I expected. It’s basically the local Tesco, it’s everywhere. I was also advised to get off the bus somewhere before it reaches the city. And so I did. Trying to sit on a spare seat the size of a shoe box for nearly three hours, I happened to see a huge Arpico sign from the window. I asked the driver to stop. He didn’t understand and thought I was joking. I thought he needed to get to the nearest bus stop. There was none, I asked again. He looked at me as if I was crazy. I insisted, he stopped.
Ok I won’t bore you with more details, even though the whole situation was quite funny. I found out that I was in the middle of nowhere, about 30 km from the place I needed to get to, and not even in Colombo. I took a lift from a random guy (one of the things my mother must never know), who insisted to find me a reliable trishaw driver for the rest of the journey, “because people are not always good, you know..” which sounded kind of funny, considering I was sitting in a car with a complete stranger, going no idea where. Anyway, all went pretty well, which I cannot say about the immigration the next day: 2 minutes of talking to an officer (easy), several hours of waiting inside a bureaucratic hell, and finally getting a stamp in my passport. That hell hole won’t see me in there ever again, that’s for sure.
I had big plans for the place, the hotel. Perfect ideas to make it the coolest spot in the country. But there’s so many rigid and pointless rules, personal relations with the owner (or his wife) are getting colder day by day, there’s lack of communication, and vaguely defined free time.. I tried. Then I lost interest. It will be the perfect time to move on soon and get to know another part of SE Asia. The cheapest flights in the region are to Bangkok, so I think I’ll just go there :)
I hope all is good in the other parts of the world, let me know what’s going on, this email is pretty lengthy and deserves an equal response, right? Lol just kidding, a short message that you’re fine is more than enough :)
Kind regards from the Equator,
Jana
You must be logged in to post a comment.