July 2014

Dear all,

Here it is, the finale. What a story it would be without a proper ending, right? Although it’s all hardly any surprising: I’m home, and getting back to my regular life. But it’s nice to be here.

But back to the hot tropics. I spent some time at the southern beaches in Sri Lanka, later slowly made my way up, eventually getting to Colombo.

I stopped in Mirrisa on my way up along the coast, and stayed there for a few days. One evening we went to this lovely place to watch the sunset, and yes, climbed up the lighthouse, too :)

There was a storm forming on the horizon. This place is quite an expensive hotel now.

On top of the lighthouse with the first and only female driver that I ever met in Sri Lanka! It’s pretty unusual but more ladies will hopefully follow.

A trip to nearby Welligama. This house is available for rent, the only downside being that you get quite soaked while going to get some groceries.

Buddha and electrical switches, just like in the old times.. almost.

Last morning, about to get on a bus to CMB.

Few days prior to that, I was told that there would be an annual opera night. I had a pretty dress from Bangkok and was starved for some European culture, so random hits at the Opera performed by the local ensemble sounded funny enough to give it a go. So I did: It seemed like there were most of Colombo’s expats (there’s nothing else to do anyway, the city is dead), and the rest of it the local riches, all speaking broken English, trying too hard to look important.

The orchestra started with the famous overture from Figaro, which seemed promising, but eventually everything started to sound kinda flat.. or something. I wondered if it was the orchestra itself or the acoustics, but I wouldn’t really blame the latter. When they finished the last song, half the hall started to rush out, before the faint applause was even over. Everyone came with a car, so now they were all trying to make it out of there before everyone else, not to get stuck in traffic (btw, the concert began more than half an hour later because of the very same reason – too many cars trying to get in). And right there, the conductor, a distinguished-looking English guy, shouted politely into the crowd: And we have an encore! Sad, I’ve never seen anything like that before. And then I walked out of there. Yes, walked. I was the only one.

And back to good old Kandy. I promised I’d visit Palitha’s family when I’m in the country again, I also left some of my stuff over there in the house. Basically everywhere I stopped I optimized the contents of my luggage, or only twice actually, and after Bangkok this was the other place where I left important things like the super heavy Encyclopaedia of Sinhalese that I dragged all the way from home, convinced that I would have the time and determination to read it all, which of course never happened.

On my birthday I observed the buddhist custom and went to a temple to light small lamps filled with coconut oil, one for each year that is already behind me and one for the year that is yet to come. The top row is all mine lol.

A small shrine of Palitha’s neighbours which they built many years ago after a member of their family died fighting the Tamils. Both families go there regurarly and I joined them every time I was there, helping to place the flowers, light the lamps and incense sticks.. I liked this little habit.

Now I understand why they kept telling me that I was so tall. I’d always say come on, you’re funny, but it makes more sense when I see the pictures of us together. This one is alright, I’m bending my knees here :)

I surely had no intention of visiting my former workplace, although I was thinking of different ways to meet “my” staff guys that I worked with. But given the fact that they’re stuck in their jobs day and night, there was no decent solution and I kept putting it away for later. On my very last day before leaving to the airport, I went downtown to run some quick errands, pondering that eventually I stayed there totally incognito, without contacting anyone at all.

Walking back to the bus stop, someone touched my hand. I didn’t even turn around, irritated, as such things would happen from time to time. Next thing I heard – Miss Jana! And there he was, one of the guys from the hotel, with a huge grin on his face, eyes shining. Seriously, what are the chances.. It was such a nice surprise. It must have been quite a sight too, local guy and foreign girl, laughing loudly and hugging in the middle of a busy street. Unfortunately the only reason he had some time off was to run around some doctors, his health was apparently getting worse.

It was time to leave. I got some Asian snacks and arak for parties back home, left behind a bright pink nail polish from Bangkok that girls in the neighbourhood admired so much (and so did I, it looked pretty cool:) and realized that I still remembered my big world Sinhalese: Karadere karande epa, police aeta call karanawa.

I did some more couchsurfing in Sri Lanka (accidentally yet another documentarist in Colombo and a former diplomat down south, both great), but I never did and never would stay with the locals. It just doesn’t seem safe, and it surely is not just my impression. So just in case you want to go and surf over there, I suggest you think twice, especially if you’re a girl.

While in India, I got a message from my airline company saying that my flight was cancelled and that I’d have to book a new one, with one more stop in Paris. So I thought – cool, I won’t have to pay to change the original date which was completely random, and cool again, I get to visit my good friend who lives there! And so I did. It couldn’t have been a nicer welcome back home to Europe – minus the strike that started on the day I arrived and lasted the whole time I was there. The moment I stepped in the streets, it was like I never left. No cultural shock or anything like some of my friends suggested. Not at all.

What’s this building, let’s come a little closer.. well hello, Notre Dame!

Hello, Louvre!

Hello.. duck? But we’ll take the boat..

Just some tourists taking pictures on a tourist boat.

Here we go.

La Seine.

We also went to see an exhibition of.. tyres.

The weather was perfect. We did some biking around the city, jumped the queue at Notre Dame, went for a picnic at the banks of Seine, climbed the hills of Montmartre and lit a candle at Sacre Coeur, walked in the forest de Vincennes, took a touristy boat ride and did not go close to the Tour Eiffel or Arc de Triomphe, because nobody would ever go there and it sucks, as I was told :) I also visited the Centre Pompidou that I remembered from my French classes ages ago (the teacher thought it looked awful, and I can’t agree less), and played with my friend’s cute puppy in between of all this..

Few days later I landed in Prague and since then the past year is history. I’ll eventually put all of these stories online, add some pictures, links and stuff.. Many of you know the address already, but since there’s nothing at the moment, I’ll keep it to myself for now. I want to make it pretty and have control over all kinds of details, and since I have no idea of how these things work, it might take a while till I figure it all out :)

Till then – cheers!
Jana